Europe in

the
mid 17th
century
The French Baroque:

Academies
Royal Centralization
Rococo and Aristocratic Patronage
Classicism into the Enlightenment
Nicholas Poussin
(French, active mostly in Rome)
Self Portrait
1650
Oil on canvas
98 x 74 cm

Commissioned by a diplomat of Louis

XIV to go in the French Academy
while the artist was in Rome
Allegories of sight…
women as symbols of painting
 Poussin
Landscape with
St. John on Patmos
1640
Oil on canvas
40 x 54 in.
Poussin on the Grand Manner:
“The Grand Manner consists of four things: subject, concept,
structure, and style. The first requirement, which is the basis for all
the others, is that the subject should be great, such as battles, heroic
actions and divine matters. However, when the subject with which the
painter is engaged is great, he must make every effort to avoid getting
lost in minute detail, so as not to detract from the dignity of the story.
He should describe the magnificent and great details with a bold
brush and disregard anything that is vulgar and of little substance.
Thus the painter should not only be skilled in formulating his subject
matter, but wise enough to know it well and to choose something that
lends itself naturally to embellishment and perfection. Those who
choose vile topics take refuge in them on account of their own lack of
ingenuity. Faintheartedness is therefore to be despised, as is baseness
of subject matter for which any amount of artifice is useless.
Important Subject, Elegant Concept:
St. John writing the book of Revelation
 Structure and Style

Background
Middle ground

Foreground
Structure and Style: Rhyming forms and
transitions
 Ruisdael, View of Haarlem…
Poussin
Landscape with St. John on Patmos
1670, oil on canvas
1640, Oil on canvas 62 cm×55 cm
102 x 133 cm
 Palace of Versailles Louis as in
Ballet Costume as
1668-c.1685 Apollo
Le Vau and Mansart
Gardens by Le Notre

Hyacinth Rigaud
Louis XIV, 1701
Oil on Canvas 9 x 7 ft.
East
The King’s Bedroom and the
Ceremony of the
Rising Sun
Hall of Mirrors
Fountains powered by the Machine de Marly: 14 paddle wheels
that powered a pump that sent water to Versailles by aqueduct
Grotto of Thetis at Versailles
Ballroom Garden
Versailles
Generations later…Marie Antoinette’s personal play village
 Antoine Watteau
Pilgrimage to Cythera
1717, oil on canvas
4 x 6 ft: Rococo
François Boucher
Are They Thinking about The Grape?
1747
Oil on canvas
88 cm tall
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
The Meeting, part of
The Progress of Love
(multi canvas series)
oil on canvas
10 x 7 ft
intended for the Pavilion
de Madame du Barry
(Mistress of Louis XV)

1771-1773
The set of paintings displayed at the Frick Museum, New York City
 History painting
Neoclassicism

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784, 11 x 14 ft

Louis XIV Creates the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture
Begins annual Salons
Nicholas Langlois, Salon of 1699,
The Salon of 1785
Paris
(Salon is created in 1670s
becomes public in 1730s
becomes increasingly
influential after 1740s)
Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784, 11 x 14 ft
Neoclassicism
vs Rococo
 Elisabeth L. Vigee-LeBrun
Angelica Kauffman The Artist and Daughter
Cornelia Presenting her 1789
Children as her Treasures Oil on canvas
1785 130 x 94 cm
Elisabeth L. Vigee-LeBrun
Marie Antoinette
and Her Children
9 ft 1/2 in. x 7 ft 5/8 in.
(2.75 x 2.15 m)
Oil on Canvas
1787
John Singleton Copley
(American)
Mr and Mrs Thomas Mifflin
Oil on Canvas
61 x 48 in
1773