The 17th and 18th Centuries, Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

I decided to focus on Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun for this assignment because we didn’t talk a lot about women artists this semester, so I thought that this would be a great opportunity to learn more about a female painter. Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was born in Paris and was a daughter of a portrait painter. She learned how to draw and paint at a very young age and when she was eleven she began  to study art very seriously. When she was fifteen she had already become a successful portrait painter and people came in droves to her studio to have their portrait painted by her, thus she financially supported her family.

                  Vigée-Lebrun married her husband, Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun in order to escape her step-father, but it turned out that the man she had married had a seriously gambling issue and the marriage quickly turned sour. Nevertheless, Vigée-Lebrun was still extremely successful in her artwork and was a very social woman. In 1779 Vigée-Lebrun was commissioned to paint portraits of Marie-Antoinette. She then became the official portrait painter of Marie-Antoinette and they both became close friends. During the French revolution, she traveled all around Europe, painting portraits for royalty, but she was also treated like royalty wherever she went. She died when she was 87 and painted 660 portraits during her lifetime.

                  Vigée-Lebrun’s painting style is thought to be the part of the aftermath of Rococo. You can see the elements of Rococo in Vigée-Lebrun painting style and color choices. I never thought that I liked this style of painting, but after looking at Vigée-Lebrun’s artwork, it has definitely become more appealing to me. The colors are very strong, yet they appear very delicate. Her subjects also come off very angelic to me and there is a nice sense of movement in her pieces. I really like her painting style and I would love to see one of her paintings up close one day.

Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. Self-Portrait. 1800. Oil on Canvas.

Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. Portrait of a Young Woman. 1797. Oil on Canvas.

Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. Portrait of Caroline Murat with her daughter, Letizia. 1807. Oil on canvas.