Charles-Louis Clérisseau
Encyclopedia
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
during the second half of the 18th century.
Born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, he was a pupil of the painter of ruins Giovanni Paolo Pannini
Giovanni Paolo Pannini
Giovanni Paolo Panini or Pannini was a painter and architect, who worked in Rome and is mainly known as one of the vedutisti ....
and a former student at the French Academy in Rome
French Academy in Rome
The French Academy in Rome is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio in Rome, Italy.-History:...
, which he left in 1754 after a dispute with its director, Natoire
Charles-Joseph Natoire
Charles-Joseph Natoire was a French painter in the Rococo manner, a pupil of François Lemoyne and director of the French Academy in Rome, 1751-1775...
. In 1755 the Scottish architect Robert Adam
Robert Adam
Robert Adam was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam , Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him...
arrived in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, where he met Clérisseau, who accompanied him to Rome; there Adam resolved, under the spell of Clérisseau, to produce a volume for publication upon his return that would establish him as a serious architect. The project he selected was a volume documenting the ruins of Diocletian's Palace
Diocletian's Palace
Diocletian's Palace is a building in Split, Croatia, that was built by the Roman emperor Diocletian at the turn of the fourth century AD.Diocletian built the massive palace in preparation for his retirement on 1 May 305 AD. It lies in a bay on the south side of a short peninsula running out from...
at Split
Split (city)
Split is a Mediterranean city on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, centered around the ancient Roman Palace of the Emperor Diocletian and its wide port bay. With a population of 178,192 citizens, and a metropolitan area numbering up to 467,899, Split is by far the largest Dalmatian city and...
, easily accessible on the Dalmatian coast. Over a period of five weeks in 1757 Adam sketched and supervised the documentation of the ruins, while Clérisseau produced perspectives, and two German draftsmen undertook the measured drawings. Most of the published engravings in Adam's Ruins of the palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalato (1764) are believed to be the work of Clérisseau, though he received no credit.
Clérisseau passed most of the next decades in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. As it had done since the High Renaissance
High Renaissance
The expression High Renaissance, in art history, is a periodizing convention used to denote the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance...
, ancient Rome and modern Rome functioned as a cultural hub, the ruins of Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
providing a school in themselves, if one had a knowledgeable guide. Clérisseau served as a mentor to a generation of young architectural students who had won the prestigious Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
for study at the French Academy in Rome
French Academy in Rome
The French Academy in Rome is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio in Rome, Italy.-History:...
and guided the developing taste for the Antique in young French and British artists and gentlemen amateurs on the Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
. In particular, his skillful drawings of ancient architectural details, of real Roman ruins and imaginary ones, helped form the taste of young architects like Robert Adam
Robert Adam
Robert Adam was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam , Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him...
in the 1750s and his brother James Adam, in 1760-63. Clérisseau supported himself by providing architectural views, sometimes in series, for young men on the Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
.
Returning to Paris, Clérisseau was a magnet for young neoclassical architects, like François-Joseph Bélanger
François-Joseph Bélanger
François-Joseph Bélanger was a French architect and decorator working in the Neoclassic style.Born in Paris, he studied at the Académie Royale d'Architecture where he worked under Julien-David Le Roy and Pierre Contant d'Ivry, but did not win the coveted Prix de Rome that would have sent him to...
, who never went to Rome. In 1774, Clérisseau provided the designs for Jean-François Peyron's decors in the salon of the Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière
Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière
The Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière was an hôtel particulier in Paris, in the corner between Avenue Gabriel and Rue Boissy d'Anglas.It was built in 1775 in a Neo-Classical style by Jean-Benoît-Vincent Barré for the fermier général Laurent Grimod de La Reynière...
, Paris, the earliest revival of grotesque
Grotesque
The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "Grotto", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century...
s in France. From 1785-89, he assisted Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, in producing designs for the Virginia State Capitol
Virginia State Capitol
The Virginia State Capitol is the seat of state government in the Commonwealth of Virginia, located in Richmond, the third capital of Virginia. It houses the oldest legislative body in the United States, the Virginia General Assembly...
. At the time, Jefferson was residing in Paris, while serving as American Minister to France. In 1788, the first (and only) volume in Clérisseau's intended series, Antiquités de la France, was published in Paris. Subtitled, "Monumens de Nismes", the folio included detailed engravings of the Maison Carrée
Maison Carrée
The Maison Carrée is an ancient building in Nîmes, southern France; it is one of the best preserved temples to be found anywhere in the territory of the former Roman Empire.- History :...
, the building that inspired Clérisseau's collaboration with Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
on the design for the Virginia State Capitol
Virginia State Capitol
The Virginia State Capitol is the seat of state government in the Commonwealth of Virginia, located in Richmond, the third capital of Virginia. It houses the oldest legislative body in the United States, the Virginia General Assembly...
. Mistakenly believing it to be a Republican period building, Jefferson admired the Maison Carrée
Maison Carrée
The Maison Carrée is an ancient building in Nîmes, southern France; it is one of the best preserved temples to be found anywhere in the territory of the former Roman Empire.- History :...
(19-16 BCE) as "one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful and precious morsel of architecture left us by antiquity...." (quoted in McCormick, 1990).
The largest cache of Clérisseau drawings by far is in the collection at the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Another large group is conserved at the Fitzwilliam Museum
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
, Cambridge, UK.