Lectures on the true, the beautiful and the good Part 30

[287] The first composition of _Arcadia_, truly precious could it have been placed in the Louvre beside the second and better production, is in England, the property of the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re.

[288] In the first set of the _Seven Sacraments_, executed for the Chevalier del Pozzo, now in England, the property of the Duke of Rutland, and with which we are acquainted only through engravings, Christ is placed on the left hand; it is less masterly and imposing, and the centre has a vacant appearance. In the second set, painted five or six years after the former for M. de Chanteloup, Christ is placed in the centre: this new disposition changes the entire effect of the piece.

Poussin never repeated himself in treating the same subject a second time, but improved on it, aiming ever at perfection. And the memorable answer which he once made to one who inquired of him by what means he had attained to so great perfection, "I never neglected any thing,"

should be always present to the mind of every artist, painter, sculptor, poet, or composer.

[289] Poussin writes to M. de Chanteloup, April 25, 1644 (Lettres de Poussin, Paris, 1824), "I am working briskly at the _Extreme Unction_, which is indeed a subject worthy of Apelles, who was very fond of representing the dying." He adds, with a vivacity which seems to indicate that he took a particular fancy to this painting, "I do not intend to quit it whilst I feel thus well-disposed, until I have put it in fair train for a sketch. It is to contain seventeen figures of men, women, and children, young and old, one part of whom are drowned in tears, whilst the others pray for the dying. I will not describe it to you more in detail. In this, my clumsy pen is quite unfit, it requires a gilded and well-set pencil. The princ.i.p.al figures are two feet high; the painting will be about the size of your _Manne_, but of better proportion." Felibien, a friend and confidant of Poussin, likewise remarks (_Entretiens_, etc., part iv., p. 293), that the _Extreme Unction_ was one of the paintings which pleased him most. We learn at length, from Poussin's letters, that he finished it and sent it into France in this same year, 1644. Fenoien informs us that in 1646 he completed the _Confirmation_, in 1647 the _Baptism_, the _Penance_, the _Ordination_ and the _Eucharist_, and that he sent the last sacrament, that of _Marriage_, at the commencement of the year 1648. Bellori (_le Vite de Pittori_, etc., Rome, 1672) gives a full and detailed description of the _Extreme Unction_; and, as he lived with Poussin, it seems credible that his explanations are for the most part those he had himself received from the great artist.

[290] The drawing of the _Extreme Unction_ is at the Louvre; the drawings of the five other sacraments are in the rich cabinet of M. de la Salle, that of the seventh is the property of the well-known print seller, M. Deter.

[291] There is here likewise a charming Francis II., wholly from the hand of Clouet, and the portrait of Fenelon by Rigaud, which may be the original or at all events is not inferior to the painting in the gallery at Versailles.

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