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Baroque and Rococo
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Baroque and Rococo
Art Map |
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Le Nain
see collection:
Nicolas Poussin
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SCENES OF PEASANT LIFE BYTHE LE NAIN BROTHERS
Born in Laon, northeastern France, the three Le Nain brothers,
Antoine (c.1593-1648), Louis (c.1593-1648) and
Mathieu (c. 1607-77),
were already working in Paris when they were still very young. They
established themselves as portraitists as well as painters of the
grand manner, producing religious and mythological works. However,
their most interesting pictures are those of peasant life, such as
The Peasants' Meal (attributed to Louis Le Nain). These are works
that transcend genre painting: the everyday reality of the world of
humble people is captured with an absolute frankness of observation
that discloses the innate humanity of the subjects and their high
moral dignity. However, his weaknesses include a certain awkwardness
of composition.
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Le Nain
French family of painters. Antoine Le Nain (b ?Laon, c.
1600; bur Paris, 26 May 1648) and his brothers Louis Le Nain (b
?Laon, c. 1600; bur Paris, 24 May 1648) and Mathieu Le
Nain (b Laon, c. 1607; bur Paris, 26 April 1677)
lived together and shared a studio in Paris. Since the studio was headed
by Antoine, he is assumed to have been older than Louis. The brothers’
reputation rests on a number of paintings signed Le Nain, on the basis
of which other paintings (but no drawings) have also been attributed to
them. None of the signed paintings bears a Christian name, and there is
no secure way of attributing works to the individual brothers, although
many attempts have been made. Eighteenth-century sale catalogues,
fearful of anonymity, effectively chose from the three names at random.
Since the writings of Witt (1910) and Jamot (1922) in particular, it has
been habitual to ascribe small paintings on copper to Antoine, and
austere, larger peasant scenes to Louis. This division of hands will be
found in almost all the subsequent literature on the artists, although
it must be stressed that there is no evidence at all to support it.
Great efforts have also been made to identify works by Mathieu, since he
survived his brothers by nearly 30 years and presumably continued to
paint after their deaths in 1648. However, no such activity after 1648
is securely documented, and none of the surviving works bears a date
later than 1647; and the arguments for a separate Mathieu oeuvre, though
cogent, should not be regarded as conclusive. The outstanding feature of
the work of the Le Nain brothers, and the basis of their celebrity since
the mid-19th century, is the artists’ treatment of the poor.
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Le Nain
The Peasant Meal
1642
Oil on canvas, 97 x 122 cm
Musee du Louvre, Paris
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Le Nain
Peasant Interior
1642
Oil on canvas, 55,6 x 64,7 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington
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Le Nain
Smokers in an Interior
1643
Oil on canvas, 117 x 137 cm
Musee du Louvre, Paris
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Le Nain
The Supper at Emmaus
1645
Oil on canvas, 75 x 92 cm
Musee du Louvre, Paris
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Le Nain
Venus at the Forge of Vulcan
1641
Oil on canvas, 150 x 116,8 cm
Musee Saint-Denis, Reims
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see also collection:
Nicolas Poussin
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NICOLAS POUSSIN
The foremost interpreter of 17th-century classicism,
Nicolas Poussin
(1594-1665) studied first in Rouen and then in Paris, as a pupil of
Lallemand. He was familiar with the Fontainebleau Mannerists as well
as Raphael and his school, in 1624,
Poussin went to Bologna, where
he was influenced by the classicism of the
Carracci Academy and
Guido Reni before moving on to Rome. There, working alongside
artists such as Pietro da Cortona and
Giovanni Lanfranco, he
experimented with the use of colour in the style of
Titian (Death of Germanicus, 1627) During the years 1630 to 1640, he abandoned the
Baroque in favour of a rigorously classical style moving towards a
rational clarity and archaeological precision, seen in Rape of the Sabines. He was summoned to Paris in 1640 to oversee the decoration
of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre, as well as to paint altarpieces
and create frontispieces for the royal press. He decided to return
to Rome after only two years, and spent the rest of his life there.
Later, the Neoclassicists were to draw inspiration from his superb
late landscapes, which included The Funeral of Phocion (1648).
However, during the Romantic era, his reputation waned.
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Nicolas Poussin
Self-Portrait
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 Nicolas Poussin
Self-Portrait
(detail)
1650
At the left of the canvas there is a woman wearing a diadem with an eye. This
has been interpreted as an allegory: painting crowned as the greatest of the
arts.
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Nicolas Poussin
Self-Portrait
1650
Oil on canvas, 78 x 94 cm
Musee du Louvre, Paris
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 Nicolas Poussin
Self-Portrait
(detail)
1650
Portrait of the painter Nicolas Poussin of Les
Andelys (painted) at Rome during the Jubilee
Year of 1650, aged 56 vears.
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Nicolas Poussin's Self-Portrait, executed in 1650, is a
painted theory of art: a cryptogram containing the aesthetic
principles of an artist, who, since 1628, had spent most of
his working life in Rome. Poussin had done an earlier
version of the painting in 1649 (now in the Gemaldegalerie,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preubischer Kulturbesitz),
painted to replace a disappointing portrait of himself which
his Parisian patrons had commissioned from a Roman artist.
The most conspicuous motif of the earlier self-portrait is
the "memento mori". The artist presents himself before a
sepulchral monument - anticipating his own -flanked by putti;
the expression on his face is almost cheerful. Viewed from a
distance he appears to be smiling, while his head, inclined
slightly to one side, suggests a melancholic mood .
Cheerfulness in the face of death demonstrated the composure
of the Stoics, a philosophy for which Poussin had some
sympathy. The early self-portrait, too, contains an allusion
to Poussin's theory of art: the title of the book "De lumine
et colore" (On light and colour). Poussin's reference to
colour here is less surprising than Anthony Blunt, who
defined Poussin as a "partisan" of "disegno" (drawing,
design), would have us believe. In his correspondence with
Paul Freart de Chantelou, Poussin repeatedly defined the
analysis of light as the basis of all painting. In Poussin's
view, echoing earlier theories of art, colour was the
modification of light. Poussin was therefore not as radical
an advocate of the "designo - colore" antithesis as
doctrinaire Classicist historians of art theory have
suggested. His practice as an artist speaks against the view
of him as onesided; instead it betrays the influence of the
Venetian colourists, in whose work the world was suffused in
a golden light.
In the self-portrait at the Louvre the artist, wearing a
dark green gown and with a stole thrown over his shoulders,
is shown in a slightly different pose: posture is erect, his
head turned to present an almost full-
face view. His facial expression is more solemn, but also
less decided. Instead of funereal symbolism, the setting is
the artist's studio, lent a strangely abstract quality by a
staggered arrangement of three framed canvases, one behind
the other, whose quadratic structure is echoed by the dark
doorframe behind them. It is apparent that the canvas
nearest to us is empty, except for a painted inscription.
The empty canvas is a cipher for the "disegno interno"
(internal idea), or "concetto" (plan), a conceptual version
of the painting which, according to a theory formulated in
1590 by Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo ("Idea dell' tempio della
pittura"), precedes its practical realisation. Poussin's
emphasis of the painters ability to work with his intellect
concurs with the ideas of the philospher and poet. At the
left of the second canvas there is a woman in front of a
landscape, wearing a diadem with an eye; a man's hands are
reaching out to hold her
shoulders. This has - probably rightly -been interpreted as
an allegory: painting crowned as the greatest of the arts.
At the same time, the embrace is a symbol for the bond of
friendship between Poussin and his patron Chantelou.
A tiny, but highly significant detail is the ring Poussin is
wearing on the little finger of his right hand, which rests
on a fastened portfolio. Studied closely, the stone reveals
itself to be a diamond, cut in the shape of a four-sided
pyramid. As an emblematic motif, this symbolised the Stoic
notion of Constantia, or stability and strength of
character. Poussin was referring here both to his friendship
with Chantelou, and to his intention to remain firmly loyal
to the strict discipline of heroic Classicism. Popularised
by contemporary moralizing literature, the notion of
personal identity had begun to make itself felt in this era
for the first time, and constancy in a person's attitudes,
thoughts and conduct was its most important quality.
Poussin struggled to maintain his independence of mind and
loyality to his own ideals against the demands of the French
court, and, in so doing, articulated the growing sense of
autonomy of the ascendant bourgoisie.
Norbert Schneider
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 Nicolas Poussin
Self-Portrait
(detail)
1650
The ring holds a diamond, cut in the shape of a four-sided pyramid. As an
emblematic motif, this was the Stoic symbol of stabillity and strength of
character.
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 Nicolas Poussin
Self-Portrait
(detail)
1649 |
Nicolas Poussin
Self-Portrait
1649
Oil on canvas, 78 x 65 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin
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 Nicolas Poussin
Self-Portrait
(detail)
1649
Nicolas Poussin of Les
Andelys, Member of the Academy of Rome,
Principal Painter in Ordinary to Louis, the rightful King of
France.
Painted at Rome in the year of our Lord 1649, aged 55 years.
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see collection:
Nicolas Poussin
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Nicolas Poussin
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)
born 1594, Villers, near Paris, Fr.
died Nov. 19, 1665, Rome, Papal States [Italy]
17th-century French painter, a leader of pictorial classicism in the
Baroque period. Except for two years as court painter to Louis XIII,
he spent his entire career in Rome. His paintings of scenes from the
Bible and from Greco-Roman antiquity influenced generations of
French painters, including Jacques-Louis David, J.-A.-D. Ingres, and
Paul Cezanne.
Childhood and early travels
Poussin was born in a small hamlet on the Seine River, the son of
small farmers. He was educated at the nearby town of Les Andelys,
and he apparently did not show any interest in the arts until the
painter Quentin Varin visited the village in 1612 to produce several
paintings for the Church of Le GrandAndely. Poussin's interest in
the arts was awakened, and hedecided to become a painter. As this
was impossible in Les Andelys, he left his home, going first to
Rouen and then to Paris to find a suitable teacher. His poverty and
ignorance made this search very difficult. He found no satisfactory
master and studied at different times under several minor painters.
During this period Poussin endured great hardships and had to return
to his paternal home, where he arrived ill and humiliated.
Recovering after a year, Poussin again set out for Paris, not only
to continue his studies but also to pursue another aim. While
previously in Paris, he had been exposed to the art of the Italian
High Renaissance through reproductions of Raphael's paintings. These
engravings, according to his biographer Giovanni Battista Passeri,
inspired him to go to Rome, which was then the centre of the
European art world. But only in 1624 was Poussin successful in
reaching Rome, with the help of Giambattista Marino, the Italian
court poet to Marie de Medicis.
First Roman period
Marino commissioned Poussin to make a series of mythological
drawings illustrating Ovid's Metamorphoses. Poussin meanwhile
experimented with various painting styles then current in Rome, an
important influence being that of the Bolognese painter Domenichino.
Poussin's culminating work of this period was a large altarpiece for
St. Peter's representing the “Martyrdom of St. Erasmus” (1629). But
it was a comparative failure with the artistic community in Rome,
and Poussin never again tried to compete with the Italian masters of
the Baroque style on their own ground. Thereafter he would paint
only for private patrons and would confine his work to formats
rarely larger than five feet in length.
Between Poussin's arrival in Rome in 1624 and his departure for
France in 1640 he came to know many of Rome's most influential
people, among them Cassiano dal Pozzo, secretary to Cardinal
Barberini, whose rich collection of ancient Roman artifacts had a
decisive influence upon Poussin's art. Through Pozzo, who became
Poussin's patron, the French painter became a fervent admirer of
ancient Roman civilization. From about 1629 to 1633 Poussin took his
themes from classical mythology and from Torquato Tasso, and his
painterly style became more romantic and poetic under the influence
of such Venetian masters as Titian. Such examples of his work at
this time as “The Arcadian Shepherds” (1629) and “Rinaldo and Armida”
(c. 1629) have sensuous, glowing colours and manage to communicate a
true feeling for pagan antiquity.
In the mid-1630s Poussin began deliberately to turn toward Raphael
and Roman antiquity for his inspiration and to evolve the purely
classical idiom that he was to retain for the rest of his life. He
also began painting religious themes once more. He began with
stories that offered a good pageant, such as “The Worship of the
Golden Calf” (c. 1636) and “The Rape of the Sabine Women” (c. 1637).
He went on to choose incidents of deeper moral significance in which
human reactions to a given situation constitute the main interest.
The most important works that exemplify this phase are those in the
series of “Seven Sacraments” painted in 1634–42 for Pozzo. While
other artists painted in the style of the Roman Baroque, Poussin
tried in these works to fashion a style marked by classical clarity
and monumentality. This style was inspired by Roman pre-Christian
architecture and Latin books on moral conduct, as well as by the
nobility and greatness of Raphael's works, which, as he believed,
had renewed the spirit of antiquity.
Painter to Louis XIII
Between 1638 and 1639 Poussin's achievements in Rome attracted the
attention of the French court. Louis XIII's powerful minister
Cardinal Richelieu tried to persuade Poussin to return to France.
Eventually Poussin reluctantly acceded to this request, journeying
to Paris in 1640. Though received with great honours, Poussin
nevertheless soon found himself in trouble with the ministers of the
king as wellas with the French artists, whom he met with the utmost
arrogance. He was offered commissions for kinds of work he was not
used to nor really qualified to execute, including altarpieces and
the decoration of the Grande Galérie of the Louvre palace. What he
produced did not elicit the praise he expected, so he left Paris in
defeat in 1642 and returned to Rome. Unfortunately he did not live
to see his own style of painting accepted and eventually glorified
by the French Academy in the late 17th century.
Second Roman period
Many of Poussin's paintings on religious and ancient Roman subjects
done in the 1640s and '50s are concerned with moments of crisis or
difficult moral choice, and his heroes are those who reject vice and
the pleasures of the senses in favour of virtue and the dictates of
reason—e.g., Coriolanus, Scipio, Phocion, and Diogenes. Poussin's
painterly style was consciously calculated to express such a mood of
austere rectitude: such solemn religious works as “Holy Family on
the Steps” (1648; see photograph) exhibit only a few figures,
painted in harsh colours against the severest possible background.
In the landscapes Poussin began painting at this time, such as
“Landscape with the Body of Phocion Carried out of Athens” (1648)
and “Landscape with Polyphemus” (1649), the disorder of nature is
reduced to the order of geometry, and the forms of trees and shrubs
are made to approach the condition of architecture. The composition
in these paintings is worked out very carefully and has an unusual
clarity of structure.
Poussin's health declined from 1660 onward, and early in 1665 he
ceased to paint. He died that year and was buried in San Lorenzo in
Lucina, his Roman parish church.
Assessment.
Poussin believed in reason as the guiding principle of art, yet his
figures are never merely cold or lifeless. They may resemble figures
used by Raphael or ancient Roman sculptures in their poses, but they
retain a strange and unmistakable vitality of their own. Even in
Poussin's late period, when all movement, including gesture and
facial expression, had been reduced to a minimum, his forms
harmoniously combine vitality with intellectual order.
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Nicolas Poussin
Funeral of Phocion
1648
Collection of the Earl
of Plymouth, Oakley Park, Shropshire
The classical view of nature
and the outlines of the scattered buildings capture the viewer's
attention over
the sad and subdued historic episode taking place in
the foreground.
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see collection:
Nicolas Poussin
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