French 1600-1682 Claude Lorrain Galleries In Rome, not until the mid-17th century were landscapes deemed fit for serious painting. Northern Europeans, such as the Germans Elsheimer and Brill, had made such views pre-eminent in some of their paintings (as well as Da Vinci in his private drawings or Baldassarre Peruzzi in his decorative frescoes of vedute); but not until Annibale Carracci and his pupil Domenichino do we see landscape become the focus of a canvas by a major Italian artist. Even with the latter two, as with Lorrain, the stated themes of the paintings were mythic or religious. Landscape as a subject was distinctly unclassical and secular. The former quality was not consonant with Renaissance art, which boasted its rivalry with the work of the ancients. The second quality had less public patronage in Counter-Reformation Rome, which prized subjects worthy of "high painting," typically religious or mythic scenes. Pure landscape, like pure still-life or genre painting, reflected an aesthetic viewpoint regarded as lacking in moral seriousness. Rome, the theological and philosophical center of 17th century Italian art, was not quite ready for such a break with tradition. In this matter of the importance of landscape, Lorrain was prescient. Living in a pre-Romantic era, he did not depict those uninhabited panoramas that were to be esteemed in later centuries, such as with Salvatore Rosa. He painted a pastoral world of fields and valleys not distant from castles and towns. If the ocean horizon is represented, it is from the setting of a busy port. Perhaps to feed the public need for paintings with noble themes, his pictures include demigods, heroes and saints, even though his abundant drawings and sketchbooks prove that he was more interested in scenography. Lorrain was described as kind to his pupils and hard-working; keenly observant, but an unlettered man until his death. The painter Joachim von Sandrart is an authority for Claude's life (Academia Artis Pictoriae, 1683); Baldinucci, who obtained information from some of Claude's immediate survivors, relates various incidents to a different effect (Notizie dei professoni del disegno). John Constable described Claude Lorrain as "the most perfect landscape painter the world ever saw", and declared that in Claude??s landscape "all is lovely ?C all amiable ?C all is amenity and repose; the calm sunshine of the heart"  Related Paintings of Claude Lorrain :. | Landscape with Abraham Expelling Hagar (mk17) | Trees (mk17) | The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba | Port with the Ville Medici (mk17) | Landscape with Aeneas at Delos |
Related Artists:
CAMASSEI, Andrea
Italian painter, Roman school (b. 1602, Bevagna, d. 1649, Roma) Andrea Camassei (1602-1649) was an Italian painter of the Baroque, who was mainly active in Rome under the patronage of the Barberini. He was born in Bevagna. He was active in painting in the Palazzo Barberini as well as in Antonio Barberini's favored church, Santa Maria della Concezione, where he painted the Assumption of the Virgin on the dome. His training was under Domenichino, but he also labored under the direction of Sacchi and Pietro da Cortona. He painted a Triumph of Constantine for the Baptistery of the Lateran Palace. He painted for the Taddeo Barberini, two large canvases (1638-39) depicting Massacre of the Niobids and Hunt of Diana. He also painted a Saints Bonaventura, Bernardino & Ludovico da Tolosa for Santa Caterina in Rapecchiano (Spello).
Jan Adam Kruseman
Petrus Augustus de Genestet (P.A. de Genestet) (Amsterdam, November 21, 1829 - Rozendaal, July 2, 1861) was a Dutch poet and a theologian. Petrus Augustus de Genestet lost both of his parents at a very young age; after that he lived with his uncle, the Dutch painter Jan Adam Kruseman. He studied at the Amsterdamse Atheneum and the Seminarium der Remonstrantse Broederschap to become a preacher. He became minister in March of 1852 at the Genestetkerk (Genestetchurch) that was named after him, in Delft. In the same year he got married to Henriette Bienfait in Bloemendaal. They had two children. In 1859, he lost both his wife and oldest child died of tubercolosis, and because of his poor health he had to quit working as a minister. He moved to Amsterdam, but spent most of his summers in Bloemendaal. Two years later, in 1861, he died in Rozendaal.
Francesco Traini
Italian Byzantine Style Painter, active 1321-1363