Louis Anne François Janmot

Background

Louis Janmot was born on May 21, 1814 in Lyon, Rhone-Alpes, France, into the family of Catholic parents who were deeply religious. He was extremely moved by the death of his brother in 1823 and his sisters in 1829.

Education

Louis became a student at the Royal College of Lyon. In 1831 he was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and a year later, he won the highest honor, the Golden Laurel. In 1833, he came to Paris to take painting lessons from Victor Orsel and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

Career

After Louis's return from studying to Lyon in 1836, Janmot would attract the attention of critics of the Salon de Paris in conducting large-scale paintings with religious inspiration such as "The Resurrection of the son of the widow of Nain", painted in 1839, or "Christ in Gethsemane", painted in 1840. After 1845, he caught the interest of Charles Baudelaire with his painting "Flower of the Fields" which guaranteed him access to the Salon of 1846. But the failure of his "Poem of the Soul" at the Universal Exhibition of 1855 disappointed him.

In 1856, Janmot obtained a commission to paint a fresco representing the Last Supper for the church of St. Polycarp. Other orders followed, including the decoration of the dome of the Church of St. Francis de Sales and for the town hall that had been renovated by his friend the architect T. Desjardins. He was then appointed professor at the École des Beaux-Arts.

Surprisingly, Janmot moved to Paris in 1861 after having been promised a commission for the Church of St. Augustine, but this project was abandoned three years later. In experiencing significant family and financial problems, Janmot accepted a professorship at the Dominican School of Arcueil. At that time, in his home in Bagneux, he made many portraits of the members of his family.

While the Prussian troops approached and occupied his home, he fled to Algiers with his stepfather and made landscape paintings. He returned in June of the following year in Paris and led a solitary life. His house in Bagneux had been looted. In 1878, he produced a fresco in the chapel of the Franciscans in the Holy Land, but this work was followed by any further order. Faced with family and increasing financial problems, Janmot came to Toulon, and despite some orders he lived a retired life. He finished the second part of the "Poem of the Soul" that the patron and former industrial Félix Thiollier were willing to publish. He made charcoal drawings on the theme of the underworld, which can be regarded as a kind of continuation of the "Poem of the Soul", including "Purgatory" and "The End of Time." He died five years later at the age of 78.

Achievements

• Louis Janmot was highly famous for his large-scale paintings with religious inspiration.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Poème de l'âme 14: Sur la Montagne

  • Poème de l'âme 15: Un Soir

  • Portrait de l'artiste

  • Poème de l'âme 11: Virginitas

  • Poème de l'âme 10: Première Communion

  • Poème de l'âme 18: Réalité

  • Poème de l'âme 7: Le Mauvaus Sentier

  • Poème de l'âme 12: L’Échelle d’or

  • Poème de l'âme 5: Souvenir du ciel

  • Poème de l'âme 2: Le Passage des âmes

  • Poème de l'âme 16: Le Vol de l’âme

  • Poème de l'âme 9: Le Grain de blé

  • Poème de l'âme 8: Cauchemar

  • Portrait du révérend Père Henri Lacordaire

  • Poème de l'âme 17: L’Idéal

  • Poème de l'âme 13: Rayons de soleil

  • Poème de l'âme 3: L’Ange et la mère

  • Poème de l'âme 6: Le Toit paternel

  • Flower of the Fields

  • L'assomption de la Vierge

  • Poème de l'âme 4: Le Printemps

  • Poème de l'âme 1: Génération divine

Views

Janmot has been seen as a transitional figure between Romanticism and Symbolism, prefiguring the French part of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Membership

• Society of St. Vincent de Paul

Connections

In December 1855 Louis married Leonie Saint-Paulet, from a noble family in Carpentras. After the birth of her seventh child in August 1870, his wife died in Bagneux. In 1885, Janmot married a former student, Antoinette Currat.

spouse 1st:

Leonie Saint-Paulet

spouse 2nd:

Antoinette Currat

Friend:

Frederic Ozanam

patron:

Felix Thiollier

References

• Louis Janmot: 1814-1892 (French Edition)
  1981
• Louis Janmot - précurseur du symbolisme