This monograph examines the wide artistic production of Louis XIV's most
prolific and powerful artist, Charles Le Brun (1619-1690), illustrating
the magnificence of his paintings and focusing particularly on the
interiors and decorative art works produced according to his designs. In
his joint capacities of Premier peintre du roi, director of the Gobelins
manufactory and rector of the Académie royale de peinture et de
sculpture, Le Brun exercised a previously unprecedented influence on the
production of the visual arts - so much so that some scholars have
repeatedly described him as 'dictator' of the arts in France. The
Sovereign Artist explores how Le Brun operated in his diverse fields of
activities, linking and juxtaposing his portraiture, history painting
and pictorial theory with his designs for architecture, tapestries,
carpets and furniture. It argues that Le Brun sought to create a
repeatable and easily recognizable visual language associated with Louis
XIV, in order to translate the king's political claims for absolute
power into a visual form. How he did this is discussed through a series
of individual case studies ranging from Le Brun's lost equestrian
portrait of Louis XIV, and his involvement in the Querelle du coloris at
the Académie, to his scheme for 93 Savonnerie carpets for the Grande
Galerie at the Louvre, his Histoire du roy tapestry series, his
decoration of the now destroyed Escalier des Ambassadeurs at Versailles
and the dramatic destruction of the Sun King's silver furniture. One key
theme is the relation between the unity of the visual arts, to which Le
Brun aspired, and the strong hierarchical distinctions he made between
the liberal arts and the mechanical crafts: while his lectures at the
Académie advocated a visual and conceptual unity in painting and
architecture, they were also a means by which he attempted to secure the
newly gained status of painting as a liberal art, and therefore to
distinguish it from the mechanical crafts which he oversaw the
production of at the Gobelins. His artistic and architectural
aspirations were comparable to those of his Roman contemporary
Gianlorenzo Bernini, summoned to Paris in 1665 to design the Louvre's
East façade and to create a portrait bust of Louis XIV. Bernini's
failure to convince the king and Colbert of his architectural scheme
offered new opportunities for Le Brun and his French contemporaries to
prove themselves capable of solving the architectural problems of the
Louvre and to transform it into a palace appropriate "to the grandeur
and the magnificence of the prince who [was] to inhabit it"
(Jean-Baptiste Colbert to Nicolas Poussin in 1664). The comparison
between Le Brun and Bernini not only illustrates how France sought
artistic supremacy over Italy during the second half of the 17th
century, but further helps to demonstrate how Le Brun himself wanted to
be perceived: beyond acting as a translator of the king's artistic
ambition, the artist appears to have sought his own sovereign authority
over the visual arts.
