Portrait of Monsieur Bertin is an 1832 oil on canvas painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. It depicts Louis-François Bertin (1766–1841), the French writer, art collector and director of the pro-royalist Journal des débats. Ingres completed the portrait during his first period of success; having achieved acclaim as a history painter, he accepted portrait commissions reluctantly, viewing them as a distraction from more important work. Bertin was Ingres' friend and a politically active member of the French upper-middle class. Ingres presents him as a personification of the commercially minded leaders of the liberal reign of Louis Philippe I. He is physically imposing and self-assured, but his real-life personality shines through – warm, wry and engaging to those who had earned his trust.
The painting had a prolonged genesis. Ingres agonised over the pose during several preparatory sketches. The final work captures the sitter's character,Boime (2004), 325 conveying a restless energy and imposing bulk. He sits in three-quarter profile against a brown ground lit from the right; his fingers are pronounced and highly detailed, while the polish of his chair reflects light from an unseen window. It is an unflinchingly realistic depiction of ageing and emphasises the furrowed skin and thinning hair of an overweight man who yet maintains his resolve and determination.
Ingres' portrait was a critical and popular success, but the sitter was a private person. Although his family worried about caricature and disapproved, it became widely known and sealed the artist's reputation. It was praised at the Paris Salon of 1833 and influenced both academic painters such as Léon Bonnat and later modernists including Pablo Picasso and Félix Vallotton. Modern art historians regard it as Ingres' finest male portrait. It has been on permanent display at the Musée du Louvre since 1897.
Background
Louis-François Bertin was aged 66 when portrayed in 1832. He had befriended Ingres either through his son Édouard Bertin, a student of the painter,Pomarède (2006), 273 or via Étienne-Jean Delécluze, Ingres' friend and the Journal'''s art critic.Ingres and Delécluze first met in Jacques-Louis David's studio in 1797. See Rosenblum (1999), 28 In either case, the genesis of the commission is unknown. Bertin was a leader of the French upper class and a supporter of Louis Philippe and the Bourbon Restoration. He was a director of the Le Moniteur Universel until 1823, when the Journal des débats became the recognised voice of the liberal-constitutional opposition after he had come to criticise absolutism. He eventually supported the July Monarchy. The Journal supported contemporary art, and Bertin was a patron, collector and cultivator of writers, painters and other artists.Burroughs (1946), 156 Ingres was sufficiently intrigued by Bertin's personality to accept the commission.
The final painting was completed during a month at Bertin's estate of retreat, Le Château des Roches, in Bièvres, Essonne. Ingres made daily visits while Bertin entertained guests such as Victor Hugo, his mistress Juliette Drouet, Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt and Charles Gounod.Shelton (1999), 318 Ingres later made drawings of the Bertin family, including a depiction of his host's wife and their son Armand and daughter-in-law, Cécile.Shelton (1999), 320
Ingres' early career coincided with the Romantic movement, which reacted against the prevailing neoclassical style. Neoclassicism in French art had developed as artists saw themselves as part of the cultural centre of Europe, and France as the successor to Rome.Zamoyski (2005), 8 Romantic painting was freer and more expressive, preoccupied more with colour than with line or form, and more focused on style than on subject matter. Paintings based on classical themes fell out of fashion, replaced by contemporary rather than historical subject matter, especially in portraiture. Ingres resisted this trend,Ingres' critically maligned The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian has been described as "the perfect illustration of the system's breakdown". See Jover (2005), 180 and wrote, "The history painter shows the species in general; while the portrait painter represents only the specific individual—a model often ordinary and full of shortcomings."Jover (2005), 180–2
His early source of income was commissioned portraits, a genre he dismissed as lacking in grandeur. The success of his The Vow of Louis XIII at the 1824 Salon marked an abrupt change in his fortunes: he received a series of commissions for large history paintings, and for the next decade he painted few portraits.Mongan and Naef (1967), xxi His financial difficulties behind him, Ingres could afford to concentrate on historical subjects, although he was highly sought after as a portraitist. He wrote in 1847, "Damned portraits, they are so difficult to do that they prevent me getting on with greater things that I could do more quickly."Rosenblum (1990), 114 His female portraits were more successful than his male portraits. The 1814 Portrait of Madame de Senonnes was described as "to the feminine what the Louvre's Bertin is to the masculine". The sitter for his 1848 Portrait of Baronne de Rothschild looks out at the viewer with the same directness as Bertin, but is softened by her attractive dress and relaxed pose; she is engaging and sympathetic rather than tough and imposing.Rosenblum (1990), 114
The portrait
Preparation and execution
Ingres was self-critical and consumed by self-doubt. He often took months to complete a portrait,Jover (2005), 183–4 leaving large periods of inactivity between sittings. With Bertin, he agonised in finding a pose to best convey both the man's restless energy and his age. At least seven studies survive, three are signed and dated. Ingres was a master draftsman and the sketches, if not fully realised, are highly regarded in their own right. The sketches are exemplary in their handling of line and form, and similar in size.Burroughs (1946), 157
The earliest study shows Bertin standing and leaning on a table in an almost Napoleonic pose.Rifkin (2000), 142 His hard stare is already established, but the focus seems to be on his groin rather than his face.Jover (2005), 182 Ingres struggled with the sketch; the head is on a square of attached paper which must have replaced an earlier version that was cut out, and other areas have been rubbed over and heavily reworked. The next extant drawing shows Bertin seated, but the chair is missing. The last surviving sketch is the closest to the eventual painting and has a chair, though his bulk has not yet been filled out. Frustrated by his inability to capture his subject, Ingres broke down in tears in both his studio and in company. Bertin recalled "consoling him: 'my dear Ingres, don't bother about me; and above all don't torment yourself like that. You want to start my portrait over again? Take your own time for it. You will never tire me, and just as long as you want me to come, I am at your orders.'"Pach (1939), 74 After agreeing to a breathing spell Ingres finally settled on a design.
Early biographers provide differing anecdotes regarding the inspiration for the distinctive seated pose. Henri Delaborde said Ingres observed Bertin in this posture while arguing politics after dinner. According to Eugène Emmanuel Amaury Duval (who said he had heard the story from Bertin), Ingres noticed a pose Bertin took while with Ingres at a café.Shelton (1999), 302 Bertin said that Ingres, confident that he had finally established the pose for the portrait, "came close and speaking almost in my ear said: 'Come sit tomorrow, your portrait is [as good as] done.'"Rifkin (2000), 143In another version of the story, Ingres saw Amaury Duval take up the pose. See Rosenblum (1990), 102 Bertin's final pose reverses the usual relationship between the two men. The artist becomes the cool, detached observer; Bertin, usually calm and reasoned, is now restless and impatient, mirroring Ingres' irritation at spending time on portraiture.Rifkin (2000), 130
Description
Bertin is presented as energetic, strong and warm-hearted. His hair is grey verging on white, his fingers spread across his knees. The fingers were described in 1959 by artist Henry de Waroquier as "crab-like claws ... emerging from the tenebrous caverns that are the sleeves of his coat."Tinterow; Conisbee (1999), 306 The bulk of his body is compacted in a tight black jacket, black trousers and a brown satin waistcoat, with a starched white shirt and cravat revealing his open neck. He wears a gold watch and a pair of glasses in his right pocket. In the view of art historian Robert Rosenblum, his "nearly ferocious presence" is accentuated by the tightly constrained space. The chair and clothes appear too small to contain him. His coiled, stubby fingers rest on his thighs, barely protruding from the sleeves of his jacket, while his neck cannot be seen above his narrow, starched white collar. The painting is in monochrome and muted colours; predominately blacks, greys and browns. The exceptions are the whites of his collar and sleeves, the reds in the cushion and the light reflecting on the leather of the armchair.Rifkin (2000), 141 In 19th-century art, vivid colour was associated with femininity and emotion; male portraiture tended towards muted shades and monochrome.Garb (2007), 32
Bertin leans slightly forward, boldly staring at the viewer in a manner that is both imposing and paternal. He seems engaged and poised to speak,"Louis-François Bertin. Musée du Louvre. Retrieved 17 January 2015 his body fully towards the viewer and his expression etched with certainty.Jover (2005), 184 Influenced by Nicolas Poussin's 1650 Self-Portrait with Allegory of Painting, Ingres minutely details the veins and wrinkles of his face.Rosenblum (1990), 31 Bertin is in three-quarter profile, against a gold–brown background lit from the right. He rests on a curved-back mahogany chair, the arms of which reflect light falling from the upper left of the pictorial space.Shelton (1999), 303
Ingres seems to have adapted elements of the approach and technique of Hans Holbein's 1527 Portrait of William Warham, now in the Louvre. Neither artist placed much emphasis on colour, preferring dark or cool tones. The Warham portrait seems to have informed the indicators of Bertin's ageing and the emphasis on his fingers.Pach (1939), 13 Jacques-Louis David also explored hyper-realism in his depictions of Cooper Penrose (1802) and Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1817). In the later painting, David shows tiny glints of light reflecting on the sitter's chair and painstakingly details "every wayward curl of [Sieyès'] closely cropped auburn hair."Rosenblum (1999), 6
The Greek meander pattern at the foot of the wall is unusually close to the picture plane confining the sitter. The wall is painted in gold, adding to the sense of a monumental portrait of a modern icon.Lubar, Robert. "Unmasking Pablo's Gertrude: Queen Desire and the Subject of Portraiture". The Art Bulletin, volume 79, nr. 1, 1997 The details of Bertin's face are highly symmetrical. His eyes are heavily lidded, circled by oppositely positioned twists of his white collar, the winds of his hair, eyebrows and eyelids. His mouth turns downwards at the left and upwards to the right.Rosenblum (1990), 102 This dual expression is intended to show his duality and complex personality: he is a hard-nosed businessman and a patron of the arts. The reflection of a window can be seen in the rim of Bertin's chair. It is barely discernible, but adds spatial depth. The Portrait of Pope Leo X (c. 1519) by Raphael, a source for the Bertin portrait, also features a window reflection of the pommel on the pope's chair.Garb (2007), 154