Art: Official Artist

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By the end of his life at 70, in the late years of the "splendid century," the romantic rebellion against Le Brun's classicism had already begun, foreshadowed by his own experiments with the portrayal of emotion. Academism was coming increasingly under fire, and critics accused Le Brun of stifling originality for the sake of royal favors; they said that no one could have such success and maintain standards of quality. What they forgot was the sweeping unity of art that Le Brun was able to impose on France in an era whose splendor was measured not in flashes of light but in the glow of good taste.