1838 -1921 · Fourquevaux, Toulouse, Paris, Salon and large historical settings

Dramatic silences, severe architecture and episodes of power make Jean-Paul Laurens a master of history painting.

Jean-Paul Laurens was born in Fourquevaux, near Toulouse, in 1838. Trained at the Toulouse School of Fine Arts then in Paris with Léon Cogniet and Alexandre Bida, he exhibited at the Salon from 1863. Laurens chose episodes historical where religious or political power is revealed in a moment of crisis. The Excommunication of Robert the Pious does not show the brilliance of a ceremony, but the silence left by the prelates who leave the room. An overturned candle, steps and the distance between the spouses are enough to reflect the rupture. The Death of Tiberius and Pope Formosa and Stephen VII similarly use body, throne, architecture and gaze to build tension almost theatrical. In The Deliverance of the Walled of Carcassonne, southern history and religious violence become civic memory. Republican and anticlerical, Laurens is interested in the conflicts between conscience, dogma and authority. His dark palette, his firm drawing and his economy of gestures distance him from the colorful spectacle of certain academic painters. He received important monumental commissions for public buildings, notably the Pantheon, the Paris City Hall and the Capitol of Toulouse. He received important monumental commissions for public buildings, notably the Pantheon, the Paris City Hall and the Capitol of Toulouse. Professor at the Académie Julian and the École des beaux-arts, he exerted a strong influence on many students. Illustrator and portraitist, he also worked for publishing. Died in Paris in 1921, Laurens left a vast ensemble where history painting became a meditation on justice, solitude and the exercise of power. The "Jean-Paul Laurens" selection notably compares The Excommunication of Robert the Pious and The Death of Tiberius. His reading favors composition.

Laurens chooses the moment when power stops speaking: a door closes, a candle falls, and architecture makes visible the weight of judgment.