Le Nain
The three Le Nain brothers were
Lives and work
The brothers were born in or near
The early paintings of the Le Nains were religious, and varied in style as the brothers passed through brief periods in which they were influenced by French contemporaries such as Philippe de Champaigne, Laurent de La Hyre, and Jacques Blanchard.[2] A more enduring influence on their paintings of the 1630s, such as The Holy Family (ca. 1635–1640), was the work of the Italian artist Orazio Gentileschi, who had worked in Paris during the 1620s.[2]
The Le Nains's interest in genre and peasant subjects began around 1640.
Because of the similarity of their styles of painting and the difficulty of distinguishing works by each brother (they signed their paintings only with their
The brothers also produced miniatures (mainly attributed to Antoine) and portraits (attributed to Mathieu). Mathieu became the official painter (Peintre Ordinaire) of Paris in 1633, and much later was made a chevalier. Among his sitters for portraits were Marie de' Medici and Cardinal Mazarin, but these works seem to have disappeared.
Antoine and Louis died in 1648. Mathieu lived until 1677, and appears to have painted until the mid-1650s, although no works are signed after 1648. In 1662 he received the unusual honour for a painter of the Order of Saint Michael, but was expelled a year later, and imprisoned in 1662 for wearing the collar of the order when he was not entitled to it.[4]
The Le Nain paintings had a revival in the 1840s and, thanks to the exertions of Champfleury, made their appearance on the walls of the Louvre in 1848. Champfleury was a friend of the Realist painter Gustave Courbet, and a theorist of Realism and writer on French popular arts. The "naive" quality of these works, with their static poses, "awkward" compositions and peasant subjects were admired and may well have exercised some influence on many nineteenth-century artists, notably Courbet himself. They have remained popular through the 20th century.
Notes
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 Antoine or Louis Le Nain, Peasant Family in an Interior, Smarthistory[1] |
- ^ a b discussion of Le Nain brothers on Smarthistory, a division of Khan Academy
- ^ a b Dickerson and Bell, 16–20
- ^ Dickerson and Bell, 27
- ^ a b Wine, 194
- ^ Blunt, 154
References
- Blunt, Anthony, Art and Architecture in France, 1500-1700, 2nd edn 1957, Penguin
- Dickerson, Claude Douglas, and Esther Bell, The Brothers Le Nain: Painters of Seventeenth-century France, 2016, New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300218886.
- Wine, Humphrey, National Gallery Catalogues (new series): The Seventeenth Century French Paintings, 2001, National Gallery Publications Ltd, ISBN 1-85709-283-X
External links and sources
- Biography (Web gallery of Art)
- Louis Le Nain (The Artchive)
- Biography of the Le Nain Brothers (CGFA) at the Wayback Machine (archived January 29, 2013)
- Paintings by the Le Nain brothers (CGFA) at the Wayback Machine (archived March 18, 2012)
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Le Nain". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
