Nicolas Poussin |
He found French art in a stage of transition: the old apprenticeship system was disturbed, and the academic training destined to supplant it was not yet established by Simon Vouet; but having met Courtois the mathematician, Poussin was fired by the study of his collection of engravings after Italian masters.
After two abortive attempts to reach Rome, he fell in with Marini, the court poet to Marie de Medici at Lyon. Marini employed him on illustrations to his poems, took him into his household, and in 1624 enabled Poussin (who had been detained by commissions in Lyon and Paris) to rejoin him at Rome. There, his patron having died, Poussin fell into great distress. Falling ill, he was received into the house of his compatriot Gaspard Dughet and nursed by his daughter Anna Maria to whom, in 1629, Poussin was married.