Jacques Courtois

Den helige Andreas martyrium. Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, Rom.

Jacques Courtois, även kallad le Bourgignon, född 12 december 1621 i Saint-Hippolyte, död 14 november 1676 i Rom, var en fransk-italiensk konstnär, bror till Guillaume Courtois.

Courtois kom 1635 till Italien som soldat. Han tog intryck av Bolognaskolan och i Rom av Pieter van Laer. Efter inspiration av Michelangelo Cerquozzi blev han därefter bataljmålare.

I en rad livfulla bilder framställde han ryttarstrider. Hans ingående studier av det omgivande landskapet har gett honom anseende av att vara en av de första friluftsmålarna.

Under sitt rörliga liv reste Courtois mycket i Italien, och utförde målningar på beställning, även religiösa motiv. 1657 inträdde han i ett jesuitkloster i Rom.

Tavlor av hans hand förekommer rikligt i europeiska museer. Courtois var även en skicklig tecknare, bland hans motiv märks främst fäktningsscener.

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Media som används på denna webbplats

Borgognone, martirio di sant'andrea, 1668, 02.JPG
(c) I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0
Borgognone, martirio di sant'andrea, 1668, 02.JPG
Artgate Fondazione Cariplo - Courtois Jacques detto il Borgognone, Battaglia.jpg
(c) Fondazione Cariplo, CC BY-SA 3.0

The painting entered the Cariplo Collection with the incorporation of the IBI Collection and nothing is known about its earlier history. As Andrea Spiriti notes in his description of the work in the 1998 catalogue, the attribution to Borgognone proves quite certain. Comparison with the Prado and Bayreuth cycles, dating from the period between 1650 and 1660, reveals the same stylistic approach with quick, dynamic brushwork in line with the dramatic subject matter of which the painter was one of the leading interpreters, combining various elements acquired during his career from the Bambocciante school, the classicism of Pietro da Cortona and the visionary painting of Salvator Rosa. The Cariplo painting also displays Borgognone’s taste for scholarly citation, the central group being derived from Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari, possibly known through engravings and the copy by Rubens, and the white horse in the foreground from Ludovico Carracci’s Conversion of Saint Paul in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna [1].

It thus emerges that battle painting was by no means a minor genre as regards both artistic quality and historical motivations. The depiction of clashes between the European and Turkish troops is related to the historical events of the time and the political tensions caused by the renewal of war against the Ottoman Empire.