Winter, the Deluge ~ Poussin Antique Art Print

Beautiful folio size antique photogravure print from the picture by Nicolas Poussin (click thumbnails above for larger size image)

Printed on heavyweight cream stock. Plate mark present. Reverse side is blank.

It's hard to appreciate the stunning detail and clarity of this print until you see it in person.

This print, "Winter," is from the Four Seasons series, the last set of four oil paintings completed by Poussin. Each painting is an elegaic landscape with Old Testament figures conveying the different seasons and times of the day. Here, for Winter, he chose to symbolize winter by using the Flood from the Book of Noah. Winter or The Flood is most commonly referred to by its French title Le Deluge. In this highly original painting Poussin depicts the final stages of the horrific cataclysm of The Flood with restraint. The picture records the moment when the floods are finally covering the plain with the last few rocky outcrops disappearing under the rising waters. The horizontal lines used in his other paintings to create a sense of order here lead the eye through the painting with increasing unease. The moonlit scene is colored in different shades of bluish grey, interrupted by flashes of lightening. The dim outlines of Noah's Ark can be made out floating on the calmer waters in the far distance. Contrasting with the jagged shapes of rocks and trees, the waterfall produces a horizontal backdrop for the frieze of stranded survivors in the foreground, uncertain of their impending doom. Poussin ominously places a snake slithering across the rock on the left of the picture, a symbol often employed in his pictures to conjure up a sense of horror. Additionally the presence of a snake plays a special iconographic role in the cycle, because it also serves as a reminder of the singular absence of a serpent in the Garden of Eden.

Title: Winter and the Great Flood (also known as Le Deluge)

Publication: Great Masters in the Louvre Gallery

Publication Year: 1899-1900

Publisher: D. Appleton & Goupil & Co. (New York & Paris)

Approximate Page Size (in inches): 16¾ x 12½

Approximate Image Size (in inches): 12¾ x 9

Condition: EX. Very clean.