N poussin. Nicolas Poussin - French artist, founder of the classicism style

Nicolas Poussin(Nicolas Poussin) - great French artist, known as a master of painting in the style. He painted paintings in historical and mythological genres. Nicolas Poussin was born in 1594 in the city of Les Andelys in Normandy. I began to get interested in painting in my youth. Received his initial artistic education in Normandy. After he turned 18, he went to Paris, where he continued to study the art of painting. Here his teachers were such artists as Ferdinand Van Elle, Keten Varen, Georges Lallemand. He often visited the Louvre, where he copied paintings by famous artists, adopted the style of painting, and studied the subtleties and secrets of painting.

The art of Nicolas Poussin is divided into the first and second Parisian periods, and the first and second Italian periods. The artist's first Parisian period lasted from 1612 to 1623. This is the period of study and formation of the artist. The only surviving works from this period by Poussin are pen and brush drawings for Marino's poem.

From 1623 to 1640 the first Italian or first Roman period begins. Having gone to Italy in 1623, he remained here for the rest of his life, only returning to Paris for two years by order of the King of France. Second Parisian period 1640-1642 ended so quickly because many local artists, as well as courtiers, opposed his painting, which was so different from that accepted in France. As a result of hostility towards himself, he was forced to return to Italy. The second Italian period 1643-1665 is the last part of the artist’s life.

The great artist, who made an invaluable contribution to the development of classicism, died on November 19, 1665. Currently, his paintings are in the largest museums in the world, including the Paris Louvre, Moscow State Museum fine arts named after A.S. Pushkin, and the St. Petersburg Hermitage.

Self-portrait

Poet's inspiration

The Generosity of Scipio

Venus shows Aeneas a weapon

Marcus Furius Camillus releases the children of Faleria with their teacher who betrayed them

Midas and Bacchus

Narcissus and Echo

Shepherds of Arcadia

Worship of the Golden Calf

Rape of the Sabine Women

Birth of Bacchus

Sleeping Venus and the Shepherds

Dance to the music of time

Self-portrait. 1650

In his self-portrait, Nicolas Poussin portrayed himself as a thinker and creator. Next to him is the profile of the Muse, as if personifying the power of antiquity over him. And at the same time, this is an image of a bright personality, a man of his time. The portrait embodies the program of classicism with its commitment to nature and idealization, the desire to express the high civil ideals that Poussin’s art served.

Nicolas Poussin is a French artist, founder of the classicism style. Turning to themes of ancient mythology, ancient history, and the Bible, he revealed the themes of his contemporary era. With his works he raised a perfect personality, showing and singing examples of high morality and civic valor.

Nicolas Poussin was born on May 5, 1594 in Normandy, near the town of Le Andely. His father, a veteran of the army of King Henry IV (1553-1610), gave his son a good education. Since childhood, Poussin attracted attention with his penchant for drawing. At the age of 18 he goes to Paris to study painting. Probably his first teacher was the portrait painter Ferdinand Van Elle (1580-1649), the second was the historical painter Georges Lallemand (1580-1636). Having met the valet of the Dowager Queen Marie de' Medici, the keeper of the royal art collections and library, Poussin had the opportunity to visit the Louvre and copy paintings by Italian artists there. In 1622, Poussin and other artists were commissioned to paint six large paintings based on scenes from the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Xavier (not preserved).

In 1624 Nicolas Poussin went to Rome. There he studied art ancient world, works by masters of the High Renaissance. In 1625-1626 he received an order to paint the painting “The Destruction of Jerusalem” (not preserved); later he painted a second version of this painting (1636-1638, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum).

In 1627, Poussin painted the painting “The Death of Germanicus” (Rome, Palazzo Barberini) based on the plot of the ancient Roman historian Tacitus, which he considers a programmatic work of classicism; it shows the farewell of legionnaires to a dying commander. The death of a hero is perceived as a tragedy public importance. The theme is interpreted in the spirit of the calm and stern heroism of the ancient narrative. The idea of ​​the painting is service to duty. The artist arranged figures and objects in a shallow space, dividing it into a number of plans. This work revealed the main features of classicism: clarity of action, architectonics, harmony of composition, opposition of groups. The ideal of beauty in the eyes of Poussin consisted in the proportionality of the parts of the whole, in external orderliness, harmony, and clarity of composition, which would become characteristic features of the master’s mature style. One of the features creative method Poussin had a rationalism that was reflected not only in the plots, but also in the thoughtfulness of the composition.

In the period 1629-1633, the themes of Poussin's paintings changed: he less often painted paintings on religious themes, turning to mythological and literary subjects.

Narcissus and Echo, around 1629

Rinaldo and Armida. 1635

The plot of the picture is borrowed from the poem of the 16th century Italian poet Torquato Tasso “Jerusalem Liberated”. The sorceress Armida puts to sleep the young knight Rinaldo, who went on a crusade. She wants to kill the young man, but, captivated by his beauty, she falls in love with Rinaldo and takes him to her enchanted gardens. Poussin, the head of classical painting, interprets the medieval legend in the spirit of ancient myth. Completeness of composition and unity of rhythmic structure are the main features of Poussin’s art. The influence of Titian, whose work Poussin was interested in during these years, is felt in the coloring. The painting is a pair with “Tancred and Erminia”, stored in the State Hermitage.

Tancred and Erminia. 1630 - 40

The leader of the Amazons, Erminia, in love with the knight Tancred, finds him wounded after a duel with the giant Argant. The squire Vafrin lifts Tancred's motionless body from the ground, and Erminia, in an unbridled outburst of love and compassion, cuts off her hair with a sword in order to bandage the knight's wounds. Almost everything on the canvas is calm - Tancred lies powerless on the ground, Vafrin is frozen above him, the horses are motionless, Argant’s body is stretched out in the distance, the landscape is deserted and deserted. But Erminia’s pathetic movement bursts into this frozen silence, and everything around lights up with the reflected light of her uncontrollable spiritual ascent. The stillness becomes tense, strong and deep spots of color clash with each other in sharp contrasts, glimpses of an orange sunset in the sky become threatening and alarming. Erminia's excitement is conveyed to every detail of the picture, every line and highlight.

In 1640Poussin's popularityattracted the attention of Louis XIII (1601-1643) and, at his persistent invitation, Poussin came to work in Paris, where he received an order from the king to paint pictures for his chapels in Fontainebleau and Saint-Germain.

In the fall of 1642, Poussin again left for Rome. The themes of the paintings of this period were the virtues and valor of rulers, biblical or ancient heroes.

The generosity of Scipio. 1643

In the second half of the 40s, Poussin created the cycle “Seven Sacraments”, in which he revealed the deep philosophical meaning of Christian dogmas: “Landscape with the Apostle Matthew”, “Landscape with the Apostle John on the Island of Patmos” (Chicago, Institute of Arts).

End 40-x - early 50s - one of the fruitful periods in Poussin’s work: he painted the paintings “Eliazar and Rebecca”, “Landscape with Diogenes”, “Landscape with a High Road”, “The Judgment of Solomon”, “The Ecstasy of St. Paul”, "Arcadian Shepherds", second self-portrait.

Landscape with Polyphemus. 1648

In the last period of his creativity (1650-1665), Poussin increasingly turned to landscape, his characters were associated with literary and mythological subjects.

In the summer of 1660, he created a series of landscapes “The Four Seasons” with biblical scenes symbolizing the history of the world and humanity: “Spring”, “Summer”, “Autumn”, “Winter”.

Poussin's landscapes are multifaceted, the alternation of plans was emphasized by stripes of light and shadow, the illusion of space and depth gave them epic power and grandeur. As in historical paintings, the main characters are usually located in the foreground and are perceived as an integral part of the landscape.

The master’s last, unfinished painting is “Apollo and Daphne” (1664).

The love story of Apollo and Daphne is told by Ovid. Daphne gave her word to maintain chastity and remain celibate, like the goddess Artemis. Apollo, who sought the love of the beautiful nymph, caused her horror. It was as if she saw in him, through the blinding beauty, the ferocity of the wolf. But in the soul of God, heated by the refusal, the feeling flared up more and more.

Why are you running from me, nymph? - he shouted, trying to catch up with her. - I'm not a robber! Not a wild shepherd! I am Apollo, son of Zeus! Stop!

Daphne continued to run as hard as she could. The chase is getting closer, the girl can already feel Apollo’s hot breath behind her. Don't leave! And she prayed to Father Penei for help:

Father! Help your daughter! Hide me or change my appearance so that this beast does not touch me!

As soon as these words were spoken, Daphne felt that her legs were becoming stiff and sinking into the ground up to her ankles. The folds of clothes damp from sweat turn into bark, arms stretch out into branches: the gods turned Daphne into a laurel tree. In vain Apollo hugged the beautiful laurel; out of grief, he henceforth made it his favorite and sacred plant and decorated his head with a wreath woven from laurel branches.

By order of Apollo, the nymph's companions killed the son of the Peloponnesian king Oenomaus, Leucippus, who was in love with her and pursued her dressed in a woman's dress so that no one could recognize him.

Daphne, an ancient plant deity, entered the circle of Apollo, losing her independence and becoming an attribute of god. Before the Delphic oracle began to belong to Apollo, in its place was the oracle of the land of Gaia, and then Daphne. And later in Delphi victoriesParticipants in competitions were given laurel wreaths. Callimachus mentions the sacred laurel on Delos. The Homeric hymn speaks of oracles from the laurel tree itself. At the festival of Daphnephorius in Thebes, laurel branches were carried.

November 19, 1665NikolaPoussin died.INvery muchthe significance of his work for the history of painting. French artists before him were traditionally familiar with the art of Renaissance Italy. But they were inspired by the works of the masters of Italian mannerism, baroque, and caravaggism. Poussin was the first French painter to embrace the tradition of the classical style of Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. Clarity, consistency and orderliness of visual techniques, ideological and moral orientation of artPoussinlater his work made it a standard for the Academy of Painting and Sculpture of France, which began developing canons,aesthetic standardsand generally binding rules of artistic creativity.

Landscape with Diana and Orion. 1660 - 64

Diana - goddess of vegetation, obstetrician, personification of the moon, was identified with Artemis and Hecate. She was called Trivia - “goddess of three roads” (her image was placed at crossroads), which was also interpreted as a sign of Diana’s supreme power: in heaven, on earth and underground.

The sanctuaries of Diana are known on Mount Tifatina in Campania (hence the epithet Diana Tifatina) and in the Aricia region in a grove on Lake Nemi. Diana was considered the patron goddess of the Latin Union, and with the transition of primacy in this union to Rome, King Servius Tullius founded the Temple of Diana on the Aventine, which became a favorite place of worship for those who came from Latins, plebeians and slaves who moved to Rome or were captured; The anniversary of the founding of the temple was considered a holiday for slaves - servorum dies. This ensured Diana's popularity among the lower classes, who made up the numerous colleges of her admirers.

The temple of Diana on the Aventine is associated with a legend about an extraordinary cow, the owner of which was predicted that whoever sacrificed it to Diana in this temple would ensure power over Italy for his city. King Servius Tullius, having learned about this prediction, took possession of a cow by cunning, sacrificed it and attached its horns to the temple.

Diana was considered the personification of the moon, just as her brother Apollo was identified with the sun in late Roman antiquity. Subsequently she was identified with Nemesis and the Carthaginian heavenly goddess Celeste. In the Roman provinces, under the name of Diana, native goddesses were revered - “mistresses of the forest,” mother gods, givers of plant and animal fertility.

greekroman.ru/gallery/art_poussin.htm

Earlier:

But in 1624, Poussin chose Rome as his place of residence, and two years after his death he would be appointed the founder of classicism in his homeland.

The head of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, Charles Le Brun - an artist, but rather the most talented of stylists, at the very first meeting dedicated to the opening of the Academy - November 5, 1667, he will announce the succession of three painters: Raphael - Poussin, and the third will call himself - Le Brun, as a student and a copycat. And this rather bold generalization of painting, reducing it to three names, the last of which is now heard perhaps only by art historians, will have the colossal effect that we are witnessing. It is from this moment that the phenomenon of “academic doctrine” arises - Poussin’s works are elevated to the canon and this will destroy the artist’s self-worth, but will give the world of mediocrity the ease of compliance with a high school, denying true talent the right to search for the expression of his own thoughts.

Blind, unrestrained copying of a composition without comprehension, not supported by the fruits of reflection, ups and downs and readings - the cutting of one’s own thoughts - will show the world of art a dead-end path. The path of non-accomplishments. The path of ease of interpretation, the path devoid of the joy of independent discovery. After all, what can compare with “... painstaking work on an internal beautiful building erected above one’s own virtue, which is akin to working on a beautiful house, but inside of which we have the right to give preference not to painting or sculpture, to anything useful in the practical life of a person, because there is nothing more beautiful creating the very personality of a person,” writes A.F. Losev regarding the personality of any of the artists. The life and works of Nicolas Poussin are an expression of this philosophical thought.

As a sixteen-year-old boy, he fled on foot to Paris following Veren, the artist who painted the cathedral in that tiny Norman village where Nikola spent his childhood. He spends the first years of his life in the capital in service, eking out a life in poverty, having extremely rare hours to study, or rather to study the drawings of the greatest. He received his artistic education in the halls of the Louvre. But having overcome a huge number of obstacles, in the end, he will meet his Mariino - a poet, in whose service he will receive, in addition to shelter, the highest of educations - communication, and therefore the ability to think. Endless reflections, spiritual potency and fortitude - only they will not allow Poussin later, as a painter, to fall into any of the directions that weigh on everyone who decided to enter the art of the early 17th century: Velazquez, El Greco, Rembrandt, Rubens, Caravaggio - behind each from the names of the Universe. However, he came to art alone, on his own, detached.

Filled with love for Raphael and the thoughts of Mariino from the treatise “On the Important,” Poussin, from the beginning of his activity, will proclaim his inner plan as the source of impression. The world for him is an orchestra, existing according to the rules of harmony, where rhythm and proportionality are the main thing and where any thought will require precise, verified expression from the master. He will give the heroes of the paintings his “I” filled with daily heroism. And even an invitation to the French court, and the popularity that came to him, and the respect of the guild will not appear as temptations. He will remain truly stoic on his journey, defending the independence of his talent from the bustle of the court and the influence of the artistic era. And “... less than anyone else, he can be reduced to a narrow, school definition, can be characterized using a certain label, be it an eclecticist, a classicist or a formalist,” a researcher of his work, a famous art historian, will write about him XIX century O. Grautof.

Armida's gestures are usually described as “quivering and timid,” and her gaze as “a look filled with love.” But just as it is impossible to even try to imagine the apotheosis of classicism in the work of an artist who has not yet even decided on his direction, it is impossible to attribute to the subtle profile of this woman “the jubilant happiness of a passionate feeling.” In the “powerful evil sorceress,” as she is now commonly called, we see neither confidence nor triumph. There's not even love in it. Her stopped, absent gaze rather suggests that an abyss of magnificent horror is opening up before her. In this first glance, directed at the sleeping Rinaldo, she rather sees her destroyed kingdom, which is why her hand, with greedily outstretched fingers, froze in indecision.

But the rigid compositional structure does not give us the opportunity to hold our attention on it longer. By the will of the creator, the gaze inevitably turns to the group of servants who were holding back the horses. The composition is conceived in such a way that time begins to exist and operate within it; it is obvious that there are only a few moments to make the final decision.

This emphasized diagonal sets the vector of rapidity. But the flight of beautiful clouds, in which both the sun and thunderous notes live, which are ready to take us beyond the plot, will be stopped by the column on the right. It can be interpreted as a world axis holding the sky, and as an excess of composition and as a pillar on which those very destined predictions have long lived, but the main thing is that it is a vertical that will stop the movement and force us to switch to secondary characters.

The picture is divided into two planes. The lower one will give us peace and tranquility. Idyll. In the lower right corner we see the figure of a river deity, which is in incredible balance.

We won't notice it right away. Discreet glazes, light highlights on the gilded libation bowl and on the laurel wreath, the pose is almost exactly the same as the hero’s, but it sets a different pace. Next to her, Dionysus, the evil boy, reigns like a naughty boy, spewing out unknown, and therefore unimportant to Poussin, delights from the Horn of Plenty. He is here to remind us how “under the spell of Dionysus... enslaved nature itself again celebrates the holiday of reconciliation with its prodigal son - man.” And so Armida is modeled on her human nature, albeit in this conventional pastoral given by Poussin. She is ready to sacrifice magic for the sake of “simple” human love. Across the stream, which was previously intended to be a river, is the hero’s helmet, with living feathers on it in corpus lettering, and then a shield. And then the cupids frolic, completely earthly, the light playing on them. Two of them warn the heroine that very soon she will aim her bow at her Rinaldo. And an important attribute is the extinguished torch behind one’s back. This is an emblem of unhappy love, an emblem of the sorrow of unfulfilled expectations.

And Poussin’s mathematics is not accidental - all groups are multiples - two, four, six.

There is no peace at the top opposite. The trees and the mountain with their entire mass tend to the left. The horses turn to the right, rushing into the sky, and nearby the anxiety of two slaves flutters like sails. And the only magic of the picture is that the horses and chariot almost seem to be drowning in the clouds. Although the fastening of the cart is also wonderful, which, however, is unimportant to the artist. But what is important is the light that touches its edge, as if made of foil, just as thin and powerless. And we need this rattling of glare - it sets the time that the heroine does not have at all. It's sunset. That moment when she must leave our mortal world.

And the main thing here is rhythm. And in searching for it, the artist will resort not only to speculative, geometric, but also to hasty solutions, like general dynamics. He finds them right before his eyes - that half-bent leg of the hero, which was so “antiquely” bent in a dream, is repeated with the horse’s leg written and hastily, on top of the finished work, and that beautiful horizontal line suggested by Rinaldo’s very pose will be continued by little Dionysus. The rocks, rushing towards the edge of the picture, will strengthen the upper center but will present a centuries-old tree, as opposed to convention, decorated with light. And so it is in everything. Armida's hand directed towards Rinaldo is the hand of a servant who holds the horse by the bridle. The chubby little hand of a putti, in contrast to the mighty hand of a river deity. And the poses - the heroine will lean towards her lover, looking into him, and one of the cupids will also look into the shield. And so on. Almost architecture - balance, proportions, but only in addition to inevitability and thought, emotion.

After all, the main character here is the moment of decision making. The most acute choice that faces everyone, it doesn’t matter whether we choose that apple or that cup that we are ready to drink to the bottom. Isn't it in him to a greater extent does the person express himself? And are we so ready, foreseeing the end, to surrender ourselves irrevocably to the outcome? The sorceress Armida will surrender to her destiny. Before our eyes. Let him hesitate on the threshold.

However, it is indisputable to get rid of the impression that the artist managed to tell us the main thing without focusing on details and details. Broad hasty strokes, a huge number of conventions. One river, blocked at the top of the letter like a dam, is funny, conventional, but reasonable - Poussin would put dark color on the water so as not to distract from the main thing. And this lack of detail in the elaboration of details will give life to the composition.

And in contrast to artistic accidents, archaism will emerge from the shadows onto the stage, which will ultimately awaken classicism.

Three colors truly live in the space of the canvas - yellow, red, blue. Almost like an antique pediment. I.E. Pruss notes that: “deep reds, golden yellows and contrasting blue tones filled with the jubilant happiness of the passionate feeling awakened in the heroes.” However, in my opinion, it is more important to note here the fact that Poussin in this work rather refers to the “history of paint”. This master knows how to use color, he is capable of tonal play where even open red, orange and blue are in complete harmony against the background of ocher shades (“The Generosity of Scipio”). But in the work “Rinaldo and Armida”, it seems that the artist sets himself a slightly different task: to try to convey a picture of the world with the Polygnotus palette. This muted color looks too much like a meaningful decision, a conscious choice of an ascetic approach.

“Colors in painting are a seduction for the eye, like the beauty of verses in Poetry” - this is what we find in Poussin’s notebooks among the notes made while reading the second book of Tarquato Tasso’s Discourses. The artist rewrites some of the postulates for himself, replacing the word “painting” with the word “poetry”. IN in this case we see before us Tasso’s paraphrase about the grace and beauty of poetry, which is “seduction to the ear.” Thus, it is not the richness of shades of color that concerns the artist, but the arrangement and staging of figures, their existence in time - the coherence and progression of the story - “painting is nothing more than a reproduction of human actions,” he writes.

After all, here is selection and rhythm, elaboration of details, masterly mastery of the language of the characters’ inner impulses, plasticity, measured lines, dryness of composition - the famous “Poussin” visual mathematics comes almost close to creating a new style. It is things like this that will delight Louis David and give the history of art a “high style” filled with the poetics of a new myth, a myth addressed to Rome, a myth based on the cult of courage, reason and prudence, the stinginess and practicality of which gives rise to lightness and accessibility of the essence.

Scipio Africanus, one of the greatest commanders of antiquity, is incredibly far from us, however, as well as from Poussin’s contemporaries in his generosity - he does not take the most beautiful part of his booty. He returns his beloved to his beloved: the bride to the groom. But the image of the great warrior, conveyed through the thickness of time, does not contain individual features in the image - it is one in three faces. Only the beard distinguishes the hero from the groom bowing before him in prayer asking for his bride, and from the simple warrior in a blue cloak in the background, fairly surprised by the commander’s broad gesture. Only an accurate compositional structure, close in spirit to the Roman relief, and our own effort to understand will force us to become an accomplice. This devoid of specifics, distant and poetic image from the history of antiquity, through constructed artistic solutions, will allow one to come to the truth - there is order in the world of passions. Virtue crowns reason. For reason is higher than feelings. And the technical technique of the master’s retelling could not be more consistent with the task facing him. Poussin presents here the lesson of form filled with content so precisely that it is a negation of subjective perception. Regularity and logic are the basis. The greatness of virtue - here true hero. And it is no coincidence that the episode was chosen to be the moment when Rome asserted its dominance over the Ancient World. Carthage is destroyed.

In the work “Armida and Rinaldo” the appeal to antiquity is veiled. It arises slowly, from the depths. From the muted tones, from the understanding of the sculptural, plastic consciousness of the ancient Greeks. And no, we won't see any fighting here. There is no trace here of Bacon's theory of the "rationality of the passions" or the call to citizenship inherent in true classicism, or the assertion of rational generalizations. There is not and will not be a court of feeling that Descartes demanded. On the contrary, we are invited by the artist to the miracle of the birth of emotion. To sympathy. We will be forced to share the confusion and fascination in the face of the invincible power of the prepared, unknowable, fatal.

* Gendal. Rinaldo's Aria. Farewell to Armida.

Thus, without disturbing the natural course of history, from inspired Greek aesthetics, from the world of action of predestination, infused with subjectivity of feeling and the forces of natural spirits, Poussin comes to a world where the individual is opposed not by the cosmos of Heraclitus, but by the cosmos of the social - the world of other individuals, where the hero is declared to have a sense of internal discipline and unquestioning obedience mind.

The consciousness of a neophyte, just entering the path of research, rejects any classification, well, at least in relation to the pioneers of spirit and thought - those who are ahead of their time, those who take the courage, those who art belongs to the essence. And here a quote that essentially does not directly relate to the works of Poussin, even if it is from the largest Russian researcher of the creative path of this artist, would be most opportune. Yu.K. Zolotov in his report at the Vipper readings dedicated to painting XVIII century, and in particular when discussing Watteau, Boucher and Chardin, he states the following as a thesis: “The task of stylistics is not to adjust the creative characteristics of this or that artist to a predetermined category of style, but to concretely study real means of expression and their combinations. In the process of such analysis, the actual properties of style as a historical category emerge more clearly. The key importance in the style of studying art belongs to the problem creative personality. Above strong artistic individuals there is no universal style that subordinates them to its dictates, precisely because they are discoverers of new, unknown, expressive, that is, stylistic possibilities.”

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Jean Ingres Portrait of Nicolas Poussin. Detail of the painting "Apotheosis" 1827

Biography

Delacroix begins his historical essay about the artist: “Poussin’s life is reflected in his creations and is as beautiful and noble as they are. This is a wonderful example for anyone who decides to devote themselves to art.”

“My nature leads me to seek and love things that are perfectly organized, avoiding disorder, which is as disgusting to me as darkness is to light,” said Poussin himself.

Nicolas Poussin was born in the village of Villiers, between the Grand and Petit Andely on June 15, 1594.

His passion for art manifested itself already in childhood. It is known that Nikola, in his free time from school, did not part with an album and a pencil, making amazing progress in drawing.

He understood well that by remaining in the provinces, he would, at best, become a self-taught artist. Therefore, secretly from his parents, eighteen-year-old Poussin goes to Paris.

Penniless in his pocket, having neither noble patrons in the capital, nor even just acquaintances, he could have found himself in a hopeless situation. However, capricious fate itself came to his aid. In Paris, Poussin met a certain young chevalier from Poitou, who had a passion for art, and who sheltered the traveler. At this time, Nikola “looked everywhere for opportunities to learn something, but found neither teachers nor a system in Paris that could help him improve in art.”

For a long time he did not see a teacher he wanted to follow. Desperate to find a mentor among contemporary artists, he devoted himself with even greater zeal to the study of the great masters of antiquity and the Renaissance: classical art “was his mother’s milk during these years.” Naturally, the thought of a trip to Italy arose in his mind.

In 1624, Poussin, after several unsuccessful attempts, finally managed to get to Rome, where he devoted years to carefully studying and copying the old masters. Until the end of his life he believed ancient sculptors and Raphael by his teachers. Poussin studies geometry, optics, anatomy, and takes measurements of ancient monuments. He gets acquainted with the works on the theory of art by Durer, illustrates the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci. Poussin studies constantly and independently. He comprehends Latin and philosophy, and is known as an educated man.

A few years after he settled in Rome, Poussin began working on orders from Cardinal Barberini, his secretary, Cavalier Cassiano del Pozzo, and soon from other Roman aristocrats.

At the end of the twenties, Poussin painted the painting “The Death of Germanicus”, where he chose as the hero a Roman commander who dies at the hands of envious people.

A curious document has been preserved, testifying to the admiration that Poussin’s paintings that belonged to Barberini aroused - “The Capture of Jerusalem”, “The Death of Germanicus”. This is a letter from a certain Jacques Martin, a French physician. It tells that once, when in the cardinal’s office they were admiring a painting by Poussin, who had already gained fame, one young artist, “impatiently rushing to the Temple of Glory, but following, however, in the footsteps of others, for he knew perfectly well how long and difficult the path discoveries and an easy path to imitation, he asked permission to copy such a perfect original... Then contemplating both paintings and becoming convinced of their perfect similarity, he became proud, rejoicing at the happy result of the work. But suddenly he was seized with fear that he might be accused of stealing the original... or of wanting to forge the latter so well that the cardinal, not being able to identify his property, would leave it in his hands. Confused, he took both things to the cardinal's palace. He was surprised and called Poussin himself, so that he, holding out Ariadne’s thread to the audience, would lead them out of the labyrinth where they were lost... Poussin, looking at the paintings, was not like most artists who imagine that they gain fame by taking it away from others... He pretended that cannot recognize where his own creation is..."

Those present expected that the cardinal, like some kind of oracle, would resolve their doubts. “Both paintings should be preserved! - exclaimed His Eminence. “And pay tribute to the painter who managed to rediscover the secret of the reproduction of gold and precious stones!”

But there is another, much more compelling evidence of the recognition that Poussin had already achieved in Rome by this time. At the beginning of 1628, he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece for one of the side chapels of the Cathedral of St. Peter, where it was necessary to imagine the torment of St. Erasmus. It was a large order of public importance.

“Saint Erasmus is represented with his hands tied, thrown onto a bench. The executioner bending over the martyr rips open his stomach and pulls out his entrails, wrapping them around a wooden shaft.

The naked body of St., shaking with pain. Erasmus in no way resembles the classically beautiful bodies of the heroes of other paintings by Poussin. The artist, who until now had strived to create ideal images, was forced to sacrifice them for the sake of life-like persuasiveness and expression. He paints the naked body of the saint with almost naturalistic care, detailing folds of skin, swollen veins, and stretched tendons” (A.S. Glikman).

Although work on “The Torment of St. Erasmus" required a huge investment of time and effort, the artist managed to paint a number of paintings between 1627 and 1629: "Parnassus", "The Inspiration of the Poet", "The Salvation of Moses", "Moses Purifying the Waters of Marrah", "Madonna Appearing to St. . Jacob the Elder."

In 1629, Poussin became seriously ill and was forced to stop working for several months. He was helped by his compatriot, the pie maker Jean Duguay, who ran a tavern. Duguay and his family took on the burden of caring for the patient. Having recovered, the artist wooed eldest daughter Duguay - Marie-Anne. They married on September 1, 1630. Marie-Anne brought her husband a small dowry, which she received from the administration of the church parish. From now on, “he could get rid of the rented apartment, settle in his own house and, having found peace of mind, establish himself on his chosen path.”

In the early thirties, Poussin created a unique painting, “The Kingdom of Flora,” where figures and groups were combined in a complex composition, illustrating episodes from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” The painting “Tancred and Erminia” (Hermitage) dates back to the mid-thirties.

This is what N.A. says about these paintings. Livshits: “The Kingdom of Flora and Tancred and Erminia” are among Poussin’s paintings, distinguished by their subtle and rich development of color. But this group of works also fully fits within the framework of a certain pictorial system, which had already been developed by the artist by the beginning of the 30s. His drawing (i.e., the outlines of figures and objects) is always minted, as in an ancient relief. Color is usually based on pure local colors, among which the main role is played by indecomposable simple colors - blue, red, yellow. Poussin's light is always diffused and even. The nuances of tone are given sparingly and precisely. It is in this color system that Poussin achieves his greatest expressiveness.”

In 1632, Poussin was elected a member of the Academy of St. Luke. He leads a solitary life. Being a closed, unsociable person, he could not stand empty talk. He usually devoted his leisure hours to reading or viewing the collections of Urban VIII, Cardinal Barberini, Casiano del Pozzo and other major collectors.

Discarding specific and individual features in the appearance and character of a person, Poussin develops canons of beauty that are increasingly close to the ancient ones. But Delacroix rightly noted that in the works of ancient masters “Poussin studies man first of all, and instead of being content with the revival of the chlamys and peplum, he resurrects the courageous genius of the ancients in the depiction of human forms and passions.”

"As one of the best and characteristic works Poussin of the late thirties on a mythological plot can be called "Bacchanalia". The strict organization of the composition, subordinated to a clear, verified rhythm, does not exclude in it the feeling of a clear, restrained joy of being in its manifestations. Poussin solves other problems in the multi-figure composition “The Gathering of Manna” (1637–1639). Depicting exhausted, desperate people, suddenly delivered from starvation by divine providence, he strives to find expression of the feelings that gripped them in the plasticity of figures, in various movements and gestures. In this picture, a system of correspondence between plastic characteristics and gestures and the emotional content of the images, so characteristic of classicism, is formed. Like any system, it concealed the danger of schematism and normativity, which was reflected in the work of some artists who considered themselves followers of Poussin and replaced the expression of immediate feeling with a ready-made conventional device” (V.I. Razdolskaya).

By the end of the thirties, the artist's fame was growing. He is not forgotten in France, where he works on orders from French friends and admirers. His fame reached Louis XIII at the beginning of 1639, who, on the advice of Richelieu, summoned Poussin to court.

However, no one at court had an accurate idea of ​​Poussin’s style and creative capabilities. Apparently, he was simply seen as a famous master who could be entrusted with official orders from the court. Poussin did not want to go and delayed the trip for a long time, but at the end of 1640 he left for Paris, leaving his house and wife in Rome and hoping to return there as soon as possible.

A few months later (September 20, 1641), the artist writes to Rome: “...If I stay in this country for a long time, I will have to turn into a dirty fellow, like others who are here.” And here are fragments of another letter from April 1642: “I never knew what the king wanted from me, his most humble servant, and I don’t think anyone told him what I was fit for... It’s impossible for me to take on the frontispieces for books, and for the Mother of God, and for a painting for the congregation of St. Louis, for all the drawings for the gallery and at the same time making paintings for the royal tapestry workshops..."

At the end of 1642, Poussin left for Rome, promising to return, although he had no intention of doing so. The death of Louis XIII soon freed him from these obligations.

One of the most famous landscapes master - “Landscape with Polyphemus” (1649). Everything is grandiose in this landscape: the trees, the rocks, and Polyphemus himself. The combination of colors that predominate in the picture - green, blue, blue - gives the landscape great solemnity. This painting shows the artist’s admiration for the power, eternity and grandeur of nature. The figures of people serve only as a scale that makes one feel the grandeur of the world. The depiction of nature is the main thing in this painting by Poussin, and ancient myth suggested the plot of the work to the artist.

At the moment of the highest rise of poetic inspiration, Poussin created the second version of the painting “The Arcadian Shepherds” (1650–1655). This time the artist managed to reconcile the depth of feeling with the purity of mathematical construction.

“The painting is dedicated to a philosophical and at the same time elegiac reflection on death,” notes N.A. Livshits. - Poussin strives for a broad, general formulation of the issue and therefore refuses to tell a story about someone’s death, about the grief of people who have lost a loved one. It shows the feelings that arose at the sight of the lonely tomb of an unknown, forgotten person. This tomb rises among the free valleys of Arcadia - the legendary country of happy, honest, pure-hearted shepherds. They surround the forgotten tomb and read the words carved into it. "And I lived in Arcadia." This inscription, these words of the buried man addressed to the living, this reminder of their inevitable fate give rise to sadness and anxiety in the simple souls of the Arcadian shepherds. One of them is reading, bending over; the other, thoughtful and drooping, listens; the third, without lifting his hand from the sad words of the inscription, raises a hazy, questioning look at his companion. The only one female figure in this picture it is, as it were, the embodiment of that spiritual peace, that philosophical balance to which the entire rhythmic structure, the entire sound of this picture leads the viewer ... "

Poussin's creative path ends with the creation of a series of four landscapes (1660–1664), symbolizing the seasons and complemented by biblical scenes. This is the pinnacle of the master's landscape art.

“The inevitable movement of nature from life to death, from flowering to withering is inseparable in them from human destinies embodied in the episodes of the biblical legend,” writes V.I. Razdolskaya. - In “Spring”, against the backdrop of luxurious paradise vegetation, the first people are depicted - Adam and Eve. "Summer" is resolved as a majestic harvest scene, and the meeting of Ruth and Boaz is depicted against a background of golden loaves. “Autumn” is embodied in a harsh, sun-scorched landscape, against the backdrop of which the envoys of the Jewish people carry a giant bunch of Canaan, as if it had absorbed the life-giving juices of nature.”

The last painting, “Winter,” depicts a scene of a global flood. The elements are blind and merciless. “Winter” is written in a peculiar cold, “icy” coloring, permeated with a nagging feeling of impending doom. “Terrible beauty,” Goethe said about this painting.

Having finished “Winter” in 1665, he knew that he would not write anything else. He was not yet very old, but the titanic work undermined his health, and when his wife died, he realized that he would not survive this loss. A few months before his death (November 19, 1665), he wrote to his biographer Philibien in Paris, refusing to fulfill the order of one of the French princes of the blood: “It is too late, he can no longer be well served. I am sick and paralysis prevents me from moving. Some time ago I parted with my brush and am only thinking about preparing for death. I feel it with my whole being. I'm finished."

Biography

Nicolas Poussin (French Nicolas Poussin, 1594, Les Andelys, Normandy - November 19, 1665, Rome) - the founder of French classicism, the famous French historical painter and landscape painter.

Born in Normandy, he received his initial artistic education in his homeland, and then studied in Paris, under the guidance of Quentin Varenne and J. Lallemand.

In 1624, already a fairly well-known artist, Poussin went to Italy and became close friends in Rome with the poet Marino, who instilled in him a love of studying Italian poets, whose works provided Poussin with abundant material for his compositions. After Marino's death, Poussin found himself in Rome without any support.

His circumstances improved only after he found patrons in the person of Cardinal Francesco Barberini and Cavalier Cassiano del Pozzo, for whom he wrote The Seven Sacraments. Thanks to a series of these excellent paintings, Poussin was invited by Cardinal Richelieu to Paris in 1639 to decorate the Louvre Gallery.

Louis XIII elevated him to the title of his first painter. In Paris, Poussin had many orders, but he formed a party of opponents in the persons of the artists Vouet, Brequier and Mercier, who had previously worked on decorating the Louvre. The Vue school, which enjoyed the patronage of the queen, was especially intriguing against him. Therefore, in 1642, Poussin left Paris and returned to Rome, where he lived until his death.

Poussin was especially strong in landscape. Taking advantage of the results achieved in this type of painting by the Bolognese school and the Dutch living in Italy, he created the so-called “heroic landscape”, which, being arranged in accordance with the rules of a balanced distribution of masses, with its pleasant and majestic forms, served as a stage for him to depict an idyllic golden age .

Poussin's landscapes are imbued with a serious, melancholic mood. In depicting figures, he adhered to the antiquities, through which he determined the further path that the French school of painting followed after him. As a history painter, Poussin had a deep knowledge of drawing and a gift for composition. In the drawing he is distinguished by strict consistency of style and correctness.

He is credited with the fact that, thanks to the love of classicism, which he was able to instill in his compatriots, the taste for the pretentious and mannered that had developed among French artists was suspended for some time.

To the best historical paintings by Poussin, of which most of kept in the Louvre Museum, Paris, should be attributed to:

* "Global flood",
* "Death of Germanicus"
* "Taking of Jerusalem"
* « last supper»,
* "Rebekah"
* "The Harlot Wife"
* "Baby Moses"
* "Worship of the Golden Calf"
* “John the Baptist baptizing in the desert” and
* "Arcadian Shepherds".

The Imperial Hermitage possesses the 21st work by this master; The most interesting of them are:

* “Moses cutting out water from a stone” (No. 1394),
* “Esther before Artaxerxes” (No. 1397),
* “The Triumph of Neptune and Amphritrite” (No. 1400),
* “The Generosity of Scipio” (No. 1406),
* "Tancred and Erminia" (No. 1408)
and two historical landscapes (No. 1413 and No. 1414).

The Dresden Art Gallery exhibits:

* “Sleeping Venus and Cupid”,
* "Kingdom of Flora".

Engraved from Poussin's paintings were: Chateau, Poilly, Audran, Pein and Claudine Stella.

Biography

The famous French historical painter and landscape painter Nicolas Poussin was born on June 5, 1594 in Normandy. He received his initial artistic education in his homeland, and then studied in Paris, under the guidance of Quentin Varenne and J. Lallemand. In 1624, already a fairly famous artist, Poussin went to Italy and became close friends in Rome with the poet Marini. Thanks to a series of excellent paintings, in 1639 he was invited by Cardinal Richelieu to Paris to decorate the Louvre Gallery. Louis XIII elevated him to the title of his first painter. In Paris, Poussin had many orders, but he formed a party of opponents, represented by the artists Bye, Brequier and Mercier, who had previously worked on decorating the Louvre. Therefore, in 1642, Poussin left Paris and returned to Rome, where he lived until his death.

The best historical paintings by Poussin, most of which are kept in the Louvre Museum, in Paris include: “The Deluge”, “Germanicus”, “The Capture of Jerusalem”, “The Last Supper”, “Rebekah”, “The Harlot”, “Baby Moses” ", "The Adoration of the Golden Calf", "John the Baptist Baptizing in the Wilderness" and "The Arcadian Shepherds".

Sublime in imagery, deep in philosophical intent, clear in composition and design, paintings on historical, mythological, religious themes, affirming the power of reason and social and ethical norms (“Tancred and Erminia”, 1630s, “Arcadian Shepherds”, 1630s); majestic heroic landscapes (“Landscape with Polyphemus”, 1649; “Seasons” series, 1660-64).

Nicolas Poussin died in 1665.

NICOLA POUSSIN AND THE GRAIL

British codebreakers Oliver and Sheila Lawn, who worked on solving Nazi codes during World War II, began work to unravel the mystery of the “Shepherd Monument.” On this monument, located on Lord Lichfield's estate "Shagborough", there is a bas-relief, which is a copy of the famous painting by Nicolas Poussin "The Shepherds of Arcadia" in a mirror image. Under the bas-relief on the stone are carved letters that have haunted scientists for many centuries, including Charles Darwin - D.O.U.O. S.V.A.V.V.M. The inability to decipher the message, as well as other signs, suggested that the letters indicate the location of the Holy Grail. The main mistake, according to the Lone couple, is that until now researchers have focused on solving the inscription, while the information is encrypted in the entire composition, including the bas-relief. The fact is, the bas-relief has several strange differences from Poussin’s work. They, as well as the study of the artist’s life, are currently being studied by codebreakers. In particular, the bas-relief is related to the monument of the Knights Templar, which is associated with a parchment from Reims Cathedral with encoded text. In this text, scientists were able to make out the words: “Poussin... keeps the key.”

Baigent M. Sacred mystery. Excerpt from a book:

“Just a few kilometers from Gisors is the small town of Lezandeli, where Nicolas Poussin was born in 1594. But very soon he settled in Rome, from where he would come only on rare occasions, such as after 1640, when he was summoned by Cardinal Richelieu to complete an important mission.

Although the artist was little involved in politics and did not leave his refuge in Rome, he was closely associated with the Fronde. Proof of this is his correspondence, which reveals numerous friendships with participants in the anti-Mazarin movement and an unexpected familiarity with some of the “Frontiers” whose beliefs he seems to share.

Since we have already encountered the “underground river” Alfios, which flows from Arcadia to the feet of René of Anjou, we will now deal with the inscription inseparable from Poussin’s Arcadian shepherds: “Et in Arcadia ego” - “And here I am in Arcadia.”

This mysterious phrase appears for the first time in one of his previous paintings. The headstone, topped with a skull, is not a simple gravestone, but is built into the rock; in the foreground is a water deity with a beard, thoughtfully contemplating the earth: this is the god Alphios, who, of course, decides the fate of the underground river... This work dates from 1630-1635, that is, approximately five to ten years earlier than the famous version of “The Shepherds of Arcadia.”

The words "And here I am in Arcadia" appear in the History between 1618 and 1623 along with the painting Giovanni Francesco Guercino, which may have inspired Poussin in his work. Two shepherds emerging from the forest approach a clearing and a tombstone, on which the famous inscription and a large skull laid on the stone are very clearly visible. If the symbolic meaning of this painting is not known, then it is known that Guercino was very knowledgeable in the field of esotericism; it even seems that he was close to language secret societies, for some of his works are devoted to specific Masonic themes. Let us recall that lodges began to spread rapidly in England and Scotland twenty years earlier, and such a picture as "The Resurrection of the Master", painted almost a hundred years before this legend entered into the Masonic tradition, clearly refers to the Masonic legend of Hiram Abiff, architect and builder of Solomon's Temple.

The basis of the theory of classicism was based on the philosophical system of Descartes, the subject of art could only be the beautiful and sublime, and antiquity served as the ethical and aesthetic ideal. The creator of this trend in French painting in the 17th century was Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665).

In the next period of Poussin's work, the theme of the frailty and futility of the earthly appears. This new mood is beautifully expressed in his "Arcadian Shepherds". Philosophical theme interpreted by Poussin as if very simply: the action takes place only in the foreground, as in relief, a young man and a girl who accidentally came across a tombstone with the inscription “And I was in Arcadia” (i.e. “And I was young, handsome, happy and carefree - remember death."), look more like ancient statues. Carefully selected details, embossed patterns, balance of figures in space, even diffused lighting - all this creates a certain sublime structure, alien to everything vain and transient. Stoic reconciliation with fate, or rather, wise acceptance of death, makes classicism similar to the ancient worldview.

In the 1640s - 1650s, Poussin's color scheme, built on several local colors, became increasingly sparing. The main emphasis is on drawing, sculptural forms, and plastic completeness. Lyrical spontaneity disappears from the paintings. Landscapes remain the best of the late Poussin. The artist looks for harmony in nature. Man is interpreted primarily as a part of nature. The master was the creator of the classic, ideal landscape in its heroic form. The heroic landscape (like any classic landscape) by Poussin is not real nature, but “improved” nature, composed by the artist, because only in this form is it worthy of being the subject of depiction in art. His landscape expresses a feeling of involvement in eternity, reflection on existence. In the last years of his life, Poussin created a cycle of paintings “The Seasons” (1660-1665), which has a symbolic meaning and personifies the periods of earthly human existence.

Biography (F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron. Encyclopedic Dictionary)

(Poussin, 1594 - 1665) - famous French historical painter and landscape painter, was born in Normandy, received his initial artistic education in his homeland, and then studied in Paris, under the guidance of Quentin Varenne and J. Lallemand. In 1624, already a fairly well-known artist, P. went to Italy and became close friends in Rome with the poet Marini, who instilled in him a love of studying Italian poets, whose works gave P. abundant material for his compositions. After Marini's death, P. found himself in Rome without any support. His circumstances improved only after he found patrons in the person of Cardinal Francesco Barberini and the Cavalier Cassiano del Pozzo, for whom he wrote The Seven Sacraments. Thanks to a series of these excellent paintings, P. was invited by Cardinal Richelieu to Paris in 1639 to decorate the Louvre Gallery. Louis XIII elevated him to the title of his first painter.

In Paris, P. had many orders, but he formed a party of opponents, represented by the artists Vouet, Brequier and Mercier, who had previously worked on decorating the Louvre. The Vue school, which enjoyed the patronage of the queen, was especially intriguing against him. Therefore, in 1642, P. left Paris and returned to Rome, where he lived until his death.

P. was especially strong in the landscape. Taking advantage of the results achieved in this type of painting by the Bolognese school and the Dutch living in Italy, he created the so-called “heroic landscape”, which, being arranged in accordance with the rules of a balanced distribution of masses, with its pleasant and majestic forms, served as a stage for him to depict an idyllic golden age . Poussin's landscapes are imbued with a serious, melancholy mood. In depicting figures, he adhered to the antiquities, through which he determined the further path that the French school of painting followed after him. As a historical painter, P. had a deep knowledge of drawing and the gift of composition. In the drawing he is distinguished by strict consistency of style and correctness. He is credited with the fact that, thanks to the love of classicism, which he was able to instill in his compatriots, the taste for the pretentious and mannered that had developed among French artists was suspended for some time.

The best historical paintings by P., most of which are kept in the Louvre Museum in Paris, should include: “The Flood”, “Germanicus”, “The Capture of Jerusalem”, “The Last Supper”, “Rebekah”, “The Harlot Wife” ", "Baby Moses", "Adoration of the Golden Calf", "John the Baptist Baptizing in the Wilderness" and "The Arcadian Shepherds". The Imperial Hermitage possesses the 21st work by this master; The most interesting of them are: “Moses issuing water from a stone” (No. 1394), “Esther before Artaxerxes” (No. 1397), “The Triumph of Neptune and Amphritrite” (No. 1400), “The Temperance of Scipio” (No. 1406), “Tancred and Erminia" (No. 1408) and two historical landscapes (Nos. 1413 and 1414). Engraved from P.'s paintings were: Chateau, Poilly, Audran, Pein and Claudine Stella.

See Cambry, "Essai sur la vie et les ouvrages du Poussin" (P., vii); Gaul de St-Germain, "Vie de N. Poussin, consideré comme chef de l"école française" (P., 1806); H. Bouchit, "N. Poussin sa vie et son oeuvre, suivi d notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Ph. de Champagne et de Champagne le neveu" (P., 1858); Poillon, "Nicolas Poussin, étude biographique" (2nd ed., Lille, 1875).

The works of Nicolas Poussin (French painting XVII century )

The most famous artist of 17th century France who worked in the classical style is Nicolas Poussin. The main stages of his work are: his stay in Rome from 1624 (which brought to life his first famous works, written under the influence of the style of Raphael), life in Paris in 1640 - 1642 (where his best paintings on church themes were painted) and his last Roman a period that brought him fame as a master of historical landscape

A true classic of French painting of the 17th century was Nicolas Poussin (1593-1665), the great Norman, the most decisive representative of the Gallo-Roman movement French art, with a clear penchant for antiquity and the Renaissance of Raphael. He always subordinates individuality individual types the acquired Roman sense of beauty and yet imparts to all his works his own French imprint. The desire for internal unity, intelligible clarity and complete convincingness of the depicted episodes leads him not only to the extremely accurate execution of every gesture and expression, but also to the expression of the essence of every action, first experienced mentally and then clearly expressed in visual forms. He hates side pieces and unnecessary additions. Each of his figures plays a necessary, calculated and thoughtful role in the rhythm of the lines and in expressing the meaning of his painting. He adapts the very character of his landscapes, mostly borrowed from Roman mountain nature and playing an important role, sometimes even constituting the main thing in his paintings with small figures, to the nature of the episodes depicted. “I didn’t neglect anything,” he said himself. His art is primarily the art of lines and drawing. His colors, inconsistent, at first variegated, are then brought to a more general tone, sometimes dry and cloudy. IN best paintings However, truthful chiaroscuro reigns, playing with warm spots of light, and in the landscapes the noble outlines of mountains, luxurious deciduous trees are well distributed, and magnificent buildings in most cases are shrouded in ideal light full of mood. As a landscape painter, Poussin combined all the power of his Dutch and Italian predecessors with a clearer sense of unity and created a movement whose influence would reverberate for centuries. If we cannot admire Poussin’s strict classicism, we must still admit that he was able to express everything he wanted to say convincingly and with mood.

The history of Poussin's painting, sketched first by Bellori and Felibien, then by Bouchite, John Smith and Maria Gregham, and finally by Deniot and Adviel, begins in Rome, where he appeared in 1624. What he learned in his homeland from Quentin Varenne, in In Paris, with the Dutch Ferdinand Elle and Georges Lalemant, we do not know. The engravings of Raphael's school undoubtedly influenced his direction already in Paris. The mere fact that he copied the antique wall painting “Aldobrandine Wedding” in Rome characterizes everything he did. Roman development. The first known paintings, painted by him around 1630 in Rome for Cardinal Barberini, “The Death of Germanicus” in the Barberini Gallery and “The Destruction of Jerusalem,” copies of which are in the Vienna gallery, are arranged more concisely and more perfectly than later works, but already reveal all his most hidden qualities.

The seemingly vast area of ​​Poussin's subjects is limited almost exclusively to ancient mythology and history, the Old Testament and Christian themes, which he wrote with the same inner inspiration as pagan ones. Scenes of martyrdom were not to his liking. Of course, the main work of his first Roman period (1624-1640) for the church of St. Peter, replaced here by a mosaic copy of a large painting in the Vatican Gallery quite expressively depicts the martyrdom of St. Erasmus. Poussin, however, here too tries, as far as possible, to soften the terrible episode with a gentle sense of beauty. His most famous paintings from this period are: “The Rape of the Sabine Women”, “The Gathering of Manna” and the later “The Finding of Moses” in the Louvre, an early image of the “Seven Holy Gifts” in Belvoir Castle, “Parnassus”, made in the Raphaelian spirit, in Madrid and -Alexandrian-feeling "Pursuit of Syringa by Pan" in Dresden.

Of the paintings painted by Poussin during his two-year stay in Paris already as the “first master of the king” (1640-1642), “The Miracle of St. Xavier” in the Louvre reveals his best sides as a church painter. Sketches for the decoration of the Louvre Gallery are preserved only in Pena's engravings.

Of the numerous paintings of Poussin's last Roman period (1642-1665), the second series of "The Holy Sacrament" (Bridgewater Gallery, London) caused a stir with the depiction of the Last Supper in the form of a Roman triclinium with reclining guests. The latest landscape with Diogenes throwing a cup, in the Louvre, was painted in 1648. The pastoral idyll "Et in Arcadia ego" in the Louvre and the "Testament of Eudamides" in the Moltke Gallery in Copenhagen are among his most stylish works. We cannot list here his numerous paintings in the Louvre, London, Dulwich, Madrid, St. Petersburg, Dresden, etc. The works that gave him fame as the creator of the “historical” or “heroic” landscape, a magnificent and at the same time sincere painting with Orpheus and Eurydice of 1659 in the Louvre and four powerful landscapes of the same collection (1660-1664), with the four seasons animated by episodes from the Old Testament, belong to the last decade of his life.

Poussin personally educated only one student, his brother-in-law, born of French parents in Rome and died there, Gaspard Duguay (1613-1675), also called Gaspard Poussin. He developed the motifs of the Albanian and Sabine mountains into large, sharply stylized, ideal landscapes, already typical in the pattern of their "tree foliage", sometimes with thunderclouds and clouds, with figures like additions, in which he rather neglected the episode than antique costume or heroic nudity . He inhaled new life mainly in landscape murals, which have long been known in Italy. He decorated the palaces of the Roman magnates (Doria, Colonna) with extensive series of landscapes. In landscape frescoes with episodes from the history of the prophet Elijah in San Martino ai Monti, he brought to artistic perfection a special type of church painting, studied by the author of this book, widespread in Rome by the Belgian Paul Bril. Individual paintings Duguay has all more or less significant galleries. Typical are his landscapes with a storm and the "Tombstone of Caecilia Metella" of the Vienna Gallery. He is also valued as an engraver.

Biography (Great Soviet Encyclopedia)

Poussin (Poussin) Nicolas (1594, June, Les Andelys, Normandy, - 11/19/1665, Rome), French painter. The largest and most consistent representative of classicism in the art of the 17th century. He studied ancient art, as well as the works of Raphael, Titian, mannerist artists of the Fontainebleau school, masters of the Bolognese school, studied perspective, as well as anatomy and mathematics. In 1612 he came to Paris. Of P.'s early works, only drawings based on scenes from Ovid, Virgil and Titus Livy, commissioned by J. Marin (bistre, pen, circa 1622-24, Royal Library, Windsor). At the end of 1623 P. moved to Venice, and from the spring of 1624 he settled in Rome.

Trying to find its own compositional and coloristic structure for each subject, P. creates works that anticipate the harsh civic spirit of late classicism ("Death circa 1628, Institute of Arts, Minneapolis"), canvases in the Baroque spirit ("Martyrdom over Erasmus", circa 1628-29, Vatican Pinakothek), enlightened and poetic paintings on mythological and literary themes, marked by the special activity of the color system, close to the traditions of the Venetian school ("Sleeping Venus", Art Gallery, Dresden; "Narcissus and Echo", Louvre, Paris; "Rinaldo and Armida", Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin, Moscow; all three - around 1625-27; "Kingdom of Flora", circa 1631-1632, Art Gallery, Dresden; "Tancred and Erminia"). The classicist principles of painting are more clearly revealed in the paintings of the 2nd half of the 30s. (“The Rape of the Sabine Women,” 2nd version, circa 1635; “Israelites Gathering Manna,” circa 1637-39; both in the Louvre, Paris). \

The precise compositional rhythm that reigns in these works is perceived as a direct reflection of the rational principle, moderating base impulses and giving greatness to the noble deeds of man. In 1640-1642 P. worked in Paris at the court of Louis XIII (“Time saves Truth from the attacks of Envy and Discord,” circa 1641-42, Art Museum, Lille). The intrigues of court artists led by S. Vouet encourage P. to return to Rome. The ethical and philosophical pathos of his work is intensified in the works of the 2nd Roman period ("Moses cutting out water from a rock", Hermitage, Leningrad; "Eliazar and Rebecca", Louvre, Paris; both - around 1648; "Arcadian shepherds" or "Et in Arcadia ego", 2nd version, circa 1650, Louvre, Paris; "Rest on the way to Egypt", circa 1658, Hermitage, Leningrad).

Turning to ancient subjects or likening biblical and evangelical characters to heroes of classical antiquity, P. strictly selects artistic media to convincingly identify the moral meaning of a particular situation. P.'s Roman self-portrait (1650, Louvre, Paris) is imbued with stoic calm and faith in the high dignity of the artist's work. Since the 1640s P. is increasingly captivated by images of nature.

Developing the principles of an ideal landscape, P. represents nature as the embodiment of perfection and expediency; he introduces mythological characters into the landscape, as if personifying various elements ("Landscape with Polyphemus", circa 1649, Hermitage, Leningrad; "Orion", circa 1650-55, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), uses biblical and gospel tales, expressing (in the spirit of Stoicism) the idea of ​​supreme necessity or fate as the beginning that regulates the relationship between man and the world around him ("St. John on Patmos" (circa 1644-45, Institute of Arts, Chicago); a series of 4 paintings on the theme of the seasons ( circa 1660-65, Louvre, Paris); in the painting “Winter, or the Flood” that completes this series, reflection on the frailty of life is raised to the height of a universal tragedy). P.'s classicist credo is also expressed in his thoughts about art (for example, in the doctrine of “Modes” associated with the musical aesthetics of the 16th century, which determine the structure and emotional orientation of works of art).

Works: Correspondance, ., 1911; in Russian lane - Letters, M. - L., 1939.

Lit.: Volskaya V.N., Poussin, M., 1946; Grautoff O., Nicolas Poussin, sein Werk und sein Leben, Bd 1-2, Munch. - Lpz., 1914; Friedlander ., Blunt A. (ed), The drawings of Nicolas Poussin. (Catalogue), v. 1-4, L., 1939-63; Nicolas Poussin, v. 1-2, ., 1960; Blunt A., Nicolas Poussin, (v. 1-2,..., 1967); Badt K., Die Kunst des Nicolas Poussin, Bd 1-2, (oln), 1969.

Biography

Nicolas Poussin was born in 1594 in Normandy, near the town of Les Andelys. His father, a veteran of the army of King Henry IV (1553–1610), gave his son a good education. Since childhood, Poussin attracted attention with his penchant for drawing. At the age of 18 he goes to Paris to study painting. Probably his first teacher was the portrait painter Ferdinand Van Elle (1580–1649), the second was the history painter Georges Lallemand (1580–1636).

Having met the valet of the Dowager Queen Marie de' Medici, the keeper of the royal art collections and library, Poussin had the opportunity to visit the Louvre and copy paintings by Italian artists there.

In 1622, Poussin received the first commission in his life - to paint a series of paintings from the lives of the newly canonized saints Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier. The paintings were commissioned by the Parisian Jesuit community. They say that Poussin created the six large canvases included in the series in six days. Unfortunately, none of them reached us. Among those who took notice of these works by Poussin was Giovanni Battista Marino, an Italian poet who lived in Paris from 1615. He liked the young artist’s paintings so much that he ordered Poussin to create a series of drawings on mythological subjects. Eleven of these drawings have survived and are now kept in the Royal Library.

In 1624 Poussin went to Rome. There he studies the art of the ancient world, the works of masters of the High Renaissance. In 1625–1626 he received an order to paint the painting “The Destruction of Jerusalem” (not preserved), but later he painted a second version of this painting (1636–1638, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum).

The 1630s brought the master everything he could have hoped for. The artist met many wealthy collectors who had not only money, but also refined taste. Poussin's circle of clients was constantly expanding. Soon his fame reached his native France. In 1635, the artist had another admirer - Cardinal Richelieu himself. For him, he painted six paintings, united by the theme of bacchanalia (a somewhat strange choice for a clergyman).

By the end of the 1630s, Poussin's fame was already such that Richelieu considered it indecent for him to live outside of France. He set out to bring the “emigrant” back to his native lands. Nicolas Poussin rejected the cardinal's offers for quite a long time - even the most tempting of them. But soon, in Richelieu’s messages, among the hospitable and flattering roulades, threatening notes sounded. The matter was finally decided by a letter written to the master by Louis XIII himself. Poussin was reminded that he, after all, was a French subject, and he should not upset his beloved king with his refusals. I had to submit. In December 1640, the artist arrived in Paris.

The two years spent in Paris were the hardest in his life. He was immediately appointed manager of the decoration of the Long Gallery in the Louvre, which could not but arouse the envy of the court artists, who were riding like cheese in butter before the appearance of “this upstart.” Gossip, sidelong glances, dirty denunciations and intrigue - this is what surrounded Poussin in the French capital. He felt that a noose was being tightened around his neck, and dreamed of being in the silence of his workshop, away from court life.

However, no one at court had an accurate idea of ​​Poussin’s style and creative capabilities. Apparently, he was simply seen as a famous master who could be entrusted with official orders from the court. A few months later (September 20, 1641), the artist writes to Rome: “...If I stay in this country for a long time, I will have to turn into a dirty fellow, like others who are here.” And here are fragments of another letter from April 1642: “I never knew what the king wanted from me, his most humble servant, and I don’t think anyone told him what I was fit for... It’s impossible for me to take on the frontispieces for books, and for the Mother of God, and for a painting for the congregation of St. Louis, for all the drawings for the gallery and at the same time making paintings for the royal tapestry workshops..."

In September 1642, Poussin left Paris under the pretext of the illness of his wife, who remained in Rome. He ran without looking back, not thinking about the consequences of his action. Fortunately for him, both of his “high friends” - Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII - one after another left our sinful world. The artist was free again.

However, Paris brought more than sorrow to the master. There he met some wealthy art connoisseurs and continued to paint on their orders after his “flight” to Rome.

After returning to Italy, the artist increasingly painted landscapes. Nowadays, the main content of a work is often expressed through the image of distant expanses, the comparison of rectangular forms of architecture with lush tree crowns or sloping outlines of hills. In this case, the figures are necessarily present. They reveal and emphasize the main meaning of the work.

One of the master’s most famous landscapes is “Landscape with Polyphemus” (1649). Everything is grandiose in this landscape: the trees, the rocks, and Polyphemus himself. The combination of colors that predominate in the picture - green, blue, blue - gives the landscape great solemnity. This painting shows the artist’s admiration for the power, eternity and grandeur of nature. The figures of people serve only as a scale that makes one feel the grandeur of the world. The depiction of nature is the main thing in this painting by Poussin, and ancient myth suggested the plot of the work to the artist.

Poussin led a calm and measured life. Contemporaries tell us that he worked and read a lot, loved walks with friends and good conversation over a glass of red wine. Time took its toll. The passionate young man, who set out on foot for Paris, turned, in the words of a biographer, into “a wise old man with majestic posture and gaze.”

The end of the master's life was sad. By the mid-1650s, he had developed an illness involving severe tremors in his hands (now called Parkinson's disease). Need I say how difficult such an illness is for an artist? In October 1664, Poussin's wife, Anne-Marie, died. He was never able to recover from this blow. After spending whole year“in sadness and anguish, having lost the ground under his feet,” he followed his wife to the grave on November 19, 1665.

His favorite authors were Homer and Ovid. It is not surprising that antique themes predominated in Poussin’s paintings. He imagined Ancient Greece as an ideally beautiful world inhabited by wise and perfect people. Even in dramatic episodes In ancient history, he tried to see the triumph of love and supreme justice.

In one of the best works on the ancient theme, “The Kingdom of Flora” (1b31), the artist collected characters from Ovid’s epic “Metamorphoses,” who, after their death, gave life to various flowers that adorned the fragrant kingdom of the goddess Flora. The death of Ajax, throwing himself on the sword, the doom of the mortally wounded Adonis and Hyacinth, the suffering of the lovers Smila and Krokon do not overshadow the reigning jubilant mood. The blood streaming from Hyacinth's head turns into falling petals of wonderful blue flowers, a red carnation grows from Ajax's blood, Narcissus admires his reflection in a vase of water held by the nymph Echo. Like a colorful living wreath, the characters in the painting surround the dancing goddess. Poussin's canvas embodies the idea of ​​the immortality of nature, giving life eternal renewal. This life is brought to the heroes by the laughing goddess Flora, showering them with white flowers, and the radiant light of the god Helios, making his fiery run in golden clouds. Dancing Flora is in the center, and the rest of the figures are arranged in a circle, their poses and gestures are subordinated to a single rhythm - thanks to this, the entire composition is permeated with circular movement. The landscape, soft in color and gentle in mood, is painted rather conventionally and looks more like a theater set. The connection between painting and theatrical art was natural for the artist of the 17th century. - centuries of the heyday of the theater. The picture reveals an important idea for the master: the heroes who suffered and died untimely on earth found peace and joy in Flora’s magical garden.

Poussin was keen on the teachings of the ancient Stoic philosophers, who called for courage and preservation of dignity in the face of death. Reflections on death occupied an important place in his work; the plot of the painting “Arcadian Shepherds” (50s of the 17th century) is connected with them.

Residents of Arcadia (Arcadia is a region in the south of Greece (on the Peloponnese peninsula). In ancient Greek poetry it was glorified as a country of eternal prosperity, whose inhabitants did not know wars, diseases and suffering), where joy and peace reign, discover a tombstone with the inscription: “And I I was in Arcadia." It is Death itself that turns to the heroes and destroys their serene mood, forcing them to think about the inevitable future suffering. One of the women puts her hand on her neighbor’s shoulder, as if she is trying to help him come to terms with the idea of ​​an inevitable end. However, despite the tragic content, the artist calmly talks about the collision of life and death. The composition of the picture is simple and logical: the characters are grouped near the tombstone and are connected by hand movements. The figures are painted using soft and expressive chiaroscuro; they are somewhat reminiscent of antique sculptures.

Most of the plots of Poussin's paintings have a literary basis. Some of them are based on the work of the Italian Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso “Jerusalem Liberated,” which tells about the campaigns of the Crusader knights in Palestine.

The artist was not interested in military, but in lyrical episodes: for example, the love story of Erminia for the knight Tancred. Tancred was wounded in battle, and Erminia cut off her hair with a sword in order to bandage her lover’s wounds. Harmony and light dominate the canvas. The figures of Tancred and Erminia bending over him form a kind of circle, which immediately brings balance and peace to the composition. The coloring of the work is based on a harmonious combination of pure colors of blue, red, yellow and orange. The action is concentrated in the depths of space, the foreground remains empty, resulting in a feeling of spaciousness. A sublime, epically monumental work shows the love of the main characters (they belonged to the warring parties) as the greatest value, which is more important than all wars and religious conflicts.

Nicolas Poussin had few students, but he actually created a contemporary school of painting. The work of this master became the pinnacle of French classicism and influenced many artists of subsequent centuries.

The artist attached great importance to the rhythmic organization of the paintings; they are all pictorial pantomimes, in which, with the help of gestures and turns of figures, as if straight from ancient reliefs, the mental state of the characters was conveyed. This creative method, called “plastic contemplation,” was a consequence of Poussin’s deep passion for architecture. Ancient Rome and antique reliefs. To give the picture a certain emotional sound depending on the idea underlying the plot, Poussin developed his own theory of modes for painting, taking Aristotle’s system of musical modes as a basis.
- He used the strict “Dorian mode” to embody the theme of moral achievement and, as Poussin himself wrote, “to depict important, strict and full of wisdom subjects.”
- The sad “Lydian mode” was used to implement the theme of an idyll touched by sadness.
- The gentle “Aeolian mode” conveyed the theme of tenderness, softness, lightness, “filling the souls of the audience with joy.”
- The joyful “Ionian mode” embodied the theme of unbridled fun and violent emotions.
- The stormy “Phrygian mode” reflected the theme of a dramatic nature, being “powerful, frantic, leading people to amazement.”

Gradually, a set of norms developed in the painting of classicism, which artists had to strictly observe. These norms were based on the pictorial traditions of Poussin.

It was required that the plot of the picture contain a serious spiritual and moral idea that could have a beneficial effect on the viewer. According to the theory of classicism, such a plot could only be found in history, mythology or biblical texts. Main artistic values Drawing and composition were recognized, and sharp color contrasts were not allowed. The composition of the picture was divided into clear plans. In everything, especially in the choice of volume and proportions of figures, the artist needed to focus on ancient masters, primarily ancient Greek sculptors. The artist's education was to take place within the walls of the academy. Then he made sure to make a trip to Italy, where he studied antiquity and the works of Raphael.

Thus, creative methods have turned into a rigid system of rules, and the process of working on a painting has become an imitation. It is not surprising that the skill of classicist painters began to decline, and in the second half of the 17th century there was no longer a single significant artist in France.

Biography

The head of classicism painting was Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), the greatest French artist of the 17th century. Almost the entire life of the master was spent in Rome. In the atmosphere of the “eternal city,” he seemed to feel the living breath of antiquity and was imbued with the heroic ideals of the past. Poussin carried his admiration for antiquity throughout his entire work. Another source of inspiration for him was the art of the High Renaissance. In them he found that ideal of beauty and harmony, that clarity of spirit and significance of thought that he himself strived for. They remained a guiding thread in the quest of the master, who, however, came into contact with various artistic traditions, before his own style was finally formed.

Poussin's works in the museum's collection belong to different periods of his creativity and allow us to trace the evolution of his art.

“The Battle of Joshua with the Amorites” (mid-20s) is one of the earliest works of Poussin that have come down to us. The biblical legend tells how, during a battle, the Jewish commander Joshua called on the sun and moon, begging them to remain motionless. The sun stood still, the darkness dissipated, and the fierce battle could continue. The Amorites were defeated.

The composition of “Battle” shows, in particular, the influence of Roman reliefs: the horizon line raised to the upper edge, the space almost completely filled with figures; the dependence on sculptural examples is felt in the emphasized statuesqueness of the poses. The impression of depth is created by gradations of the volumes of the figures - from more convex in the foreground (while the artist strictly maintains the front plane) to less relief in the distance. Black and white contrasts model the plasticity of bodies and accentuate the stormy, rapid rhythm of movement.

Poussin said: “The theme must be noble... the content and plot must be majestic...” Poussin was attracted by heroic deeds, “sublime passions,” something that could serve as an example of moral standards; he wanted to create an image of an ideally beautiful world, where a harmonious person reigns, perfect in body and spirit.

The composition “Rinaldo and Armida” (early 30s) belongs to the most remarkable works of the museum collection. Its plot is borrowed from the poem “Jerusalem Liberated” by the 16th century Italian poet Torquato Tasso. One of its episodes tells how the sorceress Armida, in whose possession Rinaldo found himself, wanted to kill the knight, but, captivated by his beauty, fell in love with the young man and took him to her gardens. The main theme is the power, the greatness of feeling; and love in which they reveal best qualities a person, as it were, is equated by Poussin with a heroic, noble act.

The picture takes us into the world of enchanting beauty and sublime poetry. Beautiful are the heroes, whose austere beauty evokes images of ancient sculpture. In the figure of Armida, bending over the sleeping Rinaldo, there is a rush of admiration and tenderness, unknown to her before. They step lightly in the clouds, as if servant girls are floating in them; we admire the flexibility and slenderness of their bodies, their movements full of grace. The sun pours its light on Rinaldo and Armida, on the lovely cupids merrily playing with the knight’s armor; The river deity reclines majestically by the calmly flowing waters. The composition is clear and orderly. Smooth musical rhythm unites all forms and lines (for example, the figures of Rinaldo and Armida are connected into a plastically completed group) and coordinates the various elements of the composition with each other, giving it harmonious harmony.

The color scheme is dominated by three colors - red, golden yellow, and contrasting blue; their chord sounds most strongly in the group of main characters and, as it were, muffled in the rest of the picture. The color seems to be filled with the jubilant happiness of the passionate feeling that awakened in Armida. Rational clarity of artistic thought and lyrical inspiration merge into a single whole.

The works of the late 20s and early 30s captivate with this unique combination of logic and poetic imagination. During this period, Poussin often turned to themes from ancient mythology. The artist was then close to the feeling of happy harmony of existence, which was revealed to him in the legends of antiquity. The works of the “Arcadian cycle” include the painting “Satyr and Nymph”. The existence of these forest divine “spirits” and children of nature is filled with cloudless joy. Sunbeams play on the foliage and on their dark bodies. In the beautiful naked nymph drinking the wine-drink of happy oblivion, in the cheerful mischief of the satyr admiring the nymph, in his frank attraction to her, in warm colorful tones, as if pierced by the golden light of the sun, the pagan, sensual element of the Hellenic myth comes to life, but it is always covered Poussin has a special chaste purity. Reason, as it were, leads her into strict shores.

The next stage of the master’s work is represented by the painting “The Generosity of Scipio,” painted in the 40s. It is devoted to one of the most important problems in the aesthetics of classicism - the problem of the relationship between personal feeling and duty. Among the prisoners whom the Roman commander Scipio Africanus captured after the victory over Carthage was the beautiful Lucretia. Scipio was captivated by the girl’s beauty, but renounced his rights to the captive and returned Lucretia to her fiancé Aloceus.

Scipio is the image of a wise and fair ruler; his actions are driven by the consciousness of duty, his will triumphs over passions. Poussin's ancient plot sounds modern, touching on a topic relevant to the French reality of that time.

In Poussin's works of the 40s, the principles of classicism appear in their most distinct, extremely naked form. He strives to reveal with maximum clarity the meaning of what is happening, without distracting attention with unnecessary details that only “attract” the eye. Each of the main characters in the picture is the bearer of one feeling, one virtue. Secondary characters are a kind of accompaniment to the main action: like an ancient choir, they comment and explain the event. Glory crowns Scipio with a laurel wreath, solemnly seated on the throne. Poussin's pictorial language became more strict, dry, emotional expression - restrained, even stingy. The composition is designed to reveal the logic and rationality of what is happening. The space is easily visible, the plans clearly follow one after another. The characters are lined up along the front plane of the picture. A uniform rhythm connecting the figures (it is characteristic that their heads, as in an ancient relief, are on the same level), even diffused lighting, in which all elements of the picture are visible with equal clarity; clarity of linear design, laconicism and generality of forms, emphasized by smooth fused writing and local color, strict regularity in its repetition - everything should give the scene majesty and solemnity, emphasizing the significance of the hero’s action.

Biography (Nina Bayor)

Poussin, Nicolas (1594–1665) - famous French artist, founder of the classicism style. Turning to themes of ancient mythology, ancient history, and the Bible, Poussin revealed the themes of his contemporary era. With his works he raised a perfect personality, showing and singing examples of high morality and civic valor.

France 17th century was an advanced European state, which provided it with favorable conditions for development national culture, which became the successor to Renaissance Italy. The views of Descartes (1596–1650), widespread at that time, influenced the development of science, philosophy, literature, and art. Descartes - a mathematician, natural scientist, creator of philosophical rationalism - tore philosophy away from religion and connected it with nature, arguing that the principles of philosophy are derived from nature. Descartes erected into law the principle of the primacy of reason over feeling. This idea formed the basis of classicism in art. The theorists of the new style said that “classicism is a doctrine of reason.” Symmetry, harmony, and unity were proclaimed as the conditions for artistry. According to the doctrine of classicism, nature should have been shown not as it is, but as beautiful and reasonable; the classics at the same time declared that what is true to be beautiful, calling for learning this truth from nature. Classicism established a strict hierarchy of genres, dividing them into “high,” which included historical and mythological, and “low,” which included everyday life.

Nicolas Poussin was born in 1594 in Normandy, near the town of Les Andelys. His father, a veteran of the army of King Henry IV (1553–1610), gave his son a good education. Since childhood, Poussin attracted attention with his penchant for drawing. At the age of 18 he goes to Paris to study painting. Probably his first teacher was the portrait painter Ferdinand Van Elle (1580–1649), the second was the history painter Georges Lallemand (1580–1636). Having met the valet of the Dowager Queen Marie de' Medici, the keeper of the royal art collections and library, Poussin had the opportunity to visit the Louvre and copy paintings by Italian artists there. In 1622, Poussin and other artists were commissioned to paint six large paintings based on scenes from their life of St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Xavier (not preserved).

In 1624 Poussin went to Rome. There he studies the art of the ancient world, the works of masters of the High Renaissance. In 1625–1626 he received an order to paint the painting The Destruction of Jerusalem (not preserved), but later he painted a second version of this painting (1636–1638, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum).

In 1627, Poussin painted the painting The Death of Germanicus (Rome, Palazzo Barberini) based on the plot of the ancient Roman historian Tacitus, which he considers a programmatic work of classicism; it shows the farewell of legionnaires to a dying commander. The death of a hero is perceived as a tragedy of public importance. The theme is interpreted in the spirit of the calm and stern heroism of the ancient narrative. The idea of ​​the painting is service to duty. The artist arranged figures and objects in a shallow space, dividing it into a number of plans. This work revealed the main features of classicism: clarity of action, architectonics, harmony of composition, opposition of groups. The ideal of beauty in the eyes of Poussin consisted in the proportionality of the parts of the whole, in external orderliness, harmony, and clarity of composition, which would become characteristic features of the master’s mature style. One of the features of Poussin’s creative method was rationalism, which was reflected not only in the plots, but also in the thoughtfulness of the composition.

Poussin painted easel paintings mainly of medium size. In 1627–1629 he completed a number of paintings: Parnassus (Madrid, Prado), Inspiration of a Poet (Paris, Louvre), The Rescue of Moses, Moses Purifying the Waters of Marah, Madonna Appearing to St. James the Elder (Madonna on a Pillar) (1629, Paris, Louvre). In 1629–1630, Poussin created the Descent from the Cross, remarkable in its power of expression and the most vitally truthful (St. Petersburg, Hermitage).

In the period 1629–1633, the themes of Poussin’s paintings changed: he less often painted paintings on religious themes, turning to mythological and literary subjects. Narcissus and Echo (c. 1629, Paris, Louvre), Diana and Endymion (Detroit, Art Institute). Particularly noteworthy is the cycle of paintings based on Torquatto Tasso’s poem Jerusalem Liberated: Rinaldo and Armida (c. 1634, Moscow, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts). The idea of ​​the frailty of man and the problems of life and death formed the basis of the early version of the painting The Arcadian Shepherds (1632–1635, England, Chasworth, private collection), to which he returned in the 50s (1650, Paris, Louvre). On the canvas Sleeping Venus (c. 1630, Dresden, Picture Gallery) the goddess of love is represented earthly woman while remaining an unattainable ideal. The painting Kingdom of Flora (1631, Dresden, Picture Gallery), based on the poems of Ovid, amazes with the beauty of its pictorial embodiment of ancient images. This is a poetic allegory of the origin of flowers, which depicts heroes of ancient myths transformed into flowers. Poussin soon painted another version of this painting - The Triumph of Flora (1632, Paris, Louvre).

In 1632 Poussin was elected a member of the Academy of St. Luke.

Poussin's enormous popularity in 1640 attracted the attention of Louis XIII (1601–1643) to his work, at whose invitation Poussin came to work in Paris. The artist received an order from the king to paint pictures for his chapels in Fontainebleau and Saint-Germain.

In the fall of 1642, Poussin again left for Rome. The themes of his paintings of this period were the virtues and valor of rulers, biblical or ancient heroes: The Generosity of Scipio (1643, Moscow, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts). In his canvases he showed perfect heroes, faithful to civic duty, selfless, generous, while demonstrating the absolute universal ideal of citizenship, patriotism, and spiritual greatness. Creating ideal images based on reality, he consciously corrected nature, accepting the beautiful from it and discarding the ugly.

In the second half of the 40s, Poussin created the Seven Sacraments cycle, in which he revealed the deep philosophical meaning of Christian dogmas: Landscape with the Apostle Matthew, Landscape with the Apostle John on the Island of Patmos (Chicago, Institute of Arts).

The end of the 40s - the beginning of the 50s was one of the fruitful periods in Poussin’s work: he painted the paintings Eleazar and Rebecca, Landscape with Diogenes, Landscape with a High Road, The Judgment of Solomon, The Ecstasy of St. Paul, Arcadian shepherds, second self-portrait.

In the last period of his creativity (1650–1665), Poussin increasingly turned to landscape; his characters were associated with literary and mythological subjects: Landscape with Polyphemus (Moscow, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts). In the summer of 1660, he created a series of landscapes “The Four Seasons” with biblical scenes symbolizing the history of the world and humanity: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Poussin's landscapes are multifaceted, the alternation of plans was emphasized by stripes of light and shadow, the illusion of space and depth gave them epic power and grandeur. As in historical paintings, the main characters are usually located in the foreground and are perceived as an integral part of the landscape. The master's last, unfinished painting is Apollo and Daphne (1664).

The significance of Poussin's work for the history of painting is enormous. French artists before him were traditionally familiar with the art of Renaissance Italy. But they were inspired by the works of the masters of Italian mannerism, baroque, and caravaggism. Poussin was the first French painter to embrace the tradition of the classical style of Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. The clarity, consistency and orderliness of Poussin’s visual techniques, the ideological and moral orientation of his art later made his work a standard for the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which began developing aesthetic norms, formal canons and generally binding rules of artistic creativity.

Biography (encyclopedic Dictionary)

(Poussin) (1594-1665), French painter. The founder of classicism in European art. Sublime in imagery, deep in philosophical intent, clear in composition and design, paintings on historical, mythological, religious themes, affirming the power of reason and social and ethical norms (“Tancred and Erminia”, 1630s; “Arcadian Shepherds”, 1630s). He also painted majestic heroic landscapes (“Landscape with Polyphemus”, 1649; “Seasons” series, 1660-64).

First Parisian period (1612-1623)

The son of a peasant. He attended school in Les Andelys, showing no particular interest in art. Poussin's first experiments in painting were facilitated by Quentin Varen, who painted churches in Andely. In 1612, young Poussin came to Paris, where he entered the workshop of J. Lallemand, and then F. Elle the Elder. He is interested in studying antiquity, and through engravings he becomes acquainted with the paintings of Raphael (see RAFAEL SANTI). A meeting with Italian poet G. Marino, (see MARINO Giambattista) whose interest in ancient and Renaissance culture influenced the young artist. The only surviving works by Poussin from the Parisian period are pen and brush drawings (Windsor Library) for Marino's poem; under his influence, the dream of a trip to Italy was born.

First Roman period (1623-40)

In 1623, Poussin came first to Venice, then to Rome (1624), where he remained until the end of his life. The artist’s biographer A. Felibien notes that “all his days were days of study.” Poussin himself notes that he “neglected nothing” in his desire to “comprehend the rational basis of beauty.” He is attracted by the paintings of Caravaggio (see Michelangelo's CARAVAGGIO) and the Bolognese (see BOLOGNA SCHOOL), sculpture of ancient and baroque Rome. A significant role in the formation of Poussin as an artist-intellectual and erudite was played by his acquaintance with Cassiano del Pozzo - his future patron, an expert on antiquity, owner of a magnificent collection of drawings and engravings (“paper museum”), thanks to whom Poussin began to visit the Barberini library, where he met the works of philosophers, historians, ancient and Renaissance literature. Evidence of this is Poussin’s drawings for Leonardo da Vinci’s treatise (see LEONARDO DA VINCI) on painting (Hermitage).

The first work executed in Rome was the canvas “Echo and Narcissus” (1625-26, Louvre) based on the poem “Adonis” by Marino. This poetic work became the beginning of a series of paintings of the 1620-30s on mythological subjects, glorifying love, inspiration, and the harmony of nature. Landscape plays a large role in these paintings (“Nymph and Satyr”, 1625-1627, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; “Venus and Satyrs”, 1625-1627, National Gallery, London; “Sleeping Venus” , 1625-1626, Louvre). The artist’s refraction of the ancient heritage occurs through the prism of Titian’s images (see TITIAN), whose passion for painting is evidenced by the idyllic tranquility of the images and golden, sonorous colors.

The artist continues to develop the theme of Titian’s “poetry” in the scenes of “Bacchanalia” of the 1620-30s (Louvre; Hermitage; National Gallery, London), the canvases “The Triumph of Bacchus” (1636, Louvre) and “The Triumph of Pan” (1636-1638 , National Gallery, London), looking for a form of embodiment that corresponds in his view to the ancient understanding of the joy of life as the unbridled elements of nature, the happy harmony of the spirit.

During his several years in Rome, Poussin gained recognition, as evidenced by the image commissioned from him for the Cathedral of St. Peter "Martyrdom of St. Erasmus" (1628-1629, Vatican Pinacoteca, Rome). The artist invented an unconventional path, proceeding not from the works of the Baroque masters (see BAROQUE), emphasizing religious exaltation, and not from the paintings of the Caravaggists (see CARAVAGGISM): in conveying the stoic resistance of the saint, he found support in nature, and in a painterly manner he followed the transfer of effects daylight outdoors.

From the late 1620s and into the 1630s, Poussin became increasingly attracted to historical themes. He expects in it an answer to the moral problems that concern him (“The Rescue of Pyrrhus,” 1633-1635, Louvre; “The Rape of the Sabine Women,” 1633, private collection; “The Death of Germanicus,” 1627, Palazzo Barberini, Rome). The painting “The Death of Germanicus” based on a plot from the Roman history of Tacitus (see TACItus), commissioned by Cardinal Barberini, is considered a programmatic work of European classicism. The scene of the stoic death of the famous commander, poisoned by order of Emperor Tiberius, embodies an example of valiant heroism. The poses of his warriors swearing vengeance are calm and solemn, a group of which forms a thoughtful, easy-to-read composition. The figures are painted in a plastically expressive manner and are likened to relief. The tragic act of death on a majestic antique bed is embodied in a scene full of civic pathos. As in a classical tragedy with a large number of characters, the detailed multi-faceted narrative makes one think that Poussin used the so-called perspective box (this method was also known to other masters of the 16th and 17th centuries), in which, by arranging wax figures, he found a rhythmically clear structure of the composition . This canvas, written during a period of fascination with Titian’s idylls, expressed Poussin’s aesthetic credo - “not only our tastes should be judges, but also reason.”

The artist continued his understanding of the moral lessons of history in the series “Seven Sacraments” (1639-1640, Louvre), commissioned by Cassian del Pozzo. Treating the sacraments (Baptism, Communion, Confession, Repentance, Confirmation, Marriage, Unction) in the form of gospel scenes, he strives to give each multi-figure composition a certain emotional mood. The compositions of the paintings are characterized by rationalistic thoughtfulness, the coloring is rather dry and is based on combinations of a few colors.

Second Parisian period (1640-1642)

At the end of 1640, under pressure from official circles in France, Poussin, who did not want to return to Paris, was forced to return to his homeland. By decree of the king, he is appointed head of all artistic works, which turns against him a group of court painters led by S. Vue (see VUE Simon). Poussin was entrusted with altar compositions, allegories for Richelieu's office, and the decoration of the Grand Gallery of the Louvre. The altar image he painted for the Jesuit Church, “The Miracle of St. Francis Xavier" (1642, Louvre). Without completing the work, surrounded by the hostility of the courtiers, he decides to return to Rome. High artistic ideals conflict with intrigues in the court environment. In the panel “Time Saves Truth from the Envy and Discord,” commissioned by Richelieu (Museum of Art, Lille), Poussin expressed in allegorical form the story of his short stay at court. It contains not only a semantic subtext - the composition of the panel in the form of a tondo (see TONDO) is built according to a strictly classicist principle, which he did not consider necessary to change for the sake of rocaille (see ROCAILLE) tastes.

Back in Italy (1643-1665)

Poussin again devoted a lot of time to drawing from life. The world embodied in his painting is rationalistic and calm, while in his drawing it is full of movement and impulse. Emotional landscapes, executed with pen and brush, sketches of architecture, compositional sketches are not subject to strict control of the mind. The drawings contain vivid impressions of observing nature, enjoying the magic of the play of light hidden in the foliage of trees, in the depths of the sky, in the distances melting into the haze.

On the other hand, the artist creates a “theory of modes”, inspired by ancient aesthetics. Each of the modes means for him a certain reasonable basis that could be used by an artist striving for logical restraint, a certain “norm”. For example, for subjects that are strict and full of wisdom, the “Doric mode” could be chosen, for cheerful and lyrical themes, the “Ionic” mode could be chosen. But the artist’s normative aesthetics contained a huge thirst for beauty, faith in the ideals of the morally beautiful.

The programmatic work of Poussin’s late work was the second series of “The Seven Sacraments” (1646, National Gallery, Edinburgh). The classically strict compositional solution is combined with the internal emotional psychological richness of the images. The search for harmony of feeling and logic is also noted in the paintings “Moses cutting out water from a rock” (1648, Hermitage), “The Generosity of Scipio” (1643, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow), in which the dream of a heroic personality is expressed , conquering disasters with her will and morally instructing people.

At the end of the 1640s, Poussin painted a series of landscapes (“Landscape with Polyphemus”, 1648, Hermitage; “Landscape with Diogenes”, Louvre), expressing in them his admiration for the grandeur of the natural world. The figures of ancient philosophers, saints, and monks are barely visible in the landscape full of cosmic grandeur. For several centuries, Poussin’s heroic image of nature will become an example of creating an ideal landscape in which nature and idealization coexist in harmony, full of majestic and solemn sound.

The highest embodiment of this harmony was the cycle of four paintings “The Seasons” (1660-1665, Louvre), completed in the year of death. Each canvas (“Spring”, “Summer”, “Autumn”, “Winter”) expresses a certain mood of the artist in his individual vision of the ideal and nature; they contain a thirst for beauty and knowledge of its laws, reflection on human life and universal humanity. The canvas “Winter” was the last in the series. It expresses the idea of ​​death, which was more than once present in the works of Poussin, but here finds dramatic sound. For the classicist artist, life was the triumph of reason, death was the personification of its destruction, and the result was the madness that gripped people during the Great Flood depicted by the artist. The biblical episode is correlated in its universal sound with a small cycle of human existence, disrupted by the Element.

In his self-portrait (1650, Louvre), the artist depicted himself as a thinker and creator. Next to him is the profile of the Muse, as if personifying the power of antiquity over him. And at the same time, this is an image of a bright personality, a man of his time. The portrait embodies the program of classicism with its commitment to nature and idealization, the desire to express the high civil ideals that Poussin’s art served.

Museums with the artist's works:

* State museums
* Budapest Museum of Fine Arts
* National Gallery of Art
* Picture gallery of old masters
* Dublin. National Gallery of Ireland
* Cambridge (Massachusetts). Fogg Art Museum
* National Gallery
* Prado Museum
*Melbourne. National Gallery of Victoria
* Minneapolis (Minnesota). Art Institute
* Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin
* Munich. Nymphenburg Castle
* Museums of Munich - Old and New Pinakothek, Glyptothek, etc.
* Metropolitan Museum of Art
* Oakley Park. Collection of the Earl of Plymouth
* Louvre
* Rome Vatican Pinakothek
* State Hermitage Museum
* Art Museum
* Frankfurt am Main. Shtädel Art Institute
* Chatsworth (Derbyshire). Collection of the Duke of Devonshire
* Chantilly. Condé Museum
*Edinburgh. National Gallery of Scotland

Nicolas Poussin as an exponent of the ideas of French classicism (Essay)

Introduction…………………………………………………….. 3
Chapter I. The life and work of the painter ………………….. 5
1. Poussin’s early work……………………………... 5
2. Peak of genius: harmony between reason and feeling…….. 9
3. The crisis of the artist’s creativity ………………………… 11
Chapter II. Poussin's influence on the development of art……… 16
Conclusion………………………………………………………………... 18
Notes……………………………………………... 21
List of sources……………………………………………………….. 22
References……………………………………………………….. 23

INTRODUCTION

From the second quarter of the 17th century, classicism acquired leading importance in French painting. The work of its largest representative, Nicolas Poussin, is the pinnacle of French art of the 17th century. Therefore, in order to understand classicism as a whole, it is necessary to study the work of Poussin.

Hence the purpose of the work is to explore the work of this artist.

A) trace the stages of development of Poussin’s painting method;
b) study his biography;
c) get acquainted with his works;
d) find out what role he played in the history of art.

The work is structured according to a problem-chronological principle: one chapter is devoted to the study of the artist’s work, the second - to his influence on the development of art. The first chapter is divided into three more paragraphs according to the chronology of the stages:

1. before 1635: the period of formation of Poussin’s artistic method;
2. 1635 – 1640s: achieving harmony between reason and feeling;
3. 1640 – 1665: crisis of the artist’s creativity.

The following books were used in this work.

Yu. Zolotov’s book “Poussin”1 contains not only a complete biography of the artist, but also an analysis of his works, the influence of certain masters on him, and his place in the history of art are considered. The painter's figurative system, his subjects are examined, and a general description of classicism is given.

The advantage of V. N. Volskaya’s book “Poussin”2 is that the author analyzes the artist’s work in an inseparable context with the general situation then in France and Italy, in his close connection with other representatives of classicism - in literature and philosophy.

What is especially interesting in A. S. Glikman’s book “Nicholas Poussin”3 is that the author carefully analyzes Poussin’s place in the art of France and Europe, his influence on the development of art in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Certain information can be gleaned from a book such as “The General Theory of Art. T. 4. Art of the 17th – 18th centuries.”4 The advantage of this book is that it briefly outlines the main milestones in the artist’s life and quite clearly divides his art into periods.

Chapter I. The life and work of the painter

EARLY WORK OF THE PAINTER

Poussin was born in 1594 near the city of Andely in Normandy into a poor military family. Very little is known about Poussin's youth and his early work. Perhaps his first teacher was the wandering artist Quentin Varen, who visited the city at that time, a meeting with whom was decisive in determining the artistic recognition of the young man. Following Varenne, Poussin secretly leaves Andely from his parents and goes to Paris. But this trip does not bring him luck. Only a year later he returns to the capital for the second time and spends several years there.5

Already in his youth, Poussin reveals great determination and an indefatigable thirst for knowledge. He studies mathematics and anatomy. Ancient literature, gets acquainted with the works of Raphael and Giulio Romano from engravings.

In Paris, Poussin meets with the fashionable Italian poet Cavalier Marino and illustrates his poem “Adonis”.

In 1624, the artist left for Italy and settled in Rome. Here Poussin sketched and measured ancient statues, continued his studies in science and literature, and studied the treatises of Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci and Durer. He illustrated one of the copies of Leonardo's treatise, which is currently in the Hermitage.

Poussin's creative quest in the 1620s was very complex. The master went a long way towards creating his artistic method. Ancient art and Renaissance artists were his highest models. Among the Bolognese masters of his time, he valued the most strict of them, Domenichino. Although he had a negative attitude towards Caravaggio, Poussin still remained indifferent to his art.

Throughout the 1620s, Poussin, having already embarked on the path of classicism, often sharply went beyond its scope. His paintings such as “The Massacre of the Innocents” (Chantilly), “The Martyrdom of St. Erasmus" (1628, Vatican Pinakothek) are marked by features of closeness to Caravaggism and Baroque. A well-known reduction of images, an exaggerated dramatic interpretation of the situation. Unusual for Poussin in its heightened expression in conveying the feeling of heartbreaking grief is the Hermitage “Descent from the Cross” (c. 1630). The drama of the situation here is enhanced by the emotional interpretation of the landscape: the action takes place against the backdrop of a stormy sky with reflections of a red, ominous dawn. 6

A different approach characterizes his works, executed in the spirit of classicism.

The cult of reason is one of the main qualities of classicism, and therefore, in none of the great masters of the 17th century, the rational principle plays such a significant role as in Poussin. The master himself said that the perception of a work of art requires concentrated thinking and hard work of thought. rationalism is reflected not only in Poussin’s purposeful adherence to ethical and artistic ideal, but also in the visual system he created.

He built a theory of so-called modes, which he tried to follow in his work.

By mode, Poussin meant a kind of figurative key, a sum of techniques of figurative-emotional characterization and compositional and pictorial solutions that were most consistent with the expression of a certain theme.

Poussin gave these modes names based on the Greek names for various modes of the musical scale. So, for example, the theme of moral achievement is embodied by the artist in strict, severe forms, united by Poussin in the concept of the “Dorian mode”, themes of a dramatic nature - in the corresponding forms of the “Phrygian mode”, joyful and idyllic themes - in the forms of the “Ionian” and “Lydian” frets

The strength of Poussin's works is the achievements achieved as a result of these artistic techniques clearly expressed idea, clear logic, high degree completeness of the plan. But at the same time, the subordination of art to certain stable norms, the introduction of rationalistic aspects into it also represented a great danger, since this could lead to the predominance of an unshakable dogma, the deadening of the living creative process. This is exactly what all the academicians came to, following only the external methods of Poussin. Subsequently, this danger confronted Poussin himself.7

One of the characteristic examples of the ideological and artistic program of classicism can be Poussin’s composition “The Death of Germanicus” (1626 - 1627, Minneapolis, Institute of Arts), depicting a courageous and noble Roman commander on his deathbed, poisoned on the orders of the suspicious and envious Emperor Tiberius.

Very fruitful for Poussin’s work was his fascination with the art of Titian in the second half of the 1620s. Appeal to the Titian tradition contributed to the revelation of the most vibrant sides of Poussin's talent. The role of Titian’s colorism was also great in the development of Poussin’s artistic talent.

In 1625 - 1627, Poussin painted the painting “Rinaldo and Armina” based on the plot of Tasso’s poem “Jerusalem Liberated”, where an episode from the legend of medieval chivalry is interpreted rather as a motif from ancient mythology. Poussin resurrects the world of ancient myths in other paintings of the 1620s - 1630s: “Apollo and Daphne” (Munich, Pinakothek), “Bacchanalia” in the Louvre and London National Gallery, “The Kingdom of Flora” (Dresden, Gallery). Here he depicts his ideal - a person living a single happy life with nature.

Never later in Poussin's work do such serene scenes, such charming scenes appear. female images. It was in the 1620s that one of Poussin’s most captivating images was created - “Sleeping Venus” - the image of the goddess is full of naturalness and some special intimacy of feeling, it seems snatched straight from life.

The canvas “Tancred and Erminia” (1630s) is dedicated to the dramatic theme of the Amazon Erminia’s love for the crusader knight Tancred, which shows the emotional elation of the heroine’s image.8

So, in his first, early period of creativity, the main features of Nicolas Poussin’s creative method were already clearly defined. But these classicistic features are still very much alive, full of idealistic harmony. Poussin is still young and he produces joyful, utopian canvases and captivating female images. The paintings of this period are less associated with the mind than subsequent ones; they place more emphasis on feeling.

Peak of genius: harmony between reason and feeling

Subsequently, the emotional moment in Poussin’s work turns out to be more connected with the organizing principle of the mind. in the works of the mid-1630s, the artist achieves a harmonious balance between reason and feeling. The image of a heroic, perfect person as the embodiment of moral greatness and spiritual strength acquires leading importance.

An example of a deeply philosophical development of a theme in Poussin’s work is provided by two versions of the composition “The Arcadian Shepherds” (between 1632 and 1635, Chasworth, collection of the Duke of Devonshire and 1650, Louvre). Poussin, in an idyllic plot - the myth of Arcadia, the land of serene happiness - expressed the deep idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe transience of life and the inevitability of death. In the earlier version, the confusion of the shepherds is more clearly expressed, who, having suddenly seen the tomb with the inscription: “And I was in Arcadia...”, seemed to suddenly appear in the face of death; in the later version they are calm, perceiving death as a natural pattern.

The Louvre painting “The Inspiration of a Poet” is an example of how an abstract idea is embodied by Poussin in deep, powerful images. In contrast to the allegorical compositions common in the 17th century, the images of which are united externally and rhetorically, this painting is characterized by the internal unification of images by a common structure of feelings, the idea of ​​​​the sublime beauty of creativity.9

In the process of developing the artistic and compositional concept of Poussin's paintings, his wonderful drawings were of great importance. These sepia sketches, executed with exceptional breadth and boldness, based on the juxtaposition of spots of light and shadow, play a preparatory role in transforming the idea of ​​​​a work into a complete pictorial whole. Lively and dynamic, they seem to reflect all the richness of the artist’s creative imagination in his search for a compositional rhythm and emotional key that corresponds to the ideological concept.10

This is a relatively short period of Poussin’s creativity, his peak. During these years he created brilliant masterpieces in which reason and feeling, between which there is always a struggle in classicism, are in harmony. This harmonious balance allows the artist to show a person as the embodiment of moral greatness and spiritual strength.

Artist's creativity crisis

In subsequent years, the harmonic unity of the best works of the 1630s was gradually lost. In Poussin's painting the features of abstraction and rationality are growing. The brewing crisis of creativity intensifies sharply during his trip to France.

Poussin's fame reaches the French court. Having received an invitation to return to France, Poussin delays the trip in every possible way. Only a coldly commanding personal letter from King Louis XIII forces him to obey. In the autumn of 1640, Poussin left for Paris. A trip to France brings the artist a lot of bitter disappointment.

His art meets fierce resistance from representatives of the decorative baroque movement, led by Simon Vouet, who worked at the court. A network of dirty intrigues and denunciations of “these animals” (as the artist called them in his letters) entangles Poussin, a man of impeccable reputation. The whole atmosphere of court life inspires him with disgust. The artist, according to him, needs to break out of the noose that he put around his neck in order to again engage in real art in the silence of his studio, because “if I stay in this country,” he writes, I will have to turn into a dirty fellow, like others who are here." The royal court fails to attract a great artist. In the autumn of 1642, Poussin, under the pretext of his wife’s illness, left back for Italy, this time for good.11

Poussin's work in the 1640s was marked by the features of a deep crisis. This crisis is explained not so much by the indicated facts of the artist’s biography, but primarily by the internal contradictions of classicism itself. The living reality of that time was far from meeting the ideals of rationality and civic virtue. The positive ethical program of classicism began to lose its ground.

While working in Paris, Poussin was unable to completely abandon the tasks assigned to him as a court artist. The works of the Parisian period are cold, official in nature, they clearly express the features of Baroque art aimed at achieving external effect (“Time saves Truth from Envy and Discord”, 1642, Lille, Museum; “The Miracle of St. Francis Xavier”, 1642, Louvre) . It was this kind of work that was subsequently perceived as models by the artists of the academic camp, led by Charles Lebrun.12

But even in those works in which the master adhered to the classicist artistic doctrine, he no longer achieved the previous depth and vitality of the images. The rationalism, normativity, predominance of an abstract idea over feeling, and the desire for ideality characteristic of this system receive a one-sided exaggerated expression in him.

An example is The Magnanimity of Scipio (1643). Depicting the Roman commander Scipio of Africa, who renounced his rights to a captive Carthaginian princess and returned her to her groom, the artist glorifies the virtue of a wise military leader. But in this case, the theme of the triumph of moral duty received a cold, rhetorical embodiment, the images lost their vitality and spirituality, the gestures were conventional, the depth of thought was replaced by artificiality. The figures seem frozen, the coloring is motley, with a predominance of cold local colors, the painting style is distinguished by an unpleasant slickness. Similar features characterize the paintings from the second cycle of the “Seven Sacraments” created in 1644 – 1648.13

The crisis of the classical method affected primarily plot compositions Poussin. Already from the late 1640s, the artist’s highest achievements were manifested in other genres - portraits and landscapes.

One of Poussin’s most remarkable works dates back to 1650 - his famous Louvre “Self-Portrait”, which is significantly superior to the works of French portrait painters and belongs to the best portraits of European art of the 17th century. For Poussin, an artist is first and foremost a thinker. In an era when the portrait emphasized the features of external representativeness, when the significance of the image was determined by the social distance separating the model from mere mortals, Poussin sees the value of a person in the strength of his intellect, in creative power.

Poussin's fascination with landscape is associated with a change in his worldview. There is no doubt that Poussin lost that integral idea of ​​​​man, which was characteristic of his works of 1620 - 1630. Attempts to embody this idea in plot compositions of the 1640s led to failures. Since the late 1640s, Poussin's figurative system has been built on different principles. In the works of this time, the artist’s focus is on the image of nature. For Poussin, nature is the personification of the highest harmony of existence. Man has lost his dominant position in it. He is perceived only as one of the many creations of nature, the laws of which he is forced to obey.14

Walking around Rome, the artist, with his characteristic inquisitiveness, studied the landscapes of the Roman Campania. His immediate impressions are conveyed in wonderful landscape drawings from life, distinguished by their extraordinary freshness of perception and subtle lyricism.

Poussin's picturesque landscapes do not have the same sense of spontaneity that is inherent in his drawings. In his paintings, the ideal, generalizing principle is more strongly expressed, and nature in them appears as a bearer of perfect beauty and grandeur. Poussin's landscapes are imbued with a sense of the grandeur and greatness of the world.

Saturated with great ideological and emotional content, Poussin’s landscapes belong to the highest achievements of the so-called heroic landscape, widespread in the 17th century.

These are works such as “Landscape with Polyphemus” (1649; Hermitage), “Landscape with Hercules” (1649), etc.15

In his later years, Poussin even embodied thematic paintings in landscape forms. This is his painting “The Funeral of Phocion” (after 1648, Louvre). The beautiful landscape with particular poignancy makes you feel the tragic idea of ​​this work - the theme of man’s loneliness, his powerlessness and frailty in the face of eternal nature. Even the death of the hero cannot overshadow her indifferent beauty. If previous landscapes affirmed the unity of nature and man, then in this painting the idea of ​​contrasting the hero and the world around him appears, which personifies the conflict between man and reality characteristic of this era.

The perception of the world in its tragic inconsistency was reflected in Poussin’s famous landscape cycle “The Four Seasons,” executed in the last years of his life (1660 – 1664, Louvre). The artist poses and solves in these works the problem of life and death, nature and humanity.

There was a tragic "Winter" last work artist. In the autumn of 1665, Poussin dies.16

This long period of Poussin's work is characterized by a general crisis of his artistic method. Thematic paintings become more and more rational and cold every year. Reason dominates, but there was a danger hidden here: Poussin drove himself into the framework of the canons, he himself tightened them. His talent therefore found outlet in portraits and landscapes. Poussin's landscapes show the grandeur and harmony of nature, its ideal. But gradually he begins to show not the harmony of man and nature, but the conflict of man and reality.

We see how the work of Nicolas Poussin has changed over the years. Every year the mind occupies an increasingly stronger position in his paintings, suppressing feeling. At first the process proceeds in an ascending line, and the artist's creativity reaches its peak where reason and feeling are in harmony. But Poussin does not stop there, and continues to tighten his artistic method, devoting more and more space to reason. This leads to a crisis of creativity. Thematic paintings freeze in cold rationality. True, the master’s talent finds outlet in brilliant portraits and landscapes.

Chapter II. Poussin's influence on the development of art.

The significance of Poussin's art for his time and subsequent eras is enormous. His true heirs were not the French academicians of the second half of the 17th century, but representatives of classicism of the 18th century, who were able to express the great ideas of their time in the forms of this art.

“His creations served as examples for the noblest minds to follow in order to rise to heights reached by few,” Bellori said of Poussin.

The fairness of this assessment is confirmed by Poussin’s influence on artists, both French and foreign, both of his time and subsequent generations, as well as by the centuries-old interest in the artistic heritage of this remarkable master.

In France, Poussin's works initially aroused surprise and curiosity. His first paintings, which fell into the hands of Parisian collectors, were perceived as “curiosities, rarities.” But soon connoisseurs and connoisseurs of art, and then artists, realized what enormous wealth, what power lies in his harsh art.

Poussin made up for the lack of lessons from the high Italian Renaissance in Russian painting. French masters who turned to the experience of Italian artistic culture were not inspired by examples of the truly classical style of Leonardo and Raphael. French Renaissance artists borrowed fashionable shapes Italian mannerism - the “mannerly” style of the Fontainebleau school was essentially the antithesis of classical art.

It became common practice for young French artists in the 17th century to travel to Rome to complete art education little has changed in this sense. Of these, only Poussin and, to some extent, Jacques Stella were imbued with the spirit of classical art. Most of the rest either adopted the principles of decorative baroque or paid tribute to Caravaggism. As for those who never left France, they worked mainly in the traditions of the Second School of Fontainebleau, and after returning to their homeland, Vouet adopted his eclectic style, combining elements of Bolognese academicism and decorative baroque with the Venetian style of writing.17

So, if it were not for Poussin, the French school of painting would have passed in its development past the high classics of the Renaissance.

CONCLUSION

Nicolas Poussin is the greatest representative of French classicism of the 17th century. He laid the foundations of the classicist method; without Poussin, France would not have known classicism.

Reason and will is a cult, the servants of which were representatives of French classicism. For Poussin's work, love plays minor role. It gives way to more “elevated” feelings that are born as a result of the subordination of one’s direct experiences voice of reason.

No matter how deep and strong the feelings depicted by the artist may be, Poussin’s characters are characterized by calmness and restraint. Their actions are always subordinated either to the voice of their own intellect or to the dictates of a higher guiding will. All the emotions he depicts, even the bacchanalian and erotic emotions, never cross the border of the human, the border drawn by reason. The relationship between reason and feeling is the main problem posed in Poussin’s work.

The organizing principle of reason always triumphs over blind instinct, over the chaos of feelings, actions and artistic techniques of the master. In his works he ranges from an unexpected and never completely defeated predominance of the emotional moment to a dry, almost repulsive rationality.

But at the heights of his art, Poussin finds a stable mental balance, a perfect harmony of spirit, which is always based on the victory of the rational principle. However, reason wins, but does not expel feeling. The significance of the underlying idea, the firmness of the organizing principle, the best works of Poussin combine with great emotional richness, depth and seriousness of feeling. What is exciting in them never dies is that in the works of a true artist it appeals not to the mind, but to the heart of a person.

To Poussin, his ideal world is dear to the extent that it seems to compensate for the sad imperfection of reality (remember his exclamation: “I am afraid of the cruelty of the century...”). The art of the French master is a reminder of humanity, which over time turns into a demand for humanity.

Poussin is so persistent in his pursuit of a harmonic ideal, so uncompromising in his assertion of the unity of aesthetic and ethical principles that over the years his ideal style becomes more and more rigid. Behind the stability and calmness of his expressive system lies an internal tension.

This desire for a harmonious ideal first raises Poussin’s work to its maximum height, where the triumph of the harmony of reason and feeling allows the artist to create majestic images of a spiritually beautiful person.

But the artist was unable to maintain the height he had achieved, because in his pursuit of a harmonious ideal he began to tighten his artistic system and set limits for himself. He couldn't stay in the middle.

But during a period of crisis, another side of his talent manifests itself and develops: he begins to paint beautiful portraits and ingenious landscapes, where nature acts as a majestic ideal.

As a result, Poussin's work had a huge influence on the development of French classicism and European art in general.

In addition, his paintings are still admired by millions of visitors to dozens of world-famous museums - the Hermitage, Louvre, Dresden and London National Galleries and others.

NOTES

1 1 Zolotov Y. Poussin. M., 1988.
2 2 Volskaya V. N. Poussin. M., 1946.
3 3 Glikman A. S. Nicolas Poussin. L. – M., 1964.
4 General theory of art. T. 4. Art of the 17th – 18th centuries. M., 1963.
5 Zolotov Y. Poussin. M., 1988. S. 24 – 53.
6 General theory of art. T. 4. Art of the 17th – 18th centuries. M., 1963. S. 193 – 194.
7 Ibid. pp. 196 – 198.
8 Glikman A. S. Nicolas Poussin. L. – M., 1964. S. 14 – 18.
9 Ibid. P. 32.
10 General theory of art. T. 4. Art of the 17th – 18th centuries. M., 1963. P. 197.
11 Zolotov Y. Poussin. M., 1988. S. 230 – 232.
12 General theory of art. T. 4. Art of the 17th – 18th centuries. M., 1963. P. 195.
13 Ibid. P. 193.
14 Ibid. P. 196.
15 Volskaya V. N. Poussin. M., 1946. S. 44 – 60.
16 General theory of art. T. 4. Art of the 17th – 18th centuries. M., 1963. S. 199 – 200.
17 Glikman A. S. Nicolas Poussin. L. – M., 1964. P. 91.

LIST OF SOURCES

Poussin N. Inspiration of the poet. // Zolotov Yu. Poussin. M., 1988.
Poussin N. The generosity of Scipio. // Zolotov Yu. Poussin. M., 1988.
Poussin N. Rinaldo and Armida. // Zolotov Yu. Poussin. M., 1988.
Poussin N. Judgment of Solomon. // Zolotov Yu. Poussin. M., 1988.
Poussin N. Tancred and Erminia. // Zolotov Yu. Poussin. M., 1988.
Poussin N. The Kingdom of Flora. // General theory of art. T. 4. Art of the 17th – 18th centuries. M., 1963. P. 201.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

General theory of art. T. 4. Art of the 17th – 18th centuries. M., 1963.
Volskaya V. N. Poussin. M., 1946.
Glikman A. S. Nicolas Poussin.
Zolotov Y. Poussin. M., 1988.

Nicolas Poussin "The Kingdom of Flora"

The interests of Nicolas Poussin, a famous painter, were not limited to fine arts; he also studied anatomy and mathematics. This knowledge, coupled with enormous talent, created Poussin’s indescribable style. He came to great painting during the heyday of French court art, which amazed his contemporaries with its brilliance and splendor. Along with the artists of the so-called. court style in the 17th century. in France, peintres de la realite worked - “painters of reality”, who spoke to rejected official art themes of war, fires, poverty, difficulties of peasant life.

Nicolas Poussin did not fully relate to any of them. these directions. Influenced by Raphael and Titian in his time, Poussin was the most consistent classicist in French painting. Poussin depicted antiquity as he imagined it. On his canvases, the heroes of antiquity came to life again to perform feats, go against the will of the gods, or simply sing and have fun. But Poussin’s bacchanalia is far from the orgies that the ancients organized in honor of Dionysus. They are both quieter and cleaner. Poussin would never allow himself to write something ugly or trivial.

“The Kingdom of Flora” (1631-1632) is the best of all the “Lydian” and “Ionian” paintings by Poussin. Poussin showed man returning to the bosom of innocence, to the bosom of nature, while devoid of the features of primitive rudeness; On the contrary, he acquires an amazing delicacy of feelings and almost ballet grace. It is enough just to see the faces of the characters in the picture to say with confidence: these people enjoy life, even the warrior rejected by his beloved throwing himself on the sword.

It is known that many of Poussin’s paintings are associated with literary subjects, and some even amaze researchers with their exact adherence to the text. Even in cases where the main focus of the work is the landscape, Poussin introduces small figures into its composition to create a certain mood. Among such works is “Landscape with Polyphemus” - a captured moment of a legend, a love song of a giant on a cliff top, transformed by the language of painting into a bright praise of the serene joys of the earth.

For the plot of the painting, Poussin chose Ovid’s poetic adaptation of the myth of Polyphemus, in which one-eyed giant represents the destructive forces of nature. In Poussin, the powerful figure of Polyphemus dominates the canvas. Tall cliffs, rugged with ledges, are surrounded by dense bushes and mighty trees, behind whose spreading branches lies the expanse of the sea. On the rock, as if emerging from it and simultaneously merging with it, the mighty figure of Polyphemus grows; through the streams of the stream flowing at the feet of the river god and the nymphs, stones on the sandy bottom are clearly visible. United smooth line embraces mighty rocks and trees; the space is conveyed by clear, easily visible plans, leading the viewer’s gaze to the sea itself. The coloring of the picture is based on a strict combination of green and blue tones of greenery and air, dominant in Nature. Artfully combining them with the warm brown color of the rocks and pink naked bodies, Poussin achieves special expressiveness (colorful solution of the entire canvas.

THE MYSTERY OF POUSSIN'S SELF-PORTRAITS

I. First, a little about Poussin.
French painter and landscape painter Nicolas Poussin was born on June 5, 1594 in Normandy in the village of Villiers between Grande and Petit Andely on June 15, 1594. In 1624, already a fairly famous artist, Poussin went to Italy and became close friends in Rome with the poet Marini. Thanks to a series of excellent paintings, in 1639 he was invited by Cardinal Richelieu to Paris to decorate the Louvre Gallery. Louis XIII elevated him to the title of his first painter. In Paris, Poussin had many orders, but he formed a party of opponents, represented by the artists Bye, Brequier and Mercier, who had previously worked on decorating the Louvre. For this reason, in 1642, Nicolas left Paris and lived in Rome, where he was buried. In October 1664, Poussin's wife, Anna-Marie, died, and the artist died after her from Parkinson's disease on November 19, 1665, Rome. http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/ruwiki/1110335
Poussin's paintings are also in Russia and the Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin, Moscow, for example, the canvas “The Generosity of Scipio”, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (USA) “The Rape of the Sabine Women”, 1637 and other major museums in the world.

II. The FIRST self-portrait was painted by Nicolas in 1630 during his recovery from a serious illness, the first portrait was painted in red chalk, the artist’s work is located in London, British museum, Great Britain. www.britishmuseum.org/images/ps191446_l.jpg
Below the portrait there is long text.
“A long inscription made by the Italian collector Francesco Gaburri reports interesting information about the circumstances of the creation of this work. It was performed by Poussin when he was recovering from a serious illness. The artist wrote a self-portrait with red chalk, standing in front of a mirror. Subsequently, as Gaburri reports, the drawing was presented to Cardinal Camillo Massimi, Poussin’s patron and admirer of his work, who not only bought paintings by the French master, but also took drawing lessons from him... In the appearance of the man presented in this wonderful drawing, one can detect similarities with that Poussin who is known from his other self-portraits. However, the interpretation of the image itself is so uncharacteristic of the artist that some researchers doubt the authenticity of Gaburri’s attribution.”

The SECOND self-portrait was painted in 1649, located in the Gemaldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Art Gallery, Berlin, Germany, oil on canvas, canvas size 78;65 cm. There is an inscription above Poussin’s head in the background; it is impossible to distinguish the letters themselves in the second portrait , due to time they have darkened, but I cannot go and see.
NICOLAVS POVSSINVS ANDELYENSIS ACADEMICVS ROMA??S ?RIMUS
PICTOR ORDINARIVS LVDUYICI IVSTI REGIS GALLIAE. ANNO Domini
1649. Roma. AETATIS SVAE. SS.
(NICOLAUS POUSSINUS ANDELYENSIS ACADEMICUS ROMANUS FRIMUS PICTOR ORDINARIUS LUDOVICI IVSTI REGIS GALLIAE. ANNO Domini 1649. Rona. AETATIS SVAE.55.) from Oleg Bogolyubov help

THE THIRD was painted in 1650, oil on canvas, 98;74, self-portrait is in the Louvre, Paris. The last portrait depicts the Muse, this is the portrait we need. The second portrait and the third are a little similar.
The inscription on the portrait, I didn’t see everything, but I couldn’t find the exact inscription. For now we are content with what we have. I would be grateful if anyone could complete the texts in Latin.
EFFIGIES NICOLAS POUSSINI ANg?EL
YENSIS PICTOR?S. ANNO...ATISS
ROM?e ANNO IVBILEI
1650.
(EFFIGIES NICOLAI POUSSINI ANDELYENSIS
PICTORIS ANNO AETATIS 56
ROMAE ANNO IUBILEI 1650) from Oleg Bogolyubov help
The real inscription was found, http://www.wga.hu/html_m/p/poussin/4/04selfpo.html:
EFFIGIES NICOLAI POUSSINI ANDELYENSIS PICTORIS, ANNO AETATIS 56. ROMAE ANNO JUBILEI 1650.
As a matter of fact, I’m a little greedy, I need a second self-portrait, since the portrait is also supplemented with text.
In this portrait I found another image, if you put a mirror to Poussin’s chin, you can see the Face, half on the mirror, the other half on the portrait. LOOK AT THE ILLUSTRATION, I showed it with an arrow, it’s extremely interesting. So, after all, Poussin keeps the key. We attach a mirror and look or take the same file from the Internet.
Apparently, texts for decoding are available not only in Poussin’s paintings dedicated to Arcadia, which, in my opinion, Poussin had in Italy, because Poussin never visited Greece. The most famous painting “The Shepherds of Arcadia” 1637-39, located in the Louvre, has a series of letters on the clothes of the shepherds and a woman nearby, they are looking at the epitaph on the stone “Et in Arcadia ego” (And I in Arcadia). The meaning of death says that it exists in Arcadia. The Latin expression is first found in the Italian artist Guercino “Et in Arcadia Ego", 1621 – 1623, Rome, Galleria Corsini. There is reason to believe that the author of this saying was Giulio Rospigliosi (Pope Clement IX). Soon the phase became popular in Italy.
An earlier painting about Arcadia by Poussin “The Arcadian Shepherds” 1629 - 1630. Chatsworth. Collection of the Duke of Devonshire. Three men and one woman examine the inscription on a tombstone, with a transparent figure visible behind the woman in the background.

III. What kind of fabulous place is Arcadia? It is a nome in Greece with an administrative center in Tripoli, it is the central region in the Peloponnese. Arcadia received its name, attributed by legend to Arkad, the son of Zeus and Callisto, from the bears that in ancient times lived on its heights. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia
“In those days, Arcadia was ruled by King Lycaon, a tyrant and sensualist, the father of forty-nine sons, as wicked as himself, and his only daughter, the beautiful Callisto, born from a nymph.” Yuzefovich, “Date House”, 2001
Also, about the place happy life, heaven on earth mentioned:
“Arcadia” is a poem by Jacopo Sannazzaro in the genre of a chivalric romance (1480s, published in 1504).
Arcadia is a pastoral novel by Philip Sidney (1577-1580, 1582-1586).

Greece:
Arcadia is a nome in the central part of the Peloponnesian Peninsula.
Arcadia was a fief within the Achaean Principality in the 13th - 15th centuries.
Arcadia is the capital of the barony of Arcadia, after 1825 - the city of Cyparissia (prefecture of Messenia).

Ancient Rome:
Arcadia was a Roman province in northern Egypt (after 386–640s), named after Emperor Arcadius.
Poland:
Arcadia" (Łowicz County) - the English park of Helena Radziwill (1753 - 1821), created by Szymon Bogumil Zug, J.-P. Norblain de la Gourdain, Alexander Orłowski and Henryk Ittar (village in the commune of Nieborów). Arcadia was first found as a village in the 15th century, in a place near Łowicz, in the Lodz region, in the Łowicz area, in the commune of Nieborow. It’s unlikely that this is the place we need.

IV. Let's return again to the encryption from Shaboro.
The Shepherd's Monument is located in Staffordshire (England). The monument, which was built on Lord Lichfield's estate "Shagborough" in 1748, has a bas-relief that is a copy of the famous painting "The Shepherds of Arcadia" by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) in a mirror image. Such outstanding minds as Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin struggled with encryption (http://marimeri.ru/post289743970/), but without success.
“Shepherd's Monument Code: D.O.U.O. S.V.A.V.V.M. The letters are believed to indicate the location of the Holy Grail. The main mistake, according to the Lone couple, is that until now researchers have focused on solving the inscription, while the information is encrypted in the entire composition, including the bas-relief. The fact is, the bas-relief has several strange differences from Poussin’s work. They, as well as the study of the artist’s life, were carried out by codebreakers Oliver and Sheila Lone, who during World War II were engaged in solving Nazi codes. In particular, the bas-relief is related to the monument of the Knights Templar, which is associated with a parchment from Reims Cathedral with encoded text. In this text, scientists were able to make out the words: “Poussin... keeps the key.” http://www.epwr.ru/quotauthor/330/
At this point, as I understand it, the threads are broken.
Where to look for the ends? Of course, where the monument is erected, on the estate of Lord Lichschild, cryptologists made the right choice by studying the parchment of the Reims Cathedral. But Poussin’s paintings about Arcadia and self-portraits are also not so simple. In the meantime, we have moved one more small step closer, seeing the image in Poussin’s self-portrait.
What are people looking for and have been searching for for so many centuries? Supposedly, this is the Holy Grail, no more and no less. Our places are marked: this is England, the places where Poussin visited are Italy, France. Do not forget that the Knights Templar lived in France. Less likely options: historical region Greece Arcadia, also works of art about Arcadia, because Poussin was also friends with poets. At least finding the text under keyword on the tombstone should still be looked for in the text. And the suggestions in Poussin's self-portraits may help.

Reviews

Natasha, based on your interest in art and the mysteries of paintings, we can conclude that you are an art critic(?), or perhaps a historian. Perhaps, in the 17th and 18th centuries, Western artists were close to symbolism and mythology...
Now there are many facts about Atlantis and Hyperborea, about the flood and the spread of man on the planet, which for me are only proof that there was a civilization higher than ours, which perished to the ground...
In some poems I talk about this...

But official science recognizes only a series of facts, classifying isolated facts as unprovable...

But well done, you dig deep! Any discovery requires great work!
I wish you success in this extremely difficult search!

Thank you, Lyudmila. I don’t know history well, it’s a separate big science, I read some details from it thanks to Nostradamus. Vladimir Repin found a lot about Atlantis, look at him, he found it on Google maps and in books, even if these are not all parts of Atlantis, but something else, but nevertheless it is necessary for archeology. Our Arkaim is considered almost the center origin of the Aryans, but the center itself has not been found; similar proto-cities exist in China, and are found near Troitsk on the plains. I found the Face of Poussin, it’s interesting, and his inscriptions are in Latin, his paintings are also dedicated to ancient events, although he wrote them in Italy and France. If the inscriptions on self-portraits in Latin have any basis, then there must be texts to which this applies. It's Complicated. Nostradamus alone is enough for me, I’m doing the third part of the code, it’s slow, and besides, I don’t always do it. I’m somehow afraid of Bruegel; he reminds me of the plague from the Middle Ages and the Inquisition.