Nicolas Poussin [compatibility Mode]

Nicolas Poussin (15 June 1594 Les Andelys – 19 November 1665 Rome)

Presented by: Abhishek Iyer Ananya Agarwal Chaitanya Dhruv Basu Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com)

Life, Times and Works • Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. • Poussin brought a new intellectual rigor to the classical impulse in art, as well as a unique, somewhat reticent poetry. • His sensitivity to the nuances of gesture, design, color, and handling, which he varied according to the theme at hand, permitted him to bring a very focused expression to his art and to create for each narrative a memorable and enduring form. • The wide range of his oeuvre includes scenes of subdued tenderness, bacchic revelry, mourning, righteous civic virtue, and other more difficult to identify states of mind or being.

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• 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. • 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. • There he entered the studios of the Flemish painter Ferdinand Elle and then of Georges Lallemand • After two abortive attempts to reach Rome, he fell in with Giambattista Marino, the court poet to Marie de Medici, at Lyon. 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,

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Poussin’s Subject matter • Some are themes of his own invention or subjects that no previous artist chose to depict; frequently his paintings carry a moral or philosophical message, or draw attention to man's precarious position in the universe. • They are inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, ancient history, certain stories from the Old Testament, and—late in his career—the seven Sacraments (The Confirmation, from the series of The Seven Sacraments, Collection of the Duke of Rutland, Belvoir Castle) conceived within the early Christian church.

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Et in Arcadia Ego orLes Bergers d’Arcadie-Late 1630’s

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Et in Arcadia Ego • "Et in Arcadia ego" is a Latin phrase that most famously appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin. • They are pastoral paintings depicting idealized shepherds from classical antiquity, clustering around an austere tomb. • The phrase is usually interpreted as a memento mori "Even in Arcadia I exist", as if spoken by personified Death. • The shepherds and shepherdess in this painting (1630s) by Nicholas Poussin have just come across a tombstone, on which they read the inscription, "Et in Arcadia ego."

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Adoration of the Shepherds 1631-33

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Early Years in Rome • In Rome, his patron having died, Poussin, who lodged at first with Simon Vouet. 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. • 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.

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The Death Of Geramanicus-1627

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• Some critics consider The Death of Germanicus (painted in 1627, in France, hanging in the The Minneapolis Institute of Arts), Nicolas Poussin’s early masterpiece, • The painting presents a linear, barelief-like scene with several emotional pivots, all induced by the death of the Roman general . • Lying on the bed and enshrouded in white, he is immediately recognized; the ghastly greenish tone of his face implies poisoning, the most probable cause of death according to historians. • Heroic gestures and stoic facial expressions, including that of Germanicus himself, decide the emotional current of the central scene, where the general and his officers are having a last words moment.

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• the women and the children near the bedside are particularly notable for adding a shade of naïve surprise (by the children) and compassion. • Two less forceful, though just as passionate scenes, enframe the central act with poignant resignation and sorrow – and diffuse the intensity in the center. • Pikes play manifold roles in the composition. Bursting from the single-block group of mourners, they resemble, as a visual metaphor, solar ejections: the telling signs of the tremendous heat and pressure within. On the other hand, their sharp and edgy tips also become a sublimation of the suffering below – and yet the same instruments deal and bring death, the very same theme of the painting.

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Rape of The Sabine Woman,Rome 1637-38

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• Romulus was King of Rome 753-715 B.C. When grown Romulus founded the city of Rome. • There is another story about Romulus in the story of "The Rape of the Sabine Women." It seems that Romulus needed wives for the men who had joined his city. • The Roman state had become strong enough to hold its own in war with all the peoples along its borders, but a shortage of women meant that its greatness was fated to last for a single generation, since there was no prospect of offspring at home nor any prospect of marriage with their neighbors. • Then, in accordance with the decision of the senate, Romulus sent messengers to the neighboring peoples to ask for alliance and the right of marriage for the new people.

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• All the Roman youths began to grab the women. Many just snatched the nearest woman to hand, but the most beautiful had already been reserved for the senators and these were escorted to the senators' houses by plebeians who had been given this assignment. • The Romans drove off the men, and took the women for their wives. The Sabine men did not give in so easily however. There was war between the Romans and the Sabines led by their king Titus Tatius. • . It was the women who finally brought peace to Rome. They persuaded their fathers not to fight their new husbands and the Romans accepted Titus Tatius as joint ruler with Romulus.

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Tancred and Erminia-Early 1630s

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• Shows an evolution from Poussin's early emulation of Caravaggio to a return to classicism. • Princess Erminia was a character in the epic poem La Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso. In this tale she falls in love with the Christian knight Tancred, and betrays her people to aid him. Once she discovers that Tancred is in love with Clorinde, however, she returns to join the Muslims. She subsequently steals Clorinde's armor then joins a group of shepherds. • The name Erminia is sometimes given as "Hermine". It is related to the name "Armina", the feminine form of "Armand".

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Poussin in France • Louis XIII conferred on him the title of First Painter in Ordinary. • 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. • In 1643, disgusted by the intrigues of Simon Vouet, Fouquières and the architect Jacques Lemercier, Poussin withdrew to Rome.

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Helios and Phaeton with Saturn and the Four Seasons

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Elements in Poussin’s works Christianity • In 1628, with Cassiano's help, Poussin received his only papal commission. The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus, painted for the Church of Saint Peter (now Vatican Museums)—one of his largest and most Baroque compositions. • he set off in his own direction. • Between 1633 and 1637 his subject matter shifted to the pageantry of the Old Testament (Adoration of the Magi), mythology (Bacchanals for Cardinal Richelieu, and ancient history (Rape of the Sabines, two versions).

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The Seven Sacraments-1630s 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. 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.

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• The darkness does two things:  Shows the reality of a supper in that time when there were no street lights.  Gives an ominous feeling to the setting, • Majestic yet solemn glow emanating from the lamp. • this was a foreshadowing of the gruesome crucifixion about to occur the next day. • Christ is seated with a very royal posture. • Jesus' upright posture makes Him stand out among the others.

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• Judas is sneaking out on the left. • Jesus had probably just announced that He was about to be betrayed. Judas sneaks out to get the job done. • Poussin represents primarily the institution of the Eucharist, but at the same time reminds the spectator of Christ's words: 'One of you shall betray me'. • The scene is set in a room of the utmost simplicity, without ornament, and articulated only with plain Doric pilasters. • Christ has given the bread to the apostles and is about to bless the cup.

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• The Sacraments, a microcosm of Poussin's art, reveal his working methods. It is known that he kept a small box rather like a miniature theatre, in which he arranged wax models and altered the lighting in order to help him with the layout of his complex compositions. He then made numerous rough drawings, trying out the compositions until the final solution was reached. • It is easy to see that all the interior scenes of the Sacraments are arranged like a theatrical tableau, which gives them their curiously static quality and enhances their gravity.

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The Gathering of Manna-1637-39

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• Manna-food that God gave the Israelites during the Exodus*(Old Testament). *Exodus-The second book of the Old Testament: tells of the departure of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt led by Moses; God gave them the Ten Commandments and the rest of Mosaic law on Mount Sinai during the Exodus. • Gathering of Manna is a large scale mythological painting (hanging in Louvre Museum, Paris) that conveys the dramatic force of the biblical divine act of the distribution of the Manna. • Poussin might have attempted to explore pantheistic and holistic ideas (and ideals) of the relationship of all humanity with God.

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• Even the expressions of surprise seem as a matter-of-fact, inevitable reactions; this is a drama but not a melodrama. •

Poussin credibly anchors a divine act in concrete reality and action.

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Seven Sacraments-Ordination 1636-40

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The Lamentation of the Christ-1628-31

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• The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends and family mourned over his body. This event has been depicted by many different artists. • Lamentation works are very often included in cycles of the Life of Christ, and also form the subject of many individual works. One specific type of Lamentation depicts only Jesus' mother Mary cradling his body. These are known as Pietà

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Christ and the Women taken in Adultery1653

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Baptism -1646

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Virgin and the Child 1625-27

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Virgin appearing to St.James 1627-29

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Landscape • In the late 1640s and early 1650s, at the height of his artistic maturity, Nicolas Poussin turned from historical narrative to landscape painting. Landscape with a Calm does not illustrate a story but rather evokes a mood. • The ordered composition and clear, golden light contribute to A Calm's utter tranquility, while glowing, gem-like colors and fluid paint strokes enliven this scene of benevolent nature. • Poussin painted a pendant to this painting, Landscape with a Storm, now in a museum in Rouen. Together their contrasting weather effects embody nature's changing and unpredictable relationship with man. Poussin painted these works for the Parisian merchant Jean Pointel, a friend a great collector of his landscape paintings. Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com)

Landscape-The Calm 1651

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Landscape-A Storm1651

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Landscape with a man Drinking-1637-40

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Landscape with St.Jerome

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Landscape with St.John on Patmos-1640s

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Landscape with St.Matthew and the Angel1645

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Landscape with ashes of Phocion collected by his widow-1648

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The Four Seasons-1594-1665 • The Four Seasons (fr Les Quatre Saisons) was the last set of four oil paintings completed by the French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665). The set was painted in Rome between 1660 and 1664 for the Duc de Richelieu, the nephew of Cardinal Richelieu. • Each painting is an elegiac landscape with Old Testament figures conveying the different seasons and times of the day. Executed when the artist was in failing health suffering from a tremor in his hands, the Seasons are a philosophical reflection on order in the natural world. • The iconography evokes the Christian themes of death and resurrection.

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Spring

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Summer

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Autumn

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Winter

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A Dance to the Music of Time, 1639

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• Time (at the right of the painting, playing a lyre) makes the music to which the four figures dance. The dancers have been variously interpreted: as the four seasons, in their endless round, or as four states of human life. • Two putti (little cherubic figures) sit in the foreground: one holds an hourglass, the other blows a bubble, indicating the ephemeral character of happiness. • The statue at the far left is Janus, the two-faced Roman god.

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Other works

The Plague of Ashdod--1630

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Venus and Adonis

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Triumph of David-1632-33

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St.Peter and John healing the Lame man

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Apollo and Daphne-1625

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Echo and Narcissus-mid 1630

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Thank You

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