Une histoire de l’art illustrée : l’hémicycle de l’École des beaux-arts par Paul Delaroche

Alain Bonnet : The hémicycle of the Ecole des beaux-arts by Paul Delaroche. A history of illustrated art. The decoration of the hémicycle of the Ecole des beaux-arts, done between 1836 and 1841 by Paul Delaroche, brought into being a new concept of monumental painting. Setting aside traditional models of allegorical painting that glorified ART, its civilizing mission, its divine heroes and its patrons, Delaroche portrayed in the hémicycle a history of illustrated art in the form of a panorama representing seventy-five artists from Antiquity through the 17th century. This project, supported by Adolphe Thiers, was defined by Félix Duban, architect of the Ecole des beaux-arts, Louis Peisse, curator of the Musée des études and Paul Delaroche. Artistic teaching should no longer be submitted to academic formalities as expressed by the masterpieces of Antique statuary and the paintings of the Italian Renaissance, but should be open to the diversity of styles that constitute the history of art. This eclectic concept of the evolution of the arts was to serve as the basis of artistic pedagogy and of the theories that Hyppolite Taine postulated at the end of the 19th century in the art history courses he gave at the Ecole des beaux-arts.