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Jean Pierre Alexandre Antigna
1817 - 1878
Jean Pierre Alexandre Antigna was a French illustrator. His earliest training took place in his native Orléans by the local painter, Francois Salmon.
On 9 October 1837 he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, first in the atelier of Sebastien Norblin de la Gourdaine. A year later he became a pupil of Paul Delaroche, from whom he acquired his understanding of dramatic composition. Antigna exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1841 with a religious canvas, the 'Birth of Christ' (untraced), and showed there every year for the rest of his life.
Until 1845 his paintings were generally religious scenes and portraits. Influenced by the effects of industrialization, he would incorporate images of contemporary social subjects dominated by poverty, hardship and burden of urban poor into his works. During this period he produced his most important and personal works, which frequently dramatized natural or manmade disasters with bold lighting, dramatic poses and rich colour, almost exclusively on a large scale: for example 'Lightning', 'The Fire', his most famous painting, the 'Forced Halt' and 'Visit of His Majesty the Emperor to the Slate Quarry Workers of Angers during the Floods of 1856'. In 1849 he painted 'After the Bath', a large canvas bought by the state and sent the same year to the Orleans museum. The sensuality of the nudes and the topical quality of the scene provoked a local scandal.
By the 1848 Revolution Antigna was devoted to the Realist style, and continued to paint in this manner until c. 1860 when he began to produce paintings in the gentler Naturalist vein. Social subjects were replaced by anecdotal scenes, although he never lost his sense of compassion for the poor. He travelled in search of local colour and the picturesque.
He exhibited at the Salon and received the Legion of Honour in 1861. He traveled to Spain and Brittany numerous times in order to paint multifarious scenes, yet he always retained his compassion for the poor.
At the same time Antigna also produced a number of canvases of mystical and sentimental inspiration and of a Symbolist tendency: for example 'A Mother's Last Kiss'. Children appear in most of his works, and he painted them with sympathy, whether happy or sad. Antigna received numerous distinctions and honours, including the Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur in 1861. In the same year he married Helene-Marie Pettit, who herself became a painter. Their son, Andre-Marc Antigna, was also a painter and miniaturist.
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