The two years’ sojourn in France of Solario, at the invitation of the Cardinal d’Amboise, of Da Vinci at the solicitation of Louis XII., and the foundation of the school of Fontainebleau by Rosso and Primaticcio, mark the eclipse of whatever schools of French painting were then existing, for the grand manner and dramatic power of the Italians, fostered by royal patronage, carried all before them. Of Rosso, known to the French as Maître Roux, the Louvre has a Pietà and a classical subject—The Challenge of the Pierides (Nos. 1485 and 1486). Primaticcio is represented by some admirable drawings. But the sterility of the Fontainebleau school may be inferred from the fact that when Marie de’ Medici desired to have the Luxembourg decorated with the events in the life of Henry IV., her late husband, she was compelled to apply to a foreigner—Rubens.
Of Vouet (1590-1649), who is important as the leader of the new French school of the seventeenth century, the Louvre has some dozen examples, among them being his masterpiece (No. 971)—The Presentation at the Temple. Bestowing a passing attention on the lesser masters, and pausing to appreciate the works of the three brothers Le Nain, who stand pre-eminent for the healthy, sturdy simplicity of their peasant types and scenes of lowly life, we turn to Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), the greatest of the seventeenth-century masters, who spent the whole of his artistic career in Rome save two unhappy years (1640-1642) at the French court, which his simple habits and artistic conscience made intolerable to him. His exalted and lucid conceptions, admirable art and fertility of invention may be adequately appreciated at the Louvre alone, which holds nearly fifty examples of his work. The beautiful and pathetic Shepherds of Arcady (No. 734) is generally regarded as his masterpiece. A group of shepherds in the fulness of health and beauty are arrested in their enjoyment of life by the warning inscription on a tomb—“Et in arcadia ego” (“I, too, once lived in Arcady”). Equally rich is the Louvre in works of Vouet’s pupil, Lesueur (1617-1655), one of the twelve ancients of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. No greater contrast could be imagined to the frank paganism of Poussin than the works of this fervently religious and tender artist, whose famous series from the life of St. Bruno is now placed in Room XII. His careful application to this monumental task may be estimated by the fact that 146 preliminary studies are preserved in the cabinet of drawings in the Louvre. The decorative skill, fertility and industry of his contemporary and fellow-pupil Lebrun (1617-1690), whom Louis XIV. loved to patronise, may perhaps be better appreciated at Versailles, but the Louvre displays the celebrated series of the Life of Alexander, executed for the Gobelins, and some score of his other works. His less talented rival, Mignard (1612-1695), also a pupil of Vouet, is seen at his best in the frescoes of the dome[173] of the Val de Grâce, but the oppressive influence of the Italian eclectics is all too evident in his style. He excelled in portraiture, and the visitor will not fail to remark the portraits of Madame de Maintenon, and of the Grand Dauphin with his wife and children. Louis XIV., who sat to him many times, one day, towards the end of his life, asked, “Do you find me changed?” “Sire,” answered the courtly painter, “I only perceive a few more victories on your brow.” We may now observe the more grave and virile style of Philippe de Champaigne of Brussels (1602-1674), who settled in Paris at nineteen years of age, and may fairly be classed among the French school. His intimate association with the austere and pious Jansenists of Port Royal is traceable in the Last Supper (No. 1928), and in his masterpiece, the portraits of Mother Catherine Agnes Arnauld and his own daughter, Sister Catherine (No. 1934), painted for the famous convent. He is perhaps better known for his portraits of Richelieu. Claude Lorrain (1600-1682), the best known and most appreciated of the seventeenth-century masters, and the greatest of the early landscape painters, is seen in sixteen examples.
