Eustache Le Sueur
(1616 - 1655) |
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Historic Narratives, Mythological Narratives, Secular Narratives Art Work
| Name: |
Eustache Le Sueur |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Paris, France |
| Nationality: |
French |
| Birth: |
1616 |
| Death: |
1655 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Historic Narratives, Mythological Narratives, Secular Narratives |
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| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| Gifted as a decorator and painter of histories, Eustache Le Sueur enjoyed a great reputation in his own day (when he was ranked second only to Poussin), though today he has fallen into undeserved neglect. Scholars rank him among the important yet minor classical painters grouped around Poussin and Claude. Le Sueur's premature death at age thirty-eight in 1655 left Le Bran the leading classical painter in France. The son of a woodcarver, Eustache became a pupil of Simon Vouet around 1632, when he also met Le Brun and Mignard. Though he never went to Italy (for which his early biographers criticized him, while pointing out how well a painter could develop without this training), Le Sueur infused himself with Italian art by studying Raphael drawings and Valentin paintings in the Royal Collection, the prints of Marcantonio Raimondi, the Italian decorations at Fontainebleau, and by looking at the paintings of Romanelli. Vouet helped his young pupil's career by entrusting Eustache with most of a commission Vouet received in 1637 for eight painted tapestry cartoons illustrating Colonna's Dream of Poliphilus (Hypnerotomachia Poliphili), a series which was completed around 1645. Four surviving examples have been identified (Le Mans, Rouen, Dijon, and the Czernin collection, Vienna). A second important commission arrived in 1644 for decorations for the Hdtel Lambert, of which the panels illustrating the story of Cupid (Paris, Louvre) demonstrate Le Sueur's interest in Poussin, who had been in Paris from 1640 to 1642. Le Sueur was also an independent and original portrait artist during this period, as his Reunion of Friends (Paris, Louvre) and Portrait of M. Albert (dated 1641, Gueret, Musee de Gueret) demonstrate. Le Sueur's style of this time clearly indicates the influence of Vouet, though Le Sueur evolved a more delicate and sober draftsmanship and a brighter, richer palette. In 1646-47 Le Sueur continued decorating the H6tel Lambert with paintings for the Cabinet des Muses, of which five panels and the ceiling painting (Phaeton Asking Apollo to Drive the Chariot of Heaven) were acquired by Louis XVI for the Louvre. Possessing a lyrical delicacy and sweetness which anticipates the rococo, these decorations also show Le Sueur's endowment of his forms with a monumentality and volume clearly inspired by Poussin. The next phase of his career is marked by the twenty-two paintings he executed between 1645 and 1648 for the Carthusian cloister illustrating the Life of St. Bruno. Now in the Louvre, this remarkable series ranks among Lc Sueur's most original and personal works. An intense spirituality and a mystical, dream-like mood emanate from these canvases, which have links with the paintings of such sixteenth-century Italian masters as Beccafumi and Fra Bartolommeo. Admiring scholars also have found parallels with Zurbardn* in theii sparing compositions and haunting religiosity. In 1648 Le Sueur became one of the two original founders of the Royal Academy and later became its rector. By the 1650s Le Sueur began to change, turning increasingly to Italian art for inspiration (particularly Raphael). Le Sueur's Annunciation (dated 1650, Toledo Museum of Art) shows his interest in portraying both his figural and his architectural elements with curved contours, at once delicate and monumental in their appearance, and of visually unifying proportions. Le Sueur's more sparing, less brightly colored palette is evident in a masterpiece of this period: Christ Carrying the Cross (Paris, Louvre), which also shows Le Sueur's study of Bellini and Giorgione. Here Le Sueur has given the contours of his figures greater subtlety and interpreted his subject with even greater refinement and poetry, particularly in the figure of St. Veronica holding the veil. Among Le Sueur's last works are four paintings done in 1654 for the Abbey at Marmoutiers: The Virgin, Accompanied by St. Agnes and St. Thecle, Appearing to St. Martin and The Mass of St. Martin (dated 1654, both Paris, Louvre); St Sebastian Tended by St. Irene and St. Louis Healing the Sick (both Tours, Mus6e des Beaux-Arts). These continue his development of delicately conceived contours and detailed, convincing figure types, which are nevertheless idealized. His last work, Martyrdom of St. Gervais and St. Protais (Lyon, Mus6e des Beaux-Arts), was finished after his death by his brother-in-law, Thomas Goussey. Sometimes called "The French Raphael," Le Sueur has a number of imitators but no known pupils. |
Samples of Work
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