Saturday, January 10, 2015

Not Poussin

Philippe de Champaigne
Échevins of the City of Paris
1648

For years I had no special interest in any 17th century French painters other than the exceptional Nicolas Poussin. Poussin stands out from his peers and suits present-day audiences for several reasons that have nothing much to do with the quality of his art, such as a lukewarm attitude to Christianity and a corresponding preference for the antique pagans.

The most recent threat to my own happy insularity came from Todd Olson's book Poussin and France: Painting, Humanism, and the Politics of Style. This critic attributed great importance to educated civic worthies like those in Philippe de Champaigne's group portrait above. These were the men who bought Poussin's pictures, and who inevitably also influenced his artistic choices. The values of their class placed the highest stress on order and dignity. And this is why the clear light and sober countenances in Philippe de Champaigne's Last Supper (below) seem to disavow the spiritual in favor of the secular.

Philippe de Champaigne
Last Supper
1652

Philippe de Champaigne
Miracles of the Penitent Saint Mary
1656

Poussin's authority extended in every direction and none of his contemporaries was immune to it. The composition of Philippe's Miracles of the Penitent Saint Mary (immediately above) could not exist without templates by Poussin (below).

Nicolas Poussin
Burial of Phocion
1648

Nicolas Poussin
Ideal Landscape
1648

The other point of contrast between Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne is the evident intensity of emotion in many of Philippe's devotional pictures (below). Religious passions dominated French public life all through the 17th century. By living abroad and identifying with the worldlier culture of Rome, Poussin was able to cultivate an even-tempered classicism at a subdued emotional temperature.

Philippe de Champaigne
Dead Christ
1654

Philippe de Champaigne
Saints Gervase and Protase appearing to Saint Ambrose
1658

Philippe de Champaigne
Portrait of a Man
1650