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Along the river bank, however, he had found the very scenery that Poussin so faithfully depicted: the sluggish, yellow stream fringed with reeds; low riven cliffs, whose chalky whiteness showed against the ruddy background of a far-stretching, undulating plain, bounded by blue hills; a few spare trees with a ruined porticus opening on to space atop of the bank, and a line of pale-hued sheep descending to drink, whilst the shepherd, with an elbow resting on the trunk of an ilex-tree, stood looking on.
Except what can be judged of him from his work, I do not know that much has been gathered of the private character and life of Nicolas Poussin, notwithstanding that there was a biography written of him fifty years ago by Lady Calcott, and that his letters have been published in Paris.
In Nicolas Poussin, on the contrary, everything seems to have a distinct understanding with the artist; 'the very stones prate of their whereabout'; each object has its part and place assigned, and is in a sort of compact with the rest of the picture. It is this conscious keeping, and, as it were, internal design, that gives their peculiar character to the works of this artist.
"There are nine things in painting," Poussin wrote in a letter to M. de Chambrai, the author of a treatise on painting, "which can never be taught and which are essential to that art.
The remainder of Poussin's life was singularly prosperous. He continued to reside at Rome until summoned to return to France by Louis XIII., who, finding that several invitations to that effect, conveyed through ambassadors, failed to bring back Poussin, did him the honour to write him an autograph letter, entreating his presence. The painter obeyed the flattering summons, but unwillingly.
He was at table with some German princes and other lords when the news arrived; did not utter a word, except to announce the death; but blushed, pulled down his hat, and could not keep his countenance. He sent orders to London, to drive out Poussin, acting as French ambassador, immediately; and Poussin directly crossed the sea and arrived at Calais.
Poussin aims not so much at an intellectual justification of passion as at an expression of it in which there shall be also complete intellectual composure.
This, no doubt, is what every artist tries to do; but the effort was peculiarly fierce in Donne and Poussin because in them there was a more than common discord between passion and intelligence, because they were instantly critical both of what they desired and of their own process of desire.
Opposed to this florid, careless, loose, and inaccurate style, that of the simple, careful, pure, and correct style of Poussin seems to be a complete contrast. Yet however opposite their characters, in one thing they agreed, both of them having a perfect correspondence between all the parts of their respective manners.
The seventeenth century could tolerate no mediocrity; grandeur was in the very atmosphere; its political movements were great movements; it produced in art a Poussin, in letters a Corneille, in science and philosophy a Descartes. The various movements of which woman was the head may be divided into two periods, and each period into two parts.
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