BERGHE, Charles-Auguste van den

French painter of Flemish origin. He was the son of a successful history painter, Augustin van den Berghe who had left the Austrian Netherlands of his birth to make his career in France, winning the prix de RomeGLOSSARYA scholarship, founded concurrently with the French Academy in Rome (1666), that enabled prize-winning students at the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris to spend a period (usually 4 years) in Rome at the state's expense. Prizes for architecture began to be awarded regularly in 1723, and prizes for engravers and musicians were added in the 19th century. The prizes were meant to perpetuate the academic tradition and during the 18th and 19th centuries winning the award was the traditional stepping stone to the highest honours for painters and sculptors. Many distinguished artists (as well as many nonentities) were Prix de Rome winners, notably David, Fragonard, and Ingres among painters and Clodion, Girardon, and Houdon among sculptors. The prizes are still awarded and the system has been adopted by other countries. in 1786. Charles, born in France, studied first with his father then Girodet and Gros, and in Rome with Guérin. He was a regular and prolific SalonGLOSSARYIn the French language of the 18th and 19th centuries it designated an actual exhibition space, as well as the academic art exhibitions staged in the Salon d'Apollon of the Louvre since 1667. From 1737, the exhibitions took place biennially and, after the French Revolution, annually in the Salon Carré of the Louvre in Paris. Towards the end of the 19th century the official Salon jury was dissolved in order to make way for a committee of state-approved artists, i.e. former Salon members, who created the highly influential Société des Artistes Français. exhibitor, showing for the first time in 1822, a classicalGLOSSARYRelating to the culture of ancient Greece and Rome (classical Antiquity). The classical world played a profoundly important role in the Renaissance, with Italian scholars, writers, and artists seeing their own period as the rebirth (the "renaissance") of classical values after the Middle Ages. The classical world was considered the golden age for the arts, literature, philosophy, and politics. Concepts of the classical, however, changed greatly from one period to the next. Roman literature provided the starting point in the 14th century, scholars patiently finding, editing and translating a wide range of texts. In the 15th century Greek literature, philosophy and art - together with the close study of the remains of Roman buildings and sculptures-expanded the concept of the classical and ensured it remained a vital source of ideas and inspiration. history subject (his first and only) and a series of portraits which proved to be his principal source of income for the rest of his life, winning a 2nd class medal in 1833.

He spent several years in Rome, painting views of the city and its surroundings in a highly polished style, and Italian subjects in the manner of Leopold Robert, portraying brigands and others in typical costume. These were sent back to Paris and proved popular with the public, while on his return in 1833 he established himself as a successful portraitist of the haute-bourgeoisie. Several portraits were shown posthumously at the Salon of 1853, as well as a Roman Brigands, while two years later a literary subject, Major Heyward and the Hurons (from the Last of the Mohiccans) first exhibited in 1835 was represented.