Philippe de Champaigne

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Philippe de Champaigne (self-portrait)

Philippe de Champaigne (* 26. May 1602 in Brussels ; † 12. August 1674 in Paris ) was a in the Duchy of Brabant born painter of the French Baroque .

Life

Ex voto (1662)

The artist came from a poor Brussels family and was first a student of the landscape painter Jacques Fouquières . Champaigne came to Paris in 1621, where he worked with Nicolas Poussin in the Palais du Luxembourg for Nicolas Duchesne , whose daughter he married. Driven out by his jealousy, he returned to Brussels in 1627, but was immediately called back by Queen Mother Maria de Medici to help decorate the Palais de Luxembourg . She appointed him in place of the recently deceased Duchesne as her first court painter . He also worked for Cardinal Richelieu ( portraits , decoration of the Cardinal Palace, dome of the Sorbonne Church, etc.).

Champaigne became a founding member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1648 , then a professor and finally its rector. When Charles Lebrun's fame darkened, he withdrew to Port Royal des Champs , where he created his famous painting Ex voto de 1662 on the occasion of the convalescence of his daughter, a nun of the monastery, from a serious illness . It shows the superior Agnès Arnauld , abbess of the nunnery, and Sister Cathérine (his daughter) at prayer. Today it is owned by the Louvre .

He died in Paris on August 12, 1674.

rating

Champaigne combines classical compositions with a Flemish sense of realism and materiality, but the rigor in the structure, the often cool colors and the psychologically precise reproduction of portraits are entirely in the service of a deep, ethically understood religiosity. His achievements are still underestimated by the general public.

Works (selection)

  • Portrait of Cardinal Richelieu , around 1640, oil on canvas, 248 × 168 cm. Paris, Chancellerie des Universités de Paris, inv. 77
  • Nun of the Order of St. Birgitta on her deathbed , Geneva, museum

Student (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Philippe de Champaigne  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Klaus Bußmann , Heinz Schilling : 1648 - War and Peace in Europe. Catalog volume and two text volumes, Münster 1998 [Documentation of the Council of Europe exhibition on the 350th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia in Münster and Osnabrück.] Münster / Osnabrück 1998, ISBN 3-88789-127-9 , p. 78