Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin was the foremost painter of the classical French Baroque. His paintings are characterized by clarity, logic, and order, and favours line over color. Until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for such classically oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne. He worked in Rome, except for a short time when Cardinal Richelieu ordered him back to France to serve as First Painter to the King. Most of his works are history paintings of religious or mythological subjects that very often have a large landscape element. In his works a survival of the impulses of the Renaissance is coupled with conscious reference to the art of classical antiquity as the standard of excellence. He believed in reason as the guiding principle of art, yet his figures are never just cold or motionless.