POUSSIN’S OLD AGE.

The genius of Poussin seems to have gained vigor with age.  Nearly his last works, which were begun in 1660, and sent to Paris 1664, were the four pictures, allegorical of the seasons, which he painted for the Duc de Richelieu.  He chose the terrestrial paradise, in all the freshness of creation, to designate spring.  The beautiful story of Boaz and Ruth formed the subject of summer.  Autumn was aptly pictured, in the two Israelites bearing the bunch of grapes from the Promised Land.  But the masterpiece was Winter, represented in the Deluge.  This picture has been, perhaps, the most praised of all Poussin’s works.  A narrow space, and a very few persons have sufficed him for this powerful representation of that great catastrophe.  The sun’s disc is darkened with clouds; the lightning shoots in forked flashes through the air:  nothing but the roofs of the highest houses are visible above the distant water upon which the ark floats, on a level with the highest mountains.  Nearer, where the waters, pent in by rocks, form a cataract, a boat is forced down the fall, and the wretches who had sought safety in it are perishing:  but the most pathetic incident is brought close to the spectator.  A mother in a boat is holding up her infant to its father, who, though upon a high rock, is evidently not out of reach of the water, and is only protracting life a very little.

POUSSIN’S LAST WORK AND DEATH.

The long and honorable race of Poussin was now nearly run.  Early in the following year, 1665, he was slightly affected by palsy, and the only picture of figures that he painted afterwards was the Samaritan Woman at the Well, which he sent to M. de Chantelou, with a note, in which he says, “This is my last work; I have already one foot in the grave.”  Shortly afterwards he wrote the following letter to M. Felibien:  “I could not answer the letter which your brother, M. le Prieur de St. Clementin, forwarded to me, a few days after his arrival in this city, sooner, my usual infirmities being increased by a very troublesome cold, which continues and annoys me very much.  I must now thank you not only for your remembrance, but for the kindness you have done me, by not reminding the prince of the wish he once expressed to possess some of my works.  It is too late for him to be well served; I am become too infirm, and the palsy hinders me in working, so that I have given up the pencil for some time, and think only of preparing for death, which I feel bodily upon me.  It is all over with me.”  He expired shortly afterwards, aged 71 years.

POUSSIN’S IDEAS OF PAINTING.

“Painting is an imitation by means of lines and colors, on some superfices, of everything that can be seen under the sun; its end is to please.

Principles that every man capable of reasoning may learn:—­There can be nothing represented,