Word: chantelou
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Poussin also found a special relationship between architecture and the human body. On his return to France, Poussin visited Nimes (as Thomas Jefferson would, 150 years later) to admire its Roman temple, the so-called Maison Carree. "The beautiful girls you will have seen at Nimes," he wrote to Chantelou, "will not, I am sure, delight your spirits less than the sight of the beautiful columns ... since the latter are only ancient copies of the former." One of his finest late paintings, Eliezer and Rebecca, 1649, was conceived in exactly this spirit. Nowhere, perhaps, in 17th century painting is there...
Later in life Poussin would complain of the pressure of commissions. "Monsieur, these are not things that can be done at the crack of a whip," he wrote to his friend and patron Chantelou in 1645, "like your Parisian painters who make a sport of turning out a picture in twenty-four hours." But in his Roman youth, he could and did turn them out, and it would be idle to pretend that all early Poussin is on the same level. Some paintings are much less "finished" than others. A few are hackwork (such as Hannibal Crossing the Alps, done...
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