Victoria Charles - French Painting

There is a certain logic in the fact that the earliest works of French painting are scattered around the world. A long historical pause ended only towards the beginning of the seventeenth century. The large format, strongly constructed, powerfully-modelled compositions of the Caravaggist le Valentin open up a broad vista into a century which was again destined to make French genius celebrated. Like Caravaggio, le Valentin was inclined to treat sacred subjects in a specific, naturalistic spirit, as if seeking to persuade the viewer of the factual authenticity of what was shown taking place.

Virgin and Child surrounded by Angels

Jean Fouquet, c.1450

Oil on panel, 91 x 81 cm

Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Of course, this naturalism with its forced chiaroscuro is rhetorical in nature and thus differs in principle from similar tendencies of later times (in nineteenth-century painting, for example). The struggle between light and shade in le Valentins Denial of St Peter is undoubtedly something more than an effective painters technique for modelling form. Together with the eloquent gesticulation, this chiaroscuro serves to bring out the inner meaning of the subject: light and shade vie with each other like faith and fear in the mind of the apostle. The man who was destined to give true expression to French artistic genius was a native of the provinces - Nicolas Poussin, from a small place in Normandy.

The Denial of St Peter

Valentin de Boulogne, called Le Valentin

early 17th C

Oil on canvas, 119 x 172 cm

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

His climb to the summit of art was a very difficult one, but the heights he attained were unreachable for any of his noted contem-poraries, be it Simon Vouet, Philippe de Champaigne, Sbastian Bourdon, Eustache Le Sueur or Charles le Brun. Exceptionally receptive to anything that might enrich his experience, Poussins work was undoubtedly more than the sum total of the influences on him. But his statement that he neglected nothing on the way to perfection should be taken literally. In scholarly works today one finds it persistently repeated that Poussin did not reproduce the old, but created an independent artistic system.

The Crucifixion

Charles Le Brun, 1637

Oil on panel, 52 x 41 cm

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

The Scriptures were one of Poussins chief sources of inspiration. In resurrecting scenes from the Old Testament and Christian history, he managed to endow them with a spirit of the truly ideal. Under his brush they exude majesty and nobility. In this sense Poussin, like no one else, understood, appreciated and took in the achievements of ancient art. He passed through quite a few stages on his way to attaining his lofty style. The relatively late masterpiece is frequently underestimated, chiefly because its rhythmic structure is reduced to a somewhat abstracted combination of local colours.

Magdalene of the Night Light

Georges de La Tour, 1642-1644

Oil on canvas, 128 x 94 cm

Muse du Louvre, Paris