Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin (June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a French painter who was a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a small group of Italian and French collectors.

Quotes

Nicolas Poussin, his life and work by Elisabeth Harriet Denio, 1899)

Chapter VI, Last Years:

• One sees a kind of procession of Egyptian priests, whose heads are shaven and crowned with leaves; they wear the dress of the land. Some carry cymbals, flutes and trumpets, others bear sticks adorned with carved hawk's heads. Some stand under a portico, others take their way to the Temple of Serapis. These last bring hither a casket, holding the god's bones. Behind a priestess, clothed in yellow, is seen a kind of building, made for the bird ibis, represented on its walls. In this picture is a tower whose top is concave, and there is also a vase to receive dew. This scene is not a caprice of the imagination. All has been taken from that famous Temple of Fortuna at Palestrina, whose pavement, composed of beautiful mosaics, depicts in a true and good manner the history of Egypt and Ethiopia. I have put all these things into my picture, in order by their novelty and variety to please you, and also to show that the Virgin is really in Egypt.

I have put all these things into my picture, in order by their novelty and variety to please you, and also to show that the Virgin is really in Egypt.

• You do not need to trouble yourself to send me the other portions of your poem; one can judge the lion by his claws. I have not yet seen the piece you sent, I am keeping it for some one who will know how to appreciate its beauty. It should not be wasted on a mediocre painter; that would be like casting pearls before swine.

• I never feel myself so stimulated to be painstaking as after I have seen a beautiful object.

• There are two ways of seeing things. One is simply looking at them, the other means considering them attentively. Only to see is nothing else but receiving into the eye the form or likeness of the object looked at, but to consider a thing is more than this; that is, to seek with special diligence after the means of knowing this object thoroughly.

• They do not realize that it is contrary to order and nature to place very large and massive things in high places or to make very delicate or weak bodies carry heavy weights.

• To judge well is very difficult. To do so requires both theory and practice.

• Reason, not appetite, should control the judgment.

• Virgil, above all others, has shown himself a great observer. So proficient is he that often, by the mere sound of words chosen, he actually puts before us the thing described. If he speaks of love, his words are so skillfully brought together that a sweet harmony results, whereas, when he sings of warlike deeds or describes a tempest, the verse hastens, and the resonant sounds admirably depict a scene of fury, tumult, and terror.

Quotes about Poussin

• What perspective towards the horizon meant to Poussin, the force of gravity meant to Courbet. (italics in original)
  • Quote by John Berger, (1965), in The Success and Failure of Picasso, Penguin Books, Ltd. 1965. pp. 52-53; as quoted on Wikipedia: Gustave Courbet, note 51

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Nicolas Poussin on Wikipedia
• Media related to Nicolas Poussin on Wikimedia Commons