FRESNOY, CHARLES ALPHONSE DU, a French painter and writer on art, was born at Paris in 1611. His father, who was an apothecary, intended him for the medical profession, and educated him with that view. Contrary to the wishes of this parent, Du Fresnoy began the study of art, and having gone to Rome to perfect himself, was reduced to great straits, from being compelled to procure his own subsistence. The arrival of his old fellow-student Mignard at length enabled him to prosecute his studies in peace, and the two artists now spent all their time in copying the great masterpieces of the Farnese gallery. In 1656 Du Fresnoy returned to France, where he remained till his death in 1665. His pictures, which are not very numerous, are more remarkable for correctness of drawing and colour than force or originality of conception, and would never of themselves have preserved Du Fresnoy's name. His poem De Arte Graphica is the work by which he is best known. It is written in Latin verse, and has had the good fortune to be translated into most of the European tongues. There are three English versions of it; one in prose by Dryden; the second in verse by Wills, himself an artist; and the third, by Mason, in rhyme. A sort of factitious interest centres in this last version, which was annotated by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The work itself, which is a sort of critical treatise on the practice of painting, is dry, and scarcely relieved by even an occasional gleam of sentiment or fancy.