Background
Born on February 24, 1619 in Paris, Le Brun was the son of a sculptor.
(First published in 1951 Arnold Hauser's commanding work p...)
First published in 1951 Arnold Hauser's commanding work presents an account of the development and meaning of art from its origins in the Stone Age through to the Film Age. Exploring the interaction between art and society, Hauser effectively details social and historical movements and sketches the frameworks in which visual art is produced. This new edition provides an excellent introduction to the work of Arnold Hauser. In his general introduction to The Social History of Art, Jonathan Harris asseses the importance of the work for contemporary art history and visual culture. In addition, an introduction to each volume provides a synopsis of Hauser's narrative and serves as a critical guide to the text, identifying major themes, trends and arguments.
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(Charles Le Brun was a French painter and art theorist. De...)
Charles Le Brun was a French painter and art theorist. Declared by Louis XIV "the greatest French artist of all time", he was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art and much influenced by Nicolas Poussin. Le Brun primarily worked for King Louis XIV, for whom he executed large altarpieces and battle pieces. His most important paintings are at Versailles. Le Brun was also a fine portraitist and an excellent draughtsman, but he was not fond of portrait or landscape painting, which he felt to be a mere exercise in developing technical prowess. What mattered was scholarly composition, whose ultimate goal was to nourish the spirit. The fundamental basis on which the director of the Academy based his art was unquestionably to make his paintings speak, through a series of symbols, costumes and gestures that allowed him to select for his composition the narrative elements that gave his works a particular depth. Nearly all his compositions have been reproduced by celebrated engravers.
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(This volume traces the life and artistic career of Charle...)
This volume traces the life and artistic career of Charles Le Brun (1619-1690), First Painter to King Louis XIV. Drawing largely on the publications and documents of the time, the author presents new biographical information about the artist.
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( The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in France were ...)
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in France were an epoch of spectacular artistic activity, exemplified by the chateaux of the Loire valley, the palace of Versailles, the paintings of Poussin and Claude, and the sculpture of Coysevox, which echo the political and cultural importance of France and the "Sun King." Anthony Blunt presents major artists and their principal works chronologically, provides an overview of the main projects of the period and of the artistic personalities behind them, and clearly sets the historical context. This new edition, of one of the classics of the Pelican History of Art series, has been revised and updated with color illustrations and a new bibliography.
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( This monograph examines the wide artistic production of...)
This monograph examines the wide artistic production of Louis XIVs most prolific and powerful artist, Charles Le Brun (16191690), illustrating the magnificence of his paintings and focusing particularly on the interiors and decorative art works produced according to his designs. In his joint capacities of Premier peintre du roi, director of the Gobelins manufactory and rector of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, Le Brun exercised a previously unprecedented influence on the production of the visual arts so much so that some scholars have repeatedly described him as dictator of the arts in France. The Sovereign Artist explores how Le Brun operated in his diverse fields of activities, linking and juxtaposing his portraiture, history painting and pictorial theory with his designs for architecture, tapestries, carpets and furniture. It argues that Le Brun sought to create a repeatable and easily recognizable visual language associated with Louis XIV, in order to translate the kings political claims for absolute power into a visual form. How he did this is discussed through a series of individual case studies ranging from Le Bruns lost equestrian portrait of Louis XIV, and his involvement in the Querelle du coloris at the Académie, to his scheme for 93 Savonnerie carpets for the Grande Galerie at the Louvre, his Histoire du roy tapestry series, his decoration of the now destroyed Escalier des Ambassadeurs at Versailles and the dramatic destruction of the Sun Kings silver furniture. One key theme is the relation between the unity of the visual arts, to which Le Brun aspired, and the strong hierarchical distinctions he made between the liberal arts and the mechanical crafts: while his lectures at the Académie advocated a visual and conceptual unity in painting and architecture, they were also a means by which he attempted to secure the newly gained status of painting as a liberal art, and therefore to distinguish it from the mechanical crafts which he oversaw the production of at the Gobelins. His artistic and architectural aspirations were comparable to those of his Roman contemporary Gianlorenzo Bernini, summoned to Paris in 1665 to design the Louvres East façade and to create a portrait bust of Louis XIV. Berninis failure to convince the king and Colbert of his architectural scheme offered new opportunities for Le Brun and his French contemporaries to prove themselves capable of solving the architectural problems of the Louvre and to transform it into a palace appropriate to the grandeur and the magnificence of the prince who was to inhabit it (Jean-Baptiste Colbert to Nicolas Poussin in 1664). The comparison between Le Brun and Bernini not only illustrates how France sought artistic supremacy over Italy during the second half of the 17th century, but further helps to demonstrate how Le Brun himself wanted to be perceived: beyond acting as a translator of the kings artistic ambition, the artist appears to have sought his own sovereign authority over the visual arts.
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(Charles Le Brun was a Frenchman who achieved prominence a...)
Charles Le Brun was a Frenchman who achieved prominence as an artist during the reign of Louis XIV; but it is his curious physiognomy studies and the "scientific" theories he evolved from them that are far more interesting to modern audiences than the vast allegorical paintings he contributed to Versailles, the Louvre, and other collections. The physiognomy studies illustrated a dissertation delivered by Le Brun before the Academy of Painters and Sculptors (of which he was a founding member), but unfortunately the notes that originally accompanied the drawings disappeared centuries ago. Scholars have pieced together-from the drawings and from other writings-the theories that Le Brun had worked out, and it is from their work that we are able to draw further conclusions. Le Brun's physiognomy studies are an offshoot of man's continuing fascination with the congruities that can be found between human and animal "faces" and our seemingly irresistible desire to equate physical features with personality.
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(Charles Le Brun (1619 1690) was a French painter and ar...)
Charles Le Brun (1619 1690) was a French painter and art theorist. Declared by Louis XIV "the greatest French artist of all time", he was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art and much influenced by Nicolas Poussin. Le Brun primarily worked for King Louis XIV, for whom he executed large altarpieces and battle pieces. His most important paintings are at Versailles. Le Brun was also a fine portraitist and an excellent draughtsman, but he was not fond of portrait or landscape painting, which he felt to be a mere exercise in developing technical prowess. What mattered was scholarly composition, whose ultimate goal was to nourish the spirit. The fundamental basis on which the director of the Academy based his art was unquestionably to make his paintings speak, through a series of symbols, costumes and gestures that allowed him to select for his composition the narrative elements that gave his works a particular depth. Nearly all his compositions have been reproduced by celebrated engravers.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1519644329/?tag=2022091-20
Born on February 24, 1619 in Paris, Le Brun was the son of a sculptor.
After his apprenticeship to the decorator François Périer, Le Brun enjoyed successively the protection of Chancellor Séguier, cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, and the regent, Anne of Austria. In Rome (1642 - 1646) Le Brun studied under Nicolas Poussin and digested the Roman baroque style of Pietro da Cortona.
Le Brun was one of the 12 founders of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1648, and his ascendant authority in that official organization made him eligible in 1661 to become director of art works at the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte, being constructed by the minister of finance, Nicolas Fouquet. Louis XIV, who deeply resented the opulent grandeur of this country house, dismissed Fouquet and appropriated his artistic team for use in the embellishment of the palace of Versailles. Scarcely an item of decoration for any royal dwelling was executed between 1661 and 1683 which was not conceived by Le Brun and carried out under his direction by a host of artists and craftsmen, and no painting was regarded as official without his sanction. In 1663 he was made chancellor for life of the academy, keeper of the Royal Collections, and director of the Gobelins manufactory. In 1666 he organized the French Royal Academy in Rome. On the death of Colbert in 1683 Le Brun assumed the directorship of the academy, but the new first minister, Louvois, gradually caused Le Brun to be superseded by Pierre Mignard, though he tactfully retained Le Brun, until his death, as first painter to the King. Le Brun spent his last years brooding over this seeming injustice and painting religious works which reflect the excessive piety of the aged Louis XIV under the influence of Madame de Maintenon (the Life of Christ series). In spite of Le Brun's pronouncements favoring the eclectic academicism of the Bolognese baroque painters and his rigid support of the "ancients" (classical art, Raphael, and Poussin) over the "moderns" (the colorists, Titian, and Peter Paul Rubens), his real artistic preference was naturalism. His equestrian portrait of Chancellor Séguier (1661) reveals the harmonious French blending of northern physiognomical realism and heroic stateliness.
(Charles Le Brun was a Frenchman who achieved prominence a...)
( The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in France were ...)
( This monograph examines the wide artistic production of...)
(First published in 1951 Arnold Hauser's commanding work p...)
(This volume traces the life and artistic career of Charle...)
(Charles Le Brun (1619 1690) was a French painter and ar...)
(Charles Le Brun was a French painter and art theorist. De...)