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 Apollo and Mercury (mk08) | River View with Trees (mk17) | Wooded View (mk17) | Landscape with a Sacrifice to Apolio (n03) | landscape with the marriage of lsaac and rebecca |
Related Artists:
STUBBS, George
English Romantic Painter, 1724-1806 English painter, draughtsman and printmaker. His study of anatomy enabled him to paint horses, dogs and wild animals with unsurpassed truth to nature, while his innate sense of design enabled him to achieve graceful, rhythmic compositions. His contemporary reputation was chiefly based on portraits of horses and dogs; but he also painted human portraits, conversation pieces and imaginative subjects with animals.
anna dorothea therbusch
1721-82 German painter of Polish descent. She was taught by her father, the portrait painter Georg Lisiewski (1674-1751), and received further training from Antoine Pesne in Paris. She worked for Charles-Eugene, Count of W?rttemberg, in Stuttgart from 1761 to 1762, and for Charles Theodore Wittelsbach, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, in Mannheim from 1763 to 1764. In 1765 she returned, via Stuttgart and Hohenzollern-Hechingen, to Paris, where in 1767 she became a member of the Academie Royale. She met Denis Diderot and Philipp Hackert, both of whom she painted, and Charles-Nicolas Cochin , but, despite consistent support from Prince Galitsyn, she was unable to establish herself in Paris. In 1769 she returned to Berlin where she received commissions for mythological paintings (e.g. Diana and her Nymphs, 1771; Potsdam, Neues Pal.) from Frederick II, King of Prussia. She painted portraits of members of the Prussian court, and the Berlin bourgeoisie, and in 1773 was commissioned by Catherine II, Empress of Russia, to paint a portrait of the Prussian royal family.
Pietro da Cortona
1596-1669 Italian Pietro da Cortona Galleries Italian painter, draughtsman and architect. He was, together with Gianlorenzo Bernini and Franceso Borromini, one of the three leading artists of the Roman Baroque. As a painter he developed the early Baroque style, initiated by Annibale Carracci, to a magnificent and imposing High Baroque. His fresco decorations set a standard for European Baroque painting until they were eclipsed by Giambattista Tiepolo's works and those of other Venetian masters of the 18th century. As an architect Cortona was far less influential. His imaginative designs for fa?ades and stucco decorations were, however, conclusive and independent solutions to problems central to Roman Baroque architecture.