HUBERT ROBERT, MASTER OF RUINS

Figures Amidst Ruins

HUBERT ROBERT, MASTER OF RUINS

by Joan K. Yanni

Hubert Robert, painter of MAG’s Figures Amidst Ruins (63.14), was one of the most prolific and admired painters in 18^th-century France. His fascination with ruins led to the development of the architectural landscape in French painting.

Early landscapes were merely backgrounds for historical and religious scenes, such as those painted by Renaissance artists. Gradually the landscapes grew in size and importance, and eventually became subjects in themselves, such as in the paintings of van Ruisdale in Holland, Constable and Turner in England, and Claude Lorraine in France.  The popularity of landscapes increased until, when the French Academy classified the genres of art in the 17^th century, they were placed fourth out of five categories in order of importance. (The categories were, from highest to least in importance, history, religious and mythological paintings; genre scenes or scenes of everyday life; portraits; landscapes; and still lifes. Some sources list landscapes last, but they were always popular.)

Hubert Robert was born in 1733 to an official in the service of the Marquis de Stainville in Paris. His father’s position insured an excellent education for his son: Robert attended the College de Navarre, where he studied ancient history and literature as well as Latin. Against his parents’ wishes, he also studied drawing under the sculptor Rene Michel Slodtz. Here he learned perspective and developed his interest in architecture.

In 1754 Robert traveled to Rome with the Comte de Stainville, the son of the Marquis, who had been appointed French Ambassador to the Vatican. The Comte’s influence was helpful in getting Robert admitted to the French Academy in Rome, even though he had not previously studied at the Academy in Paris and had bypassed the Prix de Rome competition. Robert was to remain in Rome for the next 11 years. His passion for architecture could already be seen in his work here, where he painted the classical architecture for which Rome is known, often in ruins, in a landscape setting.

At the French Academy in Rome Robert studied under the artist Giovanni Paolo Panini, during which time he met classmate and lifelong friend Jean-Honoré Fragonard.  Always sociable, Robert also befriended Giovanni Battista Piranesi, whose workshop was located near the Academy, and they often sketched buildings and ruins together.

Robert’s expanding social network provided him with the opportunity to view historic places firsthand. In 1760 the Abbé Saint-Non brought Robert and Fragonard to Naples, and the three visited Herculaneum and Pompeii. They also traveled to the abandoned Villa d’Este in Tivoli, where the ambassador to the Vatican from Malta had arranged for them to stay.  On these trips, Robert and Fragonard sketched continually together. Though their styles were similar, their subject matter was not. Whereas Fragonard was interested in society at play, Robert was fascinated by romantic ruins.

Robert returned permanently to Paris in 1765, and the following year, in an usual honor, was named an associate and a full member of the Academy is in the same session. Images of classical ruins were very popular by then and Robert exhibited at the Salon every year from 1766 until 1798. His paintings incorporated the antique architectural elements he had sketched during his stay in Italy, sometimes turning them into imaginative fantasies. Populated with lively figures, these works presented an appealing combination of silent monuments and busy contemporary life.

At the height of his career in the 1770s and 1780s, Robert was given commissions from royal patrons as well as wealthy private citizens. Louis XVI was an admirer as was Catherine the Great of Russia. In fact, one of the largest collections of his work is in the Hermitage.

During the Revolution in France Robert was arrested by the Jacobins and spent a year in prison, but obviously had access to canvas and paint since he completed more than fifty paintings as well as watercolors and drawings. After his release in 1794 he became curator of the Louvre, where he remained until Napoleon took control of the museum in 1802. Still actively painting, he died in 1808. His friend, the artist Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, recorded that he died brush in hand as he prepared to go out to dinner.

MAG’s painting, executed around 1775, shows a partial view of a ruined circular temple filling the height of the canvas on the right side.  The classical structure with Corinthian columns is based on the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli. There is no pastoral landscape in this painting.  Instead, architecture stretches across the canvas. The perspective in the scene recedes abruptly, implying vast distance.

The triumphal arches are based on the design of the Arch of Constantine, but they have been squared three-dimensionally and form pavilions. Between them part of a pediment is visible, suggesting a temple overlooking an imagined Forum. Various sculptural figures are placed at the corners of the arches. A river or canal leads from the segment of land in the foreground to the first arch. An Egyptian lion fountain can barely be seen in the shadows at lower left.

Robert has scattered figures throughout this scene, walking among the columns, looking out behind the railings, sitting on the fragments of ruins in the foreground, and bathing and doing laundry where the steps descend into the water.

His loose painterly technique has sometimes been criticized as too facile, especially because of his prodigious output, but his reputation as one of France’s most revered painter of architectural landscapes is secure.                                           

Source:  Steven D. Borys, The Splendor of Ruins in French Landscape Painting, catalog of the exhibition; Grove Encyclopedia