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 :. | Village Fete | Landscape with Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Silvia | Landscape with Cephalus and Procris reunited by Diana | Port Scene with the Embarkation of St Ursula | Landscape Pen drawing and wash (mk17) |
Related Artists:
George Rowlandson
Br.19th
Alexandre Roubtzoff
Russian, 1884-1949
helga ancher
född 19 augusti 1883 i Skagen, död 18 mars 1964 i Skagen, var en dansk konstnär (målare). Helga Ancher var dotter till konstnärerna Anna och Michael Ancher och förekommer som barn ofta som motiv i föräldrarnas målningar. Helga kom sedermera själv att utbilda sig till målare och studerade bland annat på Konstakademien i Köpenhamn samt i Tyskland, Frankrike och Italien. Även om hon aldrig blev blev lika känd för sin konst som sina föräldrar har en del av hennes tavlor kommit att betinga höga värden på auktioner. Föräldrarnas hem i Skagen lät Helga Ancher efter moderns död 1935 bevara i det skick det hade då och skänkte sedermera detta till en stiftelse, vilken 1967 kunde öppna konstnärsbostaden som museum.