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In his joint capacities of Premier peintre du roi, director of the
Gobelins manufactory and rector of the Academie royale de peinture
et de sculpture, Le Brun exercised a previously unprecedented
influence on the production of the visual arts - so much so that
some scholars have repeatedly described him as 'dictator' of the
arts in France. The Sovereign Artist explores how Le Brun operated
in his diverse fields of activities, linking and juxtaposing his
portraiture, history painting and pictorial theory with his designs
for architecture, tapestries, carpets and furniture. It argues that
Le Brun sought to create a repeatable and easily recognizable
visual language associated with Louis XIV, in order to translate
the king's political claims for absolute power into a visual form.
How he did this is discussed through a series of individual case
studies ranging from Le Brun's lost equestrian portrait of Louis
XIV, and his involvement in the Querelle du coloris at the
Academie, to his scheme for 93 Savonnerie carpets for the Grande
Galerie at the Louvre, his Histoire du roy tapestry series, his
decoration of the now destroyed Escalier des Ambassadeurs at
Versailles and the dramatic destruction of the Sun King's silver
furniture. One key theme is the relation between the unity of the
visual arts, to which Le Brun aspired, and the strong hierarchical
distinctions he made between the liberal arts and the mechanical
crafts: while his lectures at the Academie advocated a visual and
conceptual unity in painting and architecture, they were also a
means by which he attempted to secure the newly gained status of
painting as a liberal art, and therefore to distinguish it from the
mechanical crafts which he oversaw the production of at the
Gobelins. His artistic and architectural aspirations were
comparable to those of his Roman contemporary Gianlorenzo Bernini,
summoned to Paris in 1665 to design the Louvre's East facade and to
create a portrait bust of Louis XIV. Bernini's failure to convince
the king and Colbert of his architectural scheme offered new
opportunities for Le Brun and his French contemporaries to prove
themselves capable of solving the architectural problems of the
Louvre and to transform it into a palace appropriate "to the
grandeur and the magnificence of the prince who [was] to inhabit
it" (Jean-Baptiste Colbert to Nicolas Poussin in 1664). The
comparison between Le Brun and Bernini not only illustrates how
France sought artistic supremacy over Italy during the second half
of the 17th century, but further helps to demonstrate how Le Brun
himself wanted to be perceived: beyond acting as a translator of
the king's artistic ambition, the artist appears to have sought his
own sovereign authority over the visual arts.
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