Baroque Analysis
This is Landscape with a Calm by Nicolas Poussin, the golden child of the French Academy. While the French Academy's preferential treatment of pieces based on the works of Poussin no doubt denied us some great artists, Poussin himself isn't undeserving of his role model status.
The prominence of Nicolas Poussin is in great part due to the French Academy, which itself was spawned from the patronage of the French royalty after the Thirty Year's War. This bloody conflict secured France's role as comfortably as the most powerful nation in Northern Europe. With his borders secure and his coffers full from the spoils, King Louis XIV founded the Royal French Academy for Painting and Sculpture, securing a long history of art patronage that would grow into modern-day wonders like the Louvre.
We can see in the painting the many examples of Poussin's attention to detail and strength of lines, particularly in the middle ground of the landscape where the buildings possess sharp edges dulled only minutely with distance. Even in the shadowed foreground, the shepherd's robes are easily defined against the rest of the ground. I would draw your eye to my favorite part of this piece, which is the leaves of the trees in the foreground. I wouldn't consider this an attempt at photorealism, but there is a certain sharpness to them that it feels it could be real, which was the philosophy behind the ideal landscape.
In this painting, Poussin seeks to create an atmosphere of calm, rather than a biblical story as was the most common subject of paintings from the European Baroque era. The soft tones, shading, and lighting on the clouds suggest evening with the mountains standing firm in the background. In the Poussin fashion, there is a lot more emphasis on line than color, but I think for landscapes with soft colors like here in low light it works very well.
Works Cited
Gersh-Nesic, Beth. "Art History Definition: Academy, French." ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020, thoughtco.com/art-history-definition-academy-french-182900. Accessed 29 Feb. 2024
Blumberg, Naomi. "landscape painting". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Oct. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/art/landscape-painting. Accessed 29 February 2024
"Brief History of the Landscape Genre". The J. Paul Getty Museum, https://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/classroom_resources/curricula/landscapes/background1.html#:~:text=Poussin%2C%20who%20in%20his%20early,landscape%20to%20a%20higher%20status. . Accessed 29 Feb. 2024
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What an interesting choice for this week's Baroque artwork, and to go on the French side too. When I got to this one I had to comment. This feels like looking through a window into the past of people going about their day back then. It is such a calming picture. It's a picture that you want to look at it all. With nothing sticking out more than the rest either. There are definitely lots of lines in this painting. Very interesting. I agree it is a very soft-colored, calming picture. With the clouds and mountains, you can almost hear the birds in the trees and the sounds of the animals as they go by. This isn't something I would want in my house but interesting nonetheless.
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