Page 18 - Jacques Blanchard - Myth and Allegory
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Garnier. Another Charity, in the Toledo pyramid, her face in virtual profil perdu, which
Museum of Art, one of the artist’s finest adds a sense of slight mystery to the scene,
works, was reproduced by Anthony Blunt in quite different from the almost coy face of the
the 1953 edition of his survey Art and Toledo Charity. She seems to gaze beyond the
Architecture in France, 1500-1700,28 who child in her arms, indeed beyond her
deemed it the work most typical of allegorical role in general, towards where, in
Blanchard’s achievement. Thuillier’s late the remaining visible background, the ancient
dating of theToledo picture to circa 1636-7 is gives way to nature. Her yellow and blue
probably based on the severely classical right- draperies, while reminiscent of Vouet’s
hand background. As a rule, Blanchard’s favoured colour scheme, are rendered more
backgrounds do become progressively more subtly than anything Vouet would have
austere in his work, but even in a later picture permitted in his own work. It is possible that
such as the Toledo Charity, Blanchard Blanchard, in pursuit of what Laurent Salomé
managed to successfully contrast this terms la réalité charnelle,29 deliberately toned
impression of the ascetic with the sensuality down this particular colour contrast in his
of his figures and the richness of the red Charité to better highlight her pearlescent
draperies at upper left. flesh and golden recession of the background.
Blanchard’s last dated picture is sadly a Finally, we come to one of the artist’s greatest
fragment; it is also one of his most sublime, pictures, the undated Flagellation in the Musée
the Charity in the Courtauld Institute. Painted de Beaux-Arts de Rennes, which Thuillier
in 1637, the year before the artist’s death, it also dates to the mid-1630s. Blanchard’s
combines everything which epitomises composition is obviously derived from
Blanchard as a painter steeped in the Parisian Sebastiano del Piombo’s oil fresco of the same
traditions of his time, and yet capable of the subject in San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, but
most delightful originality. Here, his usual the picture’s originality exists on a rather
classically inspired background appears to different level. Here, Blanchard appears to
have increased in severity (even given our have translated Sebastiano’s Michelangelesque
understanding of its context in relation to the classicism into his own native idiom. He
picture’s lost right ‘half’). Against an antique replaces the Venetian artist’s cerebral
background, Blanchard’s Charité strikes a composition and physical ideals with stockier,
balance between the austere and the more homespun figures, possibly even
voluptuous. He arranges her in a soft, calm observed from life studies. Nevertheless,
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