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Get Paintings Reproductions Madonna and Child, 1633 by Simon Vouet (1590-1649, France) | ArtsDot.com

Madonna and Child

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Shown from the knees up, a young woman sits nuzzling a baby in her lap in this vertical painting. They both have pale skin tinged with pink. The woman’s body is angled to our right with her head in profile. A narrow, white scarf ties around her dark brown hair, leaving soft tendrils brushing the side of her face and neck. Her eyes are lowered, and her pursed, rose-pink lips almost touch the infant’s upturned face. A sea-blue mantle is draped across her back and one shoulder, and wraps around to lie across her lap. Ivory-white fabric drapes across her neckline over a voluminous, coral-red robe. The nude, plump child faces away from us, perched on the woman’s knee. He turns to reach fir the woman, so we see a sliver of his flushed, left cheek and the tip of his nose. He has curly blond hair. One pudgy hand rests on her neck while the other cradles her chin. A mustard-yellow cloth wraps around his hips and under his dimpled bottom. The woman’s left hand, on our right, delicately embraces his hip. She leans onto her other arm, propped on a stone ledge to our left, and that hand loosely holds one end of the baby’s yellow drapery. The scene is lit from the upper left, and they are set against a background that transitions from earth brown on the left to cinnamon brown on the right. The artist signed the work as if he had written his name and the date on the face of the ledge, just under the woman’s elbow: “Simon Vovet Pinxit.1633.”
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Simon Vouet

Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France. Born on January 9, 1590, in Paris, Vouet's father Laurent was a painter in Paris and taught him the rudiments of art. His brother Aubin Vouet and his grandson Ludovico Dorigny were also painters.

Early Career

Vouet began his painting career as a portrait painter. At age 14, he traveled to England to paint a commissioned portrait and in 1611 was part of the entourage of the Baron de Sancy, French ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, for the same purpose. From Constantinople, he went to Venice (1612) and was in Rome by 1614. He remained in Italy until 1627, mostly in Rome where the Baroque style was emerging during these years.

Artistic Style

Vouet's immense success in Rome led to his election as president of the Accademia di San Luca in 1624. He was a natural academic, who absorbed what he saw and studied, and distilled it in his painting: Caravaggio's dramatic lighting; Italian Mannerism; Paolo Veronese's color and di sotto in su or foreshortened perspective; and the art of Carracci, Guercino, Lanfranco and Guido Reni. Vouet's new style was distinctly Italian, importing the Italian Baroque style into France.

Notable Works and Influence

Vouet's sizeable atelier or workshop produced a whole school of French painters for the following generation. His most influential pupil was Charles le Brun, who organized all the interior decorative painting at Versailles and dictated the official style at the court of Louis XIV of France. Vouet's other students included Valentin de Boulogne, Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, Pierre Mignard, Eustache Le Sueur, and Claude Mellan. For more information on Vouet's works, visit the Simon Vouet page on WahooArt.com. Key Points: For more information on Simon Vouet and his works, visit the Simon Vouet page or check out the Musée Réattu in Arles, France. You can also learn more about other artists on WahooArt.com by visiting their respective pages, such as Paul Joseph Jamin.

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