Full Name: Lagrange, Léon
Other Names:
- Léon Lagrange
Gender: male
Date Born: 1828
Date Died: 1868
Home Country/ies: France
Overview
Lagrange wrote substantial monographs on Joseph Vernet. He contributed regularly to art periodicals such as the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and L’Artiste. He was a classmate of Hippolyte Taine. He worked in close contact with such figures as de Chennevières and de Montaiglon at the Archives de l’art français. Influenced by the writings of Ludovic Vitet (1802-1873), historian of art and first inspector of historical monuments, Lagrange applied the standards of the new historical sciences to the study of past art and helped establish art history in France as a modern discipline based on archival research. Like Taine’s, his art history paid heed to society as well as the individaul artist. Lagrange published his most durable work on the sculptor Pierre Puget published posthumously in 1868. Lagrange died at the age of forty followingr an usually productive career.
Sources
Jirat-Wasiutyński, Vojtěch. “Decentralising the History of French Art: Léon Lagrange on Provençal Art.” Oxford Art Journal 31 no. 2 (June 2008): 215-231;