La décollation de saint Denis

c. 1612

At eighteen he runs away to Paris

His parents apparently opposed a painting career for him, and around 1612 he ran away to Paris, in the regency of Marie de’ Medici, when art was flourishing thanks to her commissions and to wealthy merchants. But Poussin was not a member of the powerful guild of master painters and sculptors, which held a monopoly on most commissions and brought lawsuits against outsiders trying to break into the profession.

spring 1624

Spring 1624: Poussin arrives in Rome

According to Bellori Poussin settled in Rome in the spring of 1624 (other accounts say he first visited Venice); the lists of the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina name him from March 1624 among twenty-two people, mostly French artists, living in the house of Simon Vouet. He studied Raphael, while Caravaggio, whose literal materiality repelled him, he held to have come “to destroy painting”.

1630

Gives up monumental commissions

In 1630 the commission headed by Domenichino and d’Arpino gave the decoration of the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception in San Luigi dei Francesi to the Lorrainer Charles Mellin, not to Poussin. After that he firmly renounced the monumental genre and turned to “cabinet painting” for private patrons.

December 1640

December 1640: Poussin returns to Paris

François Sublet de Noyers, Superintendent of the King’s Buildings, whose invitations Poussin had declined, sent his cousins Roland and Paul Fréart to Rome, offering the title of First Painter to the King and a substantial residence at the Tuileries. Poussin yielded, and in December 1640 he was back in Paris.

autumn 1642

Finds a pretext and leaves for Rome for good

Increasingly unhappy with court intrigue and the weight of commissions, in the autumn of 1642, while the king and court were in Languedoc, Poussin found a pretext to leave Paris and returned to Rome permanently.

19 November 1665

Died