Pierre-Louis Cretey
Encyclopedia
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
- after 1702), was a French baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
painter.
Life
Records place Cretey in RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
from 1661 to 1679, then Modena
Modena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....
in 1679 - another place he probably worked was Parma
Parma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
. He then returned to France and spent most of his subsequent career in Lyon, gaining renown from the 1680s onwards as a history painter and for producing altarpieces like The Road to Emmaus (Lyon, Ste Blandine). He became Thomas Blanchet
Thomas Blanchet
Thomas Blanchet was a French painter, draughtsman, architect, sculptor and printmaker.-Life:During his training in Paris Blanchet met Jacques Sarazin, and on his advice moved from studying sculpture to painting...
's main collaborator, working with him on many decorative schemes such as work at the Palais de Roanne (now Palais de Justice). From 1684 to 1686, Cretey created a series of paintings for the refectory of the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Pierre, including The Last Supper, The Multiplication of the Loaves, The Assumption of the Virgin, The Ascension of Christ and an The prophet Elias. These refectory paintings (now in the Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon
Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon
The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. It is housed near place des Terreaux in a former Benedictine convent of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was restored between 1988 and 1998, and despite these important restoration works it remained open...
) show groups of figures vividly lit in front of dark backgrounds, recalling not only 16th-century Venetian pre-baroque prototypes but also Simon Vouet
Simon Vouet
Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France.-Life:...
's early Italian works and their chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro in art is "an Italian term which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted"....
.
Paintings
- There is a painting by Louis Cretey in the Detroit Institute of Art ("Nativity")
- The Musée des Beaux-Arts de LyonMusée des beaux-arts de LyonThe Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. It is housed near place des Terreaux in a former Benedictine convent of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was restored between 1988 and 1998, and despite these important restoration works it remained open...
displays a fine collection of his works. - Other museums displaying paintings by Cretey include the Musei Vaticani, the Musée du Louvre and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes.