Marine Gods Paying Homage to Love, Eustache Le Sueur (1638)
Classically proportioned sea gods and goddesses, partially clad in intensely colored drapery, form a dramatic procession against a light blue sky. This painting illustrates an episode in Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Strife of Love in a Dream of Polyphilus), an extravagant Renaissance tale of a dream-journey through antiquity. To the left, the lovers Polyphilus and Polia are ferried to Cythera, the island of love. The sea goddess Amphitrite, reclining in a shell at the lower right, and Neptune, seated high on a shell and holding his triton, watch the boat depart from amid a crowd of figures.
Eustache Le Sueur or Lesueur was a French artist and one of the founders of the French Academy of Painting. He is known primarily for his paintings of religious subjects. He was a leading exponent of the neoclassical style of Parisian Atticism.
He was born in Paris, where he spent his entire life. His father, Cathelin Le Sueur, a turner and sculptor in wood, placed him with Vouet, in whose studio he rapidly distinguished himself.
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