paintings and sculptures in the Pantheon

The Church of Sainte-Geneviève was built during the second half of^{the 18th} century by the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot to house the relics of the patron saint of Paris. The French Revolution transformed it into a Pantheon to honour the nation’s heroes. Serving alternately as a place of religious worship and a secular temple during^{the 19th} century, the Pantheon retains from this period the large fresco on the dome painted by Gros and the four pendentives supporting the dome designed by Gérard, not to mention the grand pediment by David d’Angers.

The building was definitively designated a national monument, dedicated to great men, following the war of 1870.

In 1874, Philippe de Chennevières, Director of Fine Arts, devised a decorative programme intended to glorify the golden age of Catholic and monarchical France. Until 1889, the finest official artists worked on the project: Puvis de Chavannes celebrated Saint Geneviève, Cabanel Saint Louis, Lenepveu Joan of Arc, Bonnat and Galland Saint Denis, whilst Blanc and Lévy honoured Clovis and Charlemagne.

With the advent of the^Third Republic, secular and civic allegories took precedence over the lives of the saints. Commissions for sculptures reflected this shift. The works of Marqueste, Gasq and Injalbert honour the martyrs of the Revolution and republican heroes, whilst the monuments to Diderot and Rousseau extol the universal values of human rights and democracy. The groups by Landowski and Bouchard, for their part, mark the revival of modern sculpture at the start of the^20th century.

The Panthéon is indeed the symbolic monument to the ideological upheavals of contemporary France, as well as to the Republic’s artistic policy up to the Second World War.

Introduction

Chronology of the monument 

Successive decorative schemes 

Soufflot’s scheme 

The Revolutionary décor 

The Empire and the Restoration 

From Louis-Philippe to Napoleon III 

The Second Empire 

The 1874 programme 

Catalogue of paintings 

Which way round should you visit the Panthéon? 

Dimensions and techniques 

Catalogue of sculptures 

The various commissioning campaigns 

Works located outside the monument 

Works located inside the monument 

Bibliography