Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/594

 564 Painting thus, like the Carracci, he was greater through his pupils than through his own works. Jacques Callot (1594 — 1635) was of a noble family of Nancy in Lorraine. He was an enemy to all discipline, and, in order to give free course to his fancy, fled from his father's house. in the train of a troop of mountebanks. Occupied with etching by a process of his own invention, his Beggars, Gipsies, Nobles, Devils and scenes descriptive of the Miseries of War, for which he is most celebrated, — he left us but a small number of paintings. Nicolas Poussin (1594 — 1665), the prince of the French school, was born at Andelys. He was descended from a noble family of Soissons who had lost their property in the civil wars : his father served under Henri IV. Brav- ing poverty, Poussin set out for Rome, on foot and almost destitute. There his talent was first developed before the masterpieces of past ages ; and although at a subsequent period the king called him to Paris, in order to add the lustre of a great artist to his own fame, Poussin soon tired of the annoyances caused by the court painters, and went back to Rome, which he did not again leave. There, in solitary study, and always avoiding, with a force of judgment in which he is scarcely equalled, the bad taste of his country and his time, he progressed step by step towards perfection. Two of Poussin' s best pictures are in the National Gal- lery, which contains seven works by him. One is a forcible painting simply called a Bacchanalian Dance, but varied and full of pleasant incident. The other, a Bacchanalian Festival, although less finished in execution, is one of his most important works. In the Louvre there are some immense pictures by