Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres ( ) Ingres (pronounced “Ang”) was born in a small town in France. His father was an artist. He had to drop out of school and was always ashamed that he did not have a formal education. His father took him to an art school so that he could learn to be a painter.

In this self-portrait Ingres is 24 years old.

In this self-portrait he is 74 years old.

Ingres was a perfectionist. He believed that a great artist never showed a brush stroke.

Some people believe that Ingres was the best illustrator of the fashion of the times.

Although many people thought Ingres was a great artist, his style was often criticized.

Elongated fingers and neck. Realism. Ingres wanted to make the women in his portraits look elegant and graceful so he made their hands, necks, backs longer.

This is perhaps his most famous painting. When he painted it, he was criticized for making her back too long. One critic said that he had added three extra vertebrae into her back.

The Turkish Bath, 1862 Ingres was 82 years old when he completed this painting. The composition resulted from many studies which Ingres made from 1807 onwards of female bathers, a theme linking the female nude with Turkish exoticism. The serpentine contours of the bodies and his repeated use of the same model adds a note of abstraction to the sensuality of this accumulation of voluptuous flesh.