The Melpomene, Erato and Polymnie muses

The three muses are depicted participating in a country concert. Polymnie plays the viola while Melpomene, kneeling, seems to read or sing a score. Erato, seated, stands in the background of her companions. The scene takes place in front of a set of trees, with a landscape of hills and mountains in the ...
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The three muses are depicted participating in a country concert. Polymnie plays the viola while Melpomene, kneeling, seems to read or sing a score. Erato, seated, stands in the background of her companions. The scene takes place in front of a set of trees, with a landscape of hills and mountains in the background.

Son of a woodcarver, he was a student of Simon Vouet and became one of the first professors of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. His art reflects a desire for simplicity that was very rare for the time, no doubt in order to mark the difference between decorative and academic painting of his contemporaries. It was sometimes compared to the primitive Italians. Today he is considered one of the most personal painters of the 17th century, one of those who managed to escape, at least in part, from the empire of Italian Baroque academism.
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