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Nicolas Poussin the Representative of French Baroque

The Shepherds of Arcadia. Nicolas Poussin .1628. oil on canvas. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

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By Staff Middle Land

August 16, 2024
7:00 am
Los Angeles, CA

Nicolas Poussin was the 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 landscapes in his pictures. 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

Nicolas Poussin. Self-Portrait. 1649. oil on canvas. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

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 landscapes in his pictures. 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 Death of Germanicus.
Nicolas Poussin. 1627. oil on canvas. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

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.

Le massacre des Innocents.
Nicolas Poussin. 1625-1626. Oil on canvas. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons,)

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.

Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun. Nicolas Poussin. 1658. Oil on canvas. (Photo The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art comments on this painting as follows: Classical myth provided Poussin with a pretext for one of his greatest landscapes, executed with staid precision in the minute brushstrokes that the artist adopted late in life. According to the ancient Greek writer Lucian, the blind giant Orion was directed towards the healing rays of the sun by Cedalion, seen here instructing him while standing on his shoulders. The earth’s vapors rise towards the moon—represented by a watchful Diana—and will return as rain, a meteorological subtext that illustrates the circulation of elements. This poetic painting was commissioned by Michel Passart, an important Parisian patron of landscapes by both Poussin and Claude Lorrain.

The Agony in the Garden. Nicolas Poussin. 1626–27. Oil on copper. (Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art comments on this painting as follows: Poussin executed this painting just after arriving in Rome, when he was brimming with innovation and curiosity but had not yet attained a firm footing in the city’s art world. It soon entered the collection of Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo, the brother of Poussin’s most significant Roman patron, the antiquarian-connoisseur Cassiano dal Pozzo. A zigzag composition unites two scenes: Christ anticipates his mortal death by crucifixion while his disciples slumber. The foreground figures’ monumentality and the architecture document Poussin’s fascination with the classical world, while the treatment of light in this nocturnal scene and the cascade of putti come from his interest in Venetian Renaissance painters. Poussin’s rare use of a copper support made it a particularly precious artwork.

Original article: artvee.com