Paul Dominique Philippoteaux (27 January 1846 – 28 June 1923) was a French artist. He is best known for a cyclorama illustrating the

Battle of Gettysburg The Battle of Gettysburg () was a three-day battle in the American Civil War, which was fought between the Union and Confederate armies between July 1 and July 3, 1863, in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle, won by the Union, ...

Life and career

Paul Philippoteaux was born in Paris, the son of the French artist Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux. His education was at the Collège Henri-IV, the

École des Beaux-Arts ; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centu ...

in Paris, and in the studio of his father, as well as the studios of Leon Cogniet, and Alexander Cabanal. He became interested in cycloramas and in collaboration with his father created ''The Defence of the Fort d'Issy'' in 1871. Other works included ''Taking of Plevna'' (Turko-Russian War), the ''Passage of the Balkans'', ''The Belgian Revolution of 1830'', ''Attack in the Park'', ''The Battle of Kars'', ''The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir'', and the ''Derniere Sortie''. Philippoteaux was commissioned by a group of

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

investors in 1879 to create the Gettysburg Cyclorama. He spent several weeks in April 1882 at the site of the

Gettysburg Battlefield The Gettysburg Battlefield is the area of the July 1–3, 1863, military engagements of the Battle of Gettysburg in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Locations of military engagements extend from the site of the first shot & at Knoxlyn Ridge ...

to sketch and photograph the scene, and he extensively researched the battle and its events over several months. Local photographer William H. Tipton created a series of panoramic photographs shot from a wooden tower erected along present-day Hancock Avenue. The photos, pasted together, formed the basis of the composition. Philippoteaux also interviewed several survivors of the battle, including Union generals Winfield S. Hancock, Abner Doubleday,

Oliver O. Howard Oliver Otis Howard (November 8, 1830 – October 26, 1909) was a career United States Army officer and a Union Army, Union General officer, general in the American Civil War, Civil War. As a brigade commander in the Army of the Potomac, Howard ...

, and Alexander S. Webb, and based his work partly on their recollections. Philippoteaux enlisted a team of five assistants, including his father until his death, to create the final work. It took over a year and a half to complete. The finished painting was nearly 100 yards long and weighed six tons. When completed for display, the full work included not just the painting, but numerous artifacts and sculptures, including stone walls, trees, and fences. The effect of the painting has been likened to the nineteenth century equivalent of an

IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of High-definition video, high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and movie theater, theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (image), aspect ratio (approximately ei ...

theater. It was the largest painting on canvas until at least 1964.Gettysburg Cyclorama again for sale
/ref> His Cyclorama of Jerusalem was completed in 1895. Other paintings included ''Retour d'un pardon'' (1864), ''Vannenses'' (1865), ''Marche en Bretagne'' (1865), and ''Scene d'invasion'' (1866), which were all exhibited at the

Paris salon The Salon (), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world. At the ...

. Philippoteaux made drawings that were engraved by Charles Laplante ( fr) to illustrate the 1877 first edition of

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

's novel ''Hector Servadac'' (or '' Off on a Comet'').

References

External links

Restoration of the Gettysburg Cyclorama
April 2005) at American Heritage Magazine
Gettysburg Cyclorama
image at NYTimes.com (requires

QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...

)
Boston Public Library
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Philippoteaux, Paul 19th-century French painters French male painters 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists French Realist painters Painters from Paris 1846 births 1923 deaths French war artists École des Beaux-Arts alumni 19th-century French war artists 19th-century French male artists