Charles Le Brun

France·1619-1690

Charles Le Brun shaped the visual identity of seventeenth-century France through painting, decorative design, and institutional power. Trained in Rome under Nicolas Poussin, he returned to Paris with a mastery of classical composition that caught the eye of Chancellor Séguier and Nicolas Fouquet. When Louis XIV declared him the greatest French artist of all time, Le Brun became Premier Peintre du Roi in 1664, overseeing the decoration of Versailles, the Louvre, and the royal palaces down to the smallest detail. He was instrumental in founding the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1648 and the Gobelins manufactory in 1660, institutions through which he stamped his ornate, emphatic style onto all French art and craft production. His theoretical writings on the expression of emotion in painting—published posthumously as the Méthode pour apprendre à dessiner les passions—influenced art instruction for two centuries. Le Brun died in Paris in 1690, having made the Louis XIV style itself.