5 - H. BELLANGÉ (1800-1866), A monument overgrown with vegetation, around 1850, Pen drawing

H. BELLANGÉ (1800-1866), A monument overgrown with vegetation, around 1850, Pen drawing Hippolyte Bellangé (1800 Paris - 1866 ibid.): A monument overgrown with vegetation, c. 1850, Pen drawing Technique: Pen drawing on Paper Inscription: monogrammed lower right: "ht. Bgé" Date: c. 1850 Description: What does a battle painter paint if he doesn't paint battles? Hippolyte Bellangé was one of the most important battle painters in the France of Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III. A huge oeuvre, filled with thousands of soldiers, weapons and horses, where man becomes mass. He is highly celebrated and decorated for these depictions of mega-events. But what he has not lost amidst all the painted sabre-rattling and dabbed gun smoke is his eye for detail. He was able to bring mass battles to life from a wide angle, but as if under a microscope, he was also able to perceive the fate of individual soldiers. Like his friend Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet, he depicted the lives of soldiers away from battle in numerous lithographs and drawings, sometimes melancholically compassionate, sometimes caricaturisingly distanced. But always with an eye for detail, which in his case was not limited to outward appearances, but sometimes also took on psychological traits. But now back to the initial question: What does he paint now? First of all, very little else. Even when he slips into the genre, there is always a uniform somewhere that has found its way into the picture in one way or another. All the more astonishing is our drawing, which shows a destroyed piece of Christian art in that incomparably nervous stroke. It has been decaying and forgotten for so long that nature has stretched out its delicate fingers after it. The cross lies broken on the ground. It is hard to imagine that it can return to its former splendour. If you are familiar with Bellangé's focussed depictions, in which the maltreated soldiers who have returned home are depicted, you cannot help but recognise an emotional connotation in this broken monument. Broken and lonely: these are words that can also be applied to the soldiers. In addition to this emotional dimension, what is particularly fascinating about this small and incredibly free drawing is the trembling line that does not stop anywhere and flits across the sheet as if driven, from which the clear forms only slowly emerge, only to be swallowed up again the next moment by another twitch of lines. This dynamic, almost breathing process is the special charm of this drawing, which is unusual for Bellangé, but exciting precisely because of it. Keywords: Monument; Cross; Cemetery; Small architecture; Sculpture; Column; Antique; Figure; Ruine; Vanitas; 19th century; Romanticism; Architecture; France; Size: Paper: 19,5 cm x 13,3 cm (7,7 x 5,2 in) Condition: Good condition. Slightly browned. The margins irregularly trimmed. Small restoration in the upper right margin.