Théodore Chassériau Parfum Exotique

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎  Recommendable for all / Not to miss for enthusiast
Official Site
National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
until 28th May, 2017

A hybrid of Ingres and Delacroix, and the forerunner of Moreau, could be Théodore Chassériau.  Who is him after all? This challenging exhibition might be an answer.

Works by a young promising pupil of Ingres' is impressive.  Copy of Portrait of a Spanish Lady of 16th Century (cat.2) is the best work of this exhibition.  Any art enthusiast will instantly recognize that the original work was one by El Greco.  It is a reinterpretation of El Greco through aesthetics of Ingres, and, in front of the lady, 4 paris of eyes (the model, Greco, Ingres and Chassériau) look in your soul at the same time.

The evidence of being an ideal pupil can be also seen in early drawings (cat. 52 and 53), which could be mistaken with Ingres' at a glance.  But some kind of hardness leads to slightly different impression. It seems Chassériau himself supposed he would remain second and substitute to Ingres as far as he is a good pupil.

So he had to fly away from the great master.  How? Customary explanation is obtaining colour through approaching Delacroix, but the painter himself denied the thesis.  Nymph Sleeping Near Fountain (cat. 48) might be a clue.  The body line and skin is evidently after Tiziano and the hair suggests its source in Velázquez, while Ingres seems rivaling with Raffaello.

Photos are official ones provided by the organizers of the exhibition (to protect privacy, images of preview guests have been trimmed from the original photos provided)

The quest for clour, which is so vivid in Jewish Woman in Constantine (cat. 66), might have come from Venezian school also.

Strength of eyes in his portraits is invariable element in his works.  The work on the catalogue cover, Portrait of Miss Cabarrus, is not exception.  The gaze is in delicate harmony with cool color tones.

Photos are official ones provided by the organizers of the exhibition (to protect privacy, images of preview guests have been trimmed from the original photos provided)