17th century French painting

1. Overview of the development of French painting

An important stage in the development of French painting in the 17th century was the transition of the dominant positions from the guild organization to the academic organization, which on the one hand accelerated development, but on the other, suppressed national motives in favor of European classicism. The cultural influence of Paris in the period under review began to prevail among French painters over the influence of Italy and the Netherlands.

The development of French art in French painting of the “Great Century” is reflected with particular clarity, the history of which is thoroughly studied in the older works of Felibien, de Peel, d'Argentville, Lepissieux, Mariette, de Chenneviere, de Monteglone, Doussie and the newer works of Blanc, Berger, Merson, Lemonier, Marseille, Manz, Batifol, Pikawa, as well as in numerous monographs. The parallels with the history of French literature (Corneille, Molière, Racine) are particularly prominent here. The distinction between a more multilateral, freer, and to a certain extent more national first and academically classical second half century, the direction of which has developed too consciously since the time of Louis XIV (1661), is manifested here in all its sharpness. But the development of the arts from imaginary guild slavery to academic ostensibly freedom was nowhere more typical than in French painting of this period. The victory of the academy over the guild "master", finally decided around 1671, actually meant a victory borrowed over an independent, common over a peculiar, learned over the observed.

One of the main tasks of the French painting of the 17th century was to decorate us already known churches and palaces with huge wall and ceiling paintings. Church painting on glass, in Gothic time replacing wall painting, was at the last gasp, although windows with images of the apostles on a light background in 1625 in the Cathedral of Troy and in 1631 in San Eustache in Paris still seem to reveal further development in the sense of transition to clear glass. French painting on fabrics, replacing wall paintings in secular public buildings quite often, now again reached a predominance, which in the hands of Dutch artisans and workers in the 15th and 16th centuries should have been ceded to the Netherlands. It flourished in the provinces, as in Paris, and reached its highest peak in the Hotel, near the old name of the Tapestry dyers, in the “Tapestry manufactory” in Paris, turned by Finance Minister Colbert in 1662 under Louis XIV to the state. Lebrin was entrusted to lead it. Samples, still until 1662 kept somehow in the style of weaving depending on the technique, later became richer and more tender in painting and, besides it, were made by a number of other significant artists of the era.

Of the numerous works of French wall and weaving painting of the 17th century, relatively little has been preserved. The French engravers of that time, however, who became independent artists like their Flemish predecessors, made sure that whole series of large wall and ceiling images reached the offspring in at least black reproductions. Robert Dumenil and Duplessis gave a coherent overview of French engraving art. As in Rome around Raphael, in Antwerp around Rubens, and in Paris around the famous painters Vouet, Poussin, Champagne, Lesieuer, Lebrun, Minyar, etc., which are to be discussed, schools of engravers were formed. Claude Mellan (1598–1688) is one of the engravers-artists of this series, a remarkable talent whose independence in historical and portrait engravings was clearly highlighted by Gonz. Although the image of the head of Christ through one spiral line, starting from the tip of the nose, it has a simple focus, yet this head is not without inner life. The most significant of engravers who reproduced Vouet was Michel Dorigny (circa 1617–1660), the most zealous engraver of Poussin Jean Penh (1623 to 1700); the great Gerard Odran (1640–1703) perpetuated numerous of the best works of Poussin, Lesueur, and Lebrun. His contemporary, Antwerp Gerard Edelink, a pupil of Cornelis Galles in Antwerp, and François de Poigli (1622–1693) in Paris, not only reproduced Lebrun and Champagne, but also carried out independent portraits. Other French engravers were engaged exclusively or mainly in portraiture, and they sometimes reproduced portraits painted by others, but more often they worked independently, and therefore represent not only the world's best engravers, but also the most remarkable artists ever nominated by France. They are led by Robert Nantel from Reims (1623–1678), who successfully combined the free linear style with delicate short hatching applied to the body. Antwerp Peter van der Schuppen (1623–1702) was his worthy student. The great realist of all real Antoine Masson (1636–1700) applied his engraving technique with even greater brilliance to a strong, faithful transfer of the portrait. We will meet the painters-engravers as independent artists in the series of painters.

Engraving as a small art in the portrait area was superseded by the miniature painting of the school of Clouet, which, as Boucher showed, in the seventeenth century quickly fell to poor craft. Only one genus of French small painting - Limoges enamel was still developing to some extent technically, but in the field of portrait painting did not lead to independent creativity. Her most famous representative in the seventeenth century, Genevine Jean Petitot (1607–1691), worked mostly on foreign models.

The great French painting in the 17th century was also not limited to Paris alone. The works of provincial painting of such cities as Lyon, Rouen, Nantes, Bordeaux, Montpellier, etc., partly even owned public schools of painting, were described by Shennevier, Rondo and other researchers. Paris, however, held in his hands all the threads of development, since they were not tightened to Rome. The main Roman current was divided into antique, renaissance and the newest direction. Almost all the famous French masters of this time visited Italy. On the other hand, already under Henry IV, Dutch masters, like Frans Pourbus the Younger (1569–1622), whose famous portraits of the king and his wife are in the Louvre, were invited to Paris; and in the time of Marie de Medici, the great Antwerp Rubens appeared in 1621, decorating the gallery of the Luxembourg Palace with famous semi-allegorical pictures from the life of the queen. Rubens, however, gained influence in Paris only fifty years later, and only a few Dutchmen, Brussels Philippe de Champagne and Antwerp Francois Millet, gained French power after Pourbus.

The main representatives of the Gallo-Frankish undercurrent were the three brothers Lenen from Laon, Antoine (1588–1648), Louis (1593–1648) and Mathieu (1607–1677) Lenen (monograph of Valrebreg), who worked together. Their teacher was probably some wandering Dutch artist in Laon. Their unassuming genre paintings from folk life, "The Blacksmiths", "Village Lunch" and "Peasant Lunch" in the Louvre, stand alone in the French art of this time. The figures of the peasants are captured individually and vividly, but they are placed without movement, like groups in photographs. Their brush is dry, the general tone is gray, but playing with separate light spots. Only a hundred years later, Chardin headed along the path indicated by them.

Fig. 124. Country lunch. A picture of one of the Lenins in the Louvre.

Talented and original works from the folk life of the Lorraine’s Jacques Callot (1592–1635), to whom the good works were dedicated to Mom, Boucher, Vashon, and recently Hermann Nass. Kallo studied in Rome with the engraver Philip Thomassen, in Florence with the etcher Giulio Parigi, and he is known only as an etcher and draftsman. His lively etchings from Italian folk life, fifty “Capricci di varie figure” (1617), quickly brought him fame. In Florence, he was court painter of Cosimo II, in Nancy in 1621 court painter of Charles IV of Lorraine. His drawings from the northern folk and military life are full of peculiar national life. If some of his sketches with long thin, low-head figures are quite mannered, then nevertheless his carefully executed main series of pictorial engravings, such as The Story of the Prodigal Son (1635), Gypsy Nomads (1625–1628), small and large wars ”(1632–1633), represent the true miracle of direct observation, sharp characteristics, picturesque location of groups and masses, as well as the ingenious placement of figures and groups among the easily scribbled open landscape. Nasse, well describing the history of Callot, has 142 pages of his work. “He created,” says Nasse, “a new engraving technique and a new style of the raspodus narrator, he had, with his World of Microcosm, a fruitful and strong influence on countless engravers of all countries, of all times.”

The true Frenchman, akin to Callot and Lena, Abraham Bosse (1605–1678), a touring engraver (monograph of Valabrega), is a living display of the types, costumes, and manners of the upper classes of France, with which he presents a true, but far from pleasing, mirror.

Gallo-Roman Masters

On the contrary, in the footsteps of the Italian realists of this century walked Valentin de Boulogne (Le Valantin) from Culomier (1591–1634), whose name and biographical dates established by Dovernem should not be distorted now. He lived and died in Rome. Already his big picture of the martyrdom of St. Process and martsinianana, written for the church of sv. Petra, now kept in the Vatican, shows him as a follower of Caravaggio. His historical paintings in the Louvre and in the French provincial collections, Emmaus in Nantes, “Casting lots for the clothes of the Savior” in Lille, confirm this impression. His full-size genre paintings are quite Caravadzhev's, which are both concerts, a fortune-teller and a drunk in the Louvre. His art is second-hand, in which sometimes a spark of the French spirit flares up, and, despite its realism, it belongs to the Gallo-Roman trend.

Jacques Courtois of Saint-Hippolyte, nicknamed in Rome, where he lived and died, Jacopo Cortese, or Borgognone (1621–1676), one of the most famous battlefield painters of the 17th century, also belongs to the French-Roman realists. The vein of the Netherlands was manifested only to the extent that the Dutch influences reworked his sample of Michelangelo Cherkvozzi. But, obviously, the battle paintings of Salvator Rosa also influenced him. He portrayed predominantly cavalry attacks in very lively movements of the masses, colorfully perceived against the background of widely painted landscapes shrouded in yellowish dust and smoke, giving him pictures of the Louvre, Dresden and Roman collections attractive for its picturesque atmosphere life.

The Parisian Simon Vouet (1590–1649) became an Italian in Rome, where he appeared in 1613, he soon painted a picture for the church of Sts. Peter and educated numerous students. It was he who transplanted 17th century Italian art to France, where he returned in 1627 as the “first master” of Louis XIII, showered with honors and orders. Only from the engravings of his sons-in-law Michel Dorigny and Francois Torteb (died in 1690) do we know some of the large decorative works made inside the French palaces, and we can form the concept of the richness of his decorative fantasy and the emptiness of his usual language of forms. Both of his woven paintings in the Museum of Tapestries, of which the “Sacrifice of Abraham” is famous, come to us, and numerous oil paintings in the Louvre speak of the international indifference of his style. Something more durable Vouet gave France only in the person of his students.

A contemporary of Vouet, Parisian Jacques Blanchard (1600–1638), reworked in Italy not Roman, but rather Venetian influences. He returned to Paris in 1627, simultaneously with Vouet. Judging by his Louvre paintings, for example, Mercy, he does not deserve the honorary nickname of the French Titian. However, it is important that, next to the Bologna-Roman school, the Venetian in his person is now making progress in France.

2. The art of Nicolas Poussin

The most famous artist of France of the XVII century, who worked in the classical style, is Nicolas Poussin. The main stages of his work are: stay in Rome from 1624 (which brought to life his first famous works, influenced by the style of Raphael), life in Paris in 1640–1642 (where his best paintings on church themes were painted) and the last Roman period, which brought him fame master of the historical landscape.

A real classic of French painting of the 17th century was Nicolas Poussin (1593–1665), the great Norman, the most decisive representative of the Gallo-Roman trend of French art, with a clear penchant for antiqua and the Renaissance of Raphael. He always subordinates the individuality of individual types to the assimilated Roman sense of beauty, and nevertheless communicates to all his works his own French imprint. The desire for internal unity, intelligible clarity and full conviction of the depicted episodes leads him not only to the extremely precise execution of each gesture and mine, but also to express the essence of each action, first experienced mentally, and then clearly expressed in visual forms. He hates side figures and unnecessary additions. Each of his figures plays the necessary, calculated and thought-out role in the rhythm of the lines and in the expression of the meaning of his picture. The nature of his landscapes, mostly borrowed from the Roman mountain nature and playing an important role, sometimes even making up the main thing in his paintings with small figures, he adapts to the character of the depicted episodes. “I did not neglect anything,” he said himself. His art is primarily the art of lines and drawing. His paints, non-permanent, at first motley, then brought to a more general tone, sometimes dry and dull. In the best paintings, however, truth and light plays the light and shadow, and in the landscapes the noble outlines of mountains, luxurious deciduous trees are successfully distributed, and magnificent buildings are in most cases shrouded in perfect mood. As a landscape painter, Poussin combined the power of his Dutch and Italian predecessors with a clearer sense of unity and created a direction whose influence has been felt for centuries. If we cannot admire Poussin's strict classicism, then we must still admit that he knew how to convincingly and with mood to express all that he wanted to say.

The history of poussin painting, which was first described by Bellorie and Felibien, then Bush, John Smith and Maria Greg, and finally Denio and Adwiel, begins in Rome, where he appeared in 1624. What he learned in his homeland Quentin Varen, Paris, the Dutch, Ferdinand Ella and Georges Lalemann, we do not know. The engravings of the Raphael school undoubtedly influenced his direction in Paris. The fact that he copied the antique wall picture Aldobrandino Wedding in Rome characterizes all of his Roman development. The first known paintings, written by him around 1630 in Rome for Cardinal Barberini, “The Death of Germanicus” in the Barberini Gallery and “The Destruction of Jerusalem”, copies of which are in the Vienna Gallery, are more compact and more complete than the later works, but already discover all his innermost qualities.

At first glance, the vastness of the plot of Poussin is limited almost exclusively to ancient mythology and history, the Old Testament and Christian themes written by him with the same inner inspiration as pagan ones. Scenes of martyrdom were not to his liking. Of course, the main work of his first Roman period (1624–1640) for the church of Sts. Peter, replaced here by a mosaic copy of a large painting of the Vatican Gallery, quite expressively depicts the martyrdom of St. Erasmus. Poussin, however, also tries, as far as possible, to soften the terrible episode with a tender sense of beauty. The most famous paintings of this period are: “Abduction of the Sabines”, “Manna Collecting” and later “Finding Moses” in the Louvre, an early image of the “Seven Holy Gifts” in Belvoir Castl, “Parnassus”, made in the spirit of Rafael, in Madrid and -Alexandrian-felt "The Pursuit of Syringa Pan" in Dresden.

Fig. 125. “The torment of sv. Erasmus. Painting by Nicolas Poussin in the Vatican. From the photo of F. Ganfshtengl in Munich

Of the paintings written by Poussin during his two-year stay in Paris already as the “first master of the king” (1640–1642), “The Miracle of Saint. Xavier in the Louvre reveals his best side as a church painter. Sketches for the decoration of the Louvre Gallery are preserved only in engravings Penh.

Of the numerous paintings of the last Roman period of Poussin (1642–1665), the second series “St. Gifts ”(Bridgwater Gallery, London) made a noise image of the Last Supper in the form of a Roman triclinium with guests reclining.The latest landscape with Diogenes, throwing the cup, in the Louvre, was written in 1648. The shepherd idyll "Et in Arcadia ego" in the Louvre and "The Testament of Evdamida" in the gallery Moltke in Copenhagen belong to the most stylish of his works. We cannot enumerate here his numerous paintings in the Louvre, London, Dulwich, Madrid, Petersburg, Dresden, etc. The works that created him the glory of the creator of the “historical” or “heroic” landscape, a magnificent and at the same time sincere picture with Orpheus and The Eurydice of 1659 in the Louvre and the four powerful landscapes of the same congregation (1660–1664), with four seasons, lively episodes from the Old Testament, refer to the last decade of his life.

Poussin personally formed only one pupil, his brother-in-law, who was born from French parents in Rome and the deceased Gaspard Dughet (1613-1675), also called Gaspard Poussin. He developed the motifs of the Albanian and Sabine mountains in large, sharply stylized, ideal landscapes, typical of the scheme of his “tree foliage”, sometimes with thunderclouds and clouds, with figures like additions in which he rather neglected the episode than the ancient costume or heroic nudity . He breathed new life mainly in the landscape murals, long known in Italy. He decorated the palaces of the Roman magnates (Doria, Colonna) with an extensive series of landscapes. In the landscape frescoes with episodes from the history of the Prophet Elijah in San Martino ai Monti, he brought to perfection a special kind studied by the author of this book, a kind of church painting spread in Rome by the Belgian Paul Bril. All more or less significant galleries possess separate pictures of Dughet. Its landscapes with the storm and the “Tombstone of Caecilia Metella” of the Vienna Gallery are typical. He is also valued as an engraver.

3. Creativity Claude Jelly

Claude Jelle, born in Lorraine and working in Rome, can also be formally referred to as French painters. He achieved excellence in portraying well-designed landscapes and had a definite influence on the later French art.

Hardly affected by the influence of Poussin, but along with them stands “Raphael of Landscape Painting”, Claude Jelay (1600–1682), nicknamed Claude Lorrain, a lotarinarian from Shamany, not French, who did not study and did not live in France, but moved to Rome as a young man where he studied with Agostino Tassi, a student of Carracci. We owe information to this artist, besides himself, to Sandrartu and Balducci, especially Mrs. Pattison and Em Michel. Although in the art of Claude, it was not the French, but only the Dutch and Italian elements that appeared, with an admixture of influence (not personal) of the German-Roman Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), however, it was impossible to dispute it in French art, as he came from a region that spoke French language later incorporated into France.

The earliest date, 1636, is on one of the twenty-seven of his authentic engravings, of which the best “Brod” of 1636 (Robert-Dumenil No. 8) and “Harbor” (Robert-Dumenil No. 15) belong to the finest in technology and artistically attractive sheets of this time.

How carefully Claude studied nature, show numerous studies for his paintings in the British Museum and other collections. Fig. the bathrooms are mostly in the vicinity of Rome, they represent only the material for its ideal landscapes. In some of them, the majestic ruins of Roman colonnades or ancient temples and palaces with lush trees form the foreground scenes, as it were. In contrast to the mountain backgrounds of Poussin, he loves free views across a slightly undulating plain with lakes, rivers and arched bridges, or across harbors with lush buildings to the infinite distance of the sea. In the noble lines, one plane protrudes ahead of another. In the foreground, he places grasses, flowers and branches of gigantic giant trees, lovingly trimming details. But to the most distant background, she fills her paintings with cheerful, bright sunshine. In this regard, he really makes new ways. He even decides to depict the sun not only at the moments of sunrise or sunset, but also in its full midday shine, and to transmit the play of its rays in treetops or in streams of sea ripples. At the same time, Claude always adapts to his paintings (with the exception of a few ideal harbors with buildings in the ancient spirit, for example, in the Louvre, in the Uffizi, in London and Munich) idyllic landscapes with herdsmen and herds (in Berlin, Munich, Budapest and in the Louvre), and sometimes free native species (Tivoli in Windsor and Grenoble, Castel Gandolfo in Palazzo Barberini, Roman Forum in the Louvre) - historical episodes, mostly from mythology or the Old Testament, less often from the Christian world. The tragic themes do not fit the bright Champs-Elysées of his landscapes, and in most cases he only sketched and fitted attractive groups of figures to the lines of his landscapes, through which he tells his funny stories, and the final implementation provides them to specialists in pieces like Lori, Miel and Guillaume Courtois. In any case, it is impossible to make judgments about his paintings according to the internal logic of these subordinate figure groups, as does Ruskin.

Fig. 126. "Morning." Painting by Claude Jelly in the Hermitage, in St. Petersburg. From the photo of F. Ganfshtengl in Munich

To clarify his works, Claude compiled Liber Veritatis, a collection of 200 lightly drafted drawings with a pen, which should be considered part of as projects for his paintings, partly as sketches from them. Most of his paintings - but not all - are certified by this collection, owned by the Duke of Devonshire in Chatsworth, published as early as 1777 by Karl and Boydel.

Having found his style around 1630, Claude later developed only his own colors. His latest paintings, the Roman Forum, as well as the Roman Sea Harbor in the Louvre, are distinguished by a heavy brown tone. Even his fiery harbor of 1644 in London is still reddish in color, the “Village Festival” and the second “Sea Harbor” in the Louvre in 1639 are pierced with golden light; the warm golden light also fills his third harbor in the Louvre in 1646, “The Anointing of David upon the kingdom” there and the famous “Mill” (Isaac and Rebekah) in Doria’s Palazzo in Rome, a copy of which is in the National Gallery in London. The transition to a silvery tone characterizes his magnificent “Escape to Egypt” (1647) in Dresden, the radiant “Queen of Sheba” in London (1646) and the “Burning Bush” (1654) in the Bridgewater Gallery. The best pictures are in a clear, fresh, silvery tone “Sea Bay” with Akis and Galatea (1657) in Dresden, a Roman landscape with ruins at Grosvenor House in London and four Petersburg landscapes with Jacob and Rachel, rest on the way (1654), Tobias and the struggle of Jacob with the angel, known as Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night. Warmer and more tender pictures of Claude of the sixties: "Abduction of Europe" (1667) in Buckingham Palace, the coast with the reflection of the sun (1667) in the Bridgewater Gallery in London and the landscape with the expulsion of Hagar (1668) in Munich Pinakothek. In the end, he became weaker, pompous and colder. We cannot list here all his best works, most of which are in the London National Gallery, in the Louvre, Madrid, St. Petersburg and Rome. If Claude's fame apparently faded in recent decades, accustomed to the modern image of full light, and decorative buildings, groups of Claude trees began to seem tedious and theatrical imitations, then in any case no one takes away his place in the history of the arts as the pioneer of new ways. landscape painting areas. The open-minded friends of art will now, as before, admire the outer beauty and inner warmth of the lighting of his paintings.

Along the paths of Poussin and Claude in the field of landscape, studied by Lanoe and Bryce, went in France, on the one hand, Francois Millet, an Antwerp of French origin (1642–1679), nicknamed Francis, discovered great tenderness and beauty in the landscape painting of Paris, on the other - the French : Pierre Patel (died in 3666), his son Pierre Antoine Patel (died in 1708) and Étienne Allegrin (1644 to 1736), skilled craftsmen who remained, however, with external imitation.

4. Artists of the second half of the XVII century

In the second half of the century, French painting largely follows the path laid out by Poussin; under Louis XIV, the eponymous style is created, with which it is customary to associate that era. The difference from the motives of the first half of the century lies in a greater striving for elegance, bright colors, and expressiveness of the drawing.

A more profound and lasting influence was made by Poussin's historical paintings. Jacques Stella from Lyon (1595–1657) approached him the closest, heaped up with works, but a sober master who joined him in 1623 in Rome. Significant and more independent was Philippe de Champagne from Brussels (1602–1674), a Parisian comrade Poussin in his young years (monograph by Bushite and Gazier). Roman antiques had no effect on its further development. But he was mostly a church painter. He performed a large series of church paintings, not only for the Jansenist monastery from Port Royal, to which he belonged, but also for the Val de Gras monastery and for various Parisian churches. Pictures of Port Royal, The Last Supper and The Prayer of the Nuns (with the artist's sick daughter) are in the Louvre; the Feast at the Pharisee hangs there among the paintings painted for Val de Grasse; the rest of the church paintings of his hand got into the Brussels Museum. It is impossible to deny the well-known warmth of religious feeling in these paintings, not Italian, but purely French in spirit, but their artistic style, despite considerable strength, is somewhat indifferent in shapes and colors. On the contrary, his portraits, artlessly reproducing notables, with a confident pattern, calm smoothness of colorful technology, occupy a high and special place among the modern ones, and the Dutch origin of the master strongly affects them. His "Cardinal Richelieu" in the Louvre is glorified rightly.

The multilateral Parisian Laurent de la Gere (1606–1656) and Nicolas Minyar from Troyes (1615–1668), nicknamed for his series of paintings in Avignon Mignard of Avignon, do not have clearly expressed originality, but Sebastian Bourdon from Montpellier (1616–1671), who studied in Rome (Ponsonel’s monograph) not only Poussin’s historical paintings, but also Cherkvozzi’s folk scenes, retained, in spite of the diversity of their themes and influences of Poussin and Italians, a certain degree of warm, original artistic feeling that appears most vividly in his folk scenes. mi backgrounds. The Louvre Gallery has 17, the museum of his hometown 12 paintings of his brush. He left 44 engravings.

The most famous of all these academicians of the first half of the century was Eustache Lesiuer from Paris (1616–1655), a student of Vouet, who independently switched, without visiting Rome, to the calm and simple style of Raphael and Poussin. Best rated by Gille de Saint-Georges. He was also an idealist, but he did not look at the world as pagan as Poussin, but with Christian eyes. He also knew how to tell simply and clearly, eliminating everything that was superfluous. But in its purely Parisian types the Gallo-Frankish undercurrent sometimes breaks through.

His famous wall and ceiling paintings in the Hotel Lambert de Torigny are now in the Louvre. Six paintings from the life of Amur reveal a still youthful, with a noticeable influence of Vue, the style of the artist. The ceiling painting with the fall of Phaeton and the five wall paintings with nine muses have a false classical character in the spirit of Raphael and Poussin. In the Louvre are also twenty-seven images from the life of St.. Bruno, from the Small Cross Gallery in Chartreuse (1645–1648), in which the French national vein breaks through. Typical in spontaneity of perception and clarity of the story, they produce a certain impression, although they cannot boast of the merits of their painting.

Decorative Artists

At the head of the great French decorative artists who created the style of Louis XIV in the second half of the seventeenth century, stands Paris Le Charles (1619–1690), a versatile, prolific master, whom we have already mentioned many times since he created works of all kinds of art. He was first written about by Gille de Saint-Georges, and later by Geneva, Jouet and Merson. He was not only the first master of the king, but also the first director of the Academy of Fine Arts and the tapestry factory. His name is inextricably linked with the decoration of the palaces of his era. Originally a student of Vouet, he first joined Poussin in Rome, he studied antiques with fiery fervor, but then moved on to Pietro da Cortona, whose grand ceiling painting determined his direction in this area. The overall impression of his decorative art is undoubtedly baroque, but he purely in French gives geometrical forms by dividing the fields of Cortona, sharpens his figured form language, enriches decorations consisting of germs, cartouches and half-saps, new trophies, and even gives particulars an allegorical character, which needs clarification. The individual paintings of his general scenery also differ, with empty common forms, theatrical soaring, baroque mobility and archaeological scholarship. Of his woven paintings, some are preserved in the Museum of Tapestries, others in the "Gard-Meebl" in Paris. The best works of this master are still his ceiling paintings. On his return from Rome (1646), he painted, together with Lesiuer, the Hotel Lambert de Torigny; The ceiling paintings from the life of Hercules that have survived here belong to the most recent and natural of his works. On the ceiling of the Apollo gallery in the Louvre, the Evening, Night, and the kingdoms of the waters and the earth are still shining in Lebrun’s captivating glory. The best of his work, the ceiling of a long mirror gallery in the Palace of Versailles (1679–1683), depicts the story of Louis XIV in nine large main fields and eighteen small piers, strikingly intertwining historical and allegorical events and figures. In addition, in the Hall of War there are “The Glorious Thorns of War”, in the Hall of the World - “Abundant benefits of peace”. Everything is magnificent, everything is magnificent; but everything is superficial and outwardly, and even in the decorative sense is not perfect in proportions.

Needless to say about the numerous easel paintings of Lebrun, at least only about 26, located in the Louvre. As a portrait painter, he discovers his best sides in the beautiful family portrait of Toad in Berlin. In essence, it always and everywhere remains the same. Hurt us for living his painting can not.

Lebren’s rival and opponent, Pierre Mignard (1612–1695), nicknamed in contrast to his elder brother Mignard the Roman (monograph Lepissier, Monville, Gyushara), was older than Lebrin, but only after his death received all his posts and differences. He was also a student of Vouet, studied in Rome, where he spent 1635 from the pupils of Raphael, Poussin and Carracci, but on returning home (1657) succumbed to the influence of Rubens and consciously joined the direction of colorists (as opposed to draftsmen). His most grandiose work, completed in 1663, is “Paradise” in the Val de Gras Dome, a gigantic, calculated from the bottom view, a picture with 200 figures too, three times the natural height; at the zenith of the Trinity, around it in concentric circles the heavenly hosts and the holy Old and New Testaments. This, rather poorly preserved, written in one tone work was the only one on this side of the Alps.

Historic easel paintings of Pierre Minyar can be studied in the Louvre. His pretty Madonnas were known under the name "minyard". The Netherlands covert flow that followed Rubens is manifested especially in his portraits, which admired the sharp naturalness of the show, the smoothness of the letter and the brightness of the light colors. In the Louvre hangs his family portrait of the Dauphin, in Berlin one of his best female portraits, striving for charms alien to the first half of the century.

The expressive direction of the masters of drawing in French painting of the second half of the century won a victory almost suddenly after the death of Lebrun (1690). The struggle between colorists and representatives of the drawing has been going on for twenty years. At the academy, Gabriel Branchard (1630–1704), the gifted son of Jacques Blanchard, made fervent speeches in favor of paints, and Philip and his nephew Jean Baptiste de Champagne (1631 to 1681) responded in favor of drawing. Of the critics, Felibien (1609–1695) defended the idealism of the drawing, Roger de Pil (born in 1653) defended with coloristic realism. There was the slogan of Poussin, here Rubens. Lebrun pronounced the imperious word in favor of Poussin. But immediately after the death of Lebrun, a turnaround began with the victory of Minyar. Pierre Marcel devoted an excellent book to French transition art, connecting the XVIII century with the XVII. At first, they looked for and found points of contact with the Netherlands, without rejecting, however, the Italian origin of the newest French painting. But soon the national direction came to the fore, striving for a light, pleasant, gallant one.

5. Trends in painting transition

At the turn of the century, French painting began to acquire its own characteristic features; in particular, light, gallant motifs are becoming popular. The use of mythological stylization is becoming more frequent, while the realistic style is fixed in portraiture.

The masters of the transition period, besides the portrait painters, were not great artists, but still it is instructive to trace from them the aspirations of the new time.

At the head of the artists of the new time, who wrote on themes from religious and secular history, stands Charles de la Fosse (1636–1716), in which the Dutch and Italian currents are mixed. Then follow a few masters who belonged to the families that gave numerous artists. Of the names of Juvenet, only Jean Juvenet from Rouen belongs to them, “Juvenet the Great”: (1644-1717), an artist with a strong Dutch vein.From Koipel, Noel Koipel (1628–1707), who was appointed director of the academy after the death of Minyar (1695), belongs to Rubens' supporters, his son Antoine Koipel (1661–1722) to the innovators of the gallant style of the XVIII century. One of the founders of the academy, from Bullonay Louis Bulonn the Elder (1609–1674), still sailed wholly in the wake of the Carr school