1699 -1749 · Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, Paris and Rome

Luminous whites, monumental compositions and restrained sensitivity make Pierre Subleyras one of the great French painters of 18th century Rome.

Pierre-Hubert Subleyras was born in Saint-Gilles-du-Gard in 1699 and died in Rome in 1749. Trained in the South then in Paris, he won the Grand Prix de Peinture and joined the French Academy in Rome. At the end of his stay as a resident, he chose to stay in the pontifical city and built most of his career there. Religious commissions, portraits of ecclesiastics and large historical paintings allowed him to unite French clarity, Roman scale and sensitive observation. The Adoration of the Magi distributes fabrics, offerings and attitudes around a luminous center. The Adoration of the Magi distributes fabrics, offerings and attitudes around a luminous center. The Adoration of the Magi distributes fabrics, offerings and attitudes around a luminous center. The Adoration of the Magi distributes fabrics, offerings and attitudes around a luminous center. The Annunciation distributes fabrics, offerings and attitudes around a luminous center. The Adoration of the Magi distributes fabrics, offerings and attitudes around a luminous center. The Annunciation distributes fabrics, offerings and attitudes around a luminous center. The Adoration of the Magi distributes fabrics, offerings and attitudes around a luminous center. The Adoration of the Magi distributes fabrics, offerings and attitudes around a luminous center. The Annunciation distributes fabrics, offerings and attitudes around a luminous center. The Adoration of the young Saint John transforms the sacred subject into a human reunion, while The Kiss of Judas concentrates betrayal in the clash of faces, hands and night. Subleyras excels in the representation of whites: dresses, surplices and tablecloths take on volume through tiny variations in value. His Roman masterpiece, The Mass of Saint Basil, is designed to be translated into mosaic at Saint Peter's in Rome; the modello of 1746 reveals this tonal and dramatic mastery. He also painted Pope Benedict XIV and engraved some of his compositions. Married to the miniaturist Maria Felice Tibaldi, Subleyras fully belonged to the Roman artistic community. Died at fifty, he left one demanding work that connects Poussin to future neoclassical sensibility. The "Pierre Subleyras" selection notably compares The Adoration of the Magi and The Annunciation. His reading favors figures.

Subleyras gives white a whole dramaturgy: light shapes the fabrics, orders the figures and transforms the ceremony into silent emotion.