Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (March 3, 1803August 22, 1860) was a French painter noted for his Orientalist works.

Life

Decamps was born in Paris. In his youth he travelled in the East, and reproduced Oriental life and scenery with a bold fidelity to nature that puzzled conventional critics. His powers, however, soon came to be recognized, and he was ranked along with Delacroix and

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as one of the leaders of the French school. At the Paris Exhibition of 1855 he received the grand or council medal. Most of his life was passed in the neighborhood of Paris. He was fond of animals, especially dogs, and indulged in all kinds of field sports. Endnote: * Adolphe Moreau, ''Decamps et son oeuvre'' (Paris, 1869) He died in 1860 in consequence of being thrown from a horse while hunting at

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Founding father of Orientalism

Decamps was the founding father of Orientalism since he revealed everyday Oriental life in the 1831 Salon in Paris. His subjects and style with strong contrast of light and thick material became the reference for painters but also photographers and writers. He was the most influential painter on Orientalism and was proclaimed the chief of the new Orientalist School. Delacroix referred to him in the ''

Women of Algiers ''Women of Algiers in their Apartment'' () is the title of two oil on canvas paintings by the French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix. Delacroix's first version of ''Women of Algiers'' was painted in Paris in 1834 and is located in the L ...

'' (1834), and the ''Fanatics of Tangiers'' (1838).

Théophile Gautier Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rema ...

's ''Constantinople'' (1853) was described as an “immense verbal Decamps” by

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

. Maxime Du Camp named him the Christopher Columbus of the Orient and Théophile Gautier compared his role as the discoverer of the Orient to the role of

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...

as the discoverer of nature in the eighteenth century. Christine Peltre concludes that the only equivalent to his fame were the ''Arabian Nights'' (''One Thousand and One Nights'').

Works

Decamps' style was characteristically and intensely French. It was marked by vivid dramatic conception, bold and even rough brushstrokes, and startling contrasts of color and of light and shade. His subjects embraced an unusually wide range. He availed himself of his travels in the East in dealing with scenes from Scripture history, which he was probably the first of European painters to represent with their true and natural local background. Of this class were his ''Joseph sold by his Brethren'', ''Moses taken from the Nile'', and his scenes from the life of

Samson Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution o ...

, nine vigorous sketches in charcoal and white. La pattuglia turca

Perhaps the most impressive of his historical pictures is ''Defeat of the Cimbri'', representing the conflict between a horde of barbarians and a disciplined army. Decamps produced a number of genre pictures, chiefly scenes from French and Turkish domestic life, the most marked feature of which is humour. The same characteristic attaches to many of his numerous animal paintings; Decamps was especially fond of painting monkeys. His well-known painting ''The Monkey Connoisseurs'' satirizes the jury of the French Academy of Painting, which had rejected several of his earlier works on account of their divergence from any known standard. His paintings and drawings were first made familiar to the English public through the lithographs of Eugene le Rouit.

Gallery

File:Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps - The Suicide - Walters 3742.jpg, ''The Suicide'' (circa 1836). The Walters Art Museum. File:Albanian Duel by Alexandre Gabriel Decamps 1828.jpg, ''Albanian Duel'' (circa 1828) File:Les_Danseurs_Albanais_by_Alexandre-Gabriel_Decamps_(c._1835).jpg, ''The Albanian dancer'' (1835) File:The defeat of the Cimbri.jpg, ''The Defeat of the Cimbri'' (circa 1833) File:The Experts MET DT209332.jpg, '' The Experts'', 1837, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art

References

External links