Poussin: Paintings, a Catalogue Raisonne

Born in Normandy in 1594, Poussin was in his early twenties before his interest in the arts led him to Rome. He detached himself from the popular Baroque movement of his native school, choosing instead to echo the monumentality and classical clarity of the Renaissance. Poussin’s influences, from the sensuous renderings of Titian to the later, bolder themes of antiquity, mythology and religion produced an impressive collection of paintings ranging from The Worship of the Golden Calf (c.1634) to Four Seasons (c.1664, painted shortly before his death in 1665).

All his works testified to a strong classical idiom and, though Poussin did not live to see his style accepted, his combination of clarity and logic strongly influenced classically oriented artists such as Benjamin West, Jacques-Louis David and Paul Cézanne. In this revealing study, illustrated in full color, Christopher Wright, charts Poussin’s stylistic development in 17th century Rome from his experimental early pictures through to the uncompromising works of his later years. In the last twenty years at least a dozen new paintings have come to light, including the spectacular Sack of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Roman Emperor Titus, now in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Wright presents considered arguments on the interpretation of Poussin’s corpus of paintings as well as the violent controversies surrounding the authenticity of many of them.