Jacques-Albert Senave (1758–1823) was a
Flemish
Flemish may refer to:
* Flemish, adjective for Flanders, Belgium
* Flemish region, one of the three regions of Belgium
*Flemish Community, one of the three constitutionally defined language communities of Belgium
* Flemish dialects, a Dutch dialec ...
painter mainly active in Paris during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He is known for his
genre
Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...
scenes,
history painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and B ...
s, landscapes, city views, market scenes and portraits.
[Jacques Albert Sénave]
at the Netherlands Institute for Art History
The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...
Life
He was born as the son of a baker on 12 September 1758 in
Lo, then in the
Austrian Netherlands
The Austrian Netherlands was the territory of the Burgundian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire between 1714 and 1797. The period began with the acquisition by the Austrian Habsburg monarchy of the former Spanish Netherlands under the Treaty of Ras ...
. He began his artistic training with the encouragement of Mr. Hennekin, a canon at the abbey of his native town who had seen his drawings. The canon egged on his parents to send him to study at the academy in Dunkirk. As his family was poor, he was sent to a baker in Dunkirk whom he was to assist in the bakery during the day, so that he could practice his art at the academy in the evenings. As gradually he had to spend more time working in the bakery, his art studies suffered and he returned to live with his parents. He was able to resume his studies in Dunkirk with the financial support of a Mr. Truit who was one of his teachers at the academy. After graduating from the academy of Dunkirk he followed Mr. Truit to
Saint-Omer
Saint-Omer (; ; Picard: ''Saint-Onmé'') is a commune and sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department in France.
It is west-northwest of Lille on the railway to Calais, and is located in the Artois province. The town is named after Sa ...
where the latter had been appointed a teacher at the local school of drawing. After a year in Saint-Omer, Mr. Hennekin procured for him a commission to decorate a pavilion in his hometown Lo which Mr. Hennekin (who was also an architect) had designed for a local family.
[L. F. E. Van Roo, ''Notice biographique sur M. Senave, peintre flamand, à Paris, membre honoraire de la Société royale des Beaux-Arts et de Littérature de Gand et directeur honoraire de l'académie de dessin d'Ypres'', in: Annales belgiques des sciences, des lettres et des arts, 1822, pp. 90-104][Jacques Albert Sénave, ''Portrait of a gentleman, seated three-quarter length, in his study, wearing a grey suit'']
at Sotheby's
The money earned from this commission allowed Senave to travel to Paris in 1780. Here he continued his studies at the
Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture
The Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (; ) was founded in 1648 in Paris, France. It was the premier art institution of France during the latter part of the Ancien Régime until it was abolished in 1793 during the French Revolution. I ...
for a few months until his money ran out. He returned to his hometown where he worked on local commissions for religious institutions and local dignitaries. Through contacts of his patron the abbot Hennekin he was admitted as a student in the academy of Ypres. In Ypres he was also introduced to prominent art lovers. The bishop of Ypres Felix Josephus Hubertus de Wavrans became his patron. Senave painted portraits and other subjects for the bishop.
[
]
His earnings allowed him to return to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris where he obtained third prize in drawing and later second prize in life drawing. In Paris he also received training from his fellow Flemish painter Joseph-Benoît Suvée
Joseph-Benoît Suvée (3 January 1743 – 9 February 1807) was a Flemish painter strongly influenced by French neo-classicism.
Biography
Suvée was born in Bruges. Initially a pupil of Matthias de Visch, he came to France aged 19 and bec ...
. He started to sell small genre paintings in the Flemish style which earned him some success. He married and had a son who followed in his father's footsteps and became a painter. The son died at age 22 and as a result of the grief over this early death, the wife of Senave died not long after.[
]
He developed an interest in poetry and wrote poems in French and Dutch.[ He regularly contributed his paintings to the Salons in Paris.][Jacques Albert Sénave, ''Vue de la Seine, du pont Louis XVI et de la place Royale'']
at Christie's
After donating to the Painting Academy of Ypres a painting depicting ''Rembrandt in his workshop'' (destroyed during World War I), Senave was appointed Honorary Director of the Academy in 1821. His donated work formed the beginning of the art collection of the City Museum of Ypres.[Het Atelier van Rembrandt]
at the Yper Museum He also received the honor of being made an honorary member of the Royal Society of Fine Arts and Literature of Ghent. In his later years his right side was paralyzed and he learned to draw with his left hand. However, he could no longer paint. He later married a second time with the woman who took care of him during his final years.[
Senave died in Paris in 1823.]
Work
Senave is known for his genre
Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...
scenes, history painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and B ...
s, landscapes, city views, market scenes, portraits and some still lifes.[ His genre paintings were strongly influenced by seventeenth century Flemish and Dutch genre scenes. These are particularly reminiscent of ]David Teniers the Younger
David Teniers the Younger or David Teniers II (bapt. 15 December 1610 – 25 April 1690) was a Flemish Baroque painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffage painter, copyist and art curator. He was an extremely versatile artist ...
's tavern and festival scenes.[ He excelled especially in anecdotal representations of daily life, market scenes, village views.][
Senave painted two versions of a work entitled ''Parody of Zeuxis'' (]Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (, ; , ) are a group of art museums in Brussels, Belgium. They are part of the institutions of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) and consist of six museums: the Oldmasters Museum, the ...
, Brussels and City Museum of Ypres) which are a parody on a legend about the Greek painter Zeuxis who flourished during the 5th century BCE. The story as recounted by Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...
states that Zeuxis received a commission to paint a portrait of Helen of Troy
Helen (), also known as Helen of Troy, or Helen of Sparta, and in Latin as Helena, was a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus and Leda (mythology), ...
for the Temple of Jupiter at Crotona
Crotone (; ; or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Calabria, Italy.
Founded as the Achaea (ancient region), Achaean colony of Kroton ( or ; ), it became a great Greek city, home of the renowned mathematician-philosopher Pythagoras amongst other f ...
. To realise the commission Zeuxis set out to find the most perfect characteristics from five of the greatest beauties of the city. In Senave's painting in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, the artist is shown sitting in a cavernous space with a large canvas in front of him while he is inspecting prospective models in various states of undress. An old lady behind the models looks like a procuress
Procuring, pimping, or pandering is the facilitation or provision of a prostitute or other sex worker in the arrangement of a sex act with a customer. A procurer, colloquially called a pimp (if male) or a madam (if female, though the term "pimp" ...
, which suggests that in fact the models are prostitutes and the room is a brothel. This impression is further bolstered by the pair of lovers huddled furtively on the right side. Some suspicious figures are gathered in the shadow on the far left, one of whom is holding a painting. Art historian Elizabeth Mansfield has described the dog standing in front of Zeuxis as misshapen and a likely product of the same method of selecting and combining traits of dogs as Zeuxis intended to use with his models. The method clearly did not produce an example of ideal beauty. Mansfield writes that the painting "humorously exposes the circuit of aesthetic-erotic-commercial traffic embedded within the Zeuxis myth".[Mansfield, Elizabeth. 2007. ''Too Beautiful to Picture: Zeuxis, Myth, and Mimesis''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 119–121. .]
Senave painted religiously themed works such as the ''Seven Works of Mercy'' created for the Saint Peter's church in his hometown Lo.[Dries Vanhove, ''Pastorij van Lo (deel Sint-Pietersabdij) - bouwhistorische nota'']
2011 He only painted a few portraits. An example is the ''Portrait of a 48-year old gentleman'' (Sotheby's Amsterdam 5 May 2009, lot 101). It shows the unidentified sitter seated in his study with his right arm resting on a book on a small table. The book tells something about the sitter's beliefs: it is didactic poem, ''Altaergeheimnissen'' (Dutch for 'Secrets of the Altar') first published 1645 in which the Catholic convert Joost van den Vondel expounded the doctrine of the Eucharist
The Eucharist ( ; from , ), also called Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament or the Lord's Supper, is a Christianity, Christian Rite (Christianity), rite, considered a sacrament in most churches and an Ordinance (Christianity), ordinance in ...
.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Senave, Jacques-Albert
Flemish genre painters
Flemish landscape painters
Flemish history painters
18th-century Flemish painters
19th-century Flemish painters
1823 deaths
1758 births
People from West Flanders
Artists from the Austrian Netherlands