My Ear-Trumpet Has Been Struck By Lightning

Philippe de Champaigne

His artistic style was varied: far from being limited to the realism traditionally associated with Flemish painters, it developed from late Mannerism to the powerful lyricism of the Baroque. It was influenced as much by Rubens as by Vouet, culminating in an aesthetic vision of the world and of humanity that was based on an analytic view ofappearances and on psychological truth. He was perhaps the greatest portrait painter of 17th-century France. At the same time he was one of the principal instigators of the Classical tendency and a founder-member of theAcademie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. His growing commitment to the Jansenist religious movement and the severe plainness of the works that it inspired has led to his being sometimes considered to typify Jansenist thinking, with its iconoclastic impulse, in spite of the opposing evidence of his other paintings. He should be seen as an example of the successful integration of foreign elements into French culture and as the representative of the most intellectual current of French painting.

Ex Voto
1662
Oil on canvas, 165 x 229 cm
Musee du Louvre, Paris

Cristo yacente

Still-Life with a Skull
Oil on panel, 28 x 37 cm
Musee de Tesse, Le Mans

Retrato de Hombre

Philippe de Champaigne

thousand-years:

born May 26, 1602, Brussels
died Aug. 12, 1674, Paris

portrait, historical, and religious painter of the French Baroque.

Trained in Brussels, Champaigne arrived in Paris in 1621 and was employed with the classical Baroque painter Nicolas Poussin on the decoration of the Luxembourg Palace, under the direction of Nicholas Duchesne. His career progressed rapidly under the patronage of the queen mother Marie de Medicis and the Cardinal de Richelieu, for whom he producedreligious paintings and portraits. Appointed painter royal to the queen mother, Champaigne succeeded Duchesne in that position in 1628. He became a professor at the Royal Academy (1653), later its rector, and produced many pieces for the palaces and churches of Paris.

Champaigne decorated a gallery in the Palais Royal for Richelieu and executed a masterful portrait of the powerful French figure (“Cardinal Richelieu”; c. 1635, Louvre, Paris). His strongest works are the natural and lifelike psychological portraits he produced of eminent contemporaries. Blending Flemish, French, and Italian elements, his work is characterized by a brilliant colour sense, a monumental conception of the figure, and a sober use of composition. His portrait style shows the influence of Peter Paul Rubens and Sir Anthony Van Dyck.

In 1643 Champaigne became involved with Jansenism, an ascetic sect, and he rejected previous Baroque techniques. His paintings became simplified and more austere, and his portraits, which often portray the sitter dressed in black, demonstrate his sensitivity toward and understanding of people. One of the masterpieces of his later period is “Ex Voto de 1662” (1662, Louvre), which depicts the miraculouscure of his daughter, a nun at the Jansenist convent of Port Royal. In his theory of art Champaigne emphasized drawing and was possibly the originator of the drawing-versus-colourcontroversy that embroiled the French Academy until well into the 18th century.

Triple Portrait of Richelieu c. 1640

Oil on canvas, 58 x 72 cm

National Gallery, London

Cardinal Richelieu
Oil on canvas, 222 x 155 cm
Musee du Louvre, Paris

Deutsch: Exvoto von 1662
Français : La Mère Catherine-Agnès Arnault et la soeur Catherine de Sainte Suzanne de Champaigne

Philippe de Champaigne (1602–1674)

the-paintrist:

Philippe de Champaigne, selfportrait.

Philippe de Champaigne (26 May 1602 – 12 August 1674) was a Flemish-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school.

Born in Brussels of a poor family, Champaigne was a pupil of the landscape painter Jacques Fouquières. In 1621 he moved to Paris, where he worked with Nicolas Poussin on the decoration of the Palais du Luxembourg under the direction of Nicolas Duchesne, whose daughter he married. According to Houbraken, Duchesne was angry at Champaigne for becoming more popular than he was at court, and this is why Champaigne returned to Brussels to live with his brother. It was only after he received news of Duchesne’s death that he returned to marry his daughter. After the death of his protector Duchesne, Champaigne worked for the Queen Mother, Marie de Medicis, and for Cardinal Richelieu, (for whom he decorated the Palais Cardinal), the dome of the Sorbonne and other buildings. He was a founding member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in 1648.

Later in his life (1640), he came under the influence of Jansenism. After his paralysed daughter was allegedly miraculously cured at the nunnery of Port-Royal, he painted the celebrated but atypical picture Ex-Voto de 1662, now in the Louvre, which represents the artist’s daughter with Mother-Superior Agnès Arnauld.

Champaigne produced a very large number of paintings, mainly religious works and portraits. Influenced by Rubens at the beginning of his career, his style later became more austere.

Champaigne was of significant enough prominence in his time as to be mentioned in Cyrano de Bergerac in a line by Ragueneau referencing Cyrano: “Truly, I should not look to find his portrait By the grave hand of Philippe de Champagne.”

His pupils were his nephew Jean Baptiste de Champaigne, William Faithorne, Jean Morin, and Nicolas de Plattemontagne. He died in Paris in 1674.

Duxerunt Pullum ad Jesum (Liturgie du diocèse d’Auxerrre) performed by Ensemble Organum

(Source: elblogdelpelon.wordpress.com)