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JESUS IN THE DESERT.

:

CHARLES LE DRUN.

THE artist has chosen the moment in which our Saviour, tempted by the Devil, has just put him to flight. The angels then approach him, and present him nourishment. They are grouped with grace and dignity. Christ is in an attitude full of simplicity and expression. The figures are of the natural size.

This work is not only esteemed for the richness of the composition, but it has the peculiar merit, in common with all the works of Le Brun, of being carefully executed in all its parts. When this illustrious painter undertook this subject for the Carmelites of the Rue St. Jaques, he was then in the prime of life, and his talents were in their full vigour. On his return from Italy he laid the foundation of his fame. The pictures he painted at that epoch, and this in particular, are exempt from that weakness and uniformity so conspicuous in his other performances. It must however be admitted, upon being appointed principal painter to Louis XIV. that the labours imposed upon him by that magnificent prince, should excuse, in some measure, his defects.

Le Brun was an exact observer of costume. The attention he bestowed on this branch of his art induced him, when he engaged on the Battles of Alexander, to procure designs of the Persian horses from Aleppo. It is only necessary to study these battlepieces with attention, to perceive, that these horses have, in fact, a different character from those of the Macedonians. They are less in size and more elegant in form.

The desire manifested by Le Brun to observe implicitly the costume, led him into an extraordinary error. Being anxious to procure the figure of Alexander, they sent him, it is said, an antique medal of Minerva, on the reverse of which appeared the name of the conqueror. Le Brun copied these features in his picture of the family of Darius, and consequently gave to his hero the physiognomy of a woman. On discovering his mistake, he was enabled by fresh researches to repair it; and it is presumed, that his Entry into Babylon presents the true portrait of the Macedonian king.

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