Ingres copy: finished!

Mastercopy after J.-A.-D. Ingres' The Valpincon Bather (La Grande Baigneuse 1804) oil on canvas 81x120 cm. Indirect painting method (earth red imprimatura, grisaille underpainting, 5-7 glazes and scumbling finish).

 I read somewhere (James Gurney's instructional book Imaginatice Realism) that mastercopying is a traditional practice, romantically considered a transcendence rite in which the student absorbs the previous great master's skills and spirit and analyses the masterpiece's composition, value control, figurative structure, anatomy knowledge, craftsmanship, technique, palette use, drawing, texture portrayal and tries to feel the same emotion the painter must have felt while painting the subject. I essence, meditating on the beauty and intelligence of the work. Therefore it is important to pick only the classic works by the finest figurative painters in history since even the greatest painters sometimes produced mediocre work and copying mediocre works only enhance mediocrity so it must be avoided.

The Valpincon Bather is considered the greatest nude painting of the 19th century, one of the definitive figure paintings in entire art history alongside Velazquez's Rokeby Venus. Valpincon Bather is Ingres' calmest painting as his other paintings of the female figure were quite wild, the scholar Gerald Ackerman commented even "perverse" (in Gerômé: Life and Works). Ingres' paintings are some of the most meticulous and finished to the highest degree in art history. This finishing and simplified classicising is what I wanted to learn from Ingres as well.

After summer break, back in Rovaniemi, I immediately began finishing this master copy, as documented in the blog post on late spring. I bought a pair of 4000 kelvin cool light bulbs for better lighting and painted from Friday August 31 till tuesday September 4 late night, detail after detail, zooming the reference image from computer screen. The deadline was on Friday, September 7, and the work was almost dry then. The teacher simply commented that this is "a stunning display of patience."

It could be the camera distortion but the right shoulder seems just a bit too wide, and the curtains still need some fine tuning.

By the way, I also finished the self-portrait.