Meditating with… Jean Daret (1614-1668)

At the heart of this 17th century full of historical events and epic battles, Jean Daret, a French painter of Flemish origin, offers us the portrait of a man at rest. This is Robert du Pille, advisor to King Louis XIV. Here, however, there is no question of vacation in the midst of the tumult of political affairs, but of hunting. An old story, this link between humans and the nature that surrounds them, between fascination and domination. It must be said that in 1661, all around Paris, the royal forests still offered abundant game for the nobles of the court of Versailles.

In the history of French painting, this is the first time that a scene of this kind has been depicted, a full-length portrait of a hunter at rest. Jean Daret combines his art of light and bodies with that of his Flemish colleague, Nicasius Bernaerts (1620-1678), who in this painting took charge of the very realistic representation of game, his specialty. Thus the three dogs that participated in the hunt by flushing out small game, come to bring back, docile and fearful, the lifeless bodies of partridges and pheasants. So many trophies for the man who, magnanimous, places his hand on the head of one of his dogs. On his other arm, a long hunting rifle is the pride of the fighter. For two centuries, the art of hunting has become a technical matter, close to that of war: after the use of the matchlock hunting arquebus, came that of wheel-lock models, then those using a flintlock. A progress that would bring happiness and power to the hunters of Daret’s century. The hunter’s gaze is noble, straight, distant, attracting, like the king, the light. Around him, nature has no say in the matter. In the darkness, dead and living animals are subjugated. Robert du Pille reigns… but in an abysmal solitude.