Recent studies and exhibitions, combined with the discovery of work by hitherto little-known artists have enabled Merot to take a fresh look at the period and to suggest a new configuration. The great names of the period - Poussin, Vouet, Le Sueur, de La Tour, Mignard - are located in relation to other developments. Merot includes discussion of the impact of contemporary literature and political, philosophical and social influences. The foundation of the Royal Academy of Painting in 1648, and the influence of Mazarin on artistic developments are considered with other issues of status, patronage and connoisseurship. The book provides a panorama of the period; the text is profusely illustrated in colour, and accompanied by a comprehensive bibliography.

A beautiful volume that brings to light the forgotten Le Nain brothers, a trio of 17th-century French master painters who specialized in portraiture, religious subjects, and scenes of everyday peasant life In France in the 17th century, the brothers Antoine (c. 1598-1648), Louis (c. 1600/1605-1648), and Mathieu (1607-1677) Le Nain painted images of everyday life for which they became posthumously famous. They are celebrated for their depictions of middle-class leisure activities, and particularly for their representations of peasant families, who gaze out at the viewer. The uncompromising naturalism of these compositions, along with their oddly suspended action, imparts a sense of dignity to their subjects. Featuring more than sixty paintings highlighting the artists' full range of production, including altarpieces, private devotional paintings, portraits, and the poignant images of peasants for which the brothers are best known, this generously illustrated volume presents new research concerning the authorship, dating, and meaning of the works by well-known scholars in the field. Also groundbreaking are the results of a technical study of the paintings, which constitutes a major contribution to the scholarship on the Le Nain brothers.

The Academy and the Limits of Painting in Seventeenth-Century France is the first study in over a century devoted to the creation of one of the most important European institutions of art, the French Académie Royale. Founded in the mid-1660s, the Academy institutionalised the discourse around painting and thus had an immediate impact on the making of art in France, becoming a decisive influence on painting until the close of the nineteenth century. In the process of forging an identity for itself, the Academy redefined almost every aspect of art - the nature of art training, the sources of patronage, the social standing of the artist, and the place of the arts in national life.

For art lovers unable to visit Soviet museums, for anyone fascinated by painters' views of past and present times, this large and brilliant display of French paintings in the Pushkin Museum is a source of lasting joy.

The 17th century has always been considered the golden age - the grand siècle - of French culture. The reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV witnessed an unprecedented flowering of literature and philosophy, of music, architecture and art. The poetic history painting of Poussin, the landscapes of Claude Lorrain, the portraits of Philippe de Champaigne, and the celebratory art of Le Brun at the court of Louis XIV at Versailles were among its greatest achievements. Yet the subject-matter and formal conventions most prized at the time can make it difficult for the modern viewer to appreciate the artists’ aims and to judge success or failure. Thanks to new research, it is now possible to set the major figures within the framework of the concerns and theoretical debates of the grand siècle itself. Christopher Allen, one of the few authorities on the subject outside the French-speaking world, brilliantly enables us to see beyond mere form to the meanings the artists intended us to enjoy.

Once considered the golden age of French printmaking, Louis XIV’s reign saw Paris become a powerhouse of print production. During this time, the king aimed to make fine and decorative arts into signs of French taste and skill and, by extension, into markers of his imperialist glory. Prints were ideal for achieving these goals; reproducible and transportable, they fueled the sophisticated propaganda machine circulating images of Louis as both a man of war and a man of culture. This richly illustrated catalogue features more than one hundred prints from the Getty Research Institute and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, whose print collection Louis XIV established in 1667. An esteemed international group of contributors investigates the ways that cultural policies affected printmaking; explains what constitutes a print; describes how one became a printmaker; studies how prints were collected; and considers their reception in the ensuing centuries. A Kingdom of Images is published to coincide with an exhibition on view at the Getty Research Institute from June 18 through September 6, 2015, and at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris from November 2, 2015, through January 31, 2016.