Student at the School of Fine Arts of Toulouse, Jean-Paul Laurens entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he studied under Leon Cogniet and Alexandre Bida . His painting is representative of the history painting in the late nineteenth century . It would be as well to introduce unfair not only as a history painter among others: his erudition, thoroughness, the political stances that make up his paintings and his indisputable talent do clearly stand out. Republican convictions and an anticlericalism displayed, Laurens worked in 1867 in a satirical newspaper condemned by the justice of the Second Empire , The Philosopher Charles Gilbert-Martin . In his paintings, he deals mainly with subjects both historical and religious, directed dramatically and served by a technique of great realism. It mastered the representation of empty spaces, resulting in many of his paintings a strong evocative power: thus in Excommunication of Robert the Pious , can you imagine the void that is around Robert the Pious by the first Plan creating a gap between the viewer and the subject, as on a stage. Laurens is also the author of major public works: the steel vault at the Paris city hall , Holy Death Genevieve in the Pantheon in Paris , François I and Marguerite of Navarre, sister, visiting printing Robert Estienne in 1899 in the university library of the Sorbonne , the ceiling of the Odeon theater ( 1888 ), the hall of Illustrious the Capitole de Toulouse , the dome and the home theater Castres . Designer outstanding, it illustrates the particular time Merovingian stories of Augustin Thierry . He was elected member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1891. Teachers appreciated by his students at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and at the Académie Julian , he has two son painters, Paul Albert Laurens ( 1870 – 1934 ) and Jean-Pierre Laurens ( 1875 – 1932 ), born its union in 1869 in Paris with Madeleine Villemsens, which will both teachers at the Académie Julian. He lived Taranne street in Paris in 1870 at the birth of his eldest son. He maintained a friendship with the family of André Gide , with Charles Peguy and Auguste Rodin who realized, in gratitude for his support during the controversy of alleged molding his statue The Age of Bronze, a painter bust including a bronze test is exhibited at the Museum of the Augustins in Toulouse. College Jean-Paul Laurens at Ayguesvives bears his name and a place of Yport (Seine-Maritime), in the village where he had built a large house from 1872. In 1903 , he built his mansion at 5 rue Cassini in Paris (14th) by architect Louis Sue , where he resided until his death in 1921.