Self-Portrait by Nicolas Poussin, 1650, oil on canvas, 98 x 74 cm, Louvre

Nicolas Poussin (15 June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a French painter in the classical style. The Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre located in Paris is the world's most visited art museum a historic monument and a national museum of France Events 763 BC - Assyrians record a Solar eclipse that will be used to fix the Chronology of Mesopotamian history Events 1095 - The Council of Clermont, called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Painting (pān'tīng in Art, is the practice of applying Color to a Surface (support base such as e For the works or study of works from classical antiquity see Classics Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. Until the 20th century he remained the dominant inspiration for such classically oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David and Paul Cézanne. Jacques-Louis David (August 30 1748 &ndash December 29 1825 was a highly influential French painter in the Neoclassical style considered to be

He spent most of his working life in Rome except for a short period when Cardinal Richelieu ordered him back to France as First Painter to the King. Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2 This article is about a cardinal For information on the Russian also called The Red Eminence, see Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov.

Early career

Les Bergers d’Arcadie, late 1630s, oil on canvas, 85 x 121 cm, Louvre. "Et in Arcadia ego" is a Latin phrase that most famously appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin ( 1594 &ndash 1665) It is said that Poussin never painted a subject taken from later than the 12th century.

Rape of the Sabine Women, Rome, 1637-38, oil on canvas, 159 x 206 cm, Louvre

Nicolas Poussin's early biographer was his friend Giovanni Pietro Bellori,^[1] 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. The Rape of the Sabine Women ( rape in this context meaning " Kidnapping " ( Raptio) rather than its prevalent modern meaning Gian Pietro Bellori (also known as Giovanni Pietro Bellori or Giovan Pietro Bellori, 1613 - 1696 was a prominent biographer of the Italian Baroque Les Andelys is a commune in the Eure department in Haute-Normandie in northern France. Normandy (Normandie Norman: Normaundie) is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. Early sketches attracted the notice of Quentin Varin, a local painter, whose pupil Poussin became, until he ran away to Paris at the age of eighteen. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city There he entered the studios of the Flemish painter Ferdinand Elle and then of Georges Lallemand, both minor masters now remembered for having tutored Poussin. Flanders (Vlaanderen Flandre Flandern is a geographical region located in parts of present day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. He found French art in a stage of transition: the old apprenticeship system was disturbed, and the academic training destined to supplant it was not yet established by Simon Vouet; but having met Courtois the mathematician, Poussin was fired by the study of his collection of engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi after Italian masters. For practical purposes the history of French art has been divided into a series of separate articles accessible through the template to the right Academic art is a style of Painting and Sculpture produced under the influence of European academies or universities Simon Vouet ( 9 January 1590 - 30 June 1649) was a French painter and draftsman who helped introduce the Italian Baroque A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of Mathematics. Marcantonio Raimondi, also simply Marcantonio, (c 1480 &ndash c

After two abortive attempts to reach Rome, he fell in with Giambattista Marino, the court poet to Marie de Medici, at Lyon. Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2 Giambattista Marino (also Giovan Battista Marino; 14 October 1569 - 25 March 1625) was an Italian poet who was born in Marie de' Medici ( April 26, 1575 &ndash July 3, 1642) was Queen consort of France. ||-||} Lyon, also known as Lyons in English is a city in east-central France. Marino employed him on illustrations to his poem Adone (untraced) and on a series of illustrations for a projected edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses^[2], took him into his household, and in 1624 enabled Poussin (who had been detained by commissions in Lyon and Paris) to rejoin him at Rome. The Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid is a narrative poem

Early years in Rome

In Rome, his patron having died, Poussin, who lodged at first with Simon Vouet,^[3] fell into great distress, with the departure for Spain of his early patron Cardinal Francesco Barberini and the Cardinal's secretary, the antiquary Cassiano dal Pozzo, later a great friend and patron. Simon Vouet ( 9 January 1590 - 30 June 1649) was a French painter and draftsman who helped introduce the Italian Baroque Francesco Barberini seniore ( September 23, 1597 - December 10, 1679) was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588 — 1657 was an Italian scholar and patron of arts The return of Barberini from Spain in 1626 stabilized and renewed the patronage of the Barberini and their circle. Two major commissions at this period resulted in Poussin's early masterwork the Barberini Death of Germanicus, partly inspired by the reliefs of the Meleager sarcophagus,^[4] and the commission for St. Peter's that amounted to a public debut, the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus (1630), with echoes of Pietro da Cortona. Pietro da Cortona, byname of Pietro Berrettini ( November 1 1596 - May 16, 1669) was an Italian artist and architect of High Baroque Falling ill at this time, he was received into the house of his compatriot Gaspard Dughet and nursed by his daughter Anna Maria to whom, in 1630, Poussin was married. Gaspard Dughet (also known as Gaspard Poussin; 1613 - 27 May 1675) was a French painter. ^[5]

Poussin's Tancred and Erminia (early 1630s, oil on canvas, 98. Tancred ( 1072 - December 5 or December 12, 1112) was a Norman leader of the First Crusade who later became Prince Princess Erminia was a character in the epic Poem La Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso. 5 x 146. 5 cm, Hermitage Museum) shows an evolution from Poussin's early emulation of Caravaggio to a return to classicism. The State Hermitage Museum (Государственный Эрмитаж Gosudarstvennyj Èrmitaž) in Saint Petersburg, Russia is one of the largest Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, usually just known as Caravaggio, (28 September 1571 – 18 July 1610 was an Italian Artist active in Rome

He lodged with the sculptor François Duquesnoy, of an equally classicizing artistic temperament, befriended Domenichino and joined an informal academy of artists and patrons opposed to the current Baroque style that formed around Joachim von Sandrart. François Duquesnoy ( Brussels, January 12, 1597 &ndash July 12, 1643 in Livorno) was a prominent Baroque sculptor Domenico Zampieri (or Domenichino) ( October 21, 1581 &ndash April 15, 1641) was a prominent Italian Baroque An academy ( Greek Ἀκαδημία is an institution of higher learning research or honorary membership Baroque art redirects here Please disambiguate such links to Baroque painting, Baroque sculpture, etc Joachim von Sandrart ( May 12, 1606 - October 14, 1688) was a German art-historian and painter.

Among his first patrons, aside from Cardinal Francesco were: Cardinal Omodei, for whom he produced, in 1627, the Triumphs of Flora (Louvre); Cardinal de Richelieu, who commissioned a Bacchanal (Louvre); Vincenzo Giustiniani, for whom was executed the Massacre of the Innocents, of which there is a first sketch in the British Museum; Cassiano dal Pozzo, who became the owner of the first series of the Seven Sacraments (Belvoir Castle); and Paul Fréart de Chantelou, with whom in 1640 Poussin, at the call of Sublet de Noyers, returned to France. The Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre located in Paris is the world's most visited art museum a historic monument and a national museum of France This article is about a cardinal For information on the Russian also called The Red Eminence, see Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov. Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani ( 13 September 1564 - 27 December 1637) was an aristocratic Italian banker art collector and The British Museum is a Museum of human history and culture in London. Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588 — 1657 was an Italian scholar and patron of arts Belvoir Castle (pronounced Beaver) is a Stately home in the English county of Leicestershire, overlooking the Vale of Belvoir ( Paul Fréart de Chantelou (1609-1694 was a French collector He patronised and encouraged major artists of this era in particular Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665 and Gian

Poussin in France

Louis XIII conferred on him the title of First Painter in Ordinary. For the cognac see Louis XIII de Rémy Martin. Louis XIII ( September 27, 1601 – May 14, 1643) In two years at Paris he produced several pictures for the royal chapels (the Last Supper, painted for Versailles, now in the Louvre), eight cartoons for the Gobelins tapestry manufactory, the series of the Labors of Hercules for the Louvre, the Triumph of Truth for Cardinal Richelieu (Louvre), and much minor work. The Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal Château in Versailles, in France 's Île-de-France region The Manufacture des Gobelins is a Tapestry factory located in Paris, France, at 42 avenue des Gobelins near the Les Gobelins métro

In 1643, disgusted by the intrigues of Simon Vouet, Fouquières and the architect Jacques Lemercier, Poussin withdrew to Rome. Jacques Lemercier ( Pontoise c 1585 &ndash Paris January 13, 1654) was a French Architect and Engineer There, in 1648, he finished for de Chantelou the second series of the Seven Sacraments (Bridgewater Gallery), and also his noble Landscape with Diogenes (Louvre). Paul Fréart de Chantelou (1609-1694 was a French collector He patronised and encouraged major artists of this era in particular Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665 and Gian This painting shows the philosopher discarding his last worldly possession, his cup, after watching a man drink water by cupping his hands. ^[6] In 1649 he painted the Vision of St Paul (Louvre) for the comic poet Paul Scarron, and in 1651 the Holy Family (Louvre) for the duc de Créquy. Paul Scarron (c July 1610 - October 6, 1660) French Poet, Dramatist, Novelist and first Créquy (often spelled Créqui) a French family which originated in Picardy and Artois, and took its name from a small lordship of Créquy Year by year he continued to produce an enormous variety of works, many of which are included in the list given by Félibien.

He suffered from declining health after 1650, and was troubled by a worsening tremor in his hand, evidence of which is apparent in his late drawings. ^[7] He died in Rome on November 19, 1665 and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, his wife having predeceased him. Events 1095 - The Council of Clermont, called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land San Lorenzo in Lucina is a basilica of Rome, dating back to the 4th century and dedicated to Saint Lawrence, Roman Deacon and Martyr Chateaubriand in 1820 donated the monument to Poussin.

Poussin left no children, but he adopted as his son Gaspard Dughet (Gasparo Duche), his wife's brother, who became a painter and took the name of Poussin. Gaspard Dughet (also known as Gaspard Poussin; 1613 - 27 May 1675) was a French painter.

Works

The finest collection of Poussin's paintings, in addition to his drawings, is located in the Louvre in Paris. Besides the pictures in the National Gallery and at Dulwich, England possesses several of his most considerable works: The Triumph of Pan is at Basildon House, near to Pangbourne, (Berkshire), and his great allegorical painting of the Arts at Knowsley. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Basildon Park is a Country house situated in the English county of Berkshire, between the Villages of Upper Basildon and Lower Pangbourne is a large Village and Civil parish on the River Thames in the English county of Berkshire. Berkshire (ˈbɑːkʃə or /ˈbɑːkʃɪə/ say Baak-shuh/-sheer sometimes abbreviated to Berks) is a Home County in the South Knowsley Hall is a stately home near Prescot within the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, in Merseyside, England ( At Rome, in the Colonna and Valentini Palaces, are notable works by him, and one of the private apartments of Prince Doria is decorated by a great series of landscapes in distemper. For the art of designing external spaces see Landscape architecture.

Throughout his life he stood aloof from the popular movement of his native school. French art in his day was purely decorative, but in Poussin we find a survival of the impulses of the Renaissance coupled with conscious reference to classic work as the standard of excellence. The Renaissance (from French Renaissance, meaning "rebirth" Italian: Rinascimento, from re- "again" and nascere In general we see his paintings at a great disadvantage: for the color, even of the best preserved, has changed in parts, so that the harmony is disturbed; and the noble construction of his designs can be better seen in engravings than in the original. Among the many who have reproduced his works, Audran, Claudine Stella, Picart and Pesne are the most successful. Bernard Picart (1673-1733 was a French Engraver, son of Etienne Picart also an engraver

Poussin was a prolific artist. Among his many works are:

The Plague at Ashdod, 1630, oil on canvas, 148 x 198 cm, Louvre Museum

The Continence of Scipio, 1640, oil on canvas, 116 x 150 cm, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

• Some of the paintings by Poussin at the Louvre, Paris:
  • The Plague at Ashdod (1630)
  • Les Bergers d’Arcadie (late 1630s)
  • The Judgment of Solomon (1649)
  • The Blind Men of Jericho (1650)
  • The Adulteress (1653)

• A few of Poussin’s other paintings:
  • Adoration of the Golden Calf (National Gallery, London)
  • Holy Family on the Steps (National Gallery, Washington, D. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Russian Музей изобразительных искусств им The Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre located in Paris is the world's most visited art museum a historic monument and a national museum of France "Et in Arcadia ego" is a Latin phrase that most famously appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin ( 1594 &ndash 1665) C. )
  • Cacus (St. In Roman mythology, Cacus was a fire-breathing monster and the son of Vulcan. Petersburg)
  • The Testament of Eudamidas (Copenhagen)
  • The Rape of the Sabine Women (1636)
  • The Destruction of Jerusalem (1637)
  • Hebrews Gathering Manna (1639)
  • Moses Rescued from the Waters (1647)
  • Eliezer and Rebecca (1648)
  • Landscape with Polyphemus (1649)
  • Seven Sacraments (Double series - The first series was commissioned by Cassiano del Pozzo in the second half of the 1630s and was sold to the Dukes of Rutland in 1784. The Rape of the Sabine Women ( rape in this context meaning " Kidnapping " ( Raptio) rather than its prevalent modern meaning One of the seven, "Penance", was destroyed in a fire at the Rutland's Belvoir Castle in 1816, and "Baptism" was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC in 1939. The remaining 5 were still at Belvoir Castle at the time when Anthony Blunt wrote his catalogue in 1966. The second series was painted for Paul Freart de Chantelou from 1644-1648 and was acquired by the Dukes of Bridgewater in 1798. The paintings passed by descent to the Earls of Ellesmere, the last of whom became the Duke of Sutherland in 1964. All of the second series, which was commissioned by Chantelou, is currently on loan at the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh. ^[8] The images listed below are the remaining six paintings of the first series:

  1) Baptism (image)

  2) Ordination (image)

  3) Confirmation (image)

  4) Penance (image)

  5) Eucharist (image)

  6) Marriage (image)

  7) Extreme Unction (image)

  • A Dance to the Music of Time (1639-40), (Wallace Collection, London)

Legacy

Initially, Poussin's genius was recognized only by small circles of collectors. The Wallace Collection is a museum in London, with a world-famous range of fine and Decorative arts from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries with (In the two decades following his death, a particularly large collection of his works was amassed by Louis XIV. Early years Birth and ancestry Louis XIV was born in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 5 1638 and bore the Heir apparent )^[9] At the same time, it was recognized that he had contributed a new theme of "classical severity" to French art.

Benjamin West, an American painter of the 18th century who worked in Britain, based his canvas of the death of General Wolfe at Quebec on Poussin's example. Benjamin West RA ( October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was an Anglo - American painter of historical General James Wolfe ( 2 January, 1727 &ndash 13 September, 1759) was a British Army officer known for his training reforms Quebec (kwɨˈbɛk As a result, the image is one in which each character gazes with appropriate seriousness on Wolfe's death after securing British domination of North America.

Jacques-Louis David resurrected a style already known as "Poussinesque" during the French Revolution in part because the leaders of the Revolution looked to replace the frivolity and oppression of the court with Republican severity and civic-mindedness, most obvious in David's dramatic canvas of Brutus receiving the bodies of his sons, sacrificed to his own principles, and the famous death of Marat. Jacques-Louis David (August 30 1748 &ndash December 29 1825 was a highly influential French painter in the Neoclassical style considered to be The French Revolution (1789–1799 was a period of political and social upheaval in the History of France, during which the French governmental structure previously an

Nymph and satyrs, ca 1627 (National Gallery, London)

Throughout the 19th century, Poussin, available to the ordinary person's gaze because the Revolution had opened the collections of the Louvre, was inspirational for thoughtful and self-reflexive artists who pondered their own work methods, notably Cézanne, who strove to "recreate Poussin after nature", and the Post-Impressionists. The less thoughtful enjoyed the eroticism of some of Poussin's classicizing subjects (illustration, left).

In the twentieth century art critics have suggested that the "analytic Cubist" experiments of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were founded upon Poussin's example. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 Georges Braque ( May 13, 1882 &ndash August 31, 1963) was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor ^[10]

The most famous 20th-century scholar of Poussin was the Englishman Anthony Blunt, Keeper of the Queen's Pictures, who in 1979 was disgraced by revelations of his complicity with Soviet intelligence. Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 Bournemouth, Hampshire &ndash 26 March 1983 Westminster, London) known as Sir Anthony ^[11]

Today, Poussin's paintings at the Louvre reside in a gallery dedicated to him. The Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre located in Paris is the world's most visited art museum a historic monument and a national museum of France

See also

• Baroque
• Western painting
• History of painting

Notes

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911 is a 29-volume reference work that marked the beginning of the Encyclopædia Britannica The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone
• Blunt, Anthony (1966). The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: A Critical Catalogue. London: Phaidon. OCLC 349831
• Friedländer, Walter (1964). The OCLC Online Computer Library Center is according to its website a "nonprofit membership computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purpose Walter Ferdinand Friedlaender ( March 10, 1873 - September 8, 1966) was a German Art historian. Nicolas Poussin: A New Approach. New York: Abrams. 1964. OCLC 2922468
• Henry Keazor: Poussins Parerga. The OCLC Online Computer Library Center is according to its website a "nonprofit membership computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purpose Quellen, Entwicklung und Bedeutung der Kleinkompositionen in den Gemälden Nicolas Poussins. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1998, ISBN 3795411467
• Henry Keazor: Nicolas Poussin 1594-1665. Taschen, Hong Kong, Köln, London et al. , 2007, ISBN-10 3822853194/ISBN-13 978-3822853191
• Wright, Christopher (1985). Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné. New York: Hippocrene. ISBN 0870522183

Exhibitions

• Paris 1960. "Poussin peintre: retrospectif. " Galvanized the renewed interest in Poussin.
• Fort Worth 1988. "Poussin: The Early Years in Rome: The Origins of French Classicism. "
• New York City 2008. "Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions. " Metropolitan Museum of Art; Poussin's landscapes.

External links

• Landscape with the ashes of Phocion at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
• Nicolas Poussin at Gallery of Art
• Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Nicolas Poussin at Olga's Gallery
• extensive information regarding Poussin's patrons
•   "Nicolas Poussin". Catholic Encyclopedia. The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to today as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language Encyclopedia published by The Encyclopedia (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company.