Théodore Gudin (1802-1880)

THÉODORE GUDIN (1802-1880) "Rough Sea at the Entrance to the Port" Dated 1839 lower left, illegible signature Oil on canvas 87 x 136 cm "I believe that marine painting forms a very distinct genre that requires special studies. To paint the sea, you have to have sailed." Théodore GUDIN can afford to write these words since by enlisting in the American Navy, he participates in a fisheries surveillance mission on the Bank of Newfoundland and witnesses the sinking of three hundred ships. This is what explains, in addition to the talent, this striking luminosity, this realistic movement of the sea, this knowledge of boats and their sails that Gudin offers us through this work. Obviously, it is from his return to France that we owe him this mastery of the technique when he became a pupil of Horace Vernet then of Anne-Louis Girodet. He entered the studio of the latter, then frequented that of Antoine Gros and that of Jacques-Louis David. We are not the first to admire the work of this painter. In 1827, he was noticed by King Charles X during the Salon in which he had participated since 1822 and it was in 1830 that he became the official painter of the Navy. Specialized in the representation of great naval battles and shipwreck scenes, Louis-Philippe commissioned ninety paintings from him for the Versailles museum to commemorate the memory of the great episodes of French naval history.