| Ranked among the important early French practitioners of Italianate classicism independent of Poussin,' Perrier (Simon Vouet's contemporary and rival) helped found the French Academy in 1648 and died two years after its creation. Perrier's style, based on Lanfranco and the Carracci as well as Pietro da Cortona, was more energetic, broadly conceived, and epic than that of Simon Vouet. Much of Perrier's decorative work has been destroyed or altered, making it difficult to evaluate or fully appreciate. Nevertheless, recent scholarship has underscored Perrier's importance to the development of French decorative painting in the first half of the seventeenth century. After serving an apprenticeship with an unknown painter in Lyon, Perrier traveled to Rome before 1625 where he served in Lanfranco's studio. He returned to France by 1629, painting at the charterhouse in Lyon and then working with Simon Vouet at Chilly in 1630. Perrier then settled in Paris, where the young Le Bnin* entered his studio before moving on to Vouet. In 1635 Perrier returned to Rome; there he joined Grimaldi and G. B. Ruggieri in decorating the Peretti (now Almagia) Palace. In 1645 Perrier was back in Paris, where he produced decorative works for the HOtel de la Vrilliere (later disturbed in the early eighteenth century) and the Hotel Lambert (Aeneas and His Companion Fighting the Harpies, Paris, Louvre). Perrier also provided some of the decorative elements for the ceiling of the Cabinet des Muses. Perrier's heroically conceived figures and rather heavy forms certainly were influential, particularly on his most illustrious student, Charles Le Brun. |
