Turpin's roman landscapes

Was 1807 when a young French artist, already appreciated landscaper, arrived in Rome for the first of a series of trips to Italy. A friend of Ingres, Lancelot-Théodore Turpin de Crissé is an extraordinary artist who would leave at the Musée du Louvre, a vast collection of Italian views, as declared himself - had made his fortune as a painter. Although of noble birth, the artist lived impoverished childhood years of the Revolution and the Terror. Thanks to the interest of Josephine, became part of his small court then received the Malmaison, in the years of the Restoration, a substantial legacy in addition to allowing a standard of living worthy of his rank, allowed him to finance his activities as a collector . Revalued recently, the Musée d'Angers realized in 2007 a large retrospective exhibition.

In a large retrospective exhibition that the Museum dedicates, Turpin de Crissé is presented as an amateur artist. Affirmation undoubtedly exaggerated. While believing that his father emigrated to the United States when Lancelot-Théodore was nine and her mother, too modest talent had not ever really formed, it is unlikely that the painter who, at age 18 years, has done a portrait as the View of Alexandria and the column of Pompey (see photo below a des.) and that six years later gets a gold medal at the Salon, has not taken lessons from a professional artist. Whatever the truth, it is evident that this "coup de maitre" places the young artist among the greats. And the result will not lied. Among the neo-classical landscape, a term quite reductive, Turpin belongs to a generation in between.

In his works, where it is not historical landscape, the views are all carried live and available later in his studio and you can see the complexity of the representation of the landscape of this era and style changes from one painting to another while maintaining all the common spirit perfectly identifiable.