Works by French 17th Century painter Eustache Le Sueur are being shown at the museum of Grenoble, in the French Alps, until July 2nd 2000. Le Sueur (1616-1655) was a pupil of Simon Vouet and a follower of Raphael long neglected by art historians of the 19th Century who preferred the Le Nain brother or Georges de La Tour. The publishing of a ctalogue raisonné of his works in 1987 and this exhibition have enabled to shed new light on this painter, whom Le Brun considered as a rival and who had been much admired by Voltaire years after his death.
During his lifetime Le Sueur however met considerable success to such an extent that he employed half a dozen aides whereas many of his works were copied after he died.
He quite excelled in the genre of religious painting between 1645 and 1648, at a time when he drifted away from the influence of Simon Vouet in an attempt to seek more simplicity and strength in his works giving more expression to his sitters. Le Sueur demonstrated a promising talent at a very young age as his early painting, «Venus asleep surprised by Cupid», now in the San Francisco Museum, tend to show.
Simplicity was his motto and resulted probably from the influence of Poussin and it must be noted that he was surely not an ordinary painter as he was one of the co-founders of the French Royal Academy of Painting. Still, he never wanted to go to Rome but produced his studies after works brought back by other artists from this city. Finally what deprived him from being better known in the years folloowing his death was the fact that he had become the symbol of a free young French school, which owed much to its own capacities. This exhibition also showed that he was a great and precise draughtsman whereas his paintings tend to exhale his desire for perfection and a rare talent for applying colours.
Home
