Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter who lived from 1780 to 1867. Profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions, he aspired to be the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ascendant Romantic style, and although he considered himself a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, it is his portraits, both painted and drawn, that are recognized as his greatest legacy; his expressive distortions of form and space made him an important precursor of modern art, influencing Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and other modernists. Born into a modest family in Montauban, he studied in David's Paris studio, made his Salon debut in 1802, and won the Prix de Rome for The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the Tent of Achilles. Working in Rome and Florence from 1806 to 1824, he sent paintings to the Paris Salon that critics faulted as bizarre and archaic, supporting himself as a portrait painter and draughtsman. He was finally recognized at the 1824 Salon with The Vow of Louis XIII and acknowledged as the leader of the Neoclassical school in France; his Portrait of Monsieur Bertin marked a further popular success in 1833, and harsh criticism of The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian sent him back to Italy in 1834, where he directed the French Academy in Rome from 1835 until returning to Paris for good in 1841. In his later years he painted new versions of earlier compositions, designs for stained glass windows, portraits of women, and The Turkish Bath, finished at age eighty-three. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/