Page 19 - Jacques Blanchard - Myth and Allegory

Blanchard manages to lose none of the and light, and delicacy of sentiment, which
expressive power of the body - the muscular are his most evident inheritance from the
relief of Christ’s torso, and the diminution of Venetian artists. Nevertheless, in terms of
his joints, as they twist in pain - that typifies French painting, these are genres that we tend
the Michelangelesque in general, and to comprehend possibly more within the
Sebastiano’s masterpiece in particular. context of the 18th century, than the 17th
century. Bearing this in mind, we can now
eee turn to the earlier of Blanchard’s two works
here under discussion.
It is perhaps clearer now to see that by the
mid-1630’s Blanchard was an artist at the C.W. & A.G.
height of his powers, and a masterful and
wholly original presence in French art. We
have only to look at his penultimate dated
work, the Bacchanal at Nancy,30 his most
lyrical and arguably most Venetian work. It is
perhaps his best known picture; it is certainly
the one most reproduced in anthologies of
French 17 th century painting, ironically,
perhaps, because in many respects it is
atypical of painting of the time. Its boldness of
composition betrays the robust and startling
originality we have come to expect from the
Venetian tradition. But perhaps the surprise
in finding this very Italianate tradition
captured in a sylvan blond palette, which we
now recognise as belonging wholly to the
French baroque, is one of the reasons for the
picture’s enduring popularity.

Thus it is in Blanchard’s allegorical and
mythological works that we can perhaps best
appreciate his sensitive approach to colour

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