GUDIN, Théodore

French painter and printmaker. He studied under Anne-Louis Girodet and Antoine-Jean Gros at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which he entered on 30 January 1817. With the emergence of the Romantic movement he interrupted his Neo-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. training to become a disciple and friend of Delacroix and Géricault. Like Delacroix, he first exhibited at the 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. in 1822, and his submission included the depiction of an eminently Romantic subject, Episodes from a Shipwreck. However, his greatest success of the 1820s, which established him as a marine painter, was the Fire on the Kent, which he exhibited at the Salon of 1827. Following this direction he cultivated his talent for historical naval subjects on a large scale, becoming France's leading painter of sea battles. His style is characterized by the faithful rendering of water, the use of impastoGLOSSARYPaint applied in thick or heavy layers. and the careful execution of motifs.

He was much patronized by King Louis-Philippe, for whom he executed a series of large canvases at Versailles depicting the history of the French navy. His fame in the Paris of Louis-Philippe and of Louis-Napoléon, in the St. Petersburg of Nicholas I, the Berlin of Frederick-William IV and the London of prince Consort stood extremely high and connoisseurs placed him on a level with Vernet. His Emperor bestowed on him the Legion of Honour and a barony. However, admired throughout Europe for two decades, he has quickly fallen into oblivion.