Poussinists and Rubenists

In 1671 an argument broke out in the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris about whether drawing or color was more important in painting. On one side stood the Poussinists (Fr. Poussinistes) who were a group of French artists, named after the painter Nicolas Poussin, who believed that drawing was the most important thing. On the other side were the Rubenists (Fr. Rubénistes), named after Peter Paul Rubens, who prioritize color. There was a strong nationalistic flavour to the debate as Poussin was French but Rubens was Flemish, though neither was alive at the time. After over forty years the final resolution of the matter in favor of the Rubenists was signalled when Antoine Watteau's The Embarkation for Cythera was accepted as his reception piece by the French Academy in 1717. By that time the French Rococo was in full swing.

The Poussinists believed in the Platonic idea of the existence in the mind of ideal objects that could be reconstructed in concrete form by the selection, using reason, of elements from nature. For the Poussinists, therefore, color was a purely decorative addition to form and drawing (design or disegno), the use of line to depict form, was the essential skill of painting. Their leader was Charles Lebrun (died 1690), Director of the Academy, and their heroes were Raphael, the Carracci, and Poussin himself whose severe and stoical works exemplified their philosophy. Their touchstones were the forms of classical art.

They were opposed by the Rubenists who believed that colour, not drawing, was superior as it was more true to nature. Their models were the works of Rubens who had prioritised the accurate depiction of nature over the imitation of classical art. The Rubenists argued that the aim of painting was to deceive the eye by creating an imitation of nature. Drawing, according to the Rubenists, although based on reason, appealed only to a few experts whereas colour could be enjoyed by everyone. The ideas of the Rubenists therefore had revolutionary political connotations as they elevated the position of the lay person and challenged the idea that had held sway since the Renaissance that painting, as a liberal art, could only be appreciated by the educated mind.

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