Nicolas Poussin
French 1594-1665 Nicolas Poussin Galleries
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. The later version of Tancred and Erminia is at the Barber Institute in Birmingham. 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.
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. 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. Related Paintings of Nicolas Poussin :. | Gemaldefolge | Et in Arcadia Ego | The Nurture of Jupiter | Bighearted Sibiqiwo | The Companions of Rinaldo | Related Artists: Andrea Sacchi1559-1661
Italian
Andrea Sacchi Gallery
As a young man, Sacchi had worked under Cortona in Castel Fusano (1627-1629). But in a set of public debates later developed in the Roman Artist's Guild, Accademia di San Luca, he strongly criticized Cortona's exuberance. In particular, Sacchi advocated that since a unique, individual expression needs to be assigned to each figure in a composition, a painting should not consist of more than about ten figures. In a crowded composition, the figures would be deprived of individuality, and thus cloud the particular meaning of the piece. In some ways this is a reaction against the zealous excess of crowds in paintings by men such as Zuccari of the prior generation, and by Cortona among his contemporaries. Simplicity and unity were essential to Sacchi. Cortona argued that large paintings were more like an epic, that could avail themselves of multiple subplots. The encrustation of a painting with excess decorative details, including melees of crowds, would represent "wall-paper" art rather than focused narrative. Among the partisan's of Sacchi's argument for simplicity and focus were his friends, the sculptor Algardi and painter Poussin.
The controversy was however less pitched than some suggest, and also involved the dissatisfaction that Sacchi and Albani, among others, shared regarding the artistic depiction of low or genre subjects and themes, such as preferred by the Bamboccianti and even the Caravaggisti. They felt that high art should focus on exalted themes- biblical, mythologic, or from classic history.
Sacchi, who worked almost always in Rome, left few pictures visible in private galleries. He had a flourishing school: Poussin and Carlo Maratta were younger collaborators or pupils. In Maratta's large studio, Sacchi's preference for grand manner style would find pre-eminence among Roman circles for decades to follow. But many others worked under him or his influence including Luigi Garzi, Francesco Lauri, Andrea Camassei and Giacinto Gimignani. Sacchi's own illegitimate son Giuseppe, died young after giving very high hopes.
Sacchi died at Nettuno in 1661. MILLET, FrancisqueFrench Baroque Era Painter, 1642-1679
French painter. The little that is known about his life is derived from the chapter on Flemish, German and Dutch painting in Le Comte's work (1699). His oeuvre remains ill-defined, in part because he seems never to have signed his paintings and in part because after his death (by poisoning) both his son Jean Millet (c. 1666-1723) and later his grandson Joseph Millet (c. 1688-1777) took the name Francisque and continued to paint landscapes in his style. The firmest point of reference for attributions to Millet is a series of 28 engravings after his works made by one Theodore, possibly a pupil. They are all landscapes, some with religious, mythological or heroic genre subjects, Tom robertsBritish-born Australian Painter, 1856-1931
Australian painter of English birth. A leader of the HEIDELBERG SCHOOL and pioneer of plein-air Impressionism in Australia, he has been described as 'the father of Australian landscape painting'. Having moved to Melbourne in 1869, he studied at the East Collingwood and Carlton Schools of Design and the National Gallery of Victoria's School of Art (1874-81) while working as a photographic assistant. He led sketching expeditions with Frederick McCubbin and initiated student requests for reforms at the school. Returning to England, he enrolled in the Royal Academy Schools, London, on 6 December 1881, officially recommended by Edwin Long. In the summer of 1883 he toured Spain with the painter John Peter Russell. He learnt something of French Impressionism from Spanish art students Ramon Casas and Loreano Barrau (b 1864), and then followed the latter's advice to visit the Academie Julian in Paris. He returned to Melbourne in 1885 and the following year established the first summer camp at Box Hill with McCubbin and Louis Abrahams (1852-1903), portrayed in his painting the Artists' Camp (c. 1886; Melbourne, N.G. Victoria). According to the painter Arthur Streeton, it was Roberts's 'quick perception and expression of the principles of Impressionism in the year 1886,
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