Nicolas Poussin: ideal of the art academies

“With such eyes did Michelangelo, Raphael and Poussin see the works of the ancients. They partook of good taste at its source” (Art in Theory 451). These words of Johann Winckelmann (1717-68), art historian and promoter of Neoclassicism, show how highly the works of Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) were regarded in art academies. Winckelmann makes the assumption that “classic” art - the art of Greece and Rome, the High Renaissance and Poussin - is aesthetically superior and a standard of beauty for all time. We must consider the reasons why Poussin achieved such high status. Winckelmann disliked Baroque art, which he thought decadent and vulgar. And Poussin, although working in the Baroque period, is not a typically Baroque artist, since in most (but not all) of his works he adopts a more restrained and classical style. Poussin said of himself that “my nature compels me to seek and love things that are well-ordered, fleeing confusion” (Blunt  Poussin 175). Thus Poussin tends to eschew the trappings of the Baroque. In his later work especially, he does not make much use of chiaroscuro, he is not fond of fluttering drapery, he does not usually employ angels and putti, and he does not paint visions and martyrs. Instead, Poussin gives us rigorously planned compositions showing scenes from the scriptures or the classics, usually set in tidy and well-ordered landscapes. However, it is vital to remember that Poussin was an artist who worked in more than one style and that different styles were welcomed. Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), the archetypal Baroque artist, was full of praise for the classic art of Poussin, “a man who makes me realise that I know nothing” (Art in Theory 156).

Students would begin their studies in art academies by drawing from sculptures or plaster casts. It was thought that drawing was more intellectual than colour. And here Poussin was the perfect role model, since he had been employed by Cassiano del Pozzo to make drawings of ancient sculptures (Blunt Poussin 102). Poussin was particularly influenced by ancient bas-reliefs and sarcophagi, with figures arranged in a frieze, the format for so many of his future paintings. Poussin usually began his works by making preliminary drawings, experimenting until he got the composition perfect. Early in his career, Poussin had been influenced by the Venetian colourists, especially Titian, but later came to prefer the more linear style of Raphael and the Antique (Blunt Poussin 127). This linear style was important for the spread of Poussin’s influence, because it meant that his works could be easily disseminated through line engravings.

Students in art academies were encouraged to elevate their own style by “imitating” the compositions of the great masters of the past. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), first president of the Royal Academy, said that “Such imitation is so far from having anything in it of the servility of plagiarism, that it is a perpetual exercise of the mind, a continual invention” (Reynolds 107). Poussin himself wrote that young artists need “the firm guidance of good examples” (Art in Theory 72). In his own works, Poussin often borrowed poses from classical sculptures, Michelangelo, Raphael and others. For example, in Poussin’s painting of The Holy Family on the Steps, the pose of the Madonna is taken from Raphael’s Madonna of the Fish and the figure of St. Elizabeth is derived from Michelangelo’s Persica, one of the sibyls on the Sistine Chapel ceiling (Blunt Poussin 264).

Students were also encouraged to read widely in literature and history, to provide subjects for their paintings. Reynolds held up Poussin as a model, since Poussin “transports us to the environs of ancient Rome, with all the objects which a literary education makes so precious and interesting to man” (Reynolds 237). Gian Pietro Bellori (1613-96), a friend and early biographer of Poussin, tells us that Poussin was well read in history, literature and philosophy (Blunt Poussin 172). Poussin owned a small collection of books and had access to the libraries of his patrons. The subjects of Poussin’s paintings are sometimes taken from quite obscure episodes of ancient history. For example, The Death of Germanicus, The Testament of Eudamidas  and the two Phocion landscapes.

It is significant that the aforementioned paintings all have morally-improving subjects, and students were encouraged to choose such themes. Poussin himself wrote that the subject of a painting “should be something lofty, such as battles, heroic actions, religious themes” (Art in Theory 73). Closely related to this is the importance of “idealisation”, the idea that the figures in a painting should be depicted as noble and dignified, without ugly and vulgar characteristics, and this is generally true of the figures in Poussin’s paintings.

 The academic tradition also held that the figures in a painting should have vivid expressions and gestures to convey their different emotions, like actors in a play. Charles Lebrun (1619-90), Director of the French Academy, devoted a whole lecture to praising Poussin’s Israelites Gathering the Manna, showing how Poussin gives a variety of expression and gesture to each of his figures (Art in Theory 123-131). For example, we see Moses pointing heavenwards, some men in prayer, a young man showing an old man the way to the manna, and some less altruistic figures helping themselves to the manna.

Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with St. John on Patmos, Art Institute of Chicago 

 It is also significant that most of Poussin’s paintings mentioned so far are “history paintings” - scenes from the classics or the Bible - the most prestigious kind of painting in the academic hierarchy. It was, perhaps, Poussin’s most important contribution to the academic tradition that he also helped to elevate the lowly category of landscape painting by “idealising” its style and by incorporating elements from history painting. A good example would be Poussin’s Landscape with St John on Patmos. Here we have two elements from history painting - the figure of St. John in the foreground and the classical buildings in the background - but both are fairly small in size. The landscape itself is the dominant element. Yet it is an idealised landscape, a generalised scene, probably not a topographical view of an actual place. The composition is carefully constructed so that all the elements slot perfectly together. Kenneth Clark has shown that Poussin likes to construct his landscapes with a pattern of verticals, horizontals and diagonals (Clark 78-9); and this is true of Landscape with St John on Patmos. The painting is arranged in horizontal layers - foreground, middle-ground, background - in a landscape format. This is contrasted by the upright verticals of the trees, the buildings and the ruins. A path and a line of trees form diagonal lines to lead our eye back into the painting.

Yet it has to be said that a textbook account of Poussin as a “classic” artist, ideal of the academies, fails to do justice to the variety of his work. Poussin himself said that he tried to paint in more than one way, because it was necessary to adapt the style to the subject of the individual painting (Art in Theory 69). Poussin’s Assumption of the Virgin is an ostentatiously Baroque work and his landscape of Winter (The Deluge) is a gloomily “romantic” painting in the manner of Salvator Rosa. The matter is further complicated by the fact that academicians were not consistent in their tastes. Anthony Blunt points out that Lebrun’s own work is “closer in its general effect to the Baroque artists whom Lebrun condemned than to Poussin, whom he set up as the ideal model” (Blunt Art and Architecture in France 348). A quick glance at the works of Pierre Mignard, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Nicolas de Largilliere and other court artists of Louis XIV will reveal that their works are usually much more ornamental and Baroque than those of Poussin, the ideal of their academy. Another factor was that there was no agreement on the actual merit of Poussin. The Rubenists championed the value of colour against the Poussinists, who argued for drawing and design. Reynolds, although a great admirer of Poussin, complained that Poussin had a rather “dry” manner and tended to string out his figures in a line, rather than organising them into groups (Reynolds 147). Instead of dealing with large terms like “Classic”, “Baroque” and “Academic”, it probably makes better sense to consider a selection of Poussin’s individual works in greater detail.

    

Nicolas Poussin, The Triumph of Flora, The Louvre, Paris 

An early painting by Poussin called The Triumph of Flora depicts Flora, goddess of flowers, being pulled in her triumphal chariot by two putti. There is no shortage of classical references and the subject derives from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Flora is attended by Hyacinthus, Narcissus and others who were transformed into flowers (Blunt Poussin 78). Flora is sitting in an antique chariot, she is being offered flowers by a man dressed in Roman armour, and the two figures lying in the foreground recall sculptures of reclining river gods. But the general effect of the picture is far from academic or classical. The flowering tree lends a decorative touch and the lovely landscape with its rosy-hued sky recalls Venetian art. It is not known who this painting was originally intended for, but it eventually came to hang in the bedroom of the Dauphin at Versailles, probably because it was charming and decorative and not too serious in content.

Nicolas Poussin, The Arcadian Shepherds, The Louvre, Paris
 

Poussin’s painting of The Arcadian Shepherds - his second version of this subject - depicts three shepherds and a lady (muse or priestess?) who have stumbled upon a tomb. This iconic painting has many of the elements admired by the academies. The colours are pure and unmixed. The figures are static, frozen in a timeless moment. The lady is dressed in classical robes and seen in profile, like a figure on a Greek vase. The painting has a moral message: death is present even in Arcadia. And there is a literary element, since the painting seems to recall Virgil’s Eclogues (poems about idyllic rural life) and the literary form of the elegy (a lament for the dead). Yet the painting almost goes beyond classicism, since its poetic and mysterious quality (who is buried in the tomb?) has an affinity with strange paintings like Giorgione’s Tempest.

Nicolas Poussin, Confirmation, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

The painting Confirmation - one of the series of The Seven Sacraments which Poussin executed for Cassiano del Pozzo - depicts children who have been brought to church by their mothers to be confirmed. The figures are spread out across the picture space, but some are nearer to us, some are set further back, and there are carefully placed spaces between them. Thus the effect is subtle, naturalistic, and not frieze-like. The figures make gestures - the mothers gently encourage their children to go forward and the priests bless the children - but these gestures are restrained and subtle, not the declamatory and theatrical gestures found so often in academic paintings. The painting reveals a search for historical exactitude - which was an aim of the academies - because it recreates a ceremony of the early Christian church and accurately depicts the costumes, such as the white pallium worn by the bishop (Cropper 113). But the scene is set anachronistically in a modern church - Sant Antanasio dei Greci (Verdi 229) - perhaps to show that the spirit of early Christianity has been revived in Counter-Reformation Rome.

   

Nicolas Poussin, The Testament of Eudamidas, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

The Testament of Eudamidas depicts the dying Eudamidas dictating his will to a notary; and in this will he asked two wealthy friends to take care of his wife and daughter, a request they duly honoured. This very moral story is found in a classical source (Lucian), but Poussin probably knew it from its retelling by Montaigne in his essay on “Friendship” (Cropper 182). The picture is painted in a style of utmost simplicity. There is a restricted colour scheme, subdued lighting, just five figures, and the only props are Eudamidas’ sword and shield hanging on the wall at the back. The moral theme and minimalist style made this painting hugely admired in the later eighteenth century, the age of Neoclassicism, of which Winckelmann had been the prophet. The critic Denis Diderot (1713-84) wrote that it was a “sublime” painting (Art in Theory 670) and Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) adapted the figures of Eudamidas’ wife and daughter into the grieving women in his own painting of The Oath of the Horatii (Verdi 260).

Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with the Body of Phocion, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff

Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with the Ashes of Phocion, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Two of Poussin’s most important landscapes are the pair on the theme of Phocion: Landscape with the Body of Phocion Carried out of Athens and its companion Landscape with the Ashes of Phocion Collected by his Widow. The story of Phocion is found in Plutarch’s Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans. Phocion was an Athenian general unjustly condemned to death, and his body was removed from the city for cremation. His widow loyally gathered his ashes and stored them until they could be given a proper burial, after Phocion’s reputation had been restored. This very moral theme relates these landscapes to The Testament of Eudamidas, and there is also a connection with The Arcadian Shepherds, since the paintings act as memorials to the dead. Poussin takes care to include accurate archaeological details. As Reynolds said, Poussin tries “to give his works the air of ancient paintings” (Reynolds 87). For example, the temple in The Ashes of Phocion is copied from Palladio’s reconstruction of the temple at Trevi (Verdi 278). All this is very unlike the procedure of Poussin’s friend Claude Lorrain (1600-82), whose landscapes used themes from mythology, not ancient history. Like the St John on Patmos, The Ashes of Phocion is carefully composed: the scene is framed by clumps of trees on either side and a diagonal path leads us to the centrally placed temple, which nestles at the foot of a mountain. This is again unlike Claude, who opens up wide vistas of space. Despite their differences, it is a fact that Poussin and Claude were both admired in art academies, which perhaps suggests that the academicians had greater catholicity of taste than they are sometimes credited with. Reynolds praised “the pure and correct style of Poussin” but also the clouds “gilded with the setting sun” and the “tranquillity” to be found in the landscapes of Claude (Reynolds 86, 237). In the eighteenth century, the “romantic” landscapes of Claude were generally preferred, and imitated by painters like Richard Wilson and Joseph Vernet, while the late nineteenth century Post-Impressionists, especially Seurat and Cézanne, were more inspired by the chunky forms and geometrically precise arrangements of Poussin’s “classic” landscapes.

Works Cited

Art in Theory 1648-1815, edited by Charles Harrison and others, Oxford: Blackwell, 2000 (anthology of original sources)

Blunt, Anthony, Art and Architecture in France 1500-1700, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2nd ed. 1970

Blunt, Anthony, Nicolas Poussin, London: Pallas Athene, rev. ed. 1995

Clark, Kenneth, Landscape into Art, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1949

Cropper, Elizabeth, and Dempsey, Charles, Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996

Reynolds, Joshua, Discourses on Art, edited by Robert R. Wark, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997

Verdi, Richard, Nicolas Poussin 1594-1665, London: Royal Academy, 1995 (exhibition catalogue)