ABSTRACT
Nicolas Poussin was, of all painters, the most poetical. He was the painter of ideas. No one ever told a story half so well, nor so well knew what was capable of being told by the pencil. Poussin succeeded better in classic that in sacred subjects. The latter are comparatively heavy, forced, full of violent contrasts of colour, of red, blue, and black, and without the true prophetic inspiration of the characters. While Rubens's Satyrs and Bacchantes have a more jovial and voluptuous aspect, are more drunk with pleasure, Poussin's Nymphs and Fauns have more of the intellectual part of the character, and seem vicious on reflection, and of set purpose. In the more chaste and refined delineation of classic fable, Poussin was without a rival. Everything tends to show the manner in which a great artist is formed. If any person could claim an exemption from the careful imitation of individual objects, it was Poussin.
