Portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte in the uniform of a general in the army of Italy, circa 1801 (Photo by Christine Guest courtesy VMFA)
He was revered, reviled, viewed as a liberator, denounced as a betrayer of ideals, a tyrant and a lawmaker, a revolutionary who led great armies and allowed for the spread of a national surveillance state. His physical stature was belittled in the propaganda of his enemies — Napoleon stood at about five foot eight inches — an average height. He in his power bestrode Europe as a colossus and in so doing created a fanciful empire for himself, family and friends, although his reign lasted just ten years and he died, in a second exile, at the age of 51.
At the height of his power, Napoleon’s court employed 3,500 people whose business it was to burnish and enhance the image and reputation of the emperor and his family. It was “Napoleon, Inc.” And most of its activity served an idealized representation of the facts. In his remarks opening the exhibition to the press, Sylvain Cordier, exhibition curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, from which the Virginia Museum of Fine Art's exhibition “Napoleon: Power and Splendor” originates, says, “Here is someone fashioning himself as a hero and sovereign, and as an historical figure: a brand.” As far as brands go, Napoleon, Inc., did a masterful job in keeping the Emperor’s name in the public consciousness, even if people don’t know the history, they know him from his bi-corn hats, the enormous portraits, and the hand in his vest.
The exhibit opens Saturday and continues through Sept. 3. Tickets are available here.
Napoleon didn't think much of the role of women; they were to him fruit trees to be plucked. Yes, his tumultuous affair and marriage to the Empress Josephine happened — she was seven years his senior and a widow who did hard jail time during the Terror in Paris after her husband was guillotined. She was swept up in Napoleon’s imperial romance, but it didn’t last. When no male heir resulted from their union, Josephine was packed off into a gilded separation. Her successor, Austrian Princess Mary-Louise, gave birth to Charles Joseph, “The King of Rome,” who was left without a kingdom to rule. Charles later states that if Josephine had been his mother, he would’ve been an actual king.
Amid all the gleaming royal regalia and giant paintings, there is a massive work by Jean-August-Dominique Ingres, one of Napoleon’s court painters. “The Dream of Ossian” (1813) adorned the ceiling of the Quirinal Palace of Rome. The Emperor probably saw versions of Ingres’ work, drawings and such, but he never slept under this painting, as it most likely didn’t get installed. The empire ran out of time.
But what’s interesting to us, considering the image and reality of Napoleon, is that original text of the “Dream of Ossian.” Scottish writer James McPherson said that he uncovered and translated an epic cycle of Scottish poems from the Dark Ages from the bard Ossian (blind, like the Greek epic-poet Homer), who commemorated in song the life and battles of Fingal, a Scottish warrior. The cycle, published in 1762-63 was a meg-hit. Napoleon carried copies of the poem on campaigns and memorizes passages. “The poet Nepomucène Lemercier reported that in 1800 Bonaparte had adopted Ossian as HIS poet since Homer and Virgil were already taken (by Alexander and Augustus respectively!),” as a writer for Napoleon.org says.
Once Napoleon exited the stage of history, the Pope didn’t want that pagan stuff hanging around the holy place. Ingres later bought “Ossian" back from a Roman art dealer, finding it in damaged condition. He restored and improved upon the painting. A decade after McPherson’s 1796 death, it was revealed that the ancient Scots story was more than a legend — it was fake myth. McPherson made up most of the material; as history, it was a fiction.
Yet here is one of Ingres’ strangest and moodiest pieces, and an influential one. The phantoms of Ossian’s adventures loom large and muscular; they resemble the heroic 1930s-style figures that became enshrined by in the U.S. by Workers Progress Administration sculptors and Nazi court artists, too.
"He regards a human being as an action or a thing," Madame Germaine de Staël described Napoleon in 1818, "not as a fellow-creature. He does not hate more than he loves; for him nothing exists but himself; all other creatures are ciphers....He is for his self-interest what the just man should be for virtue; if the end were good, his perseverance would be noble.”
Ah, if only he’d been able harness all that power and splendor for the good of mankind. Of course, he believed that’s what he was doing. And we have the art to show for the efforts of Napoleon Inc.
Well.
They always love the bad boys.
