Michel Mandevare (1760-1829) Torrent In The Mountains, Black Stone And White Gouache

Nicolas-Albert MICHEL, known as MANDEVARE
(Paris, 1760 – Paris, 1829)

Mountain torrent and anthropomorphic rock with a bear's head
Black chalk and white gouache on blue-grey paper
53 x 37.5 cm

A pupil of Fragonard and Lantara, Mandevare was an excellent neo-classical landscape painter, particularly renowned for his representations of trees. Like Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, he was a theoretician of the genre; he published in 1800, 4 years after the Elements of Classical Perspective for the Use of Artists of Valenciennes, another treatise, Principles of Landscape (for the Use of the Schools of the Departments of the French Empire), which was intended for both professional artists and amateurs; in it he explained the principles of landscape recomposed from studies of natural elements carried out in situ. The work thus included numerous engravings of trees and rocks, which served as models for students in the workshops of masters such as Jean-Victor Bertin; Michallon, then Corot, thus had the opportunity to work on Mandevare's works.
Mandevare often represented anthropomorphic rocks and trees evoking human or animal figures. This is the case here in our drawing on the left of the composition where we can make out a bear's head on the rock.