Like
Poussin he depended much upon long sweeping lines in composition, and
upon effects of linear perspective.
[Illustration: FIG. 58--WATTEAU. GILLES. LOUVRE.]
COURT PAINTING: When Louis XIV. came to the throne painting took on a
decided character, but it was hardly national or race character. The
popular idea, if the people had an idea, did not obtain. There was no
motive springing from the French except an inclination to follow
Italy; and in Italy all the great art-motives were dead. In method
the French painters followed the late Italians, and imitated an
imitation; in matter they bowed to the dictates of the court and
reflected the king's mock-heroic spirit. Echoing the fashion of the
day, painting became pompous, theatrical, grandiloquent--a mass of
vapid vanity utterly lacking in sincerity and truth. Lebrun
(1619-1690), painter in ordinary to the king, directed substantially
all the painting of the reign. He aimed at pleasing royalty with
flattering allusions to Caesarism and extravagant personifications of
the king as a classic conqueror.
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