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Early Paintings:
Royal Portraits, Painter to the King
The workshop in which the three brothers worked so closely together rapidly
made a name for itself. In 1632 they obtained from the City of Paris the
commission for the portraits of the Municipal Magistrates (now lost).
In 1633, Mathieu became one of the official painters to the city of Paris,
and then some time before 1643 he painted the portrait of Queen Anne of
Austria (also lost), wife of King Louis XIII, which suggests that he was
already the Official Painter to the King. After this, the Le Nain brothers
were chosen to decorate the Lady Chapel at St Germain-des-Pres (the ensemble
disappeared at the time of the Revolution) and to execute the altarpiece
art in the four chapels of Notre Dame (of which one, a Crucifixion,
dated 1646, is lost). Their success is borne out by the literature of
the day (Du Bail, 1644, Scudery, 1646). In 1648 all three were admitted
to the French Royal Academy at it's inception. But Louis and Antoine died
suddenly soon after, probably of the plague.
Mathieu Le Nain:
Portraiture and Religious Painting
Mathieu was now alone and rich. Of a military inclination, he became in
1633 a lieutenant in a Parisian company and, after having probably served
in the royal army itself, took the title of 'Monsieur de La Jumelle'.
He aimed for a high place in Parisian society, which was at odds with
his occupation as a painter. He continued to paint for a while (Portrait
of Mazarin, donated to the Academy in 1649, now lost; the Martyrdom
of Saints Crispin and Crispian, 1654, Laon, Eglise des Cordeliers,
lost), but ceased to be peintre ordinaire du roi and in 1662 was
awarded the Order of St Michel, which was almost equivalent to a peerage.
His desire to forget his former condition as a commoner meant that he
did nothing to keep the memory of his brothers alive, something which
largely explains why, particularly after his death on 20th April 1677,
the name of Le Nain was so quickly forgotten.
Reconstructing
the Career of the Le Nain Brothers
The brothers' oil painting can be pieced
together by tracing some 15 canvases, all signed and dated, and all originating
between 1640 and 1647. For a long time these paintings were looked upon
as the work of provincial painters taught by one of the travelling Flemish
painters. They were believed to have come to the capital relatively
late in their careers and to have tried unsuccessfully to persuade the
Parisian public to accept their over-realistic peasant inspiration. This
failure was supposed to have led to inept attempts at grande peinture
and portrait art, before finally leading Mathieu into total decadence.
Genre Painting,
Street Scenes (Bambocciate)
This view, coloured by the romanticism
of the 19th century, is not borne out by the facts. The three Le Nains
seem, on the contrary, to have made a swift impression in Paris due to
their portrait paintings,
as well as their religious art - mostly
in the form of panel paintings
for churches. Around 1640, when the pupils of Simon
Vouet (1590-1649) - the leading French painter of the early 17th century
- began to have more influence, and a taste for the burlesque, peasant
scenes became popular with high society. The brothers probably tried to
maintain their success by devoting a large part of their output to this
general category of genre painting, especially bambocciate interpreted
in the French style. (Note: Bambocciate, named after the handicapped
Dutch painter Pieter van Laer (1599-1642), who was known as Il Bamboccio
and who popularized a genre of urban street scenes).
Group Portraiture
In addition to these realistic genre scenes,
the Le Nain brothers painted group portraits. This type of portrait was
still relatively unknown in France, where up until then portraiture had
been limited to votive offerings and official portraits. Following the
example of Dutch painters they transformed these into genre scenes by
reducing them in size; such clever innovations would appear to have enjoyed
a large measure of success with patrons in Parisian society.
Grand Painting
Their serious religious or history
painting (grand peinture) remains little known. One allegorical
figure, probably intended to decorate a chimneypiece, the surprising Victory
(Louvre), and two mythological
paintings Bacchus and Ariadne (Orleans Museum), Venus in
Vulcan's Forge (1641, Rheims Museum) suggest that they had only a
mediocre knowledge of composition, but made up for this by their freshness
of outlook and sensitive inspiration. The remaining religious works reveal
the same faults and the same qualities; the series Life of the Virgin,
probably painted around 1630-2 for one of the chapels of the Petits
Augustins in Paris (four paintings found out of six, including The
Adoration of the Shepherds [Louvre], does not yet reveal the mastery
found in the altarpieces of Notre Dame (two found out of four; St Michael
Dedicating his Arms to the Virgin [Nevers, Church of St Pierre] and
Birth of the Virgin [Notre Dame Paris, formerly Church of St Etienne-du-Mont]).
In those canvases where the composition is less complicated, a monumental
simplicity of form highlights the brothers' realistic vision and contained
emotion (Rest on the Flight into Egypt [private collection]; The
Repentant Magdalene [private collection], while a series of medium
or small-scale works, containing numerous figures, may be classed with
the genre paintings. Sometimes these are of high quality (The Adoration
of the Shepherds [National Gallery, London]), sometimes they are so
mediocre in treatment as to appear to be the work of imitators or pupils
(the existence of at least two apprentices in the Le Nain workshop is
attested by contracts of employment).
Surviving Portraits
Only a few portraits survive which are incontestably by the Le Nain brothers,
and they vary both in format and in style: see, for instance, Old Lady
(copy of an original dated 1644, Avignon Museum); and Bust of a Man
(Puy Museum). Better known are the group portraits, which are dominated
by a series of works treated as genre paintings; they include the series
based on the Guard-House (1643, Louvre) and the five paintings
formerly in the Seyssel Collection, including Backgammon Players
(Louvre) and Children's Dance (private collection). Among these
is a composition which is heavier, less relaxed and closer to the Dutch
models, Reunion (Louvre), and certain small-format works, clumsy
in composition, impressionistic in technique: Family Reunion (1642,
Louvre) and Portraits in an Interior (1647, Louvre).
Greatest
Peasant Scenes
But the pictures by the Le Nain brothers which make them exceptional are
those depicting peasant scenes. Here the diversity of treatments and quality
still surprise. Two enormous canvases, which should immediately be singled
out from the others, contain all that is best in their art: Peasant
Family (1641, Louvre) and Peasants' Meal (1642, Louvre). The
power of the construction in bas-relief, the sober tones of the colours,
in which browns and greys are highlighted only by a few touches of brighter
colour, the sureness of treatment, which is both simple and firm: all
these qualities heighten the sincerity of observation, which excludes
the picturesque along with the cruel. There is a depth of psychological
perception in the depiction of a few contemporary peasants that catches
the spirit of the peasant soul for all time.
Interiors
Some of these exceptional attributes reappear
in small-scale interiors such as The Visit to Grandmother (Hermitage)
or The Happy Family (aka The Return after the Baptism) (1642, Louvre).
A Blacksmith in His Forge (The Forge) (Louvre) adds to these qualities
a treatment of lighting rendered with a skill and boldness of touch that
are quite exceptional. The majority of subjects and themes are closely
linked with the standard repertoire of Flemish
painting, but their psychological depth probably derives from Caravaggism:
see, for example, (The Card Players (Aix-en-Provence Museum); The
Brawl (1640, Springfield, Massachusetts Museum). Very different from
these is another series of interior scenes, small in size, painted on
wood or copper and generally depicting groups of children, which reveal
a naive observation and sometimes a heavy touch; the best example of this
is Old Tin-Whistle Player (1644, Detroit Institute of Arts).
NOTE: The main heirs to the genre painting
practised by the Nain brothers were Jean
Chardin (1699-1779) and Jean-Baptiste
Greuze (1725-1805).
Subject Paintings
and Landscapes
In contrast to these interiors is the surprising
series of open-air peasant scenes. In some of these the motif is dominant
(The Cart, 1641, Louvre), others are pure landscape
painting (Peasants in a Landscape, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford);
but in most cases these two aspects are balanced (The Milkmaid, Hermitage).
The clear colour of these paintings
and its unusually bold handling - realistic and unconventional depiction
of the landscape, the silvery atmosphere - seem to establish an unexpected
link between the era of Jean Fouquet (1420-81)
and Camille
Corot (1796-1875).
Attribution
The issue of attribution presents more difficulty. Quickly plagiarized,
the Le Nain brothers work became overlaid in the 18th century with false
attributions. Some of these are now identified as the work of Michelin;
more difficult, however, is identification of the Master of the Corteges,
painter of Cortege of the Fatted Ox (private collection) and Cortege
of the Ram (Philadelphia Museum of Art). Equally difficult is the
identity of the more austere painter of the Travellers at an Inn
(Minneapolis Institute of Arts); or even the mediocre author of a number
of outdoor scenes, often highly vulgar in intent and frequently attributed,
for no good reason, to Mathieu in his later years (Village Meal
and Drinking Trough, both in the Louvre).
As well as this, the attribution of the works between the three brothers
(Antoine, Louis and Mathieu) has been a longstanding problem. It becomes
somewhat less important if the supposed age gap (19 years between Antoine
and Mathieu) is narrowed. The solution proposed by the art historian Paul
Jamot (Les Le Nain, 1929) still seems the most plausible: small-scale,
picturesque paintings of children and small group portraits should be
attributed to Antoine; to Louis should be attributed peasant scenes, along
with credit for profound psychological insight and a wholly modern feeling
for landscape; while to Mathieu should go such elegant group portraits
such as Les Joueurs de tric-trac. But this division is not without
a number of difficulties, and cannot be applied to all the known works
(full-length portraits, mythological and religious paintings). Nor does
it take into account the constant collaboration between the brothers;
most of the major works, apart from the portraits, appear to be the work
of several hands.
The Le Nain Brothers
Realist Art
The works produced by the Le Nain workshop are remarkably diverse yet
at the same time have a profound degree of unity. Each in their own way,
all three brothers deserve a share of the credit for having incarnated
the ideal of elegance and light towards which Parisian painting between
1630 and 1650 was moving. In their 17th century Realism,
there is a simplicity of composition, established over distinct planes,
a subdued but clear use of colour, a carefully wrought atmosphere and
a balance between psychological insight and expression, between the observation
of the 'natural' and elegance of form. Whereas such painters as Laurent
de la Hyre (1606-56) and Eustache Le Sueur (1616-55) looked to the Italian
tradition for the development of their style, the Le Nain brothers - as
far as portraits and genre scenes are concerned, in which French production
remained closely linked with the Flemish tradition - arrived at a wholly
original expression which, at least in its final form, seems almost unique
in 17th-century European painting.
For more Baroque artists in France, see
the caravaggesque painter Georges de La
Tour (1593-1652), and the influential director of the French Academy
Charles Le Brun (1619-90).
Paintings by Le Nain Brothers can be seen
in several of the best art museums around
the world, notably the Louvre.
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