LE BRUN, Charles

This picture shows how clever Le Brun was at composition, at mingling the world beyond with earthly life and at controlling the fantastic effects of the light produced by a screened fire.

French château c. 6 km north-east of Melun, in the d�partement of Seine-et-Marne. It was built in 1656-61 for Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s Surintendant des Finances, by Louis Le Vau with the assistance of Charles Le Brun. The gardens were laid out by Andr� Le N�tre under Le Vau’s guidance.

The forerunner of Versailles, it is the most important château built in France in the mid-17th century; it was here that Le Vau, Le Brun and Le N�tre learnt to work as a team and to produce the unity of architecture, interior decoration and garden layout that distinguishes the Louis XIV style.

This vast canvas is part of a series of four commissioned by Louis XIV from Le Brun. It is a cartoon for a tapestry woven at the Gobelins manufactory in Paris.

Alexander, who had defeated Darius III of Persia at the Battle of Issus (333 BC), foresaw another battle to take Babylon; he was surprised to see the gates of the city open to give him a hero’s welcome. Le Brun depicts the moment where Alexander, holding a scepter topped by Victory in his left hand, advances in a chariot drawn by two elephants captured from Darius’ army. The hero, crowned with laurel leaves, is preceded by Persian trumpeters. Next to him three men directed by a mounted warrior (perhaps Hephaestion, Alexander’s friend) carry a large golden vase. In the background one can see the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; in the foreground to the left, a statue of Semiramis.

Louis XIV was interested in the story of Alexander the Great because of his own special type of megalomania could see itself reflected in the Greek past. Le Brun accordingly executed the truly colossal series of four canvasses depicting episodes from the life of Alexander the Great.

This series was considered by the artist himself to be his masterpiece. The four paintings of the series are the Passage of the Granicus, the Battle of Argela, the Entry of Alexander into Babylon and Alexander and Porus. Like so many Herculean undertakings, the paintings impressed everybody by their sheer size. Later history has not been kind to them, but even so, tremendous energy burst out of every corner of these pictures, some of which are more than twelve metres long. The source, without any doubts, is Rubens. This is not the exuberant Rubens of the Medici cycle, but the Rubens of the vast hunting scenes and tapestry cartoons. Le Brun had in effect changed sides, as he moved from modest echoes of Poussin to a full-blown eulogy of Rubens.

The Gobelins were a family of dyers who, in the middle of the 15th century, established themselves in Paris. In 1662, this works with the adjoining grounds, were purchased by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Minister of Finance, on behalf of Louis XIV and made into a general upholstery factory, in which designs both in tapestry and in all kinds of furniture were executed. He appointed Le Brun director of the Gobelin works (Manufacture des Gobelins), where there was a network of workshops supplying tapestries, furniture, gold work and silverware, locksmiths, mosaics, and the Crown’s marquetry. Le Brun served as director and chief designer from 1663-1690. His influence here was considerable, he designed everything and supervised production.

This vast canvas is part of a series of four commissioned by Louis XIV from Le Brun. It is a cartoon for a tapestry woven at the Gobelins manufactory in Paris.

The Alexander the Great series illustrates the conquest of the Persian Empire to the fringes of India. In this composition, Alexander shows magnanimity to the Indian king Porus, whom he has just defeated, by allowing him to keep his kingdom. Porus’s elephants can be seen lying dead in the background.

The Battle of the Hydaspes was fought in 326 BC between Alexander the Great and King Porus of the Paurava kingdom on the banks of the river Jhelum (known to the Greeks as Hydaspes) in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent (modern-day Punjab, Pakistan).

This vast canvas is part of a series of four commissioned by Louis XIV from Le Brun. It is a cartoon for a tapestry woven at the Gobelins manufactory in Paris.

The Alexander the Great series illustrates the conquest of the Persian Empire to the fringes of India. In this composition, Alexander shows magnanimity to the Indian king Porus, whom he has just defeated, by allowing him to keep his kingdom. Porus’s elephants can be seen lying dead in the background.

The Battle of the Hydaspes was fought in 326 BC between Alexander the Great and King Porus of the Paurava kingdom on the banks of the river Jhelum (known to the Greeks as Hydaspes) in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent (modern-day Punjab, Pakistan).

In this allegoric painting Providence put the crown on the head of King riding a horse in Roman costume. Angels coming from the cloak of Providence fight the enemies of France, the lion (Netherlands) and the eagle (Germany).

The painting is located in the Hall of Mirrors

Le Brun must not be rejected as a mere decorator, even though so much of his other art is relatively inaccessible, deposited in provincial museums or surrounded in the Louvre by so much more exciting and exacting painting. There was no sense of his inferiority at the time - on the contrary, his art was highly esteemed by his contemporaries - and the ambivalent attitude towards him came about only in later centuries when the art of the period came to be assessed as history. Le Brun was in fact the most important painter in France in the second half of the century and the portrait of Chancellor S�guier (1588 - 1672) in the Louvre justifies a high estimation of his talent.

The composition forms an enormous pyramid with the figure of S�guier at its apex. The scale is almost life-size, and the characterization of the sitters is worthy of Champaigne. Acknowledged as a masterpiece even though the name of Le Brun is forgotten, it is a unique record of an important official surrounded by his attendants. The date is uncertain, but it is likely to be from the 1650s.

This vast canvas is part of a series of four commissioned by Louis XIV from Le Brun. It is a cartoon for a tapestry woven at the Gobelins manufactory in Paris.

The painting shows the moment when the Macedonian troops crossed the river Granicus (in present-day Turkey) to fight the Persians, in 334 BC. As Alexander advanced on his horse Bucephalus, Cleitus the Black saved his life by warding off the threatening blow. Le Brun’s painting draws the viewer into the heart of the battle.

This early work was executed during the painter’s stay in Rome. It shows the influence of Caravaggio.

The first rooms decorated at Versailles disappeared. However, those forming the Grands Appartements of the King and Queen, decorated under the direction of Charles Le Brun between 1671 and 1681, survive, though not in their original splendour. The ceilings of these rooms are decorated with a combination of stucco and paint, but in some cases there are illusionist panels in the corners, most effectively in the Salle des Gardes de la Reine.

The photo shows the interior of the Salle des Gardes de la Reine.

Le Brun made a basic artistic study into “general expressions” and into the “expression of passions” in 1668, using physiognomic drawings as illustrations. The illustrations were reproduced in Academy publications.

Charles Le Brun was an artist of great natural talent. He was first trained under Perrier and Vouet, and while still in the studio of the latter produced the painting of which reveals a vigour of design and handling astonishing so young an artist.

It was in the interior of the château of Versailles that Louis XIV had to appear on the most important ceremonial occasions, it was here that he received the ambassadors of foreign powers, and it was here that the full complexity of court life was displayed. The interior decoration was oversaw by Charles Le Brun.

The seven rooms of the King’s Appartement were named after the seven planets, culminating in the Salon d’Apollon, which was the Throne Room. In each Salon the particular attributes of the planet in question were set forth in fables or allegories alluding to the great kings of the past. In the Salon the Mars the great warrior kings of antiquity were expounded.

The Mars Room followed on from the two previous rooms and marked the start of the King’s Private Apartments. It was used as a Guard Room, making its dedication to the god of war highly appropriate. To the left of the chimney is The Family of Darius before Alexander by Charles Le Brun.

The photo shows the Salon de Mars.

It was in the interior of the château of Versailles that Louis XIV had to appear on the most important ceremonial occasions, it was here that he received the ambassadors of foreign powers, and it was here that the full complexity of court life was displayed. The interior decoration was oversaw by Charles Le Brun.

The seven rooms of the King’s Appartement were named after the seven planets, culminating in the Salon d’Apollon, which was the Throne Room. In each Salon the particular attributes of the planet in question were set forth in fables or allegories alluding to the great kings of the past.

The Mercury Room was originally the royal bedchamber in the State Apartments and was referred to as the “bedroom”, although the bed was removed early on in winter to make room for games tables. Tables, mirrors, andirons and magnificently chased chandeliers made in solid silver by the Gobelins silversmiths once decorated the walls, ceilings and fireplace, until 1689 when Louis XIV had to melt them down to finance the War of the League of Augsburg.

The photo shows the Salon de Mercure.

It was in the interior of the château of Versailles that Louis XIV had to appear on the most important ceremonial occasions, it was here that he received the ambassadors of foreign powers, and it was here that the full complexity of court life was displayed. The interior decoration was oversaw by Charles Le Brun.

The seven rooms of the King’s Appartement were named after the seven planets, culminating in the Salon d’Apollon, which was the Throne Room. In each Salon the particular attributes of the planet in question were set forth in fables or allegories alluding to the great kings of the past.

The Mercury Room was originally the royal bedchamber in the State Apartments and was referred to as the “bedroom”, although the bed was removed early on in winter to make room for games tables. Tables, mirrors, andirons and magnificently chased chandeliers made in solid silver by the Gobelins silversmiths once decorated the walls, ceilings and fireplace, until 1689 when Louis XIV had to melt them down to finance the War of the League of Augsburg.

The photo shows the Salon de Mercure.

It was in the interior of the château of Versailles that Louis XIV had to appear on the most important ceremonial occasions, it was here that he received the ambassadors of foreign powers, and it was here that the full complexity of court life was displayed. The interior decoration was oversaw by Charles Le Brun.

The seven rooms of the King’s Appartement were named after the seven planets, culminating in the Salon d’Apollon, which was the Throne Room. In each Salon the particular attributes of the planet in question were set forth in fables or allegories alluding to the great kings of the past.

Designed as the sovereign’s Ceremonial Room, the Apollo Room was used as a throne room from 1682 onwards. The ceiling was dedicated to the Sun King, the arts and peace. The symbol of the sun, adopted early on by Louis XIV, is illustrated through the image of Apollo on his chariot surrounded by allegorical figures. The arches illustrate the king’s magnificence and magnanimity though various examples from Antiquity.

The photo shows the Salon d’Apollon.

The Alexander series established Le Brun’s position with the King. He obtained every post of importance in art, and supplied designs for all the great decorative schemes in the royal palaces. In these works he was compelled by the nature of the task to be less strictly classical than in his theories, and the same phenomenon appears in the few easel pictures which he produced during the period of his success.

A typical example of his style is the painting of Louis XIV Adoring the Risen Christ, painted for the chapel of the Mercers’ Company in 1674, now in the museum of Lyon. The first impression is of a lively Baroque composition, such as Pietro da Cortona might have produced for a Roman church. It is only on careful examination that we notice the other elements. The types are more Raphaelesque and the presentation of the figures is more frontal than would be the case in a contemporary Roman composition. The altarpiece is closer in its general effect to the Baroque artists whom Le Brun condemned than to Poussin, whom he set up as the ideal model.

In the bottom right-hand corner of this painting we see the figure of Colbert, modestly placed and realistically painted, which reminds us of the fact that Le Brun was also a portrait painter of distinction.

The age of Louis XIV saw the founding and success of various factory workshops, not only for tapestry and furniture (Gobelins), but also for ceramics (Rouen, Nevers), silk (Lyon), crystal (Faubourg Saint-Antoine, then La Grenouilli�re), and a range of other crafts. Never had the applied arts undergone such widespread and successful expansion. Charles Le Brun, named director of the Gobelins factory in 1663, centralized all royal tapestry workshops there. The famous tapestry showing the king’s visit in 1667 was prepared by Le Brun and Pierre de S�ve the Younger in 1673 as part of a series of fourteen tapestries on the life the King which were regularly reproduced until 1741.

This drawing is a study for the famous tapestry showing the king’s visit in 1667.

This is an early work of the artist showing a strong influence of Simon Vouet. It was executed for the church Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet in Paris where it can be seen since then.

The painting is located in the Hall of Mirrors

Le Brun made a basic artistic study into “general expressions” and into the “expression of passions” in 1668, using physiognomic drawings as illustrations. The illustrations were reproduced in Academy publications.

Le Brun made a basic artistic study into “general expressions” and into the “expression of passions” in 1668, using physiognomic drawings as illustrations. The illustrations were reproduced in Academy publications.

The painting is a study for The Pheasant Isle Conference.

Nicolas Le Brun, the painter’s father, is depicted as an elegantly dressed gentleman with a red scarf wound decoratively around his left shoulder. He is turned to the beholder and pointing at a statuette - possibly a plaster cast of one of his sculptures entitled Antinous of Belvedere. Antinous, who drowned in the Nile during one of Hadrian’s journeys to Egypt, was a favourite of the Roman emperor and was deified after his death. The Antinous motif was highly popular with both sculptors and painters in 17th-century France.

The painting was originally attributed to the painter Jacques Blanchard as a likeness of the sculptor Fran�ois Duquesnoy.

According to Le Vau’s plans, the foundations for the immense eastern fa�ade of the Louvre, centred on an oval pavilion, were begun in 1662. But works came to a halt when Colbert was named Superintendent of Royal Buildings in 1663.

Colbert commissioned new plans from French architects and their Italian counterparts. This produced an amazing quantity of proposals. Mansart produced several proposals, all focusing on a grand oval entrance crowned by a dome. There were proposals also from Charles Le Brun and L�onor Houdin. Of the Italians who sent plans, Pietro da Cortona proposed a kind of temple, Rainaldi a large avant-corps with bulbous dome.

In the spring of 1665 Louis XIV invited Bernini to come to Paris and suggest on the spot how to complete the great Louvre ‘carr�’ of which the west and south wings and half of the north wing were standing. Although Bernini worked on the whole area of the ‘carr�’, the focus of his design was the east fa�ade. However, his proposals were not accepted.

The picture shows Le Brun’s proposal. View also Bernini’s project, and Cortona’s proposal.

This vast canvas is part of a series of four commissioned by Louis XIV from Le Brun. It is a cartoon for a tapestry woven at the Gobelins manufactory in Paris.

The final clash between the troops of Alexander and those of the Persian king Darius took place on the plain of Gaugamela, near Arbela (in modern-day Iraq). Le Brun depicted the moment when, the Macedonians having gained the upper hand, Darius prepares to flee on a horse brought to him by a groom.

Le Brun’s history painting is in the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles.

Le Brun designed this painting for the ceiling of a chapel in the Versailles Palace. However, the chapel was not realized.

The large canvases at Versailles depicting the life of Alexander the Great were designed to be translated into tapestries, guaranteeing them a broader impact. But in their colour and drama they can only be considered as a powerful and concerted adaptation of Italian models established by Giulio Romano and Pietro de Cortona.

The painting represents the scene when the Queen of Persia is kneeling at the feet of Alexander the Great.

The painting is located in the Hall of Mirrors.

This painting, together with six others of religious subjects, was commissioned by the king.

From 1653 to 1657, Le Brun painted a number of canvases for the Carmelite convent on rue Saint-Jacques in Paris (demolished in 1797), among them the Repentant Magdalen. In this remarkable work, the stocky Magdalen is seated in a bizarre interior with folds of an enormous drapery piled inexplicably on a valanced chair, looking up towards the cloudy sky.

At the end of the 1670s Le Brun began the most exacting of his tasks - the decoration of the ceiling of the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles. Many of the sketches for the main compositions survive, and allow an assessment, on a small scale, of his inventiveness, which is usually lost in the vastness of the decorated ensemble. A typical example is The Resolution of Louis XIV to Make War on the Dutch Republic, depicting an event which was to have enormous repercussions (Louis XIV was eventually defeated by the Dutch). The handling, rapid and sure, is taken almost completely from Rubens, and yet the composition is original and dramatic, and demonstrates that Le Brun conformed to the grand tradition of Rubens and Pietro da Cortona in Italy. His work at Versailles shows that he belongs among the great decorative painters on the grounds of his energy, originality and appropriateness of setting, but even in France his reputation is not as high as it should be.

As recounted by the Roman poet Ovid, the compliant Polyxena is led to her death at the sacrificial altar to appease the ghost of the hero Achilles. Her mother tries to restrain her while the soldier Neoptolemus raises his sword. The infant holding a chest of incense and the austere priest complete this beautifully choreographed composition, which was painted the year following Le Brun’s return from Rome.

The tapestry was made in the Gobelins factory after the design of Le Brun.

The decoration for the newly constructed château was begun by Le Brun in 1658 and was probably completed by 1660. On the ceiling of the H�tel Lambert in Paris, on that of the great room in the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte, and in that of the Galeries des Glaces at Versailles Charles Le Brun rivalled the Italian decorative artists.

The decoration for the newly constructed château was begun by Le Brun in 1658 and was probably completed by 1660. On the ceiling of the H�tel Lambert in Paris, on that of the great room in the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte, and in that of the Galeries des Glaces at Versailles Charles Le Brun rivalled the Italian decorative artists.

This painting is part of the decoration on the ceiling of the Salon d’Hercule.

The figure of Hercules played an important role in the iconography of 17th-18th-century France. The French accepted the legend that the Trojan Hercules had been the tenth king of the Gaul. A Gallic Hercules (who was also the god of eloquence) was celebrated in honour of Fran�ois I. Furthermore, Henri IV and Louis XIII lent their features to the hero. Charles Le Brun went on to specialize in images of Hercules. He decorated with these images the ceiling of the Salon d’Hercule at the of the château of Vaux-le-Vicomte in honour of the wealthy finance minister Nicolas Fouquet.

The seventy-five-meter-long Galerie des Glaces, the Hall of Mirrors was begun in 1679 and completed in 1687. The interior decoration was created by Charles Le Brun, who, according to Colbert, developed for it a unique “French order of architecture” with which to structure the walls. The outstanding feature here, however, is the reflected light from the countless mirrors. They reflect the sunlight or even the candlelight and effectively realize the metaphor of the Sun King.”

The picture shows the interior of the Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors).