Charles Blanc

Charles Blanc

Charles Blanc (4 November 1813, Castres (Tarn) - 17 January 1882, Paris) was a French art critic, brother of Louis Blanc. After the February Revolution of 1848, he was director of the department for the visual arts at the ministry of the interior. As director of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts he reinstituted a program of copying from casts after the antique and commissioned a series of copies of Old Masters for a projected "Musée des copies" that was objected to by the school's overseers, who cashiered Blanc.^[1]

He published the Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles (Par. 1849-69, 14 Vols.), which was translated to English and German.

In his book, "Chromophobia",author and artist, David Batchelor argues that Charles Blanc thought of color in art as something not to be totally be relied upon. With regard to painting, Blanc says that while color is essential, it's place is delegated behind the formal characteristics of composition, chiaroscuro and drawing. "Chromophobia", 2000, pp23-25.

Works

• Le trésor de la curiosité (1857-1858, 2 Vols.)
• L'œuvre complet de Rembrandt (4. Aufl. 1873, 2 Vols.)
• Grammaire des arts du dessin (1867, 3. Ed. 1876)
• Ingres, sa vie et ses ouvrages (1870)
• L'art dans la parure et dans le vêtement (1875)
• Les artistes de mon temps (1876)
• Voyage de la Haute-Egypte, observations sur les arts égyptien et arabe (1876)

Notes

1. ^ Thj episode is mentioned in Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, 2002. Piero della Francesca, pp320-22.

Preceded by Louis de Carné

Seat 12 Académie française 1876-1882

Succeeded by Édouard Pailleron

Persondata
Name	Blanc, Charles
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Date of birth	1813
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Date of death	1882
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