Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions | MetPublications

Rosenberg, Pierre, and Keith Christiansen, eds., with essays by Keith Christiansen, Anna Ottani Cavina, Alain Mérot, Claire Pace, René Démoris, and Willibald Sauerländer (2007)

This title is out of print.

Description

The work of the great French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) is most often associated with classically inspired settings and figures depicting solemn scenes from mythology or the Bible. Yet he also created some of the most influential landscapes in Western art, endowing them with a poetic quality that has been admired by artists as different as John Constable, J. M. W. Turner, and Paul Cézanne. As the British critic William Hazlitt noted in 1821, "This great and learned man might be said to see nature through the glass of time."

This volume, which accompanies a major exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is the first in-depth examination of landscapes in Poussin's work. The artist's pictorial imagination and intelligence are affirmed in forty-five canvases, ranging from early Venetian-inspired pastorals to austere, grandly structured scenes and deeply poetic landscapes designed as metaphors for or allegories of the processes of nature. It is in his late landscapes that Poussin's imagination and his preoccupation with fate and humankind's interactions with nature are given free rein. Nearly fifty of the artist's drawings—the most luminous of which were done en plein air—provide fascinating insight into Poussin's thematic interests and working methods. Essays by internationally renowned scholars examine the visual, literary, and philosophical influences on Poussin as well as his relationships with his patrons and his place in the art-historical canon. Comparative paintings, drawings, and engravings by Poussin and others illuminate the essays and complement the exhibited works.

Following the essays and a brief overview of key dates in the artist's life, noted Poussin scholar Pierre Rosenberg provides a detailed catalogue of the 113 works in the exhibition, exploring questions of authorship, dating, interpretation, and execution, often righting earlier mistakes and raising new questions. In a separate section of the catalogue, Rosenberg considers a selection of drawings traditionally attributed to Poussin but now considered more likely to be by followers and contemporaries.

This groundbreaking book gives the fullest possible representation of Poussin as a painter of landscapes, at the same time providing a unique occasion to explore the most personal side of this great artist's creative achievement.

Table of contents

Director's Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Lenders to the Exhibition

Introduction: Encountering Poussin
Pierre Rosenberg

The Critical Fortunes of Poussin's Landscapes
Keith Christiansen

Poussin and the Roman Campagna: In Search of the Absolute
Anna Ottani Cavina

The Conquest of Space: Poussin's Early Attempts at Landscape
Alain Mérot

"Peace and Tranquility of Mind": The Theme of Retreat and Poussin's Landscapes
Claire Pace

From The Storm to The Flood
René Démoris

"Nature through the Glass of Time": A Reflection on the Meaning of Poussin's Landscapes
Willibald Sauerländer

A Brief Biography of Nicolas Poussin
Keith Christiansen

Catalogue
Pierre Rosenberg

I. Poussin's Early Years in Rome

II. Landscapes in a Noble and Heroic Style

III. The Poetic Landscapes

IV. Poussin's Landscape Drawings

V. The "G Group" Drawings

Bibliography
Exhibitions
Index of Works by Nicolas Poussin
Index
Photograph Credits

About the authors

Pierre Rosenberg is a member of the Académie française and Honorary President-Director of the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Keith Christiansen is Jayne Wrightsman Curator of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Press reviews

Choice Reviews Online

"... the essays and extensive catalogue entries on his landscapes are so thorough, and at times eloquent and even inspiring, that the volume can serve, to a great degree, as an introductory text to this master for undergraduates and other serious students. ... The footnotes, bibliography, and other scholarly apparatus are exemplary, and the text is straightforward and free of scholarly jargon. Highly recommended."

Tags

Authors

Artists

Cézanne, Paul (French, 1839–1906) | Constable, John (British, 1776–1837) | Poussin, Nicolas (French, 1594–1665) | Turner, Joseph Mallord William (British, 1775–1851)

Keywords

Titles by thematic category (558)

European Art in the 17th–18th Centuries

Titles by author (48)

Keith Christiansen

René Démoris

Alain Mérot

Anna Ottani Cavina

Claire Pace

Pierre Rosenberg

Willibald Sauerländer

Exhibition

Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions

French master Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) painted some of the most influential landscapes in Western art. In them, nature is viewed "through the glass of time" and endowed with a poetic quality that has been admired by painters as different as Constable, Turner, and Cézanne. This is the first exhibition to examine the landscapes of this great painter. It brings together about forty paintings, ranging from his early, lyrical, Venetian-inspired pastorals to his grandly structured and austere works in which the artist meditated upon Nature, its transformations and its renewals. An equal number of drawings are on view, the most luminous of which were done en plein air.