by John A. Parks

Landscape With Orpheus and Eurydice ca. 1650, oil, 48⅞ x 78¾. Collection the Louvre, Paris, France.

Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) practically invented the classical tradition in French painting, creating a lineage that would keep the academies and art schools turning out historical paintings for nearly two centuries. Revered and celebrated in his own time as “the Raphael of our century,” an artist whose achievements were thought to rival those of the ancients, his reputation long outlived him. The rigorous perfection of his work, with its large groups of well-organized figures; its highly readable space; and its command of human form, action, and gesture would continue to impress into the 20th century. Cézanne expressed the wish to  “do Poussin over again from nature,” and artists as diverse as Matisse and Balthus were influenced by his painting.

A new exhibition titled “Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions” opened in February at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City, and is on view until May 11. Rather than a complete survey of the artist’s work, it focuses on Poussin’s use of landscape and makes a case for recognizing the artist as a major force in landscape painting, in addition to his usual accolades for his complex narrative figure compositions. Poussin himself might well have been surprised at this recognition, as he never actually painted a picture that was simply a landscape of a particular place. On the other hand, landscapes often provided the settings for his human dramas, and in his mature work they began to have an increasingly important role. “I have neglected nothing,” the artist once famously said of his exertions as a painter. Certainly he took pains to master the art of landscape early on because, more than any other artist of his day, he was interested in acquiring an entirely comprehensive vision. But to understand fully the role of landscape in Poussin’s work it is perhaps best to start at the beginning.

Landscape With a Nymph and a Sleeping Satyr 1625, oil, 29½ x 35⅜. Collection Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France.

Poussin was born in 1594 in the small town of Les Andelys, in Normandy, to a modest middle-class family with no connection to the arts. Although very little is known about his upbringing, he was sent off to a local school to study Latin, and it may well be that his parents hoped he would pursue a career in law. However, at some point during his teenage years the young man decided that it was his calling to become a painter. Very likely he was impressed by the work of an itinerant painter, Quentin Varin, who executed a set of murals in a local church and who may have personally encouraged the young man. Soon enough Poussin found himself in Paris, learning his trade.

Of his early work almost nothing remains, and not until he reached the age of 30 did fortune begin to smile on the artist. Poussin obtained a commission in Paris for the Jesuits and the resulting paintings earned him the attention of the Italian poet, Cavaliere Marino, who was living in Paris at the court of Marie de’ Medici. Marino brought the young artist into his sphere, secured several commissions for him, and eventually invited him to Rome.

Landscape With a River God oil, 30¼ x 34⅝. Collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York.

Poussin absorbed classical architecture from his studies in Rome, and he also went outside the city to amass a vocabulary of landscape. From as early as the 1630s there are accounts of the artist making sketching trips out into the Roman Campagna with his contemporary Claude Lorrain. Although some of these sketches survived, it is notable that Poussin never made landscape paintings for their own sake. He was primarily interested in the creation of an idealized world, and he was at pains to distinguish between the simple business of observation and study and the more noble task of understanding. For Poussin, art was an intellectual and spiritual construct, something that he held far more valuable than the mere recording of appearances.

It is surprising, therefore, having constructed an art of such formal rigor and literal import, that in his mature years, Poussin made a group of paintings that are enormously affecting and that rely on a more dominant position of landscape in the work. The reasons for this development are multiple. First, in 1640 Poussin was persuaded to leave Rome for two years to work for the French monarchy at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu, who was involved in vast and expansive building projects that created more work than there were painters to complete it. Poussin was not enthusiastic about leaving Rome, and the stay was not a success. The artist resented having to work on commissions that were not of his own choosing. Moreover he was asked to provide decorations for a vast mural cycle in the Grand Gallerie at Versailles, which would involve versions of scenes from Trajan’s Column. The task was enormous, and although Poussin did drawings for it he never actually took it on. Returning to Rome in 1642, the artist would henceforth work only for a group of private collectors on subjects that he chose.

Landscape With Saint Jerome oil, 61 x 92⅛. Collection Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Second, Poussin was doubtless aware of the enormous success that Claude Lorrain was enjoying with his gloriously atmospheric landscapes. Claude had succeeded in making paintings in which landscapes opened in vast scope under a transporting golden light, pictures that projected nostalgia for a lost and ideal world, which was perfectly in line with classical yearnings of the collectors and patrons of the time. While Lorrain involved himself in atmosphere and light, Poussin’s approach to landscape was to be more structural. But before this could happen the artist’s work had to undergo a significant change.

Landscape With Saint John on Patmos oil, 39½ x 53¾. Collection The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.

Poussin’s work of the 1640s evolved into a style that his biographer, Bellori, described as maneira magnifica or “grand manner.” By this he meant a way of painting in which serious subject matter is represented with bold clarity and in which ornamental possibilities are subordinated to the structure and import of the work. A new confidence and even more powerful organizing intelligence makes its presence felt at this time in Poussin’s work, and this organization extended into the settings and landscapes behind the figures. Natural features begin to take on a more geometric appearance, to reflect the grave solidity of the human protagonists in the pictures. Eventually, along with many gloriously composed figure works, the artist began to produce paintings in which landscape took on a much greater role. An early example is Landscape With St. John on Patmos, probably executed in 1644. Here the saint has retired to the countryside and we find him in the midst of a carefully composed setting in which fragments of ruins, stones, and columns are scattered among rocks and trees. Far in the distance, on a promontory, lies a city. It is easy to see how an artist such as Cézanne would be attracted to such a painting; a kind of geometric clarity and resolution has been imposed on nature, each element a product of a distinct idea. But far from reading as a dry and intellectual work, the painting also has considerable atmosphere and presence; if it lacks the golden light of a Claude, it is still, nonetheless, a dreamy and nostalgic vision.

Landscape With Three Men oil, 47¼ x 73⅝. Collection Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Poussin soon went on to create landscape-dominated works of even greater scope. In Landscape With Three Men, the artist shows two men asking directions as they leave a city. Their lower bodies are obscured by a rise in the ground so that they are entirely enmeshed in the landscape--and what an organized landscape it is. Planes of shadows and light alternate as we move into the background, and the effect of recession is increased by a zig-zag movement back and forth across the picture as our eye moves back in space. The buildings in the distance have acquired the look of geometric building blocks while even the clouds themselves take on the movement of the principal perspective lines of the painting. Again, it is remarkable that such a contrived picture is at the same time so atmospheric and moving.

A similar sentiment is found in Landscape With a Calm, in which a goatherd minds his flock while contemplating a view across a lake to a city with a mountain beyond. The geometry of the painting extends to the goats, which are arranged in a little semicircle atop a zig-zag pathway. This wholly invented landscape retreats in orderly, stagelike progression, and a general sense of resolution and harmony prevails. At this stage of his career it appears that Poussin had entirely internalized the stately sense of interval and proportion found in Roman art and was able to project onto any subject matter he chose.

Landscape With a Calm 1651, oil, 38¼ x 52⅛. Collection The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California.	Landscape With a Storm 1651, oil, 39 x 52. Collection Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France.

A companion painting, Landscape With a Storm, brings real drama to the artist’s rather orderly vision of things. Here a huge gust of wind has bent the tree in the foreground while the figures run or cower in the face of the storm. The dark clouds and dramatic lighting add to the effect. This is one of many subjects in which the artist meditated on the sudden reversals and catastrophes that can be visited on the unsuspecting. Like many of his contemporaries, Poussin was interested in the point of view of the Stoics, who valued the qualities of reserve and detachment in the face of the unpredictability of the world. As an artist Poussin was interested in the communication of such thoughts and spoke of the process of appreciating a painting as one of “delectation.” Writing to his French patron and friend Chantelou in 1642 to he said, “Things which partake of perfection should not be looked at in haste, but call for time, judgment, and intelligence. The means employed in their appraisal must be the same as those used in their making.”

Summer: Ruth and Boaz ca. 1660, oil, 46½ x 63. Collection Musée du Louvre, Paris, France.

The “Poussin and Nature” exhibition includes two paintings from the artist’s late cycle depicting the four seasons. Each of the paintings includes a scene from the Old Testament, and the painting Summer: Ruth and Boaz shows the story of the biblical figures. In the foreground Ruth, a Moabite girl and therefore a stranger, implores Boaz, a landowner, to allow her to glean in his cornfields after the harvest. Boaz gestures to his foreman, the young man with the spear, to stand guard and protect her while she works. Here Poussin’s repertoire of gesture and expression carries the narrative perfectly. The painting incorporates a beautiful vision of a cornfield as it is being harvested by a group of workers. But the field has also been simplified into a geometric oblong, a solidly abstract form around which the rest of the composition is built.

Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun 1658, oil, 46⅞ x 72. Collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York.

In his later years Poussin’s art underwent a further change. Plagued by an increasingly shaky hand and complaining of various pains and ailments, the old painter nonetheless managed to turn his powers to new realms. His figures no longer exhibited the smooth perfection of classical sculptures. Although his work was still highly organized, it began to incorporate more flexibility and idiosyncrasy in the space. This can be seen in his Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun painted in 1658. The mythical giant, blinded in punishment for a terrible misdeed, is being guided by one of Vulcan’s servants who is standing on his shoulders. According to the story, his sight will be restored when he finds the sun. Standing on a cloud in the background is the goddess Diana, who will later be responsible for placing Orion in the sky. The organization of the landscape in this picture is much more fluid than the landscapes from the 1650s. The static arrangements have been replaced with dynamic swirling movements through the picture and the stately recession has given way to a less regulated but altogether more exciting sense of depth. A new individuality has asserted itself in Poussin’s painting, one that perhaps no longer adheres fully to the classical ideal he strove to project for so long.

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John A. Parks is an artist who is represented by Allan Stone Gallery, in New York City. He is also a teacher at the School of Visual Arts, in New York City, and is a frequent contributor to American Artist, Drawing, Watercolor, and Workshop magazines.

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"Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions" is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 11. An accompanying exhibition “In the Light of Poussin” displays drawings by artists influenced by Poussin. For more information visit www.metmuseum.org.