[3] When Mignard returned to Paris in 1658, he again went to reside with his friend.
[4] It appeared at Paris, in 12mo., with a French translation by Mons. Du Piles, 1668.
In the reign of Louis XIV., Nicholas Poussin distinguished himself as a painter, by displaying exquisite knowledge and great skill in composition. He generally painted ancient ruins, landscapes, and historical figures. He was likewise well acquainted with the manners and customs of the ancients; and, though he educated no pupils, and never had any imitators, his pictures are universally admired in every European country. Charles le Brun[5] established the French school,--an undertaking which Voüet had previously attempted. Le Brun drew well, had a ready conception, and a fertile imagination. His compositions are vast, but, in various instances, they may justly be termed _outre_. He possessed the animation, but not the inspiration of Raphael; and his design is not so pure as that of Domenichino, nor so lively as that of Annibale Caracci. Eustache le Seur, Le Brun's rival, possessed remarkable dignity, and wonderful correctness of style. Indeed, by some he has been called the Raphael of France. Had he lived longer, (for he died at the age of thirty-eight,) the French school, under his direction, would most probably have adopted a manner which might have been imitated, and which might have established the arts on an eminence to vie with even imperial Rome. But, by the concurrence of extraordinary circumstances, Le Brun was the fashionable painter of the time, and it therefore became necessary to imitate _his_ manner, rather than the more simple and more refined one of his rival. As Le Brun's imitators wanted his genius, his faults not only became current, but more glaring and deformed.
[5] Le Brun was the pupil of Simon Voüet, and afterwards of Poussin.
After Le Brun's death, which took place in 1690, the French artists degenerated greatly, their productions being decorated in a gaudy and theatrical way, without due regard to taste or decorum. Their school, some years ago, altered its principles, under the auspices of the spirited Count de Caylus, who possessed considerable merit as an artist. The count, by his high rank and fortune, had the means of encouraging the imitators of the ancients, and of procuring the best models in Italy for study. He, in conjunction with Monsieur Vien, first formed the design of restoring a pure taste in France; and if his countrymen had followed the path thus marked out for them, they would now have been equal to the greatest of the Greek painters. But it appears that they are incapable of rising to any very extraordinary height in the arts, for, with the exception of Le Seur, and one or two others, they have ever wanted that elevation of mind which so eminently distinguished the Romans. Though De Caylus greatly purified painting in his time, yet his precepts and examples had little or no weight after his death, for the art again retrograded into its original state--a state from which the French professors, as before observed, seem incapable of rising.