Philippe de Champaigne - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Biography

Born in a poor, young family he refuses to integrate the workshop of Rubens into Antwerp. It is a pupil of Fouquières, painter landscape designer in Brussels. It wishes to visit Rome but stops in Paris in 1621, is fixed at the Latin Quarter with the Collège of Laon where it binds friendship with Nicolas Poussin and works at the Maniériste S Georges Lallemand and Nicolas Duchesne, of which he marries the girl in 1628. It leaves the workshop of Lallemand about 1625 and starts to work for its account. Having regained Brussels he is pointed out one year later by Claude Maugis, intendant of the buildings of Marie de Médicis to take part in the decoration of the Palais of Luxembourg, whose showpieces are a series of large tables reporting the life of the silent partner by Rubens. Champaigne painted there several frescos of the ceilings. It also decorates the Carmel with the Faubourg Saint-Jacob, one of the preferred building sites of the queen mother. The church was destroyed at the time of the French revolution but several tables, preserved in museums, could belong to original decoration ( Présentation with the temple in Dijon, Résurrection of Lazare to Grenoble, Assomption of the Virgin in Louvre).

After the death of its guard Duchesne, he works for the queen mother, Marie de Médicis, like for Richelieu. He is the only painter authorized to paint the Cardinal of Richelieu out of dress of cardinal: he represents it eleven times. He is, with Simon Vouet, one of the two most famous painters of the kingdom. He receives in 1629 his “letters of naturality”. He decorates the Palate-Cardinal, the dome of the vault of the Sorbonne and other buildings in Paris, of which the church Saint-Germain-the Auxerrois. He makes several tables for the cathedral Our-Lady-of-Paris of which its wish of Louis XIII , going back to 1638. He also draws there several paperboards for tapestries. Its talents deserve to him the place of first painter of the queen and a pension of 1200 pounds. He is received in 1648 founding member of the royal Académie of painting and sculpture. Starting from 1648, it approaches the mediums Jansenists and becomes the painter of Port-Royal in Paris, then of Port-Royal-of-Fields where it carries out a series of tables.

After 1654, it runs up against the competition of Charles Le Brun. It decorates the apartment with Anne of Austria to the Valley-of-Grace as well as the refectory of this hospital ( the Meal at Simon the pharisee , 1656, Nantes, being largest of the five tables planned for the place). It is named professor in 1655. In 1657, it paints a series of three large tables for the Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais church of Paris on the life of the two saints of which the Apparition with Saint Ambroise and the translation of the bodies of the two saints , two fabrics being with the museum of Louvre. Starting from 1654, it takes part in the decoration of the Tuileries, this time under the direction of Charles Le Brun.

At the end of its life, its teaching activity becomes more important: even if no writing remains with its hand, there exist transcriptions of several of its conferences, published by André Félibien in 1668. It comments on there several works of which those of the Titien, thus taking part in the debate between colourists and draftsmen and preaching a moderate attitude.

Work

Philippe de Champaigne is a traditional painter, primarily religious, near to the Jansénistes, after his paralyzed daughter miraculeusement was miraculeusement cured with the convent of Port-Royal, event which it will celebrate in famous and yet atypical the Ex-voto in 1662, mystical fabric of Thanksgiving. This table, now preserved at the Museum of Louvre, represents the girl of the artist with the Mother Superior Agnès Arnauld.

Philippe de Champaigne remains an exceptional painter by the glare of his colors, this almost supernatural blue, and the rigor of his compositions. Following the example Pascal, they speak to us about our sizes like our smallnesses. Size and respect of powerful of course, glory of France, real compassion for those which also suffer, but over all the incommensurable size of nature and God. It exalte in turn Majesties and figures of humility as in the Worship of the shepherds of 1648, the Presentation with the Temple, and the Resurrection of Lazare, in the pictorial feeling of the presence of the bodies, the faces, the hands. Philippe de Champaigne touches the perfection with the splendor of the landscapes which comes from an underground Flemish influence, and his faces, psychological, impenetrable. Its work is vast, it left many religious tables and of the famous and very appreciated portraits: Nobility, princes of the Church, senior civil servants of the State, members of Parliament, all the Court and the City pose in front of him and make him paint figures where refusing to express momentary expressions, he wants to seize the deep being of his models. It was to substitute for the portrait of existence baroque a permanent portrait of gasoline . Influenced by Rubens at the beginning of its career, its style became increasingly austere thereafter. Its assiduity with work had given him a surprising facility. It left a multitude of estimated pieces, which decorated the public edifices, the churches (Valley-of-Grace, Sorbonne, Saint-Severin, Saint-Merry, Saint M3edard's Day) and the houses particular. Starting from 1661 its credit decreases, as Corneille growing old it passed from mode, it is from now on the time of Charles Le Brun. It ages gently and dies on August 13rd, 1674, it will be the occasion for the nuns of Port-Royal to mention it in their Obituaire like “good painter and good Christian”.

It hardly practiced the landscape like main theme, even if it is omnipresent in several of its tables as in the Miracles of penitent Sainte-Marie (1656, museum of Louvre).

Its nephew and the main thing raise Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne (1631-1684) was also distinguished in same Article It generally worked with him with the apartments of the king to the castle of Vincennes (1659) and of the large dolphin to the castle of Tileries (1666).

Writings on Philippe de Champaigne

Philippe de Champaigne did not leave writings. Andre Félibien, his contemporary, left of it a biography which refers, Entretiens on the lives and the works of the most excellent painters ancienz and modern , published between 1666 and 1668. Roger de Piles also wrote a biographical note, this posterior time at its death.

Principal exposures

Palate of the Art schools of Lille,
Museum Rath, Geneva, September 2007 - January 2008

External bonds

Philippe de Champaigne in Artcyclopedia

Sources

NR Holy-Fare Garnot, Philippe de Champaigne , File of art n° 140, April 2007

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