Simon Vouet
(January 9, 1590 - June 30, 1649) France
Painter and draftsman
Vouet was born in Paris and held his training under his father, also a painter. He was a natural academic, who studied and absorbed everything in his environment and distilled them: Caravaggio dramatic lighting, Italian Mannerism, Paolo Veronese's color, and the art of the Carracci, Guercino, and Guido Reni. Famous and respected, he was president of Rome's Accademia di San Luca, when Louis XIII called him to France.
Simon Vouet helped introduce the Italian Baroque style to France. His new style was distinctly Italian, after his years of study in Italy, from 1613 to 1627, mostly in Rome where the Baroque style was originating in these years, but he also visited Venice, Bologna, where the Carracci family had their academy, and Genoa and Naples.
A French contemporary, lacking the term "Baroque", said, "In his time the art of painting began to be practiced here in a nobler and more beautiful way than ever before," and the allegory of "Riches" demonstrates a new heroic sense of volumes, a breadth and confidence without decorative mannerisms.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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