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Lot Essay
Bidauld was born into an artisan's family in the Midi but formally trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, following an apprenticeship with his elder brother, the landscape and still-life painter Jean-Pierre-Xavier Bidauld. After completing his education Bidauld headed north in 1783 to Paris, where he painted landscapes en plein air in the nearby forest of Fontainbleau under the encouragement of Claude-Joseph Vernet. In the capital Bidauld also met the art dealer and perfumer Dulac, who funded the artist's first trip to Italy in 1785. For the next five years Bidauld traveled throughout the peninsula, making spontaneous landscape studies in oil on paper in addition to collaborating with French artists living in Rome, then a major center for the 'True Style' of Neo-classicism.
In 1790 Bidauld was once again in Paris, where he exhibited finished historical landscapes after his Italian oil sketches at the Salon (1791 to 1844). The genre of historical landscapes had been recently introduced to the Academy in 1787 by Pierre-Henri Valenciennes in his Cicero uncovering the Tomb of Archimedes (Musée des Augustins, Toulouse) and The Ancient City of Agrigentum (Musée du Louvre, Paris). In the early nineteenth century Bidauld was commissioned to paint Neo-classical landscapes for the leading figures of Europe, including Carlos IV of Spain, Joseph Bonaparte and Louis-Philippe; and in 1823 he became the first artist admitted to the Académie des Beaux-Arts for landscape painting. However, with the growing interest of realism in the genre ushered in by Théodore Rousseau, Bidauld, who stubbornly defended the then outmoded tenets of Neo-classicism, eventually fell out of favor. His vision of the Italian landscape was later revived by the century's most successful en plein air painter, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
En plein air landscapists, such as Bidauld and Corot, quickly sketched their impressions on paper in an attempt to capture an actual scene from nature, complete with aerial perspective, changing light effects and various climactic conditions. Italy's temperate climate, long summers and Mediterranean lighting provided an ideal stage for painters working out-of-doors. The tradition of sketching and painting en plein air grew from the innovations of Northern landscape painters working in Rome in the seventeenth century, such as Poussin and Claude Lorrain, both of whom were attracted to the Campagnia for its historical connections to Antiquity. However, these early artists represented the landscape 'in a natural manner' ('in disegnar vedute al naturale'), as opposed to working directly 'from nature' ('dal naturale'). It was not until the following century, when Vernet was painting his expressive marinescapes outside of Rome that en plein air painting was finally underway. Sir Joshua Reynolds praised Vernet's novel approach in his advice to landscape painters: 'I would recommend, above all things, to paint from nature instead of drawing; to carry your palette and pencils to the Waterside. This was the practice of Vernet, whom I knew at Rome. He there showed me his studies in colors, which struck me very much for the truth which those works only which are produced while the impression is warm from Nature' (J. Northcote, The Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, London, 1819, 2, 90-1). In Paris in the early 1780s Vernet, in turn, encouraged Bidauld and Valenciennes to continue sketching from nature in oil on paper, a technique later codified by Valenciennes in his treatise of 1800, Eléments de perspective pratique. For Valenciennes, who formally established the tradition of en plein air painting at the turn of the century, spontaneous oil studies formed only one stage of the landscape painter's education, which had as its ultimate objective the finished exhibition picture.
Bidauld's finished painting illustrates an impression of the Nera river valley in the region of Terni, a popular destination for landscape painters in the eighteenth century and home to the ancient Cascate delle Marmore and Augustan bridge. The ruined bridge, which horizontally bisects Bidauld's composition, was built in the first century A.D. in order to carry the Via Flaminia across the Nera River and onto the town of Spoleto. This site had particular appeal for open-air painters, who showcased the region's symbiotic relationship between its hilly terrain and man's architectural additions. Corot painted an oil sketch on paper of the same bridge and surrounding valley in 1826 (Louvre, Paris).
Completed during the final year in Bidauld's first Italian sojourn, The Augustan bridge on the Nera river exemplifies the culmination of five years of on-site oil sketching, as expounded by Valenciennes in Eléments de perspective. The picture's cool lighting, crystalline articulation of the foliage and formal composition attest to its status as a finished exhibition piece and the status of the artist as a Neoclassical landscape painter par excellence. The present work is a rare example of a major finished work painted by Bidauld in his first Italian period (for another, see View of the Isola di Sora, dated 1789, sold at Sotheby's, New York, 28 January 2000, lot 113, $277,500).
In 1790 Bidauld was once again in Paris, where he exhibited finished historical landscapes after his Italian oil sketches at the Salon (1791 to 1844). The genre of historical landscapes had been recently introduced to the Academy in 1787 by Pierre-Henri Valenciennes in his Cicero uncovering the Tomb of Archimedes (Musée des Augustins, Toulouse) and The Ancient City of Agrigentum (Musée du Louvre, Paris). In the early nineteenth century Bidauld was commissioned to paint Neo-classical landscapes for the leading figures of Europe, including Carlos IV of Spain, Joseph Bonaparte and Louis-Philippe; and in 1823 he became the first artist admitted to the Académie des Beaux-Arts for landscape painting. However, with the growing interest of realism in the genre ushered in by Théodore Rousseau, Bidauld, who stubbornly defended the then outmoded tenets of Neo-classicism, eventually fell out of favor. His vision of the Italian landscape was later revived by the century's most successful en plein air painter, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
En plein air landscapists, such as Bidauld and Corot, quickly sketched their impressions on paper in an attempt to capture an actual scene from nature, complete with aerial perspective, changing light effects and various climactic conditions. Italy's temperate climate, long summers and Mediterranean lighting provided an ideal stage for painters working out-of-doors. The tradition of sketching and painting en plein air grew from the innovations of Northern landscape painters working in Rome in the seventeenth century, such as Poussin and Claude Lorrain, both of whom were attracted to the Campagnia for its historical connections to Antiquity. However, these early artists represented the landscape 'in a natural manner' ('in disegnar vedute al naturale'), as opposed to working directly 'from nature' ('dal naturale'). It was not until the following century, when Vernet was painting his expressive marinescapes outside of Rome that en plein air painting was finally underway. Sir Joshua Reynolds praised Vernet's novel approach in his advice to landscape painters: 'I would recommend, above all things, to paint from nature instead of drawing; to carry your palette and pencils to the Waterside. This was the practice of Vernet, whom I knew at Rome. He there showed me his studies in colors, which struck me very much for the truth which those works only which are produced while the impression is warm from Nature' (J. Northcote, The Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, London, 1819, 2, 90-1). In Paris in the early 1780s Vernet, in turn, encouraged Bidauld and Valenciennes to continue sketching from nature in oil on paper, a technique later codified by Valenciennes in his treatise of 1800, Eléments de perspective pratique. For Valenciennes, who formally established the tradition of en plein air painting at the turn of the century, spontaneous oil studies formed only one stage of the landscape painter's education, which had as its ultimate objective the finished exhibition picture.
Bidauld's finished painting illustrates an impression of the Nera river valley in the region of Terni, a popular destination for landscape painters in the eighteenth century and home to the ancient Cascate delle Marmore and Augustan bridge. The ruined bridge, which horizontally bisects Bidauld's composition, was built in the first century A.D. in order to carry the Via Flaminia across the Nera River and onto the town of Spoleto. This site had particular appeal for open-air painters, who showcased the region's symbiotic relationship between its hilly terrain and man's architectural additions. Corot painted an oil sketch on paper of the same bridge and surrounding valley in 1826 (Louvre, Paris).
Completed during the final year in Bidauld's first Italian sojourn, The Augustan bridge on the Nera river exemplifies the culmination of five years of on-site oil sketching, as expounded by Valenciennes in Eléments de perspective. The picture's cool lighting, crystalline articulation of the foliage and formal composition attest to its status as a finished exhibition piece and the status of the artist as a Neoclassical landscape painter par excellence. The present work is a rare example of a major finished work painted by Bidauld in his first Italian period (for another, see View of the Isola di Sora, dated 1789, sold at Sotheby's, New York, 28 January 2000, lot 113, $277,500).