Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a small group of Italian and French collectors. He returned to Paris for a brief period to serve as First Painter to the King under Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, but soon returned to Rome and resumed his more traditional themes. In his later years he gave growing prominence to the landscape in his paintings. His work is characterized by clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. Until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for such classically-oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne.

Details of Poussin's artistic training are somewhat obscure. Around 1612 he traveled to Paris, where he studied under minor masters and completed his earliest surviving works. His enthusiasm for the Italian works he saw in the royal collections in Paris motivated him to travel to Rome in 1624, where he studied the works of Renaissance and Baroque painters—especially Raphael, who had a powerful influence on his style. He befriended a number of artists who shared his classicizing tendencies, and met important patrons, such as Cardinal Francesco Barberini and the antiquarian Cassiano dal Pozzo. The commissions Poussin received for modestly scaled paintings of religious, mythological, and historical subjects allowed him to develop his individual style in works such as The Death of Germanicus, The Massacre of the Innocents, and the first of his two series of the Seven Sacraments.

He was persuaded to return to France in 1640 to be First Painter to the King but, dissatisfied with the overwhelming workload and the court intrigues, returned permanently to Rome after a little more than a year. Among the important works from his later years are Orion Blinded Searching for the Sun, Landscape with Hercules and Cacus, and The Seasons.

Biography

Early years – Les Andelys and Paris

Nicolas Poussin's early biographer was his friend Giovanni Pietro Bellori, who relates that Poussin was born near Les Andelys in Normandy and that he received an education that included some Latin, which would stand him in good stead. Another early friend and biographer, André Félibien, reported that "He was busy without cease filling his sketchbooks with an infinite number of different figures which only his imagination could produce." His early sketches attracted the notice of Quentin Varin, who passed some time in Andelys, but there is no mention by his biographers that he had a formal training in Varin's studio, though his later works showed the influence of Varin, particularly by their storytelling, accuracy of facial expression, finely painted drapery and rich colors. His parents apparently opposed a painting career for him, and around 1612, at the age of eighteen, he ran away to Paris.

His early sketches gained him a place in the studios of established painters. He worked for three months in the studio of the Flemish painter Ferdinand Elle, who painted almost exclusively portraits, a genre that was of little interest to Poussin. Afterward, he is thought to have studied for one month in the studio of Georges Lallemand, but Lallemand's inattention to precise drawing and the articulation of his figures apparently displeased Poussin. and four illustrating battle scenes from Roman history. The "Marino drawings", now at Windsor Castle, are among the earliest identifiable works of Poussin. Marino's influence led to a commission for some decoration of Marie de' Medici's residence, the Luxembourg Palace, then a commission from the first Archbishop of Paris, Jean-François de Gondi, for a painting of the death of the Virgin (since lost) for the Archbishop's family chapel at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Marino took him into his household, and, when he returned to Rome in 1623, invited Poussin to join him. Poussin remained in Paris to finish his earlier commissions, then arrived to Rome in the spring of 1624.

First residence in Rome (1624–1640)

File:Nicolas Poussin - La Mort de Germanicus.jpg|Death of Germanicus, 1628, Minneapolis Institute of Art

File:'Venus_and_Adonis',_oil_on_canvas_painting_by_Nicolas_Poussin,_c._1628-29,_Kimbell_Art_Museum.jpg|Venus and Adonis, –1629, Kimbell Art Museum

File:Nicolas Poussin - L'Inspiration du poète (1629).jpg|The Inspiration of the Poet, 1629–30, Louvre

File:Nicolas Poussin - Le Martyre de Saint Érasme.jpg|The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus 1630, Vatican Museums

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Poussin was thirty when he arrived in Rome in 1624. The new Pope, Urban VIII, elected in 1623, was determined to maintain the position of Rome as the artistic capital of Europe, and artists from around the world gathered there. Poussin could visit the churches and convents to study the works of Raphael and other Renaissance painters, as well as the more recent works of Carracci, Guido Reni and Caravaggio (whose work Poussin detested, saying that Caravaggio was born to destroy painting). He studied the art of painting nudes at the Academy of Domenichino, and frequented the Accademia di San Luca, which brought together the leading painters in Rome, and whose head in 1624 was another French painter, Simon Vouet, who offered lodging to Poussin.

Poussin became acquainted with other artists in Rome and tended to befriend those with classicizing artistic leanings: the French sculptor François Duquesnoy whom he lodged with in 1626 in via dei Maroniti; the French artist Jacques Stella; Claude Lorrain; Domenichino; Andrea Sacchi; and joined an informal academy of artists and patrons opposed to the current Baroque style that formed around Joachim von Sandrart. Rome also offered Poussin a flourishing art market and an introduction to an important number of art patrons. Through Marino, he was introduced to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, the brother of the new Pope, and to Cassiano dal Pozzo, the Cardinal's secretary and a passionate scholar of ancient Rome and Greece, who both later became his important patrons. The new art collectors demanded a different format of paintings; instead of large altarpieces and decoration for palaces, they wanted smaller-size religious paintings for private devotion or picturesque landscapes, mythological and history paintings. In 1628, he was living on the via Paolino (Babuino) with Jean le Maire. This disappointment, and the loss of a competition for a fresco cycle in San Luigi dei Francesi, convinced Poussin to abandon the pursuit of large-scale, public commissions and the burdensome competitions, content restrictions, and political machinations they entailed. Instead, Poussin would re-orient his art towards private collectors, for whom he could work more slowly, with increasing control over subject matter and style.

Along with Cardinal Barberini and Cassiano dal Pozzo, for whom he painted the first Seven Sacraments series, Poussin's early private patrons included the Chanoine Gian Maria Roscioli, who bought The Young Pyrrhus Saved and several other important works; Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, for whom he painted the second version of The Shepherds of Arcadia; and Cardinal Luigi Omodei, who received the Triumphs of Flora (–32, Louvre). He painted the Massacre of the Innocents for the banker Vincenzo Giustiniani; the jewel thief and art swindler, Fabrizio Valguarnera, bought Plague of Ashdod and commissioned The Empire of Flora. He also received his first French commissions from François de Créquy, the French envoy to Italy, later, from Cardinal Richelieu for a series of Bacchanales. His house was at the foot of Trinité des Monts, near the city gate, where other foreigners and artists lived; its exact location is not known but it was opposite the church of Sant'Atanasio dei Greci. Aside from his self-portraits, Poussin never painted contemporary subjects.

Religion

File:Nicolas Poussin - Le massacre des Innocents - Google Art Project.jpg|Massacre of the Innocents, 1625–1629, Musée Condé, Château de Chantilly

File:Seven Sacraments - Ordination II (1647) Nicolas Poussin.jpg|The Seven Sacraments – Ordination, 1647, Louvre

File:Nicolas Poussin - The Judgment of Solomon - WGA18330.jpg|The Judgement of Solomon, 1649, Louvre

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Religion was the most common subject of his paintings, as the church was the most important art patron in Rome and because there was a growing demand by wealthy patrons for devotional paintings at home. He took a large part of his themes from the Old Testament, which offered more variety and the stories were often more vague and gave him more freedom to invent. He painted different versions of the stories of Eliazer and Rebecca from the Book of Genesis and made three versions of Moses saved from the waters. The New Testament provided the subject of one of his most dramatic paintings, "The Massacre of the Innocents", where the general slaughter was reduced to a single brutal incident. In his Judgement of Solomon (1649), the story can be read in the varied facial expressions of the participants.

The most famous of his religious works were the two series called The Seven Sacraments, representing the meaning of the moral laws behind each of the principal ceremonies of the church, illustrated by incidents in the life of Christ. The first series was painted in Rome by his major early patron, Cassiano dal Pozzo, and was finished in 1642. It was viewed by his later patron, Paul Fréart de Chantelou, who asked for a copy. Instead of making copies, Poussin painted an entirely new series of paintings, which was finished by 1647. The new series had less of the freshness and originality of the first series, but was striking for its simplicity and austerity in achieving its effects; the second series illustrated his mastery of the balance of the figures, the variety of expressions, and the juxtaposition of colors.

Mythology and classical literature

File:Nicolas Poussin - The Empire of Flora - Google Art Project.jpg|The Empire of Flora, 1631, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

File:L'Enlèvement des Sabines – Nicolas Poussin – Musée du Louvre, INV 7290 – Q3110586.jpg|The Rape of the Sabine Women, , Louvre

File:Nicolas Poussin - Apollo and Daphne - WGA18345.jpg|Apollo and Daphne, 1664, Louvre

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Classical Greek and Roman mythology, history and literature provided the subjects for many of his paintings, particularly during his early years in Rome. His first successful painting in Rome, The Death of Germanicus, was based upon a story in the Annals of Tacitus. In his early years he devoted a series of paintings, full of color, movement and sensuality, to the Bacchanals, colorful portrayals of ceremonies devoted to the god of wine Bacchus, and celebrating the goddesses Venus and Flore. He also created The Birth of Venus (1635), telling the story of the Roman goddess through an elaborate composition full of dynamic figures for the French patron, Cardinal Richelieu, who had also commissioned the Bacchanals. Many of his mythological paintings featured gardens and floral themes; his first Roman patrons, the Barberini family, had one of largest and most famous gardens in Rome. Another of his early major themes was the Rape of the Sabine Women, recounting how the King of Rome, Romulus, wanting wives for his soldiers, invited the members of the neighboring Sabine tribe for a festival, and then, on his signal, kidnapped all of the women. He painted two versions, one in 1634, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the other in 1637, now in the Louvre. He also painted two versions illustrating a story of Ovid in the Metamorphoses in which Venus mourning the death of Adonis after a hunting accident, transforms his blood into the color of the anemone flower.

Throughout his career, Poussin frequently achieved what the art historian Willibald Sauerländer terms a "consonance ... between the pagan and the Christian world". An example is The Four Seasons (1660–64), in which Christian and pagan themes are mingled: Spring, traditionally personified by the Roman goddess Flora, instead features Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden; Summer is symbolized not by Ceres but by the biblical Ruth.

A fertile source for Poussin was Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, who wrote moralistic theatrical pieces which were staged at the Palazzo Barberini, for his early patron. One of his most famous works, A Dance to the Music of Time, was inspired by another Rospigliosi piece. According to his early biographers Bellori and Felibien, the four figures in the dance represent the stages of life: Poverty leads to Work, Work to Riches, and Riches to Luxury; then, following Christian doctrine, luxury leads back to poverty, and the cycle begins again. The three women and one man who dance represent the different stages and are distinguished by their different clothing and headdresses, ranging from plain to jeweled. In the sky over the dancing figures, the chariot of Apollo passes, accompanied by the Goddess Aurora and the Hours, a symbol of passing time.

Legacy

In the years following Poussin's death, his style had a strong influence on French art, thanks in particular to Charles Le Brun, who had studied briefly with Poussin in Rome, and who, like Poussin, became a court painter for the King and later the head of the French Academy in Rome. Poussin's work had an important influence on the 17th-century paintings of Jacques Stella and Sébastien Bourdon, the Italian painter Pier Francesco Mola, and the Dutch painter Gerard de Lairesse.

A debate emerged in the art world between the advocates of Poussin's style, who said the drawing was the most important element of a painting, and the advocates of Rubens, who placed color above the drawing. During the French Revolution, Poussin's style was championed by Jacques-Louis David in part because the leaders of the Revolution looked to replace the frivolity of French court art with Republican severity and civic-mindedness. The influence of Poussin was evident in paintings such as Brutus and Death of Marat. Benjamin West, an American painter of the 18th century who worked in Britain, found inspiration for his canvas of The Death of General Wolfe in Poussin's The Death of Germanicus.

The 19th century brought a resurgence of enthusiasm for Poussin. French writers were seeking to create a national art movement and Poussin became one of their heroes: the founding father of the French School; he appears in plays, stories and novels as well as physiognomic studies.

In the 20th century, some art critics suggested that the analytic Cubist experiments of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were also founded upon Poussin's example. In 1963 Picasso based a series of paintings on Poussin's The Rape of the Sabine Women. Following in Picasso's footsteps, Herman Braun-Vega produced a series of twenty paintings in 1974 on The Rape of the Sabine Women in the Louvre, which he placed in perspective with the tragic events of his time. One of the paintings in this series, Poussin au quartier de porc, is part of the collection of the Centre National des Arts Plastiques. André Derain, Jean Hélion, Balthus, and Jean Hugo were other modern artists who acknowledged the influence of Poussin. Markus Lüpertz made a series of paintings in 1989–90 based on Poussin's works.

The finest collection of Poussin's paintings today is at the Louvre in Paris. Other significant collections are in the National Gallery in London; the National Gallery of Scotland; the Dulwich Picture Gallery; the Musée Condé, Chantilly; the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg; and the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Gallery

File:Nicolas Poussin - The Victory of Joshua over Amorites - Pushkin museum.jpg|The Battle between the Israelites and the Amorites, <abbr>c.</abbr> 1625, Pushkin Museum, Moscow

File:Cephalus and Aurora - Poussin - 1627-30 National Gallery, London.jpg|Cephalus and Aurora, 1627, National Gallery, London

File:Acis and galatea - Poussin -1629 - Dublin National Gallery of Art.jpg|Acis and Galatea, 1629, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

File:Vénus dormant avec l'Amour - 1627-1628, Dresde, Gemäldegalerie.jpg|Sleeping Venus with Cupid, 1630, , Dresden

File:Nicolas Poussin - Mars and Venus - Google Art Project (559039).jpg|Mars and Venus, , Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

File:Nymphe chevauchant un bouc - Nicolas Poussin - The Hermitage Museum.jpg|Venus, a Faun and Putti, 1630s, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

File:Poussin, Nicolas - The Adoration of the Magi - Google Art Project.jpg|The Adoration of the Magi, 1633, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

File:Nicolas Poussin - L'Enlèvement des Sabines (1634-5).jpg|The Abduction of the Sabine Women, –1634, Metropolitan Museum of Art

File:Nicolas Poussin - The Adoration of the Golden Calf - WGA18293.jpg|The Adoration of the Golden Calf, 1633–1634, National Gallery, London

File:The Crossing fo The Red Sea.jpg|The Crossing of the Red Sea, 1633–1634, National Gallery of Victoria

File:Nicolas Poussin - Helios and Phaeton with Saturn and the Four Seasons.jpg|Helios and Phaeton with Saturn and the Four Seasons,

File:Diane et Endymion 1630 Detroit Institute of Art.jpg|Diana and Endymion, 1630s, Detroit Institute of Arts

File:Nicolas Poussin, French - The Birth of Venus - Google Art Project.jpg|The Birth of Venus, 1635 or 1636

File:Nicolas Poussin - The Triumph of Pan, 1636.jpg|The Triumph of Pan, 1636, National Gallery, London

File:Nicolas Poussin - The Sacrament of Ordination (Christ Presenting the Keys to Saint Peter) - Google Art Project.jpg|Sacrament of Ordination (Christ Presenting the Keys to Saint Peter) , c. 1636–1640, Kimbell Art Museum

File:Nicolas Poussin - Landscape with Polyphemus - WGA18316.jpg|Landscape with Polyphemus, 1649, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

File:Sainte Famille - Poussin - National Gallery of Ireland.jpg|Holy Family, c. 1649, National Gallery of Ireland

File:Discovery of Achilles on Skyros by Nicholas Poussin ca. 1656 pubdom.jpg|Discovery of Achilles on Skyros, c. 1649–1650, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

File:Nicolas Poussin - The Holy Family with St Elizabeth and John the Baptist - WGA18338.jpg|The Holy Family with St Elizabeth and John the Baptist, c. 1655, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

File:Nicolas Poussin (French - Landscape with a Calm - Google Art Project.jpg|Landscape with a Calm, 1650–1651, Getty Center

File:L'Annonciation, vers 1655, Londres, National Gallery.jpg|The Annunciation, c. 1655–1657, National Gallery, London

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References

Citations

Sources

Arikha, Avigdor, The Rape of the Sabines (The Louvre version), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1983
Web.

External links

A 16min educational film about Nicolas Poussin
NicolasPoussin.org – 92 works by Nicolas Poussin
Julia L. Valiela, "The Baptism of Christ, by Nicolas Poussin (cat. 773)," in The John G. Johnson Collection: A History and Selected Works, a Philadelphia Museum of Art free digital publication.

Nicolas Poussin

Biography

Early years – Les Andelys and Paris

First residence in Rome (1624–1640)

Religion

Mythology and classical literature

Legacy

Gallery

See also

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading

Exhibitions

External links