Fine Art Friday: Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin, the greatest French artist of the 17th century, is considered one of the founders of European classicism, a movement in art, based on antique and Renaissance heritage. Poussin was born in Normandy, in Les-Andelys, in 1594. The son of an impoverished family, Poussin received some early professional training at home. In 1612, Poussin left for Paris, where he entered the workshop of the mannerist painter J. Lallemald. The training was reinforced by independent study of, mainly, Italian art in the Royal Collections. By the end of the 1610s Poussin became an authoritative master, the evidence of this are his commissions for the decoration of the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, and the big altarpiece Assumption of the Virgin.

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St. Cecilia, 1627-28



The Triumph of David, 1630



Pharaoh's Daughter Finds the Baby Moses, 1638



The Marriage of the Virgin, 1640



The Last Supper, 1640s



The Holy Family, 1641