Charles Le Brun、Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

National Gallery

4小時 · 

Here is a self potrait of French artist Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, who was a highly esteemed portrait painter in the late 18th and early 19th century: http://bit.ly/1FWKwQl

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Charles Le Brun (French, 1619–1690) | Everhard Jabach (1618–1695) and His Family (mid-conservation) | ca. 1660

British Museum

Charles Le Brun, who painted many of the ceilings at Versailles, was born ‪#‎onthisday‬ in 1619 http://ow.ly/Jn15V

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

In this blog post, learn about each member of the Jabach family, the subject of the Museum's recently acquired portrait by Charles Le Brun.http://met.org/ZRuE3a

Charles Le Brun (French, 1619–1690) | Everhard Jabach (1618–1695) and His Family | ca. 1660

勒布倫
Le Brun, Charles

勒布倫《塞吉耶大臣》(1661)，油畫；現藏巴黎羅浮宮。 Giraudon--Art Resource

　　法國17世紀後半葉的畫家、設計師、美術界權威。其技藝精巧熟練，富有組織才幹，執行過許多大型的規畫。在路易十四世執政期間，受託製作的繪畫、雕刻 和裝飾工作大多由個人承擔或監督執行，創造出一種統一的風格，為整個歐洲所接受，成為學院美術和宣傳藝術的典範。1642年到羅馬，4年之中，從普桑、科 爾圖納(P ...

Charles Le Brun

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For the Napoleon-era politician, see Charles-François Lebrun, duc de Plaisance.

Charles Le Brun, Portrait by Nicolas de Largilliere.

Charles Le Brun (February 24, 1619 - February 22, 1690) was a French painter and art theorist, one of the dominant artists in 17th century France.

[edit] Biography

Born in Paris, he attracted the notice of Chancellor Séguier, who placed him at the age of eleven in the studio of Simon Vouet. He was also a pupil of François Perrier. At fifteen he received commissions from Cardinal Richelieu, in the execution of which he displayed an ability which obtained the generous commendations of Nicolas Poussin, in whose company Le Brun started for Rome in 1642.
In Rome he remained four years in the receipt of a pension due to the liberality of the chancellor. There he worked under Poussin, adapting the latter's theories of art.
On his return to Paris in 1646, Le Brun found numerous patrons, of whom Superintendent Fouquet was the most important, for whom he painted a large portrait of Anne of Austria.^[1] Employed at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Le Brun ingratiated himself with Mazarin, then secretly pitting Colbert against Fouquet. Colbert also promptly recognized Le Brun's powers of organization, and attached him to his interests. Together they took control of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture (Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, 1648), and the Academy of France at Rome (1666), and gave a new development to the industrial arts.
In 1660 they established the Gobelins, which at first was a great school for the manufacture, not of tapestries only, but of every class of furniture required in the royal palaces. Commanding the industrial arts through the Gobelins—of which he was director—and the whole artist world through the Academy—in which he successively held every post—Le Brun imprinted his own character on all that was produced in France during his lifetime, he was the originator of Louis XIV Style and gave a direction to the national tendencies which endured centuries after his death.
The nature of his emphatic and pompous talent was in harmony with the taste of the king, who, full of admiration at the paintings by Le Brun for his triumphal entry into Paris (1660) and his decorations at the Château Vaux le Vicomte (1661), commissioned him to execute a series of subjects from the history of Alexander. The first of these, "Alexander and the Family of Darius," so delighted Louis XIV that he at once ennobled Le Brun (December, 1662), who was also created Premier Peintre du Roi (First Painter to His Majesty) with a pension of 12,000 livres, the same amount as he had yearly received in the service of the magnificent Fouquet. The King had declared him "the greatest French artist of all time".
From this date all that was done in the royal palaces was directed by Le Brun. In 1663, he became director of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, where he laid the basis of academicism and became the all-powerful, peerless master of seventeenth century French art. It was during this period that he dedicated a series of works to the history of Alexander The Great ( The Battles of Alexander The Great), and he did not miss the opportunity to make a stronger connection between the magnificence of Alexander and that of the great King. While he was working on The Battles, Le Brun's style became much more personal, revealing the essence of Le Brun as he moved away from the ancient masters that influenced him.

Alexander and Porus, painted 1673

The works of the gallery of Apollo in the Louvre were interrupted in 1677 when he accompanied the king to Flanders (on his return from Lille he painted several compositions in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye), and finally - for they remained unfinished at his death - by the vast labours of Versailles, where he reserved for himself the Halls of War and Peace (Salons de la Guerreand de la Paix, 1686), the Ambassadors' Staircase, and the Great Hall of Mirrors (Galerie des Glaces, 1679–1684. Le Brun's decoration is not only a work of art, it is the definitive monument of a reign.
At the death of Colbert, François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, Colbert's enemy, who succeeded as superintendent in the department of public works, showed no favour to Le Brun who was Colbert's favorite, and in spite of the king's continued support Le Brun felt a bitter change in his position. This contributed to the illness which on February 22, 1690 ended in his death in his private mansion, in Paris. Some historians have argued that Le Brun was a despot who used his power to exert artistic tyranny over the seventeenth century. This was an absurd claim with no factual documentation. It is worth pointing out that Louvois was ridiculed by the Academy when Le Brun was re-elected as director despite the minister's threats. Whenever Le Brun sensed the slightest controversy surrounding any of his positions, he resigned and gave people the chance to express their wishes in a new election, winning re-election each time. even after his death, The Academy continued to honor him; no subsequent director of the Academy received as much attention.

The Assumption of the Virgin

Le Brun primarily worked for King Louis XIV, for whom he executed large altarpieces and battle pieces. His most important paintings are at Versailles. Besides his gigantic labours at Versailles and the Louvre, the number of his works for religious corporations and private patrons is enormous. 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 subtly add to his composition the narrative elements that gave his works a particular depth. For Le Brun, a painting represented a story one could read. Nearly all his compositions have been reproduced by celebrated engravers.
In his posthumously published treatise, Méthode pour apprendre à dessiner les passions (1668) he promoted the expression of the emotions in painting. It had much influence on art theory for the next two centuries.
Many of his drawings are in the Louvre and the Monaco Royal Collection.

[edit] References

• Morel d'Arleux, Louis-Marie-Joseph, Dissertation sur un traité de Charles Le Brun concernant le rapport de la physionomie humaine avec celle des animaux (1827)
• Pinault-Sorensen, Madeleine, De la Physionomie Humaine et Animale: Dessins de Charles Le Brun gravés pour la Chalcographie du Musée Napoleon en 1806, Musée du Louvre, (2000) (ISBN 2-7118-4094-8)

[edit] Notes

1. ^ "Charles Lebrun". Catholic Encyclopedia. (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company.