The Three Baroques The Catholic Counter-Reformation Baroque Protestant Baroque in England, Holland, and Germany The Grand Manner of King Louis XIV of France

France emerged from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 as a world superpower with strong ties to the Church in Rome. From this time forward, artists from France typically travelled to Rome and Florence to study classical antiquity and the work of Renaissance and Baroque masters. However, very few French artists during the fifty years after the Peace of Westphalia were interested in the developments of Caravaggio and Bernini. In France, King Louis XIV’s taste remained classical, which is referred to as “The Grand Manner.” Louis lived from 1638 to 1715 and ruled starting at age 5, for 72 years. Jacques Callot, “Hanging Tree” from Miseries of War series, 1621 Created during the Thirty Years War.

Georges de La Tour, Adoration of the Shepherds, De La Tour was one of the few artists in France to adopt the Carravagist style—most likely by way of the Utrecht Carravagisti, such as Honthorst. Honthorst, Supper Party, 1620

Louis Le Nain, Family of Country People, c The other French painter to work in the style of the Caravaggisti was Louis Le Nain, who work primarily on images of ordinary peasants—without an apparent religious purpose. Art historians refer to these as GENRE scenes. Recent scholarship suggests that wealthy patrons liked these scenes because the peasants seemed to be contented in them. Georges de La Tour, Adoration of the Shepherds,

Louis Le Nain, Family of Country People, c The other French painter to work in the style was Louis Le Nain, who work primarily on images of ordinary peasants—without an apparent religious purpose. Art historians refer to these as GENRE scenes. Limbourg Brothers, Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry, Fevrier (February), detail, Louis Le Nain, Family of Country People, c The other French painter to work in the style was Louis Le Nain, who work primarily on images of ordinary peasants—without an apparent religious purpose. Art historians refer to these as GENRE scenes. Recent scholarship suggests that wealthy patrons liked these scenes because they made the peasants seem contented.

Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, c The painter who would have the greatest impact on French art for the next three hundred years is Nicolas Poussin. He was inspired to travel to Rome from France in 1624 after he saw a collection of prints by Marcantonio Raimondi reproducing paintings by Raphael. Once in Rome, he experimented with a variety of styles before settling on the style of Annibale Carracci. Copy of Raphael’s Madonna del Divino Amore after a print by Marcantonio Raimondi as painted by Giovanni Francesco Penni, c. 1530

Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, c Raphael, School of Athens, Vatican Palace,

Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, c Carracci and Caravaggio, Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, c. 1600

Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, c Carracci, Assumption of the Virgin,

Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, c Masaccio, Holy Trinity, Sta. Maria Novella, Florence, c. 1428

Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, c Rubens, Arrival of Marie de' Medici at Marseilles,

Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, c In Rome, Poussin was introduced to Cassiano dal Pozzo, an archaeologist, philosopher, and naturalist, who hired him to draw copies recently uncovered Roman and Etruscan antiquities. Pozzo provided him with access to libraries and collections of Renaissance art, and facilitated commissions with the Pope and several cardinals including Cardinal Richelieu, the cardinal and Prime Minister to the King of France (Louis XIII). Poussin, drawing of a Samnite breastplace for Pozzo, c. 1620

Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, c Roman Sarcophagus, c. 330 CE

Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, c Léon Vaudoyer, Poussin's Tomb, Basilica Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome, c. 1820

Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, c. 1655Poussin, Burial of Phocion, 1648

The subject of the painting derives from the 1 st -century Greek writer Plutarch’s Life of Phocion. Phocion was an honorable military leader of Athens during the 4 th century BCE, sentenced to death for siding with the King instead of the people during a power struggle. His burial in Athens was forbidden, so Poussin shows him being carried out of the city of Rome. (Athens was controlled by Muslim Turks in the 17 th century, so Poussin had no idea what Athens looked like.) In 1640, Cardinal Richelieu had the King’s secretary Sublet de Noyers send an envoy Rome to persuade Poussin to return to Paris, where Poussin was given the title “First Painter in Ordinary” to the King. When Richelieu died two years later, Louis XIII promoted Cardinal Mazarini, who fired de Noyers. Poussin disliked Mazarini and returned to Rome. De Noyers died two years later in exile. This is when Poussin painted the Burial of Phocion. It is likely that the Burial of Phocion is an allusion to the life and unjust death of de Noyers. Poussin, Burial of Phocion, 1648

Caravaggio, Conversion of St. Paul, c. 1601

Ruisdale, Landscape with a View of Haarlem, c Poussin, Burial of Phocion, 1648

Claude Lorrain, Landscape with Cattle and Peasants, 1629 Poussin, Burial of Phocion, 1648

Claude Lorrain, Port Scene with the Embarkation of St Ursula, c, 1640

Poussin, Burial of Phocion, 1648 Charles Le Brun, Holy Family with the Adoration of the Child, c Le Brun was French and traveled to Rome with the aim to become one of Poussin’s students.

Charles Le Brun, Holy Family with the Adoration of the Child, c Poussin taught his students three basic rules that he had learned from Renaissance and Classical art. These rules would become the standard of French painting through the 19 th century: 1.Choose a grand subject, such as an heroic act, a religious theme or a battle scene. In other words don’t waste your time with genre scenes, still lifes, portraits or landscapes—which were popular with Protestants and Dutch Republicans. 2. Avoid distracting details. Reduce everything to is essentials. 3. Assimilate from everything you see, but do not imitate the visual world. The goal is to invite the viewer to examine the subject with consideration and not just simple sensory perception. See Nicolas Poussin: Dialectics of Painting by Oskar Bätschmann

Poussin, Studies of Facial Expressions, c Charles Le Brun, Holy Family with the Adoration of the Child, c. 1655

Le Brun and Hardouin-Mansart, Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, c Charles Le Brun, Holy Family with the Adoration of the Child, c. 1655

Le Brun and Hardouin-Mansart, Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, c Charles Le Brun returned to Paris from Rome in 1646 and became one of the twelve founders of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1648, which adopted Poussin’s style and intellectual training as its ideal. Students in the Academy were provided with technical as well as Liberal Arts training. Louis XIV liked the style of Poussin and hired Le Brun and the other painters of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture for use in the embellishment of his palaces. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that every single item of decoration in every royal residence (from the paintings to the landscape design to the shape of the doorknobs) was executed or conceived of by Le Brun. They were carried out under his direction by a host of artists and craftsmen, and no painting was regarded as official without his approval. In 1662 Le Brun was knighted. In 1663 he was made chancellor for life of the Academy, Keeper of the Royal Collections, and director of the Gobelins manufactory of tapestries, porcelain and metalwork. In 1666 he organized the French Royal Academy in Rome, where French artists who shared his (and the King’s) values could study Renaissance masters and classical antiquities.

Le Brun and Hardouin- Mansart, Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, c Le Brun, Louis XIV Visiting the Gobelins Factory, c tapestry design

Le Brun and Hardouin-Mansart, Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, c. 1680

Charles-Nicolas Cochin, engraving depicting the Yew-Tree Ball, 1745

Le Brun and Hardouin-Mansart, Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, c ceiling

Le Vau, Le Brun et al, Palace at Versailles, begun 1669

Louis XIV commissioned his architect Louis Le Vau and landscape architect Andre Le Nôtre to transform the 1624 hunting lodge of his father into a palace that could accommodate the court. (Le Brun was put in charge of all of the interior decorations.) In 1682 the court and the government was established permanently in Versailles.

Rigaud, Louis XIV, 1701 Le Vau, Le Nôtre, Le Brun et al, Palace at Versailles, begun 1669 The King’s second wife Madame de Maintenon wrote in August, 1713: “We must not speak of inconvenience; he thinks of nothing but show, and symmetry, grandeur, and magnificence: he would rather have all the winds blow through his doors than that they should not be exactly opposite to each other…” (emphasis added).

Rigaud, Louis XIV, 1701

Le Vau, Le Brun et al, Palace at Versailles, begun 1669 Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1453

Rigaud, Louis XIV, 1701 Le Vau, Le Brun et al, Palace at Versailles, begun 1669 Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1453 Rubens, Arrival of Marie de' Medici at Marseilles,

Rigaud, Louis XIV, 1701

King’s Bedchamber

1866 View of the château de Versailles, ca. 1722, by Pierre-Denis Martin. This was how Versailles looked at the time of Louis XIV’s death

Bernini, Piazza of St. Peters, Vatican, Rome, c plan

1866

Grotto of Thetis

Grotto of Thetis, interior covered in pebbles and shells known as rocaille.

Girardon, Apollo Attended by Nymphs, c Grotto of Thetis, interior covered in pebbles and shells known as rocaille.

Girardon, Apollo Attended by Nymphs, c Grotto of Thetis, interior covered in pebbles and shells known as rocaille.

Girardon, Apollo Attended by Nymphs, c. 1666, current installation at Versailles

1866 Versailles, Hamlet cottage

Watteau, The Country Dance,