Soldiers Playing Cards and Dice (The Cheats) by Valentin de Boulogne

River Landscape by Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci, River Landscape, c. 1590, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Samuel H. Kress Collection 1952.5.58

The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio (Michelangelo da Merisi)
Caravaggio (Michelangelo da Merisi), The Taking of Christ, 1602, © Courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland and the Jesuit Community, Leeson Street, Dublin, who acknowledge the generosity of the late Dr. M. Lee-Wilson

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, young artists from all over Europe flocked to Rome. Valentin made the trip sometime between 1611 and 1620. There he discovered artists who had moved away from mannerism toward a powerful, direct style, rooted in observation of the natural world. Two contrasting versions of this approach emerged: one classical and idealized, first practiced by Annibale Carracci and his family, and the other earthy and dramatic, pioneered by Caravaggio.

Most of the great French artists of the seventeenth century trained in Rome and gravitated toward one of these two styles.