French Baroque Era Painter, 1594-1665
French painter and draughtsman, active in Italy. His supreme achievement as a painter lies in his unrivalled but hard-won capacity to subordinate dramatic narrative and the expression of extreme states of human passions to the formal harmony of designs based on the beauty and precision of abstract forms. The development of his art towards this end was focused on the search for a point of equilibrium and synthesis between the forces of the Classical and the Baroque around which most critical debate in Rome was concentrated during the 1630s. Poussin did not aspire to the classicism of Raphael's idealized human forms or Michelangelo's re-embodiment of the physical splendours of the antique world, nor did he attempt to vie with the bravura and energy of Annibale Carracci's treatment of Classical mythology in the Galleria of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Equally he was not concerned with the illusionistic effects and heightened emotionalism of Baroque artists such as Pietro da Cortona and Lanfranco. He was concerned above all with interpreting his subject-matter, whether Classical or religious, and telling a story with the greatest possible concentration of emotional response, Related Paintings of POUSSIN, Nicolas :. | Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite | Summer (Ruth and Boaz) | The Destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem afg | The Assumption of the Virgin | Rebecca at the Well st | Related Artists:
Adolphe YvonAdolphe Yvon (1817-1893) was a French painter known for his paintings from the Napoleonic Wars. Yvon studied under Paul Delaroche, rose to fame during the Second Empire, then finished his career as a teacher.
Shortly after the end of the Crimean War in September 1855, Yvon was commissioned by the French government to paint a large picture of the capture of the Malakoff at Sevastopol. He sailed for the Crimea on February 19, 1856 where he spent six weeks compiling a portfolio of sketches, as well as visiting the battlefield of Inkerman. In 1857, the finished painting La Prise de la tour de Malakoff 8 septembre 1855 was shown at the Paris Salon, and two years later came La Gorge de Malakoff, and La courtine de Malakoff. La Prise was a massive piece measuring 6 metres by 9 metres and represented the moment when the fortification was captured around midday.
In the succeeding years, Emperor Napoleon III began to admire his battle scenes; naturally he glorified the carnage of Napoleon I's campaigns. Yvon became an officer of the Legion d'Honneur in 1867, and painted Napoleon III's portrait the following year (unlocated). Yvon was known as the leading teacher of drawing at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1863-83). A few Americans received instruction from him, including Christian Schussele, Alfred Wordsworth Thompson, William Sartain, and J. Alden Weir. The latter took Yvon's afternoon life-drawing class starting in the fall of 1874. Yvon provided the subject for compositional sketches for his students, for example, The Assassination of Julius Caesar, for which he specified how it should be done: Caesar covers his head with his toga.
Adriaen van de VenneDelft 1589-The Hague 1662
Dutch painter, draughtsman and poet. De Bie's account (1661) is the only known source on van de Venne's youth and training. He was born of 'worthy' parents who had fled to Delft from the southern Netherlands to escape war and religious strife. Inspired by his early study of Latin to become an illustrator, he was partly self-taught but also received instruction in painting and illumination from the otherwise unrecorded Leiden goldsmith and painter Simon de Valck. His second teacher, Hieronymus van Diest,
BRAY, Joseph deDutch painter (d. 1664, Haarlem