Background
Charles Jacque was born on May 23, 1813 in Paris, Ile-de-France, France.
Charles Jacque was born on May 23, 1813 in Paris, Ile-de-France, France.
At around twelve years of age, Charles Jacque was placed in a school in Marais and worked under a notary shortly thereafter. At seventeen, he was apprenticed to a cartographer but had already shown a liking for drawing, his menial task of tracing simple lines from one point to another only caused frustration. Other accounts suggest that he copied lithographs or worked with his uncle who painted chimney fronts. Whatever the case may have been, none of these opportunities gave him proper training in art, in sharp contrast to many other men his age who were already engaged in artistic training at an atelier or at the École des Beaux-Arts.
His only true artistic training was around 1840 when he worked in the atelier Suisse, an informal studio which provided models but no instruction, also where Gustave Courbet - who would become a major force behind the Realist movement - worked for a short period of time. Jacque remained largely self-taught and thus self-inspired, which may have been a benefit to his style as he learned to rely on his own methods of representation and not that of a teacher.
Apart from a lack of extensive preliminary training, the debut of his artistic career was also hampered by his military service. Often, young men were willing and able to pay for a replacement to serve in their stead, but as his father was not a wealthy man, Jacque was obligated to enlist, a duty that would occupy seven years of his life.
During this period he made many sketches of army life and sold small drawings for a franc a piece. He would also later draw from this experience in the military with his many illustrations and caricatures for Parisian journals. Upon completion of his military service in 1838, Jacque quickly began executing his first graphic prints: La Lanterne Magique by Frédéric Soulié, which was inspired by the Napoleonic legend, Vicaire de Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith, and Chaumière Indienne by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Later that year he journeyed to England, drawn to their well-practiced technique of woodcut engraving. During his almost two year period in England, he worked as an illustrator for books and journals; producing complete illustrations of The Dance of Death, and a pictorial edition of a Shakespearian play, among many others.
At the end of the 1830s, Jacque had become one of the earliest artists to renew the technique of etching, placing him at a definitive position as a forerunner of the etching revival which would come to full fruition beginning in the 1860s with the organization of the Société des Aquafortistes. These illustrations and caricatures were the beginning of Jacque’s artistic career and even though he received meager pay, working in printmaking did offer an aspiring artist, without substantial training, a means by which to earn a living and possibly enter the art world.
As his career progressed, Jacque abandoned book illustration and by the mid-1840s began focusing his efforts on producing original etchings which were inspired by the Dutch masters, especially Rembrandt, and which became part of the contribution to the revival of Dutch art. However, Charles Jacque became increasingly interested in working on his own subject matter which could be exhibited at the Salon - works influenced by scenes from rural life, including landscapes, peasants, and animals, which he viewed during several journeys through the Seine valley.
Jacque debuted at the Salon of 1844 where he submitted an etched reproduction of a painting by Théodore Rousseau entitled Le Plateau de Belle Croix, Forêt de Fontainebleau (The Plateau of the Belle Croix, Forest of Fontainebleau). In a further extension of artistic diversity, he also worked on his first paintings during that year. In 1845 he submitted to the Salon a portrait copied from Rembrandt. Charles Baudelaire had great praise for the new artist and wrote in Curiosités Esthétiques.
In 1849 a cholera epidemic swept through Paris. Jacque, along with his friend Jean-Francois Millet, decided to move his family to Fontainebleau, the safe haven of inspiration for several artists of this period. Here he would find more than just a respite from cholera; he would find inspiration for his artwork as well. He and Millet would become two of the several artists associated with the Barbizon School, a loose association of artists focusing their work on nature and the depiction of peasants and of animals.
His experiences at Barbizon also impacted his general interest. He began publishing his etchings in Le Magasin Pittoresque and L’Illustration, but also began submitting articles to agricultural journals such as Le Journal d’Agriculture Pratique, discussing such topics as drainage and irrigation systems for gardens, the raising of animals, among other subjects. His interest in animals took on new dimensions as he began frequenting Le Jardin des Plantes in Paris where he asked Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire for permission to study and to do drawings of animals.
Charles Jacque continued exhibiting regularly at the Salons throughout this period and received another third-class medal at the Salon of 1861. Regardless of any success at Salon exhibitions, it did not translate into monetary gains during this time, perhaps because Jacque’s agricultural interests were not as successful as anticipated. From 1862 - 1867 he was plagued by financial problems and was forced to sell much of the property that he owned and abandoned his chicken farming venture. In an attempt to improve his financial situation, he began working feverishly on his prints, editing several series of etchings.
The following years proved to be a busy period for Jacque, as his success brought him recognition and acceptance. During the last twenty years of his life, he earned two hundred thousand francs per year, an admirable sum for a self-trained artist working primarily in the graphic arts. Jacque’s last Salon exhibition was 1894 where he showed Intérieur d’Écurie (Interior of a Stable). He died on May 7th in Paris, 1894.
Landscape with a Herd
1872Le Retour
Two Pigs Eating from a Trough
1860Untitled
1848Leaving the Sheep Pen
1889Self-portrait
1862Le lancé
Musician
1847Ewe and Lamb
1860Cows
1865Chickens
The Old Forest
1870Marie Jacque
1840Winter
1867Femme
1850Landscape with Cows
1864On the Pasture
1860La Curée
Moonlight
1890Le passage d'un obstacle
Schäferin mit Herde
1875Sheep in Manger
L'arrivée au rendez-vous
La vue
Schafe im Stall
1894Charles Jacque was a member of the Société des Aquafortistes.
Charles Jacque had three sons: Émile Jacque, Frédéric Jacque and Lucien Jacque.