A History of Art for Beginners and Students Part 13

The character of Velasquez was a rare combination of freedom from jealousy, power to conciliate, sweetness of temper, strength of will and intellect, and steadfastness of purpose. He was the friend of Rubens and of Ribera, the protector of Cano and Murillo, who succeeded and were, next to him, the greatest painters of Spain. As the favorite of Philip IV., in fact, his minister for artistic affairs, he filled his office with purity and disinterestedness.

JUAN DE PAREJA (1610-1670) was born in Spanish South America. He was never a great artist; but the circ.u.mstances of his life make him interesting. He was the slave of Velasquez, and was employed as color-grinder. He studied painting secretly, and at last, on an occasion when the king visited the studio of his master, Pareja showed him a picture of his own painting, and throwing himself at Philip's feet begged pardon for his audacity. Both Philip and Velasquez treated him very kindly. Velasquez gave Pareja his freedom; but it is said that he continued to serve his old master faithfully as long as he lived. Pareja succeeded best as a portrait painter. His works are not numerous, and are seen in few collections out of Spain.

BARTOLOMe ESTeBAN MURILLO (1618-1682) was born at Seville. His parents were Gaspar Esteban and Maria Perez, and the name of his maternal grandmother, Elvira Murillo, was added to his own, according to Andalusian custom. From childhood he showed his inclination for art, and although this at first suggested to his parents that he should be educated as a priest, the idea was soon abandoned, as it was found that his interest in the paintings which adorned the churches was artistic rather than religious. He was therefore, at an early age, placed in the studio of his maternal uncle, Juan de Castillo, one of the leaders of the school of art of Seville. Castillo was then about fifty years old, and had as a student with Louis Fernandez acquired the Florentine style of the sixteenth century--combining chaste designing with cold and hard coloring. Murillo was thus early instructed not only in grinding colors and in indispensable mechanical details, but was thoroughly grounded in the important elements of purity of conception and dignity of treatment and arrangement. Seville at this time was the richest city in the Spanish empire. Its commerce with all Europe, and especially with Spanish America, was at its height. The Guadalquivir was alive with its shipping. Its palaces of semi-Moorish origin were occupied by a wealthy and luxurious n.o.bility. The vast cathedral had been finished a century before. The tower "La Giralda,"

three hundred and forty feet in height, is to this day one of the greatest marvels in Christendom, and with its Saracenic ornament and its "lace work in stone" is beyond all compare. The royal palace of the Alcazar, designed by Moorish architects, rivalled the Alhambra, and was filled with the finest workmanship of Grenada. There were one hundred and forty churches, of which many had been mosques, and were laden with the exquisite ornaments of their original builders. Such a city was sure to stimulate artists and be their home. The poorer ones were in the habit of exposing their works on balconies, on the steps of churches or the cathedral, or in any place where they would attract attention. Thus it often happened on festival days that a good work would command fame for an artist, and gain for him the patronage of some cathedral chapter or generous n.o.bleman.

Castillo removed to Cadiz in 1640, and Murillo, who was very poor, could only bring himself before the public, and earn sufficient for the bare necessities of life by thus exposing his pictures in the market of the Feria, as it was called, in front of the Church of All Saints. He struggled along in this way for two years. Early in 1640, Murillo met with an old fellow-pupil, Moya, who had been campaigning in Flanders in the Spanish army, and had there become impressed with the worth of the clear and strong style of the Flemish masters. Especially was he pleased with Vandyck, so that he followed him to England, and there studied as his pupil during the last six months of Vandyck's life. Moved by Moya's romancing stories of travel, adventure, and study, Murillo resolved to see better pictures than were to be found at Seville, and, if possible, to visit Italy. As a first step he painted a quant.i.ty of banners, madonnas, flower-pieces--anything and everything--and sold them to a ship owner, who sent them to Spanish America; and it is said that this and similar trades originated the story that Murillo once visited Mexico and other Spanish-American countries. Thus equipped with funds, and without informing his friends (his parents were dead), he started on foot across the mountains and the equally dreaded plains for Madrid, which he entered at the age of twenty-five, friendless and poor. He sought out Velasquez, and asked him for letters to his friends in Rome. But Velasquez, then at the height of his fame and influence, was so much interested in the young enthusiast that he offered him lodgings and an opportunity to study and copy in the galleries of Madrid. The Royal Galleries contained carefully selected pictures from the Italian and Flemish schools, so that Murillo was at once placed in the very best possible conditions for success.

Murillo thus spent more than two years, mostly under the direction of Velasquez, and worked early and late. He copied from the Italian and Flemish masters, and drew from casts and from life. This for a time so influenced his style that even now connoisseurs are said to discern reminiscences of Vandyck and Velasquez in the pictures painted by him on his first return to Seville. At the end of two years Velasquez advised Murillo to go to Rome, and offered to a.s.sist him. But Murillo decided first to return to Seville, and perhaps had come to the resolution not to go to Italy; but this may be doubted. He knew the progress he had made; he was reasonably certain that, if not the superior, he was the equal of any of the artists he had left behind in Seville. He was sure of the wealth, and taste, and love for art in his native city. His only sister was living there. The rich and n.o.ble lady he afterward married resided near there.

And so we can hardly wonder that the artist gave up a cherished journey to Italy, and returned to the scene of his early struggles with poverty.

The first works which Murillo painted after his return were for the Franciscan Convent. They brought him little money but much fame. They were eleven in number, but even the names of some are lost. One represents St.

Francis resting on his iron bed, listening in ecstacy to the notes of a violin which an angel is playing to him; another portrays St. Diego of Alcala, asking a blessing on a kettle of broth he is about to give to a group of beggars cl.u.s.tered before him; another represents the death of St.

Clara of a.s.sisi, in the rapturous trance in which her soul pa.s.sed away, surrounded by pale nuns and emaciated monks looking upward to a contrasting group of Christ and the Madonna, with a train of celestial virgins bearing her shining robe of immortality. The companion picture is a Franciscan monk who pa.s.ses into a celestial ecstacy while cooking in the convent kitchen, and who is kneeling in the air, while angels perform his culinary tasks. These pictures brought Murillo into speedy notice. Artists and n.o.bles flocked to see them. Orders for portraits and altar-pieces followed in rapid succession, and he was full of work. Notwithstanding the fact that he was acknowledged to be at the head of his profession in Seville, his style at this time was cold and hard. It is called _frio_ (cold), to distinguish it from his later styles. The Franciscan Convent pictures were carried off by Marshal Soult, and fortunately; for the convent was burned in 1810. His second style, called _calido_, or warm, dated from about the time of his marriage, in 1648, to a lady of distinguished family, named Dona Beatriz de Cabrera y Sotomayor. She was possessed of considerable property, and had lived in the village of Pilas, a few leagues southwest of Seville. Her portrait is not known to exist; but several of Murillo's madonnas which resemble each other are so evidently portraits, that the belief is these idealized faces were drawn from the countenance of the wife of the master.

His home now became famous for its hospitable reunions, and his social position, added to his artistic merits, procured for him orders beyond his utmost ability to fill. One after another in quick succession, large, grand works were sent out from his studio to be the pride of churches and convents. At this time his pictures were noted for a portrait-like naturalness in their faces, perhaps lacking in idealism, but withal pure and pleasing; the drapery graceful and well arranged, the lights skilfully disposed, the tints harmonious, and the contours soft. His flesh tints were heightened by dark gray backgrounds, so amazingly true that an admirer has said they were painted in blood and milk. The _calido_, or warm manner, was preserved for eight or ten years. In this style were painted an "Immaculate Conception," for the Franciscan Convent; "The Nativity of the Virgin," for the high altar of the Seville Cathedral; a "St. Anthony of Padua" for the same church, and very many others equally famous. In 1874 the St. Anthony was stolen from the cathedral, and for some time was unheard of, until two men offered to sell it for two hundred and fifty dollars to Mr. Schaus, the picture dealer in New York. He purchased the work and turned it over to the Spanish Consul, who immediately returned it to the Seville Cathedral, to the great joy of the Sevillians. In 1658 Murillo turned his attention to the founding of an Academy of Art, and, though he met with many obstacles, the inst.i.tution was finally opened for instruction in 1660, and Murillo was its first president. At this time he was taking on his latest manner, called the _vaporoso_, or vapory, which was first used in some of his pictures executed for the Church of Sta. Maria la Blanca. In this manner the rigid outlines of his first style is gone; there is a feathery lightness of touch as if the brush had swept the canvas smoothly and with unbroken evenness: this softness is enhanced by frequent contrasts with harder and heavier groups in the same picture.

But the highest point in the art was reached by Murillo in the eleven pictures which he painted in the Hospital de la Caridad. Six of these are now in their original places; five were stolen by Soult and carried to France; some were returned to Spain, but not to the hospital.

The convent of the Capuchins at Seville at one time possessed twenty pictures by this master. The larger part of them are now in the Museum of Seville, and form the finest existing collection of his works. This museum was once a church, and the statue of Murillo is placed in front of it.

Although the lighting of this museum is far inferior to that of Madrid and many others, yet here one must go to realize fully the glory of this master. Among the pictures is the "Virgen de la Sevilleta," or Virgin of the Napkin. It is said that the cook of the convent had become the friend of the painter, and begged of him some memento of his good feeling; the artist had no canvas, and the cook gave him a napkin upon which this great work was done.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 66.--THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. _By Murillo. In the Louvre._]

Murillo's representation of that extremely spiritual and mystical subject called the Immaculate Conception, has so far excelled that of any other artist that he has sometimes been called "the painter of the Conception."

His attention was especially called to this subject by the fact that the doctrine it sets forth was a pet with the clergy of Seville, who, when Pope Paul V., in 1617, published a bill making this doctrine obligatory, celebrated the occasion with all possible pomp in the churches; the n.o.bles also gave entertainments, and the whole city was alive with a fervor of religious zeal and a desire to manifest its love for this dogma. The directions given by the Inspector of the Holy Office for the representation of this subject were extremely precise; but Murillo complied with them in general effect only, and disregarded details when it pleased him: for example, the rules prescribed the age of the Virgin to be from twelve to thirteen, and the hair to be of golden hue. Murillo sometimes pictured her as a dark-haired woman. It is said that when he painted the Virgin as very young his daughter Francesca was his model; later the daughter became a nun in the convent of the Madre de Dios.

The few portraits painted by Murillo are above all praise; his pictures of humble life, too, would of themselves have sufficed to make him famous. No Spanish artist, except Velasquez, has painted better landscapes than he.

But so grand and vast were his religious works that his fame rests princ.i.p.ally on them. It is true, however, that in England and in other countries out of Spain he was first made famous by his beggar boys and kindred subjects.

Murillo and Velasquez may be said to hold equivalent positions in the annals of Spanish Art--Murillo as the painter for the church, and Velasquez as that of the court. As a delineator of religious subjects Murillo ranked only a very little below the greatest Italian masters, and even beside them he excels in one direction; for he is able more generally and fully to arouse religious emotions and sympathies. This stamps his genius as that of the first order, and it should also be placed to his credit, in estimating his native talent, that he never saw anything of all the Cla.s.sic Art which was such a source of inspiration to the artists of Italy. Stirling says: "All his ideas were of home growth: his mode of expression was purely national and Spanish; his model--nature, as it existed in and around Seville."

While painting a marriage of St. Catherine for the Capuchin Church of Cadiz, Murillo fell from the scaffold, and soon died from his injuries: he was buried in the Church of Sta. Cruz, and it is a sad coincidence that this church and that of San Juan, at Madrid, in which Velasquez was interred, were both destroyed by the French under the command of Soult.

The character of Murillo was such as to command the greatest respect, and though he was not a.s.sociated with as many royal personages as Velasquez, he was invited to court, and received many flattering acknowledgments of his genius. His fame was not confined to his own country, and his portrait was engraved in Flanders during the last year of his life. He had many strong personal friends, and his interest in the academy and his generosity to other artists prove him to have been above all mean jealousies: he loved Art because it was Art, and did all in his power for its elevation in his own country. It is probable that since his death more money has been paid for a single picture by him than he received for the entire work of his life. The Immaculate Conception, now in the Louvre, was sold from the Soult collection for six hundred and fifteen thousand three hundred francs, or more than one hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars. At the time of its sale it was believed to be the largest price ever paid for a picture.

SEBASTIAN GOMEZ (about 1620) was a mulatto slave of Murillo's, and like Pareja he secretly learned to paint. At last one day when Murillo left a sketch of a head of the Virgin on his easel Gomez dared to finish it.

Murillo was glad to find that he had made a painter of his slave, and though the pictures of Gomez were full of faults his color was much like that of his master. Two of his pictures are in the Museum of Seville. He did not live long after Murillo's death in 1682.

DON ALONSO MIGUEL DE TOBAR (1678-1758) never attained to greatness. His best original pictures were portraits. He made a great number of copies of the works of Murillo, and was chiefly famous for these pictures. There is little doubt that many pictures attributed to Murillo are _replicas_, or copies by the hand of Tobar.

The school of Valencia flourished from 1506 to 1680. VICENTE DE JOANES (about 1506-1579) was a painter of religious pictures who is scarcely known out of Spain, and in that country his pictures are, almost without exception, in churches and convents. He was very devout, and began his works with fasting and prayer. It is related that on one occasion a Jesuit of Valencia had a vision in which the Virgin Mary appeared to him, and commanded him to have a picture painted of her in a dress like that she then wore, which was a white robe with a blue mantle. She was to be represented standing on a crescent with the mystic dove floating above her; her Son was to crown her, while the Father was to lean from the clouds above all.

The Jesuit selected Joanes to be the painter of this work, and though he fasted and prayed much he could not paint it so as to please himself or the Jesuit. At last his pious zeal overcame all obstacles, and his picture was hung above the altar of the Immaculate in the convent of the Jesuits.

It was very beautiful--the artists praised it, the monks believed that it had a miraculous power, and it was known as "La Purisima," or the perfectly pure one.

Joanes excelled in his pictures of Christ. He seemed to have conceived the very Christ of the Scriptures, the realization of the visions of St. John, or of the poetry of Solomon. In these pictures he combined majesty with grace and love with strength. Joanes frequently represented the Last Supper, and introduced a cup which is known as the Holy Chalice of Valencia. It is made of agate and adorned with gold and gems, and was believed to have been used by Christ at his Last Supper with his disciples. Some of the portraits painted by Joanes are very fine. In manner and general effect his works are strangely like those of the great Raphael.

FRANCISCO DE RIBALTA (1550-1628) was really the head of the school of Valencia, and one of the best historical painters of Spain. He studied his art first in Valencia, and there fell in love with the daughter of his master. The father refused him his suit, and the young couple parted in deep sorrow. Ribalta went to Italy, where he made such progress, and gained such fame that when he returned to Valencia he had no trouble in marrying his old master's daughter. Valencia has more pictures by Ribalta than are found elsewhere. Out of Spain they are very rare. One of his works is at Magdalene College, Oxford.

One peculiarity of the Spanish painters was that they painted the extremes of emotion. Their subjects represented the ecstacy of bliss or the most excruciating agony. They did not seem to have as much middle ground or to know as much of moderate emotions as the painters of other nations.

Ribalta was no exception to this rule, and some of his pictures are painful to look at. His portraits are fine, and represent the most powerful men of Valencia of the time in which he lived.

JOSEF DE RIBERA was a native of Valencia, but lived and studied in Italy, and so became more of an Italian than a Spanish master. I have spoken of him in connection with the Naturalists and their school at Naples.

ALONSO CANO (1601-1667) was a very important artist, and cannot be said to belong to any school. He was born at Granada, and studied under masters of Seville, both in painting and sculpture. He became the best Spanish artist who studied in Spain only. He was something of an architect also, and his various talents acquired a high place for him among artists; but his temper was such as to cause him much trouble, and it so interfered with his life that he did not attain to the position to which his artistic gifts ent.i.tled him.

In 1637 he fought a duel, and was obliged to flee from Madrid, and in 1644 his wife was found murdered in her bed. Cano was suspected of the crime, and although he fled he was found, and brought back, and put to the torture. He made no confession, and was set at liberty; but many people believed in his guilt. He still held his office as painter to the king, and was sometimes employed on important works; but he determined to remove to his native Granada and become a priest. Philip IV. appointed him canon, and after he held this office he was still employed as a painter and sculptor by private persons, as well as by religious bodies, and was even sent to Malaga to superintend improvements in the cathedral there. But his temper led him into so many broils that at length, in 1659, the chapter of Granada deprived him of his office. He went to the king with his complaints, and was again made a canon; but he was so angry that he never would use his brush or his chisel in the service of the Cathedral of Granada.

His life was now devoted to charity and good works. He gave away all his money as soon as he received it. When his purse was empty he would go into a shop, and beg a pencil and paper, and sketching a head or other design would mark the price on it, and give it to a beggar with directions for finding a purchaser for it. After his death large numbers of these charity works were collected.

One of his strong characteristics was hatred of the Jews. He would cross the street, in order not to meet one of them, and would throw away a garment that had brushed against one of the race. One day he went home, and found his housekeeper bargaining with a Jew; he chased him away with great fury, sent the woman off to be purified, repaved the spot where the Jew had stood, and gave the shoes in which he had chased him to a servant.

When about to die Cano would not receive the sacrament from the priest who was present, because he had communicated with Jews, and when a rude crucifix was held before him he pushed it away. When he was reproved for this he said: "Vex me not with this thing; but give me a simple cross that I may adore it, both as it is, and as I can figure it in my mind." When this was done, it is said that he died in a most edifying manner.

Very few of Cano's architectural works remain; a few drawings of this sort are in the Louvre which are simple and elegant in style. The finest carving by him is a small figure of the Virgin, now in the Cathedral of Granada. Eight of his pictures are in the Queen of Spain's gallery at Madrid, and the Church of Getafe, the Cathedral of Granada and that of Malaga have his works. A beautiful madonna, which was one of his latest works, is in the chapel of the Cathedral of Valencia, and is lighted by votive tapers only. His pictures are rare out of Spain. One of his portraits is in the Louvre. Other works are in Berlin, Dresden, Munich, and the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

The last Spanish painter of whom I shall speak belongs to a much later period. FRANCISCO GOYA Y LUCIENTES (1746-1828) was a student in Rome, and after his return to Spain lived in fine style in a villa near Madrid. He was painter to Charles IV., and was always employed on orders from the n.o.bility. He painted portraits and religious pictures, but his chief excellence was in painting caricatures. He was never weary of painting the priests and monks in all sorts of ridiculous ways. He made them in the form of apes and a.s.ses, and may be called the Hogarth of Spain, so well did he hold up the people about him to ridicule. He painted with great boldness and could use a sponge or stick in place of a brush. Sometimes he made a picture with his palette-knife, and put in the fine touches with his thumb. He executed engravings also, and published eighty prints which he called "Caprices." These were very famous; they were satires upon all Spanish laws and customs. He also made a series of plates about the French invasion, thirty-three prints of scenes in the bull-ring, and etchings of some of the works of Velasquez. Portraits of Charles IV. and his queen by Goya are in the museum at Madrid. Works of his are in the Louvre and in the National Gallery in London. His pictures sell for large prices. In 1870 his picture of Charlotte Corday sold for five hundred and eighty-four pounds.

CHAPTER VI.

PAINTING IN FRANCE.

The French school of painting does not date earlier than the sixteenth century, and the painters of that time were few in number, and little is known of them. Before the time when a French school could be said to exist the kings of France employed foreign artists to decorate their palaces and churches, and they naturally turned to the Italians for all that they needed. Hence it happened that in its earliest days the French school was almost entirely under Italian influence, and I shall first speak of French masters who studied in Italy.

NICHOLAS POUSSIN (1594-1665) may be said to belong to the seventeenth century, since he was born so late in the preceding one. Poussin was born in Normandy, and early began to draw and paint. He studied somewhat in France, and when thirty years old went to Rome, where, in reality, his artistic career began. He was a pupil of Andrea Sacchi, and received some instruction from Domenichino also; but he formed his style princ.i.p.ally by studying the works of the ancients and those of the great Raphael. He was so devoted to the study of the habits and customs of the Greeks that he almost became one of them in his modes of thought.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 67.--ARCADIAN SHEPHERDS. _Poussin._]

He was very poor when he first went to Rome; but he worked hard, and began to be known and to receive orders for pictures. Louis XIII. heard of Poussin, and invited him to Paris, where he gave him apartments in the Tuileries. But the artist longed to return to Rome, and made a plea of going for his wife. Soon after he left, Louis died, and Poussin never returned to France. Poussin was always busy; but he asked such moderate prices that he was never rich, and, when a great man pitied the artist because he had so few servants, Poussin pitied him in return for having so many. His portrait painted by himself is in the Louvre, where are many of his mythological pictures. His love for the cla.s.sic manner makes these subjects his best works. His paintings are seen in many European galleries.

CLAUDE LORRAINE (1600-1682), whose real name was Claude Gelee, was born in Champagne in Lorraine. His parents were very poor, and died when he was still young: he was apprenticed to a pastry-cook, and so travelled to Rome as servant to some young gentlemen. Not long after his arrival he engaged himself to the painter Agostino Ta.s.si, for whom he cooked, and mixed colors. After a time he himself began to paint. Nature was his teacher; he studied her with unchanging devotion; he knew all her changes, and was in the habit of sitting for a whole day watching one scene, so that he could paint from memory its different aspects at the various hours of the day.

His works brought him into notice when he was still young. He received many orders, and when about twenty-seven years old some pictures he painted for Pope Urban VIII. established his fame as an artist of high rank. His character was above reproach, and his feelings were as tender as many of his pictures. He was attractive in person, though his face was grave in its expression. It would seem that he should have left a large fortune, but he did not. This was partly because he suffered much from gout, and was often unable to paint; but a better reason probably is that he gave so much to his needy relations that he could not save large sums.

Claude Lorraine has been called the prince and poet of landscape painters.

Lubke, the German art writer, praises him very much, and his praise is more valuable than it would be if it came from one of Claude's own countrymen. He says: "Far more profoundly than all other masters did Claude Gelee penetrate into the secrets of nature, and by the enchanting play of sunlight, the freshness of his dewy foregrounds, and the charm of his atmospheric distances, he obtained a tone of feeling which influences the mind like an eternal Sabbath rest. In his works there is all the splendor, light, untroubled brightness, and harmony of the first morning of creation in Paradise. His ma.s.ses of foliage have a glorious richness and freshness, and even in the deepest shadows are interwoven with a golden glimmer of light. But they serve only as a mighty framework, for, more freely than with other masters, the eye wanders through a rich foreground into the far distance, the utmost limits of which fade away in golden mist."

His two great charms are the immense s.p.a.ce which he represents in his pictures and his beautiful color. The latter appears as if he had first used a silvery gray, and then put his other colors over that, which gives his works a soft, lovely atmospheric effect, such as no other artist has surpa.s.sed. When he introduced buildings into his pictures they were well done; but his figures and animals were so imperfect that he was accustomed to say that he sold the landscape, and gave away the figures.

Before his death his pictures were so much valued that other artists tried to imitate them, and he was accustomed to keep a book of sketches by which his works could be proved. He called this book "Liber Veritatis," and before his death it reached six volumes; one of these containing two hundred drawings is at Chatsworth. A catalogue of his works describes more than four hundred landscapes. All the princ.i.p.al galleries of Europe have his pictures, and there are a great number of them in England, both in public and private collections.

SEBASTIAN BOURDON (1616-1671), who was born at Montpelier, made his studies in Rome. He brought himself into notice by a picture of the Crucifixion of St Peter, which is now in the Louvre. He was one of the earliest members of the French Academy. Bourdon resided in Sweden for some years; but was in Paris, and held the position of Rector of the Academy when he died. He painted a few _genre_ subjects, and two of his portraits by himself are in the Louvre; but his best works were landscapes, and in these his style was like that of Salvator Rosa. It has been said that Rigaud a.s.sisted him in his portraits of himself. Bourdon made some engravings, and collectors prize his plates very much.

There were other French painters who studied in Italy, but those that I have mentioned are the important ones. Of those who studied in their own country only, EUSTACHE LE SUEUR (1617-1655) was the first of any importance; but his life was short and uneventful, and he was not appreciated. His most important works are in the Louvre.

CHARLES LE BRUN (1619-1690) was very prominent in his day. His father was a sculptor, and was employed by the Chancellor Segnier. This n.o.bleman's attention was attracted to the son, and he at length sent the young Le Brun to Italy to study. He remained there six years, and after his return to Paris he was made painter to the king, and became the favorite of the court. He used his opportunities to persuade Louis XIV. to found the Royal Academy at Paris, which was done in 1648. All his princ.i.p.al pictures are in the Louvre.

PIERRE MIGNARD (1612-1695) has been called "the Roman," because he lived in Rome twenty-two years, and while there was patronized by three successive popes. In 1664 he was made President of the Academy of St. Luke in Rome. At length Louis XIV. invited him to return to France. In 1690 he succeeded Le Brun as court painter, and was made Chancellor of the Academy. His portraits are his best works, and these are seen in the galleries of various European countries.