Nicolas Poussin Biography

(born June 1594, Les Andelys, Normandy [now France]—died November 19, 1665, Rome, Papal States [now Italy]) French painter and draftsman who founded the French Classical tradition. He spent virtually all of his working life in Rome, where he specialized in history paintings—depicting scenes from the Bible, ancient history, and mythology—that are notable for their narrative clarity and dramatic force. His earliest works are characterized by a sensuality and colouristic richness indebted to Venetian art, especially to Titian; but, by 1633, Poussin had repudiated this overtly seductive style in favour of a more rational and disciplined manner that owed much to the Classicism of Raphael and antiquity. The artist executed the majority of his canvases in this intensely idealized style. Towards the end of his life, Poussin's art underwent a further transformation as he diversified to depict landscapes and a group of profoundly pantheistic allegorical works that were ultimately concerned with the order and harmony of nature. Though his reputation was eclipsed in the first half of the 18th century, it enjoyed a spectacular revival later that century in the Neoclassical art of Jacques-Louis David and his followers and has remained high ever since.

Beginnings

Born in or near the town of Les Andelys in Normandy, Poussin received an education in Latin and letters, but early on he showed an inclination for drawing. This talent was encouraged by the itinerant painter Quentin Varin, who visited Les Andelys in 1611–12 and became Poussin's first teacher. About 1612 Poussin departed for Paris, where he studied anatomy, perspective, and architecture and worked with the minor masters Georges Lallemand and Ferdinand Elle. During this period he was introduced to engravings after the masters of the Italian Renaissance; this work inspired in him such enthusiasm that he made two attempts to visit Rome, both abortive, between 1619 and 1622. Around 1622 Poussin executed six large tempera paintings for the Jesuits, and in the following year he received a commission for a painting in a Notre Dame chapel (none of these survives). The works for the Jesuits brought him to the attention of the Italian poet Giambattista Marino, who commissioned a series of drawings based on Ovidian mythology and encouraged Poussin to visit Italy. Despite persistent attempts to identify other works by Poussin of this period, the so-called “Marino drawings” are the only certain works to survive from his pre-Roman years.