Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Follower

Gaspard Dughet
Landscape with Hurricane
ca. 1667
Prado

Gaspard Dughet
Landscape with Storm
ca. 1672-75
Prado

Gaspard Dughet (1625-1675) began his career in the Roman studio of Nicolas Poussin, who had married Dughet's sister. In later life Dughet sometimes called himself Gaspard Poussin. The two late works above demonstrate Dughet's "increasingly marked attachment for emotive landscapes in a Salvator Rosa vein" – in the translated words of Andre Chastel from his useful and opinionated book, French Art  the ancien regime 1620-1775, published in 1996 by Flammarion ("this book is dedicated to the thousands of artisans and artists who have built and loved this country, and to the hundreds of scholars who have saved them from being forgotten").

Gaspard Dughet
Landscape with Wanderers
ca. 1645
Prado

Gaspard Dughet
Landscape with Penitent Magdalene
ca. 1660
Prado

Gaspard Dughet
Landscape with Shepherd
ca. 1644-45
Prado

There are many more Dughets at the Prado than the five above. He was a prolific painter, and the Spanish court required prodigious numbers of paintings. Poussin's prestige was of a different order than that of his brother-in-law. The four Poussins below were acquired by Philip IV (1605-1665) – who felt a strong personal commitment to the art he bought. The Spanish king held Poussin in particular reverence among living painters. Evidence is plentiful that most of Poussin's patrons felt the same way. He was supported by a relatively small group of connoisseurs, most of them living in France. When they commissioned paintings they often suggested the subjects, and their choices were usually of high philosophical or religious import.

Nicolas Poussin
Ideal Landscape
1648-50
Prado

Nicolas Poussin
Landscape with Anchorite
1637-38
Prado

Nicolas Poussin
Landscape with Sarcophagus & Two Figures
ca. 1642-47
Prado

Nicolas Poussin
Bacchanal : the meeting of Bacchus & Ariadne on Naxos
1625-26
Prado

The Prado Bacchanal is an early picture, painted shortly after Poussin's pilgrimage from France  an exceptionally beautiful painting, surviving in exceptionally beautiful condition. This Bacchanal was one of Poussin's most explicit tributes to Titian, who had been such a great favorite with the Spanish court in the previous century.