Nicolas Chick

Its life

Born in a middle-class family in the hamlet from Villers with the Andelys in Normandy, Poussin leaves at 18 years the family residence following the disapproval of his/her parents as for his choice of a career of painter. Chick goes to Paris without resources, finds a guard in a gentleman of Poitiers, enters the workshop of Ferdinand It the Malignant ones, then of Georges Lallemant, of Lorraine, but does not remain there a long time; having met original drawings of Raphaël and Jules Romain, he studies them with heat: it is there really its first school.

He traverses with foot the Poitou, returns to Paris, falls ill of exhaustion and tiredness, before going to be restored with the Andelys, then to return in the capital with the intention leaving for Rome, in order to improve there. He tries this voyage vainly twice: the first time it arrives to Florence, but is constrained to stop; the second, in Lyon.

It is on its return of Florence, and placing in Paris, which it makes the knowledge of Philippe de Champaigne, with which it takes part in particular in the decoration of the Palais of Luxembourg. It carries out various and short stays in the workshops of other painters; it does not follow an academic course and for this reason it is regarded as a self-educated artist. It earns its living with some orders.

Contributing in 1623 for a succession of six tables telling the Life of Holy Ignace de Loyola ordered by the Jesuits, it gains the price and thus draws the attention of the rider Marini, poet at the court of the Médicis which gets to him entries near the rich person Roman families and occupies it with the drawings drawn from its poem of Adonis .

He undertakes third once the voyage of Rome where it arrives in 1624 and studies the antiques with the Flemish sculptor Duquesnoy, to which misfortune had attached it; Chick avenges, by its public and erudite praises, Dominiquin of the lapse of memory where it was left, without however running up against its rival, the Guide, whose it enjoyed to rent qualities.

About this time and probably at the instigation of some jealous Italians, Nicolas Poussin is attacked by soldiers close to Assemble-Cavallo and receives a wound with the hand, which fortunately does not have annoying continuations. Become sick, it has only to rent care more than hospital on behalf of the family of Jacques Dughet, his compatriot, pastrycook of his state, at which it recovers health. He marries, in 1629, one of the girls of his host, Anne-Marie, by not having children but adopting a young brother of his wife who will inherit her name and her talent for the landscape (Gaspard Dughet, known as Poussin).

II is then in charge of some work by the cardinal Barberini, nephew of the pope Urbain VIII, and finds a guard affectionate and constant in the Pozzo knight, of Turin; it receives orders for Naples, Spain and France, is dependant with Jacques Stella, in Rome. Several invitations to go to France are made to him, and it accepts them only when his/her friend more devoted, Paul Fréart de Chantelou, comes to take it in 1640. More the great honors await it in its fatherland: Louis XIII and Richelieu require of him to supervise work of the Louvre; it is named first painter of the king and managing director of the embellishments of the royal houses.

The jealousy of Vouet and small persecutions of the friends of this artist make test in Nicolas Poussin the need to re-examine its family; he asks a leave and sets out again for Rome in 1642, with Gaspard Dughet and Lemaire, while promising to return. The death of Richelieu and that of Louis XIII make him regard its engagements as broken: he does not return any more to France, not ceasing however working for it, and giving by his councils fresh impulse to his school, which will make it regard as renovating painting under Louis XIV.

Its work

The richness of its compositions and the beauty of its expressions made it call the painter of people of spirit. He sought the good taste of the antique while associating with it sometimes or while bringing back there the forms of nature and those of art; Nicolas Poussin stuck mainly to the expressive beauties, like painting by a sharp feature and precis the language of the thought and feeling: as he in the antique sought this beautiful ideal or intellectual, at the same time as moral, which made him choose the historical subjects most specific to the noble and expressive developments of the composition and the style.

In its excursions within Rome, in its many solitary walks, he meditated everywhere, observed and noted on his shelves all that struck its sight and its imagination, in order to give to the antique, his model, the diversity, the life and the movement which it missed. He informed himself of the theories of the prospect in Matteo Zaccolini, of architecture in Vitruve and Palladio, of painting in Alberti and Léonard de Vinci; he learned the anatomy not only in Vésale, but in the dissections of Nicolas Larche; the alive model in the workshop of Dominiquin, the elegance of the forms in that of Andre Secchi, finally the most beautiful facts of poetry and history in Homère and Plutarque and especially in the Bible. Great science for the uses and the costumes of Old. He often repeated the same subject by multiplying it by a new provision. Nicolas Poussin accepted in Rome one of the greatest favors than one granted to the foreign artists: it was to be employed to paint a painting representing the Martyre of saint Érasme , to be copied in mosaic, with the basilica of Saint-Pierre of Rome.

During the second time of its life, Poussin seldom carried out tables of great dimension: of a sharp design, of a precise spirit, its smallest fabrics even contain a whole poem. Its figures were grouped and modelled with the greatest care, all was deep, noble and worthy, the contest of actions true and natural, the agreement of the reflection and the admirably expressed feeling. While advancing in age, it softens a little its manner, while increasing it; its brush became more marrowy, the more perfect harmony, the richer composition. One reproaches him sometimes too much for having divided his compositions and for having dispersed his light, which harms the whole of the lines and the effect of theobscure one.

Laughing and varied landscapes, rich, natural and true sites, beautiful imitation of the various phenomena of nature. In turn engraves and soft, pleasant and severe, it moves us, raises us in the various scenes that it represents us, and sympathizes with the emotions which it gives birth to in us. Having, for religious painting, the faith which inspires the genius and the talent which carries out, Poussin deserves one of the first places among the painters of the French school. Of a generous and grateful nature, of a soft and religious philosophy, less friendly of the honors than of its rest, carrying out a withdrawn, peaceful and very hard life; dedicated friend, with whom nothing cost to oblige; of a modesty equal to his moderation, of a spirit serious, spiritual, noble, frankly and gracious, of a right and healthy reason, Nicolas Poussin had all the genius of an immortal artist, all the virtues of the honest man.

Its dimension

the Anguish with the garden was sold for 6,1 million euros in January 1999.

External bonds

: analysis of one of the more famous Chick tables: the harvest of the Basket
Nicolas Chick in the Critical base Mona Lisa
of table '' the Rapture of Saint Paul
Biography
Biography and work
the museum of Lyon tries to acquire an important table of Nicolas Poussin
the museum of Lyon has just acquired '' the Escape in Egypt '' of NR. Chick

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