Antoine Le Nain
(1600 - 1648) |
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Genre Subjectes, Portraits Art Work
| Name: |
Antoine Le Nain |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Laon |
| Nationality: |
Franch |
| Birth: |
1600 |
| Death: |
1648 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Genre Subjectes, Portraits |
| Medium: |
Oil on canvas |
| Method: |
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| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painter
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Biography
| Louis (Laon ca. 1600-Paris 1648), and Mathieu (Laon 1607-Paris 1677), French. Essentially forgotten from the end of the seventeenth century until the nineteenth, the Le Nain brothers, Antoine, Louis, and Mathieu, were rediscovered when a renewed taste for realism reawakened an interest in their works. Today the brothers, who were renowned as original interpreters of everyday life, are placed among the greatest French painters, their reputation equaled only by the difficulty surrounding attribution and connoisseurship. Fifteen signed and dated works produced between 1641 and 1648 survive. Because none are signed with a first name, the identity of each brother's oeuvre remains problematic. Furthermore, the brothers often collaborated, and recent scholarship confirms the presence of more than one hand on many of the surviving canvases. In addition, the fact that Mathieu outlived his two brothers by nearly thirty years has tempted historians to isolate his oeuvre from that of his brothers. However, such attempts have not been entirely successful. The great Le Nain exhibition in Paris (1978) yielded much new knowledge about the three brothers. Among other revisions, there occurred a reassessment of Antoine and Louis's birthdates, which were moved from 1588 and 1593, respectively, to circa 1600. The sons of Isaac Le Nain - a prosperous farmer who gained an official post in 1595 and owned several houses, acreage, and vineyards near Laon - Antoine, Louis, and Mathieu probably trained together with an itinerant painter passing through Laon. They moved to Paris, then settled in nearby St. Germain-des-Pres, where Antoine obtained master painter status in 1629. They remained in St. Gennain, sharing a studio which rapidly gained a reputation. By 1632 the City of Paris commissioned them (Antoine signed the contract) for portraits of the Municipal Magistrates (a lost work), and in 1633 Mathieu was made Peintre ordinaire de la Ville de Paris and became Lieutenant de la Compagnie Bourgeoise du Sieur du Roi. Some years before 1643, Mathieu executed a likeness of Queen Anne of Austria (lost). The studio received a commission to decorate the Lady Chapel at St. Germain-des-Pre's (destroyed) and to paint altarpieces for four chapels at Notre Dame (a Crucifixion, dated 1646, is lost). Contemporary sources - du Bail, 1644; Scudery, 1646; and Le Leu - mentioned them, and in 1648 all three brothers participated in the initial assembly of the Royal Academy. Shortly afterward two of the brothers, Antoine and Louis, died within days of each other. Mathieu's signature is found thereafter on numerous documents involving stocks, real estate, and the like, suggesting he was left a substantial fortune. He seems to have aspired to higher social status and although he painted for a while (he donated a portrait of Mazarin, dated 1646, now lost, to the Academy), he was no longer peintre ordinaire du Roi but received in 1662 the Order of St. Michael, a substantial increase in social rank. The lack of dates on canvases after 1648, and Mathieu's involvement with business and his rising social position, may indicate that he decreased his activity as a painter. Little survives of the Le Nains' efforts in the grand manner, although the The Allegory of Victory (Paris, Louvre) and the Venus at the Forge of Vulcan (signed and dated 1641, Reims, Musee Saint-Denis) show both their strengths and weaknesses. Transforming a genre scene (it utilizes essentially the same setting as the Forge, Paris, Louvre) into a mythology, the Venus episode enlivens its subject with a fresh interpretation, but the contrast between the idealized Venus and the realistically conceived forge workers remains somewhat awkward. Of the surviving religious works, their paintings for Notre Dame, St. Michael Dedicating His Arms to the Virgin (now in Nevers, Church of St. Pierre) and Nativity (Paris, Notre Dame), are considered their most masterful works and treat the subjects with the similarly fresh approach found in their mythologies: simple monumental figures taken from unidealized models. A number of religious subjects were translated into small-scale works also interpreted in a genre-like vein, of which the Adoration of the Shepherds (London, National Gallery) shows the high quality these reached. Of their portraiture, group portraits, treated as genre paintings, stand out as a particularly successful innovation, of which the Guard House (dated 1643, Paris, Louvre) shows a remarkable fusion of genre scene (smokers in an interior) and insightful portraiture. The style, artificial coloring, and characterization of each personality departs from the Le Nains' more straightforward genre paintings which make them famous today. Of their genre paintings, two large works, Peasant Family (Paris, Louvre) and The Peasant (signed and dated 1647, Paris, Louvre), are especially celebrated. Here the Le Nains seem to have taken a reverse approach to their official works, employing many of the qualities of formal portraiture to endow their subjects with unusual gravity, dignity, and calm. Some of the characters in these pictures seem to pause in their activities and confront the viewer with an alternately guarded, challenging, or appealing manner. The directness of these works suggests that they painted from models; the paintings retain a freshness and accessibility that transcend time and subject matter. The Le Nains' genre paintings are considered more homogeneous in style than their other subjects. A number of small-scale interiors survive, of which the Peasant Interior (Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art) and The Forge (Paris, Louvre) are among the most remarkable, reflecting their interest in Dutch genre and Caravaggism but interpreted in their own original manner. Of the Le Nains* genre scenes involving children, the Old Flageolot Player (dated variously as 1642 and 1644, Detroit Institute of the Arts) is considered among the most appealing. The use of landscape settings resulted in some of their most surreal images, evoking a sense of isolation and starkness comparable to modern masters such as Hopper. The Peasants in a Landscape (Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art) is a haunting example. Since most of the Le Nains' large-scale works are now accepted as the product of several hands, these paintings are given to all three artists. Still, scholars tend to ascribe particular works to certain hands. To Antoine are given the small group portraits and small-scale depictions of children (such as the Three Young Musicians, Los Angeles County Musem of Art), while Louis is credited with a number of peasant scenes and generally with the powerful psychological interpretation of any of the characters, as well as the unique employment of landscape settings. To Mathieu is given the more elegant treatment of some portraits such as the Tric-Trac Players (Paris, Louvre). If the Painters Studio (Poughkeepsie, Vassar College Art Gallery) dates after 1655, as has been suggested, it is an indication of his continued activity some years after his brothers' deaths. Mathieu is usually regarded as the least pyschologically insightful and least consistently proficient of the three brothers. The accepted oeuvre of these brothers varies by scholar and only a partial list of ascribed works is presented here. |
Samples of Work
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