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 Cephalus and Procris reunited by Diana (mk08) | Marine with the Trojans Burning their Boats dfg | Seaport : The Embarkation of St.Ursula | Harbour Scene at Sunset fg | View from Monte Mario (mk17) |
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Patrick Henry Bruce
American Cubist Painter, 1881-1936 was an American cubist painter. A descendant of Patrick Henry, Bruce was born in Campbell County, Virginia, the second of four children. His family had once owned a huge plantation, Berry Hill, worked by over 3,000 slaves. Berry Hill is now a resort & conference center outside South Boston, Virginia and is now a National Historic Landmark. Berry Hill Estate originally was part of a 105,000-acre (420 km2) tract granted by the English Crown in 1728 to William Byrd II. The Civil War left the Bruce's wealth greatly diminished. Bruce began taking evening classes at the Art Club of Richmond in 1898, while working in a real estate office during the daytime. His earliest known extant painting dates from 1900. In 1902 he moved to New York, where he studied with William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, and Kenneth Hayes Miller. By February 1904 he was in Paris, where he would live until 1933. Although his evolution toward a modernist style was gradual, his works of 1908 reveal the influence of Renoir and C??zanne, and in that year he was among the first to enroll in Matisse's school. Bruce exhibited regularly in the Salon d'Automne, and met many of the leading artists of the early twentieth century avant garde.
Girolamo da Carpi
(1501-1556) was an Italian painter and decorator who worked at the Court of the House of Este in Ferrara. He began painting in Ferrara, by report apprenticing to Benvenuto Tisi (il Garofalo); but by age 20, he had moved to Bologna, and is considered a figure of Early Renaissance painting of the local Bolognese School. He trained in the studio of a local painter who showed the influence of Lorenzo Costa and Raphael. In the 1520s Girolamo visited Rome and Bologna and was inspired by the Mannerist style of Giulio Romano. Geographically and stylistically he straddles the various influences. He returned to Ferrara and collaborated with Dosso Dossi and Garofalo among others on commissions for the d'Este family. Girolamo became the architect to Pope Julius III in 1550 and supervised the remodeling of the Vatican's belvedere. Returning to Ferrara, he was charged of the enlargements of the Castello Estense. Da Carpi's paintings include a Descent of the Holy Spirit, in the church of St Francis at Rovigo; a Madonna, an Adoration of the Magi, and a St. Catharine at Bologna; and the St. George and the St. Jerome at Ferrara.
William Ludwell Sheppard
American, 1833-1912