Baroque and Rococo
Charles Le Brun
Charles Le Brun(b Paris, bapt 24 Feb 1619; d Paris, 12 Feb 1690).
French painter and designer. He dominated 17th-century French painting as no other artist; it was not until over a century later, during the predominance of Jacques-Louis David, that artistic authority was again so concentrated in one man. Under the protection of a succession of important political figures, including Chancellor Pierre Séguier, Cardinal Richelieu and Nicolas Fouquet, Le Brun created a series of masterpieces of history and religious painting. For Louis XIV and his chief minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert he executed his greatest work, the royal palace of Versailles: an almost perfect ensemble of architecture, decoration and landscape. After Colbert’s death in 1683, he was no longer able to count on prestigious commissions and, apart from finishing the decoration of Versailles, he concentrated on smaller-scale religious painting.
Apotheose of Louis XIV
1677
Oil on canvas, 109,5 78,3 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
The Martyrdom of St. Andrew
