01 Work, The Art of War, Charles Le Brun's The passage of the Granicus, with footnotes

Le Brun, Charles, France , School of

The passage of the Granicus, c. 1664 / 1665

Oil on canvas

Height: 4.64 m; Width: 10.25 m

Louvre Museum

The Battle of the Granicus in May 334 BC was the first of three major battles fought between Alexander the Great of Macedon and the Persian Achaemenid Empire. The battle took place on the road from Abydus to Dascylium, at the crossing of the Granicus in the Troad region, which is now called the Biga River in Turkey. In the battle Alexander defeated the field army of the Persian satraps of Asia Minor, which defended the river crossing. After this battle, the Persians were forced on the defensive in the cities that remained under their control in the region. More on The Battle of the Granicus

Le Brun, Charles, France , School of

Left Detail; The passage of the Granicus, c. 1664 / 1665

Le Brun, Charles, France , School of

Center Detail; The passage of the Granicus, c. 1664 / 1665

Alexander rushes into battle, mounted on Bucephalus and wearing his helmet with its white plume.

Here Alexander is fighting against Rhesace, the most valiant captain of the Persian army, when he is about to be killed with a sword by the Persian satrap of Lydia, Spithridates. A companion of Alexander, Cleitos the Black, then appeared and saved the life of the Macedonian conqueror by cutting off Spithridates' arm with an ax.

Le Brun represents entangled horsemen raising their swords and horses, with bulging eyes, participating in the fury of the combat, like Bucephalus who violently bites Rhesace on the back! More on this painting

Le Brun, Charles, France , School of

Right Detail; The passage of the Granicus, c. 1664 / 1665

Charles Le Brun, (born Feb. 24, 1619, Paris, France—died Feb. 12, 1690, Paris), was a painter and designer who became the arbiter of artistic production in France during the last half of the 17th century. Possessing both technical facility and the capacity to organize and carry out many vast projects, Le Brun personally created or supervised the production of most of the paintings, sculptures, and decorative objects commissioned by the French government for three decades during the reign of Louis XIV. Under his direction French artists created a homogeneous style that came to be accepted throughout Europe as the paragon of academic and propagandistic art.

Le Brun studied first with the painter Guillaume Perrier and then with Simon Vouet. In 1642 he went to Rome. On his return to Paris he was given large decorative and religious commissions; his work for the Hôtel Lambert and for Nicolas Fouquet, the influential minister of finance, at Vaux-le-Vicomte in the 1650s made his reputation. His first commission from Louis XIV dates from 1661, when he painted the first of a series of subjects from the life of Alexander the Great. Le Brun was made first painter to the king, given an enormous salary, and until his death occupied a position of paramount importance in the artistic life of France. More on Charles Le Brun

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