LE BRUN, CHARLES (1619-169o), French painter born. at Paris on Feb. 24, 1619, was at the age of II placed by Chan cellor Seguier in the studio of Vouet. At 15 he received commis sions from Cardinal Richelieu. His early work evoked the com mendations of Poussin, who in 1642 accompanied him to Rome, where he remained four years. After his return to Paris Le Brun enjoyed the patronage of Fouquet and Mazarin, and others.
Colbert also promptly recognized Le Brun's powers of organi zation, and attached him to his interests. Together they founded the Academy of Painting and Sculpture (1648), and the Academy of France at Rome (1666), and gave a new development to the industrial arts. In 166o they established the Gobelins, which at first was a great school for the manufacture, not of tapestries only, but of every class of furniture required in the royal pal aces. Commanding the industrial arts through the Gobelins—of which he was director—and the whole artist world through the Academy—in which he successively held every post—Le Brun imprinted his own character on all that was produced in France during his lifetime, and gave a direction to the national tendencies which endured after his death.
The nature of his emphatic and pompous talent was in har mony with the taste of the king, who, full of admiration at the decorations designed by Le Brun for his triumphal entry into Paris (1660), commissioned him to execute a series of subjects from the history of Alexander. The first of these, "Alexander
and the Family of Darius," so delighted Louis XIV. that he knighted Le Brun (Dec. 1662), who was also created first painter to his majesty with a pension of 12,000 livres, the same amount as he had yearly received in the service of the magnificent Fou quet. From this date all that was done in the royal palaces was directed by Le Brun. The works of the gallery of Apollo in the Louvre were interrupted in 1677 when he accompanied the king to Flanders (on his return from Lille he painted several compositions in the Château of St. Germain), and finally he reserved for himself at Versailles the Halls of War and Peace, the Ambassadors' Staircase, and the Grande Galerie des Glaces, other artists being forced to accept the position of his assistants. At the death of Colbert, Louvois, who succeeded him in the de partment of public works, showed no favour to Le Brun, and in spite of the king's continued support he felt the change in his position. He died on Feb. 22, 1690.
See H. Jouin, Charles Le Brun et les Arts sous Louis XIV. (1889) ; P. Marcel, Charles Le Brun (1909).