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 :. | The Judgment of Paris | Ascanius shooting the stag of sylvia | Aeneas-s Farewell to Dido in Carthago | Landscape with Isaac and Rebecka brollop | lenbskap med nymfen egeria |
Related Artists:
William Sidney Mount
1807-1868 William Sidney Mount Galleries William Sidney Mount (November 26, 1807 ?C November 19, 1868) born in Setauket, New York was a renowned genre painter and contemporary of the Hudson River School. Mount trained at the National Academy of Design in New York. Two of his more famous paintings are Eel Spearing at Setauket (1845, New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown) and Bargaining for a Horse (1835, New-York Historical Society, New York City). Beginning as a history painter, Mount moved to depicting scenes from everyday life. The largest collection of his works is located in The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages His home and studio, the William Sidney Mount House, is a National Historic Landmark. One of the local elementary schools in The Three Village Central School District is named in his honor, as is PS 174 elementary school in Rego Park, Queens. A residential building is named after him on the Stony Brook University campus.
Alexander Davis cooper
fl.1837-1888
Aelbert Cuyp
1620-1691 Dutch Aelbert Cuyp Locations Painter and draughtsman, son of Jacob Cuyp. One of the most important landscape painters of 17th-century Netherlands, he combined a wide range of sources and influences, most notably in the application of lighting effects derived from Italianate painting to typical Dutch subjects. Such traditional themes as townscapes, winter scenes, cattle pieces and equestrian portraits were stylistically transformed and given new grandeur. Aelbert was virtually unknown outside his native town, and his influence in the 17th century was negligible. He became popular in the late 18th century, especially in England.