Vouet, Simon

Vouet, Simon (b Paris, 8 Jan. 1590; d Paris, 30 June 1649). The leading French painter in the first half of the 17th century. His early years are obscure, but according to Félibien he was precocious and worked as a portraitist in England when he was only 14. He certainly visited Constantinople in 1611–12 before moving to Italy, where he lived from 1613 to 1627, mainly in Rome. During this period Vouet achieved a considerable reputation and became president of the Accademia di S. Luca (see academy) in 1624. His early work in Italy was much influenced by Caravaggio (The Fortune-Teller, c.1618–20, NG, Ottawa), but he later developed an eclectic style in which Baroque tendencies were tempered by the classicism of Guido Reni and Domenichino.

In 1627 Louis XIII recalled Vouet to Paris and made him his court painter, launching him on an extremely busy and prosperous career. His compromise style proved exactly to the taste of his French clients; he offered them something more lively and modern than the prevailing tired Mannerism but less extreme than the dramatic naturalism of the Caravaggesque or the full emotionalism of the Baroque. Only when Poussin returned from Rome to Paris in 1640–2 was Vouet's dominance threatened. He painted religious and allegorical works and portraits and was employed on several major decorative schemes, sometimes in conjunction with Jacques Sarrazin. Little of his best decorative work survives, however. Vouet was a versatile and hard-working artist rather than a great one and his success and influence depended on his having hit upon a style that suited the taste of the day at a time when French painting was at a low ebb. He introduced new life and a tradition of solid competence and most of the leading members of the next generation of painters passed through his studio, including Le Brun, Le Sueur, and Mignard. Examples of his work are in many French museums.