THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH SCHOOL
THROUGHOUT the seventeenth century the impulse for the artistic activity of France emanated from Rome. But before discussing the dominating personalities of the age we must refer to a few painters who occupy a more or less isolated position in the art of their country.
The naturalism of Caravaggio was introduced into France by two of his followers, Jean de Boulongne, called Le Valentin (1591–1634), and Simon Vouet (1590–1649), who was also slightly influenced by the Venetians. Valentin spent the best part of his life in Rome, where he died in 1634. The Louvre owns, among eight pictures from his brush (not all of which are exhibited), his masterpiece, The Innocence of Susannah recognised (No. 56), which has the vigorous handling and bold chiaroscuro of the Neapolitan school.
Simon Vouet, who came to England at the age of fifteen, and subsequently travelled in Turkey and Italy, where he remained until his appointment as Painter to the King took him back to Paris in 1627, tried to combine the naturalism of Caravaggio with the colouring of the Venetians, an endeavour in which he was only partially successful, as he was not equipped by nature with a sensuous appreciation of beautiful colour. The Louvre owns a dozen Scriptural subjects and allegorical figures by Vouet; but even the best of them, The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (No. 971), is but a dull and heavy performance; whilst his Portrait of Louis XIII. (No. 976) is wholly devoid of artistic merit. Perhaps he owes his fame chiefly to the fact that he was the master of the absurdly overrated Le Sueur and of that art despot of the Louis xiv. era, Charles Le Brun.