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Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (pronounced ("Ang", rhymes with "bang",
with a hint of the "r", but the final "es" is not pronounced) (August
29, 1780 - January 14, 1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. Although
he thought of himself as a painter of history in the tradition of
Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was
his portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his
greatest legacy.
Ingres's style was formed early in life and changed comparatively
little. His earliest drawings, such as the Portrait of a Man (July 3,
1797, now in the Louvre) already show a suavity of outline and an
extraordinary control of the parallel hatchings which model the forms.
From the first, his paintings are characterized by a firmness of outline
reflecting his often-quoted conviction that "drawing is the probity of
art". He believed color to be no more than an accessory to drawing,
explaining: "Drawing is not just reproducing contours, it is not just
the line; drawing is also the expression, the inner form, the
composition, the modelling. See what is left after that. Drawing is
seven eighths of what makes up painting."
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