LEMOINE, FRANcOIS, a celebrated French painter of the 18th century, was born at Paris in 1688. He was the pupil of Louis Gal loche, early distinguished himself, and in 1718 was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Painting ; his presentation-piece was an excellent picture of Hercules killing Cams. He obtained a great reputation by his painting, in oil, of the Transfiguration of Christ' ou the ceiling of the choir of the church des Jacobins, Rue du Burp In 1724 Lemoine visited Italy, where he remained for a year ; the artists whose works chiefly attracted his attention were Pietro da Cortona, Lanfranco, and Bernini. After his return to France he was made professor of painting in the Academy, and in a very few years his reputation surpassed that of all his Parisian contemporaries. Louis XV. appointed him in 1736 his principal painter, with a salary of 4100 francs, in the place of Louis de Boullogne, deceased. The first of Lemoine 's great works was the cupola of the chapel of the Virgin in St. Sulpice, in fresco, which he commenced in 1729—a work of three yearn' labour. His master-piece however is tho ' Apotheosis of Hercules,' painted in oil on canvas pasted on the ceiling of the Salon d'Hercule at Versailles, commenced in 1732 and finished in 1736. It is a composition on a grand scale, containing 142 figures, but in a florid and superficial style, and, like the works of his model, Pietro da Cortona, belongs to the class of works called " pittura di macchina" by the Italians. The composition is arranged in nine
groups, is vigorous and effective in arrangement, colour, and light, and especially in aerial perapective; but it is a purely decorative work, and is effective only as a whole : the parts have littlo individual merit, and the drawing wants correctness, expression, and distinctive character. Lemoine used on the ground of this picture—the blue vault of heaven—ultramarine to the value of 10,000 franca : it is sixty-four feet by fifty-four.
After the completion of this great work he was without a rival in France, but he never enjoyed his success. He was naturally of a melancholy temperament, which the loss of his wife, and vexation arising from the detractions of his less successful contemporaries, aggravated to such a degree that it amounted to a chronic aberration of intellect, and he destroyed himself in one of these nervous fits, June 4th, 1737, ten months after the termination of his great work at Versailles.
Lemoine painted also many easel•pieces, both of large and of very small dimensions, and the latter have realised high prices at auctions : a' Flight into Egypt' is considered his best easel-piece. Many of his works have been engraved by soma of the best French engravers, as L. Cars, N. Cochin, H. S. Thomasein, Silvestro, Larmeesiii, Et. Fessard, &c. Boucher, Natolre, and Nonotte, distinguished painters, were the pupils of Lemoino.