Moses and the Brazen Serpent

religious

Sébastien Bourdon represents the classicist and idealizing trend initiated by Nicolas Poussin, his contemporary and the leading French artist of the 17th century. Like Poussin, and like many other French and European artists, Bourdon made the obligatory study trip to Italy - to Rome, where he met Poussin, and to Venice, all of which influenced his style. In Venice he specialized in genre painting and in landscape in imitation of Claude Lorrain.

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About the Artist

Sébastien Bourdon

1616 – 1671

French painter. In 1634-7 he worked in Rome, where he developed a talent for imitating the work of other painters - Claude, Dughet, van Laer - sometimes probably with intent to deceive. He continued in this vein when he returned to France and his oeuvre is still ill-defined. From 1652 to 1654 he was court painter to Queen Christina of Sweden, of whom he did two portraits (Prado, Madrid, and National Museum, Stockholm), and after his return to France he worked mainly as a portraitist, developing a more personal style in which soft tonalities and skilful play with cascading draperies create a languorous, romantic effect (Self-portrait, Louvre, Paris).

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