Valentin de Boulogne
{{short description|French painter (1591-1632)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2017}}
{{Infobox artist
|name = Valentin de Boulogne
|image =
|imagesize =
|caption =
|birth_name =
|birth_date = {{birth date|1591|01|03|df=y}}
|birth_place = Coulommiers, France
|death_date = {{death date and age |1632|08|19|1591|01|03|df=yes}}
|nationality = French
|field = Painting
|training =
|movement = Tenebrism
|works = List of paintings by Valentin de Boulogne
}}
File:Valentin de Boulogne - Soldiers Playing Cards and Dice (The Cheats).jpg
Valentin de Boulogne (before 3 January 1591 – 19 August 1632), sometimes referred to as Le Valentin, was a French painter in the tenebrist style.{{cite web
| url=http://www.metmuseum.org/press/exhibitions/2016/valentin-de-boulogne
| title=Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio
| publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art
| access-date=5 March 2017}}{{cite web
| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/arts/design/review-valentin-de-boulogne-bright-star-in-caravaggios-orbit.html?_r=0
| title='Valentin de Boulogne,' Bright Star in Caravaggio's Orbit
| date=6 October 2015
| work=The New York Times
| access-date=6 March 2017}}
Origins
Valentin was born in Coulommiers, France, where he was baptised in the parish of Saint-Denys on 3 January 1591, making 1590 his likely year of birth. The family name, also spelled Boullogne and Boulongne, appears to originate from Boulogne-sur-Mer, a city in northern France in the colony of Pas-de-Calais, though the family had dwelt at Coulommiers since at least 1489. His father, also named Valentin, and his uncle Jean were both painters.
In Italy
File:Valentin de Boulogne, Fortune Teller 02.jpg]]
It can be presumed that Valentin would have first started painting in his father's studio prior to moving to Paris or Fontainebleau, and before leaving for Italy. Valentin is recorded in Italy in the stati d'anime for 1620, when he was living in the parish of Santa Maria del Popolo.
While studying in Italy under Simon Vouet, Valentin came under the influence of Caravaggio and Bartolomeo Manfredi. He also joined the Bentvueghels, a riotous unofficial group of expatriate, mostly Flemish, artists and was given the group nickname of "innamorato," no doubt in reference to his own name.{{Cite web | url=https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.19114.html |title = Valentin de Boulogne, biography : National Gallery of Art, USA}}{{Clarify|date=December 2023}}
Image:Valentin de boulogne, John and Jesus.jpg and Jesus at the Last Supper (detail), 1625–1626]]
Caravaggio used a bold, naturalistic style, which emphasized the common humanity of the apostles and martyrs, flattered the aspirations of the Counter-Reformation Church, while his vivid chiaroscuro enhanced both three-dimensionality and drama, as well as evoking the mystery of the faith." Caravaggio "followed a militantly realist agenda, rejecting both Mannerism and the classicizing naturalism" and "in the first 30 years of the 17th century his naturalistic ambitions and revolutionary artistic procedures attracted a large following from all over Europe.{{Cite book| url=http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T013950 |title = Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da : Oxford Art Online – oi| chapter=Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da |year = 2003| publisher=Oxford University Press | doi=10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T013950 | isbn=978-1-884446-05-4 | last1=Gash | first1=John M. }}
Manfredi, also an Italian painter, was known throughout Italy and beyond as Caravaggio's closest follower. In the dramatically lit canvases of his later period Manfredi adopted a common theme from Caravaggio—the tavern scene featuring ordinary people, even religious subjects, whose figures are depicted close to the surface of the picture to involve the viewer in the action.
While Caravaggio and Manfredi may have influenced the style and themes that became common in Valentin's work, Valentin studied as well under Simon Vouet, considered a leading French painter by contemporaries. Vouet's earliest works exhibit the influence of Caravaggio and deploy dramatic contrasts of light with a restricted palette of blacks, browns and whites.
Valentin had success with a type of composition invented by Caravaggio in which fortune tellers, drinkers, or gamblers are grouped around a table. Valentin himself was fond of carousing and fine wine. Approximately 75 of his works survive. Valentin's genius shows in the subtleness of psychological expression and interplay among his characters, as well as in the refinement and finesse of his painting technique.
Valentin's painting Fortune Teller with Soldiers depicts a group of young soldiers, one of whom is mesmerized by the fortune teller reading his palm. Behind the gypsy a shadowy figure looks at the viewer with his finger to his lips in a conspiratorial gesture as he steals the fortune teller's purse from her pocket. At the same time the thief is pickpocketed in turn by a small child. While one person's fortune is told, another's is being stolen; and one thief falls victim to another.
Valentin's pupils included Nicolas Tournier.[https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/79017 Valentin de Boulogne] in the RKD
Death
Valentin de Boulogne is said to have died after bathing in the freezing cold waters of the Fontana del Tritone on Piazza Barberini, after having drunk too much.{{cite web
| url=https://l-express.ca/valentin-de-boulogne-une-vieille-connaissance/
| title=Valentin de Boulogne, une vieille connaissance
| date=15 June 2015
| publisher=express.ca
Gallery
{{See also|List of paintings by Valentin de Boulogne|}}
File:Valentin de Boulogne - Saint Jean-Baptiste, huile sur toile 178 x 133 cm, Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, cathédrale Saint-Jean.jpg|St John the Baptist in the Desert
File:Boulogne, Valentin de - Rafaello Menicucci - Google Art Project.jpg|Rafaello Menicucci
File:Valentin de Boulogne, Negazione di Pietro.jpg|Denial of Saint Peter
File:Valentin de Boulogne - Christ and the Adulteress - Google Art Project.jpg|Christ and the Adulteress
File:Valentin de Boulogne, Last Supper.jpg|Last Supper
File:Valentin de Boulogne, Musiciens et soldats.jpg|Musicians and Soldiers
File:Martyrdom of St Processo and St Martiniano, by Valentin de Boulogne.jpg| The Martyrdom of Martinian and Processus (1629)
File:Valentin de Boulogne - Saint Jean Baptiste (Apiro, Collegio di Sant'Urbano).jpg|St John the Baptist
References
{{reflist}}
- Jacques Thuillier, Un peintre passionné, L'Oeil, November 1958
External links
- {{Commons and category-inline}}
{{Caravaggisti}}
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Category:People from Coulommiers