A landmark account of the work, thought, and life of the seventeenth-century French painter

In this book, Anthony Blunt presents a rich account of the paintings, life, and development of the great seventeenth-century French classicist Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), addressing the artist's entire oeuvre alongside his theory of art. Blunt shows why Poussin holds a central place in the great French humanist line that produced Racine, Molière, Voltaire, the Parnassians, and Mallarmé. At the same time, he examines how Poussin looks back to Raphael and ancient Rome, while pointing forward to Ingres, Cézanne, the Cubists, and Picasso.

"An extraordinary synthesis of Poussin the painter and Poussin the thinker. . . . A classic of modern art history."---J. M. Brown, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism