Nicolas Poussin was a French painter. His work served as a substitute to the Baroque style of the 17th century. His work mainly exuded themes of tragedy and death. His style is distinct in Baroque art. Unlike the exciting vivacity of Rubens, Poussin’s style of painting is cerebral, cool, detached and intellectual as compared to any other artist of the Baroque. Nicolas Poussin’s style of painting was characterized by warm, sensual colors imbued with the classical Baroque dynamism and energy. His paintings have notable strong contours revealing his interest in antique and draftsmanship. In addition to this, his paintings were theatrical and, every rhetorical gesture and expression was necessary in order to give the artwork meaning. He also used cool colors in his paintings. He believed color set the mood of the painting an also affected the light that hit and reflected from the painting. His use of color to give a calculated specific effect to his paintings intrigued many. His paintings incorporated a frieze like the composition and, he believed that each element of a painting psychologically influenced the viewer’s perception of the art piece. His preparatory sketches were unfinished and voluminous, and then he would sketch other dozen or so versions of the final product theme. This would vary the composition used; the light and poses.
Ruben was a Flemish Baroque painter who emphasized on the presence of movement, sensuality and color in paintings. His paintings were not just mature, but also realistic and very reflective. He clearly understood classical art as well as the transition art underwent from Renaissance art to classical art and finally Baroque art. His art also represented aspects of action and emotion. He usually combined this with a very strong contrast of both the dark and light colors. For preparation, he used oil sketches. His drawings were extremely forceful; however, he paid little attention to detail. Therefore, he used drawings and oil sketches to perform his preparatory studies. This was contrary to what Poussin believed in doing. In addition to this, he was one of the last artists to use of wooden panels consistently as a medium of support. Medium this was applicable to very large works as well. However, he used canvas occasionally.