23 facts about Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin (, US: /puːˈsæ̃/,French: [nikɔla pusɛ̃]; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his practicing life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a little group of Italian and French collectors. He returned to Paris for a brief times to encourage as First Painter to the King below Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, but soon returned to Rome and resumed his more customary themes. In his higher years he gave growing beat to the landscape in his paintings. His take steps is characterized by clarity, logic, and order, and favors line greater than color. Until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for such classically-oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne.

Details of Poussin’s artistic training are somewhat obscure. Around 1612 he traveled to Paris, where he studied below minor masters and completed his earliest unshakable works. His enthusiasm for the Italian works he maxim in the royal collections in Paris goaded him to travel to Rome in 1624, where he studied the works of Renaissance and Baroque painters—especially Raphael, who had a powerful influence on his style. He befriended a number of artists who shared his classicizing tendencies, and met important patrons, such as Cardinal Francesco Barberini and the antiquarian Cassiano dal Pozzo. The commissions Poussin customary for modestly scaled paintings of religious, mythological, and historical subjects allowed him to produce his individual style in works such as The Death of Germanicus, The Massacre of the Innocents, and the first of his two series of the Seven Sacraments.

He was persuaded to compensation to France in 1640 to be First Painter to the King but, dissatisfied with the overwhelming workload and the court intrigues, returned forever to Rome after a little more than a year. Among the important works from his progressive years are Orion Blinded Searching for the Sun, Landscape in imitation of Hercules and Cacus, and The Seasons.