The Early Period of the Napoleonic Wars through the Eyes of Artist and Military Man Louis-François Lejeune

Abstract

This article analyses paintings by artist and Napoleonic general L.-F. Lejeune (1775–1848) as a historical source reflecting the period between 1796 and 1800. In 2012, there was a personal exhibition of the painter in Versailles, which presented the works stored in the museum and in a private collection of the artist’s descendants. A detailed catalogue was published following the exhibition. There are no special works published in Russia devoted to the artist. Meanwhile, the works of Lejeune are of great interest because he was not only an artist, but also a general, an eyewitness and a participant of all the military campaigns of the Napoleonic era. The first painting where his talent of an artist and historiographer manifested itself was The Battle of Marengo exhibited in the Salon of 1801. It was followed by a number of his works, i.e. The Battle of Lodi, The Battle of Mount Tabor, The Battle of Abukir, and The Battle of the Pyramids. All these paintings are stored in the Palace of Versailles. This article analyses these paintings reflecting the early period of the Napoleonic Wars. The authors interpret the paintings and explore their correspondence to the realities and the spirit of the time, based on the memoirs of the artist and documents of the time. A distinctive feature of Lejeune’s painting was the combination of different battle scenes in a single canvas, which resembles mediaeval miniatures. Nevertheless, this fact did not affect the reliability of his canvases, which are valuable documents on the history of the Napoleonic Wars.

Keywords

• Л.-Ф. Лежен
• Бонапарт
• Виван-Денон
• Войар
• Наполеоновские войны.