Simon Vouet


Simon Vouet
Self-portrait of c.1626-1627
(Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon)
Born 9 January 1590
Paris
Died 30 June 1649
Field Painting
Training Father's studio, stay in Rome (1613-27)
Movement Baroque
Patrons Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu
Influenced by Carracci family, Caravaggio, Italian Mannerism, Paolo Veronese, Guercino, Guido Reni
Influenced Charles le Brun, Valentin de Boulogne, Pierre Mignard, Eustache Le Sueur, Nicolas Chaperon, Claude Mellan, Abraham Willaerts

Simon Vouet (9 January 1590 – 30 June 1649) was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France.

Contents

Life

His father Laurent was a painter in Paris and taught him the rudiments of art - Simon's brother Aubin Vouet (1595-1641) was also a painter. Simon began his painting career as a portrait painter. At a young age he travelled to England and was part of the entourage of the Baron de Sancy, French ambassador to Constantinople. From there he went to Venice and was in Rome in 1614.[1]

He spent an extensive period of time in Italy, from 1613 to 1627. He was mostly in Rome where the Baroque style was emerging during these years. He received a pension from the King of France and his patrons included the Barberini family, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Paolo Giordano Orsini and Vincenzo Giustianini[2]. He also visited other parts of Italy: Venice; Bologna, (where the Carracci family had their academy); Genoa, (where from 1620 to 1622, he worked for the Doria princes); and Naples. He was a natural academic, who absorbed what he saw and studied, and distilled it in his painting: Caravaggio's dramatic lighting; Italian Mannerism; Paolo Veronese's color and di sotto in su or foreshortened perspective; and the art of the Carracci, Guercino, Lanfranco and Guido Reni. Vouet's immense success in Rome led to his election as president of the Accademia di San Luca in 1624. In 1626 he married Virginia da Vezzo who modelled Madonnas for Vouet's religious commissions.

Vouet's allegory La Richesse was painted about 1640 for one of the royal chateaux of France (Louvre)
Simon Vouet.
Portrait by Nicolas Mignard.

Despite his success in Rome, Vouet suddenly returned to France in 1627, following pressing recommendations from the Duc de Béthunes and a summons from the King. A French contemporary, lacking the term "Baroque", said, "In his time the art of painting began to be practiced here in a nobler and more beautiful way than ever before," and the allegory of "Riches" [illustration, left] demonstrates a new heroic sense of volumes, a breadth and confidence without decorative mannerisms.

Vouet's new style was distinctly Italian, importing the Italian Baroque style into France. He adapted this style to the grand decorative scheme of the era of Louis XIII and Richelieu and was made premier peintre du Roi. Louis XIII commissioned portraits, tapistery cartoons and paintings from him for the Palais du Louvre, the Palais du Luxembourg and the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. In 1632, he worked for Cardinal Richelieu at the Palais-Royal and the Château de Malmaison. In 1631 he also decorated the château of the président de Fourcy, at Chessy, the hôtel Bullion, the château of marshal d Effiat at Chilly, the hôtel of the Duc d’Aumont, the Séguier chapel, and the gallery of the Château de Wideville.

In Paris, Vouet was the fresh dominating force in French painting, producing numerous public altarpieces and allegorical decors for private patrons. Vouet's sizeable atelier or workshop produced a whole school of French painters for the following generation, and through Vouet, French Baroque painting retained a classicizing restraint from the outset [3].

His most influential pupil was Charles le Brun, who organized all the interior decorative painting at Versailles and dictated the official style at the court of Louis XIV of France, but who jealously excluded Vouet from the Académie Royale in 1648. Vouet's other students included Valentin de Boulogne (the main figure of the French "Caravaggisti"), Pierre Mignard, Eustache Le Sueur, Nicolas Chaperon, Claude Mellan and the Flemish artist Abraham Willaerts. Vouet was also a friend of Claude Vignon.

A number of Vouet's decorative schemes have been lost but are recorded in engravings by Claude Mellan and Michel Dorigny [4]

Exhibitions

  • 1990 : retrospective of Simon Vouet's work at the Galeries nationales of the Grand Palais.
  • 2002-2003 : Simon Vouet ou l'éloquence sensible at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes (5 December 2002-20 February 2003), devoted to drawings from his French period now in the collection of the Staatsbibliothek in Munich.
  • 2008-2009 : Simon Vouet, les années italiennes (1613-1627) (21 November 2008-23 February 2009), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes[5], in collaboration with the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie de Besançon (where it toured 26 March to 29 June 2009).

Works

Gallery

Work Title Date Dimensions Museum
SVouet.jpg Crucifixion 1622 375 X 225 cm. Chiesa del Gesù, Gênes
Simon Vouet 001.jpg Allegory of La Richesse 1630/1635 170 X 124 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris
The muses Urania and Caliope. 1634 79,8 X 125 cm. National Gallery of Art, New York,
Vouet Angelique.jpg Portrait of Angélique Vouet (Simon's daughter). 1635/1638 Pastel on paper Musée du Louvre, París
Vouet Simon Vierge Hesselin.jpg Hesselin Virgin and Child  ? 97 X 77 cm. Musée du Louvre, París
Simon (Werkstatt) Vouet 001.jpg Sleeping Venus 1630/40 100,5 X 84 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
Vouet temple louvre.jpg Presentation of Jesus at the Temple 1641 393 x 250 cm. Musée du Louvre, París
Simon Vouet 002.jpg Apollo and the Muses 1640 Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
Simon Vouet 003.jpg Detail of Apollo and the Muses 1640 Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest


  • Last Supper (1616-1620), Palazzo Apostolico, Loretto (Italy)
  • Portrait of a young man (1600-1650), Louvre
  • Prince Marcantonio Doria d'Angri (1621), Louvre
  • Crucifixion, Chiesa del Gesù, Gênes
  • Temptation of Saint Francis (1624-1625), church of Saint-Laurent-en-Lucina, Rome
  • Saint Francis renouncing his goods (1624-1625), church of Saint-Laurent-en-Lucina, Rome
  • The Holy Family with St Elisabeth and the infant St John the Baptist (1625-1650), Louvre
  • Time vanquished by Love, Hope and Renown (1627), Prado, Madrid
  • Sleeping Venus (1630), Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
  • Suite of the loves of Renaud and Armide (1631)
  • Allegory of Riches (1630-1635), Louvre (Saint-Germain-en-Laye)
  • Allegory of Charity (1630-1635), Louvre
  • Allegory of Virtue (1640), Saint-Germain-en-Laye
  • Repentant Magdalen (1633), Musée de Picardie, Amiens
  • Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (1641), Louvre
Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, 1641 (Louvre)
  • Saturn vanquished by Love, Venus and Hope (1646), Musée du Berry, Bourges
  • Saint William of Aquitaine (1649), Louvre
  • Annunciation, Uffizi, Florence
  • Crucifixion, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon
  • Self-portrait (1626-1627), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (copy?)
  • Gaucher de Châtillon (1250-1328) (1632-1635), Louvre
  • Loth and his Daughters (1633), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg
  • The Toilette of Venus (1639)
  • Death of Dido
  • Portrait of Louis XIII between two female figures symbolising France and Navarre, Louvre
  • The Awakening of Europa (1640), Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
  • Portrait of Louis XIII copy at the château de Versailles (1643)
  • The Four Cardinal Virtues (1638), Salon de Mars, Château de Versailles
    • Allegory of Temperance
    • Allegory of Force
    • Allegory of Prudence
    • Allegory of Justice
  • Judith, Munich Pinacothek
  • Judith gives her servant Holofernes's head HST, 129cm X 111cm - 1630c.(Collection of the Live de Jully) Drouot April 1989
  • Venus and Adonis, (1642), Paul Getty Museum
  • Christ at the column, (Eustache Le Sueur?) (Louvre)
  • Polymnia, Muse of eloquence, Louvre
  • Last Supper, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
  • Judith, Munich Pinacothek
  • Judith gives her servant Holofernes's head HST, 129cm X 111cm - 1630c.(Collection of the Live de Jully) Drouot April 1989
  • Venus and Adonis, (1642), Paul Getty Museum
  • Christ at the column, (Eustache Le Sueur?) (Louvre)
  • Polymnia, Muse of eloquence, Louvre
  • Last Supper, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Decorative schemes

  • Palais de la Justice
  • Palais Cardinal, Musée des hommes illustre
  • The Châteaux de Rueil
  • Château de La Muette
  • Château-Neuf de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, The Four Cardinal Virtues
  • Château de Fontainebleau
  • Residence of Chancelier Séguier (hôtel)
  • Residence of Maréchal de La Meilleraye
  • Residence of Président Tuboeuf
  • Church of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs à Paris, The Assumption (1629), Apostles at the Tomb of the Virgin
  • Church of Saint-Etienne à Chilly-Mazarin, Burial of Christ (1639)
  • Hôtel-Bullion
  • Church of Saint-Merry à Paris, Saint Merry releasing the Prisoners (1640)

Royal tapisteries

  • Renaud and Armide, Renaud in the arms of Armide (1630-1660), Louvre
  • Moses saved from the waters (Old Testament)
  • The Life of Ulysses (labours of Ulysses)

Studio and copies

  • Saint Sebastian (1618-1620), Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation (USA)
  • Intelligence, Memory and Will, Capitoline Museums, Rome
  • Virgin and Child à la rose, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille
  • Hesselin Virgin and Child, Louvre
  • Sainte Marie Madeleine, National Gallery, Rome
  • Allegory of the Fine Arts, National Gallery, Rome
  • Allegory of Peace, National Gallery, Rome
  • Allegory of Charity (1640-1645), Museum of Draguignan
  • Diana, Somerset House, London
  • Virgin and Child with an Angel, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen
  • Suicide of Lucretia, Narodni Gallery, Prague
  • Roman Charity, Musée Bonnat, Bayonne
  • Burial, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
  • Martyrdom of Saint Eustace, church of Saint-Eustache, Paris
  • Diana, Royal Collection, Hampton Court
  • Hercules among the Olympians, Royal Collection, Hampton Court
  • Minerva, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
  • Virgin and Child, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
  • Virgin and Child, Ashmoleam Museum, Oxford
  • Virgin and Child, Musée Magnon, Dijon
  • Apollo and the Muses, National Hungarian Museum, Budapest

Notes

  1. ^ Brejon de Lavergnée, Barbara. 'Simon Vouet', Oxford Art Online.
  2. ^ Brejon de Lavergnée, ibid
  3. ^ Although Vouet was not as classical as his contemporaries, Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne
  4. ^ Brejon de Lavergnée, ibid
  5. ^ Exhibition site

External links

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