PILS, Isidore-Alexandre-Augustin

French painter. The son of the painter François Pils (1785-1867), at the age of 15 he entered the studio of Guillaume Lethière, where he remained until the latter's death in 1832. He then moved to that of François-Edouard Picot, the two men rapidly becoming friends. On Picot's recommendation in 1834 Pils was commissioned to restore the paintings in the Galerie Henri II at Fontainebleau. While working there he produced several pictures of the interior of the palace and the surrounding area.

He then returned to Paris and to Picot's studio, intending to compete for 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., but hampered by illness and a stay in hospital he won only the second Grand Prix (1837). However, he fulfilled his ambition in the following year with St Peter Healing a Lame Man at the Gate of the Temple (1838; École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris). He arrived at the Académie de France in Rome, at that time directed by Ingres, in January 1839. The poor health, particularly tuberculosis, that afflicted him throughout his life again frustrated his plans, and from July to September 1839 he convalesced in Ischia. On his way back to Rome he visited Pompeii and made studies from the antiqueGLOSSARYthe classical age of Greece and Rome began with the Greek migrations of the 2nd millennium BC, and ended in the West in 476 AD with the deposition of the Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus (c. 475 AD); in the East it ended in 529 AD when the Platonic Academy was closed by Justinian (482 - 565 AD). vases and bronzes there. Despite continued bouts of illness and periods of rest, he managed to study art works in Naples, Florence and Venice but had little success with his own painting, which was poorly received both by his instructors and by Picot.

Pils's earlier paintings have religious themes. In 1849 he completed his most famous work, Rouget de L'Isle Singing La Marseillaise, which now resides at the Musée historique de Strasbourg. After experiences travelling with French troops through the Crimea, his themes took on military and nationalistic subjects. He later produced many military scenes during the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

Pils was appointed professor of painting at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1863 but left the same year for two years in Algeria. In 1868 he was elected to seat #14 of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.