Exhibit of Philippe de Champaigne in Geneva
In Geneva at the Musée Rath, from September 2007 - 13 January 2008, there is an exhibit of the Flemish painter Philippe de Champaigne (1602 - 1674).
Trained in his native Brussels by the landscape painter Jacques Fouquières, Champaigne turned down an offer from Rubens to work in his atelier, preferring instead to continue his training in Italy. Probably the 17th century’s closest approximation to the Bad Career Move. ¨
Champaigne stopped in Paris in 1621. From 1628 he was working as court painter to Marie de Medici and working on the decoration of Carmel du Faubourg Saint Jacques. Champaigne also benefitted from the faovrs of Cardinal Richelieu, as well as royal patronage. In 1638, he received the commission for Le Voeu de Louis XIII (Caen, Musée des Beaux Arts).
During the 1640’s, appraently through the intermediary of Arnauld d’Andilly, he established a relationship with the Jansenist milieu at Port-Royal where, in 1648, he put his two girls into boarding school.
Champaigne painted for Port-Royal de Paris a Last Supper (Paris, Musée du Louvre) finished with an ensemble of canvases of which ‘Le Christ et la Samaritaine’ (Caen, Musée des Beaux-Arts) and, for the Champs abbey, ‘Christ Mort,’ (Paris, Musée du Louvre). Champaigne participated in 1648 in the foundation of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture.
From 1645, after the death of Richelieu (1642) and Louis XIII (1643), Champaigne worked for the regent Anne of Austria on the decoration of the convent of Val-de-Grâce where he designed four landscapes illustrating various scenes borrowed from the desert fathers. He was equally lucky during the following years to obtain orders from the Church.
Worth noting in particular are Champaigne’s affinities for the Order of Chartres, illustrated by ‘La Visitation’ (Villeneuve-les-Avignon, Musée Pierre de Luxembourg) ou ‘Le Christ mort sur la Croix’ (Musée de Grenoble). Champaigne became a painter relative sought-after for portraits and one can see, among other interesting portraits of 17th century French notables, the portrait of Jean-Baptiste Colbert (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art).
The exhibit “Philippe de Champaigne 1602-1674 / Entre politique et dévotion” is organized around approximately 60 canvases, which consitute his most important commissioned works. Displaying both the influence of his Flemish background and a strong spirituality, Champaigne’s portraits evoke and insteresting mixture of realism and classicism.
The Musée Rath is at Place Neuve, about 10 minutes walk from the Cornavin central Train Station (5 minutes’ bus or tram ride from Cornavin Station). Admission is 5 francs. For more information, see the website www.ville-ge.ch/mah
