Laurens was born in
Fourquevaux and was a pupil of
Léon Cogniet and
Alexandre Bida. Strongly
anti-clerical and
republican, his work was often on historical and religious themes, through which he sought to convey a message of opposition to monarchical and clerical oppression. His erudition and technical mastery were much admired in his time, but in later years his highly realistic technique, coupled to a theatrical
mise-en-scène, came to be regarded by some art-historians as overly didactic. More recently, however, his work has been re-evaluated as an important and original renewal of history painting, a genre of painting that was in decline during Laurens's lifetime. Laurens was commissioned to paint numerous public works by the
French Third Republic, including the steel vault of the
Paris City Hall, the monumental series on the life of
Saint Genevieve in the apse of the
Panthéon, the decorated ceiling of the
Odéon Theater, and the hall of distinguished citizens at the
Toulouse capitol. He also provided illustrations for
Augustin Thierry's
Récits des temps mérovingiens ("Accounts of
Merovingian Times"). Laurens was highly respected teacher at the , Paris, and a professor at the
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he taught
André Dunoyer de Segonzac and
George Barbier. He died in Paris, aged 82. Two of his sons,
Paul Albert Laurens (1870–1934) and
Jean-Pierre Laurens (1875–1932), both also became painters and teachers at the Académie Julian. ==Notable students==