Sebastien Bourdon
(1616 - 1671) |
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Portraiture, Landscapes, Mythologies, Genre Subjects Art Work
| Name: |
Sebastien Bourdon |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Montpellier |
| Nationality: |
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| Birth: |
1616 |
| Death: |
1671 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Portraiture, Landscapes, Mythologies, Genre Subjects |
| Medium: |
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| Method: |
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| Style: |
Baroque |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| Bourdon is generally acknowledged as a leading artist in Poussin's circle. Diverse in style. Bourdon also was diverse in subject matter, producing portraits, landscapes, mythologies, and genre pictures with equal ease. He was one of the few French painters to be so multifaceted. In fact, Bourdon has been criticized as being an artist capable of imitating any style but not capable of evolving his own. He has also been praised as an undervalued talent who was so gifted in painting in various styles that he could deliberately deceive the connoisseur. Apprenticed at age seven to Barthelemy, Bourdon moved to Bordeaux at age fourteen. In 1634 (aged eighteen) he arrived in Rome, where he spent three years producing works influenced by Pieter van Laer. Well known for his bambocciate (genre) scenes produced with grays and steel blues, Bourdon cut short his stay in Rome after being denounced as a heretic. He left Rome in 1637 and returned to Paris, stopping briefly in Venice on the way. In Paris he continued to produce bambocciate subjects but expanded his range to include religious works and portraits. In fact, his approach to portraiture (generally 3/4 view, which included the torso, showing his sitters relaxed and informal, and tinged with a slight melancholy reminiscent of Sweerts) gave rise to the style for middle-class French portraiture for much of the century. In 1643 Bourdon received the commission for the Martyrdom of St Peter for Notre Dame (doc. 1643). This work reflects his Venetian experience, which is also found in compositions such as Caesar by the Tomb of Alexander (Paris, Louvre). He helped found the Academy in 1648. In 1652 Bourdon became court painter to Queen Christina of Sweden and produced numerous likenesses of the queen and her court before her abdication in 1654. He then returned to Paris, became rector of the Academy, and was sought after as a portrait painter while continuing to be active as a history and landscape painter. Upon Le Sueur's death in 1655, Bourdon received a commission from the church of St. Gervais for a tapestry cartoon. Other public commissions included the Martyrdom of St. Andrew (Chartres) and the Fall of Simon Magus (ca. 1659, Cathedral of Montpellier). Employing a stiffer figural type in these works and defining spaces in planar recessions, Bourdon moved closer in style to Poussin, a tendency also notable in his series of the Seven Acts of Mercy (Sarasota, Ringling Museum of Art). Attacked by the local artists in his home city of Montpellier, Bourdon returned to Paris in 1663. In these years Bourdon often turned to landscape, of which an excellent example is the Landscape with Mill (Providence, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design). A magical fusion of natural observation with intellectual and classical abstraction, the painting reconciles the best elements of both approaches. The masterpiece of his Parisian period (ca. 1655) is the Finding of Moses (Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art), which reflects his admiration for the personal interpretation of Poussin. Bourdon's last years were spent providing decorations for the Hdtel de Bretonvilliers (now destroyed). His influence can be seen in the works of Le Brun, Mignard, and many other painters. |
Samples of Work
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