Page 10 - Jacques Blanchard - Myth and Allegory
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French baroque painters such as Blanchard inspiration to later artists of the neo-classical
were seen as somewhat tangential to the tradition, most obviously Jacques-Louis
mainstream of French art, it is perhaps David. Conversely, the more overtly sensual
because Poussin is generally taken to paintings of Blanchard, and, for the purpose
epitomise French 17 th century art in of comparison,Vouet, were considerably less
general, and in particular, the classical style fashionable by the second half of the 18th
generally associated with this period. While century, if only because some of the more
Poussin’s legacy in French neo-classical art staunch adherents to Poussinesque classicism
would argue for his pride of place in the equated their sensuality and often passionate
French baroque, and indeed, in French art as approach to religious subject matter with
a whole, within the specific context of the the decadence of the Rococo.The distinction
French baroque, this primacy might be between Poussin’s elucidation and Blanchard
misleading. Equally, it would ignore the real or Vouet’s elaboration may be regarded as a
importance and complexity of the work legitimate nuance of the French baroque, but
produced by French baroque artists, like we must always remind ourselves that
Blanchard, who worked almost entirely in Poussin’s particular classical style was
France for their compatriots. developed in Rome and was only marginally
influential in France during his lifetime.
Unlike Blanchard, Poussin worked almost However, during the roughly ten year period
entirely in Rome. His classical emphasis on between 1629 and 1638 when their careers
clarity and line over the more sensual ran parallel in Paris, Blanchard and Vouet
baroque effects of colour and texture, and were the two most influential artists
his stress on the rational and intellectual working in France.
over the tangible, is antithetical to
Blanchard’s intimately composed, lushly In an effort to understand the complex
coloured compositions. This is a point so ancestry of the French baroque with regard
obvious, as to be tending towards truism, to Blanchard and Vouet - specifically, the
but in attempting to place the importance Parisian baroque - we can describe two clear
of Blanchard’s role in the formation of the circles of influence.Within the first, we have
French baroque, it is a point worth those elements of mannerist painting of the
remembering. Poussin’s adherence to Fontainebleau schools (influenced as they
antique form, or, as Robert Hughes puts it, were in any case by Bologna and Florence)
his ‘law’ of the antique, made him a potent that had survived into the 1620s, of which
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