Simon
Vouet

Studied with his father Laurent Vue. In 1611 Vue was accompanied by French Ambassador Sancy to Constantinople and during this trip has written a portrait of the Turkish Sultan. Coming from the East, he remained for fifteen years in Italy, where he worked on orders families Barberini and Doria in Rome and Genoa. The study of Italian art has had a tremendous impact on the formation of his style. In 1627 Louis XIII invited Vue France, and the artist rest of his life he lived in Paris, working on the decoration of churches and palaces. Died Vue in Paris June 30, 1649.

The childhood has passed in the besieged Paris (the era of religious wars in France). At that time his father worked in the Louvre and participated in the creation of the Royal square in the capital; it was named Henry IV "artist of the Royal stables" and held a number of decorative and handicraft works. Simon helped his father, very early mastered the skill and already at the age of fourteen wrote to order portrait of noble ladies, though - in London.

In 1611 - Simon in the retinue of the French Embassy in Constantinople, where he writes from memory portrait of Sultan Ahmed I. Landscapes, Oriental costumes, turbans, caravans, Chinese silk, Indian cotton products will always remember the artist; linked to this is the kind of "aesthetics tissues", transparency and veils, and as special breathtaking ease and lightness, which penetrate decorative and monumental works of this painter. At the same time, Mature style Vue has a greater accuracy and thoroughness in the reproduction of the details of the architecture; it typically prefers shallow space, focusing on the expression of the movement of individual figures or groups...

In November 1612 Vue is believed to gallery in Venice, where he studied painting by Titian, Veronese (his favorite artist), Tintoretto. Early in 1614 he is justified in Rome. He has many clients, among them cardinal Barberini, which will be selected by the Pope under the name urban VIII in 1623.

Italian period "dark age", because Vue is under the influence of "karavadzhizma" (Caravaggio himself died in 1610), continues to 1627. It performs numerous paintings (most important for the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina", Rome: two dramatic scenes from the life of St. Francis (1624) and for the Cathedral of St. Peter in Rome), portraits, of which - "self-Portrait" (1627), paintings on religious themes, allegory (famous allegory "Defeated" (1627) with dynamic figures of the girls in the Prado Museum, Madrid).

In 1624 Vue selected Prince Academy of St. Luke (Art Academy) in Rome; in 1626 he married Virginia da Vezzo (1606-1638), a young Roman, which was his model and a student and later as a talented artist and the mother of his ten children...

To 1627 his palette wyswietlacze and painting becomes tighter, colorful and pasty. The king, through its Ambassador in Rome, the artist conveys his will to see Vue in Paris. At the end 1627 Vue returned to Paris, gets an apartment and a Studio in the Louvre. From 1630 Vue Is the First painter of the king; he leads workshop Royal Gobelins. Followed by numerous orders on painting, decoration and paintings for castles, churches, private homes of the nobility, as in Paris, and in suburban residences. For Louis XIII - in the castle of Saint-Germain EN Laye and RUEIL; for the cardinal Richelieu - in the Palace of cardinal (1632). These paintings and decorative work Vue not survived to our time; fragments preserved in the castles of Fontainebleau and the Palais Royal, Paris).

Vue performed the altar paintings for Paris churches, such as the Saint-Eustache (1635) and Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis ("Presentation of Jesus in the temple", 1640-1641 years, I see now this monumental work is in the Louvre).

1634-1637 years - the most brilliant period of his creativity. Pictures-of allegory as "Wealth" and "Mercy" (both - in the Louvre, h cm) - among the masterpieces of the period. Colorism (gold, cinnabar, persans), special attention to detail, the folds of the drapery, to their motion like the wind that flows parallel to the canvas, to the left...

In 1638 dies in childbirth, the wife of the artist. In 1640 Louis XIII obliges Poussin to come to France, said famous phrase: "Well, now Vue caught!" Vue was in friendly relations with Poussin, but did nothing to stop the pamphlets their hangers-on and friends against the brilliant artist. For some time his fame grew dim, but, nevertheless, he always had numerous orders. In addition, Vue marries a second marriage for young and charming widow - Radegonde Berenger, and wrote a number of wonderful paintings on mythological and religious subjects, as "the Death of Dido" (1642) and "Venus and Adonis" (Getty Museum in Malibu).

Unfortunately, in the late period Vue was so busy with orders that it began to affect the quality of his painting. He often fell into a stereotype, and the paint has lost its former strength, which were explained and increased the participation workshop in execution of orders. However, these later works Vue should not blind us to its creative achievements filled with pathos and poetry of mythological and allegorical paintings, magnificent portraits, a large decorative paintings.

One of the masterpieces of the late Vue "Saturn defeated Hope, Beauty, and Love, 1645-1646 years (h see, Museum berry Bourges) - allegory defeated time with this lyrical, musical movement, spiral composition and color luster. Vue died in the besieged Paris (this was the era of the Fronde) in 1649. His fame eventually faded. In the nineteenth century it was almost forgotten.