Page 28 - Studio International - January 1967

Poussin and de Staël : A Comparison

'Painting has been liberated from the comparatively static demands of literature and anecdote. But if
this liberation is not to remain a merely formal abstraction, it must rely upon a more evolved, more
sophisticated form of synthesis... it must make diagrams that can reveal the truth underlying a myriad
different stories or anecdotes.'

John Berger

Recently I spent some time looking at and thinking about Poussin and Bernini, who were exact contemporaries,
Walter Friedlaender's book on Poussin. It is, as one who lived in the same city and the spirit of whose art was
would expect from the author, authoritative, thorough, so opposed. The comparison might reveal, in a very clear
civilized. The serious student, equipped with the cata- way (an elegant way, as mathematicians say), how the
logue of the 1960 Poussin exhibition at the Louvre (com- ideological position of an artist, formed by his social
piled by Blunt) and this book, will have plenty to get his function, can affect by way of his temperament the kind of art
teeth into. he produces.
Friedlaender's principal contribution—apart from the It would be churlish, however, to emphasize what does
fact that he started modern research into Poussin fifty not interest Walter Friedlaender —when so much does.
years ago—lies in his discussion of the sources, both This book is a mine of information.
pictorial and literary, of Poussin's art. It so happens that at the same time as I was studying it,
There are questions to which I would like to know the I needed to consult, for a different purpose, Douglas
answers which are not raised. I would like to know more Cooper's and Denys Sutton's books on Nicolas de Staël.
about the small circle of patrons in Rome and Paris who The line from the one artist to the other through David,
supported Poussin throughout his life. Where did their Cezanne, Juan Gris is a fairly obvious one. De Staël, in
money come from? What was their social formation? the modern context, was a classical painter rather than a
For whom and for what, historically speaking, was romantic. And Poussin was the originator of classicism
Poussin painting? It is not enough to say 'the new bour- as a chosen attitude. Nevertheless I was struck by the fre-
geosie'. We need to be more precise. Then we might be in quent formal similarities between the two. I began putting
a position to compare the patronage and ideologies of some of their works side by side.

Poussin de Staël
Madonna on the steps c. 1646 Nude study 1954-5
Drawing, pen and bistre wash Drawing
5 1/8 x 7 1/2 in. 60x 40 in.