Background
Vien was born in Montpellier, France, on June 18, 1716.
Viale della Trinità dei Monti, 1, 00187 Roma RM, Italy
Vien became a director of the French Academy in Rome in 1776.
Viale della Trinità dei Monti, 1, 00187 Roma RM, Italy
Vien became a director of the French Academy in Rome in 1776.
Vien was born in Montpellier, France, on June 18, 1716.
Joseph-Marie Vien entered at an early age the studio of Natoire, a French painter in the Rococo manner. Then he travelled to Rome to the study nature.
Vien became a director of the French Academy in Rome in 1776. He refused to teach Jacques-Louis David, stating he was too old to train a young artist. After his return to France, five years later, his fortunes were wrecked by the French Revolution. However, he started to create his paintings and eventually Napoleon Bonaparte acknowledged his merit by making him a senator.
He was enthusiastic about the ideas of Winckelmann. But Joseph-Marie Vien's classicism was of a very superficial kind, consisting of allegories with pseudo-antique attributes. Nevertheless, he had a career of huge success.
Joseph-Marie Vien left behind him a great number of notable pupils, amongst whom were François-André Vincent, Jean-Joseph Taillasson, Jean-Baptiste Regnault, Jean-Antoine-Théodore Giroust, Joseph-Benoît Suvée, Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours, François-Guillaume Ménageot, among others. In 1796, he won the prize in an open government competition.
Anachorète endormi
The Seller of Cupids
La Vertueuse Athénienne
Saint Theobald offering an eleven branched lilium to Saint Louis and Marguerite of Provence
Venus Emerging from the Sea
Greek Woman at the Bath
La Chasse
Francis Xavier landing in China
Greek Maidens Adorning a Sleeping Cupid with Flowers
Sweet Melancholy
Saint Jerome in Prayer
L'Eunuque Blanc ; et La Sultane Reine
Glycère ou La marchande de Fleurs (Le Printemps)
Trompe l'œil d'une plaque de Wedgwood avec le cadre: une néréide
The rape of the Sabines
A bearded man
Hercule au berceau étouffant les serpents
La Cueillette
Standing Draped Figure
Sarah présentant Agar à Abraham
Portrait of an elderly bearded gentleman
Saint Pierre
Portrait of a gentleman dressed as a Turkish Mufti
Religieuses se prosternant devant une apparition de la Vierge
Figure de femme drapée et allongée, les yeux fermés, les bras croisés sur son ventre
An Evangelist
A reclining male nude
Allegory of the harvest
The painter Clément dressed as the Prestre de la Loy
L'offrande
Josef entzieht sich Potiphars Frau
A hermit
Portrait of a bearded monk
A young woman watering a pot of flowers, La jeune athénienne
Joseph-Marie Vien was married to Marie-Thérèse Reboul. Their son, Marie Joseph, was born in 1761. Like his father, he became a distinguished painter.
