1853 -1903 · Paris, Salon and prehistoric imagination

Archaeological reconstructions, dramatic violence and large academic format characterize Paul Jamin's history paintings.

Paul-Joseph Jamin was born in Paris in 1853 and died there in 1903. Son of the physicist Jules Jamin, he first received scientific and technical training before choosing painting. He worked in the workshops of Gustave Boulanger then Jules Lefebvre and exhibited at the Salon from 1879. Jamin specialized in history painting, but sought unusual subjects: ancient Gaul, prehistory, recent conflicts and great patriotic episodes. His method combines spectacular imagination and documentation. Archaeological objects, weapons, skins, jewelry and architecture are studied or copied before being integrated into the scene. The Rapt in the Stone Age, painted in 1888, depicts a struggle violent in a rocky passage; the Reims museum preserves this immense canvas almost three meters high. The Brenn and his share of loot, dated 1893, imagines the Gallic leader Brennus after the sack of Rome in a theatrical vision of the national past. Death of the Prince Imperial looks back on the death of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte during the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. In each case, Jamin transforms the event into an immediately narrative image, marked by gestures, bodies and the precision of accessories. The "Paul Jamin" selection notably compares The Brenn and his share of loot and The Rapt in the Stone Age. His reading favors composition.

Jamin reconstructs the past like an archaeological theater scene: the object documents, the gesture dramatizes and the large format imposes the story.