Hyre, Laurent de la

(1606-1656)

   French painter; one of the founding members of the French Academy (1648). La Hyre's early works were influenced by Francesco Primaticcio and the Fontainebleau School, this followed by a Caravaggist phase. In his mature years, he adopted a more classicized style similar to that of Nicolas Poussin and Eustache Le Seur, his competitor. The elongated forms of his Hercules and Omphale (c. 1638; Heidelberg, Kurpfâlzisches Museum) and their overstated poses belong to La Hyre's Mannerist stage. His Allegory of the Regency of Anne of Austria (1648; Versailles, Musée du Château) is a mature work with rich tones of blue, red, and gold common to his art. The work is an allegory of the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War. It shows France seated and crowned by Victory. Peace, depicted as a young boy, burns the weapons and armors of war, while the hovering Fame blows her trumpet to announce the end of hostilities and France's victory. To the same period belongs his Cornelia Refusing the Crown of Ptolemy (1646; Budapest, Museum of Fine Art), a scene filled with classicized figures and setting, the story told through elegant rhetorical gestures. La Hyre also rendered a number of poetic landscapes, among them Diana and Her Nymphs (1644; Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum) and Laban Searching Jacob's Baggage for the Stolen Idols (1647; Paris, Louvre). These works were rendered at a time when landscape was becoming as important as other genres, and La Hyre did much to contribute to its rise.