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 :. | Ostermorgen | Pastoral Landscape | Coast Scene with Europa and the Bull | Moses Rescued from the Waters | Vedute von Delphi mit einer Opferprozession |
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Stettheimer Florine
American Painter, 1871-1944 was an American artist. She has been described as "a Deco-influenced early Modernist who??s never really gotten her due". Stettheimer was born in Rochester, New York to a wealthy family. She spent much of her early life traveling, studying art in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and Switzerland. She studied for three years in the mid-1890s at the Art Students League in New York, but came into her own artistically upon her permanent return to New York after the start of World War I. In October 1916, the only one-person exhibition of her work during her lifetime took place at New York's Knoedler & Company. She exhibited 12 "high-keyed, decorative paintings", none of which were sold. Cushioned by family resources, Stettheimer refrained from self-promotion and considered her painting "an entirely private pursuit". She intended to have her works destroyed after her death, a wish defied by her sister Henrietta, her executor. Stettheimer's privileged position pervades her work. As one critic has written, "money she regarded as a birthright, decidedly not something to be flaunted in the shape of a dozen yachts, but rather to be used as a palliative against the more unpleasant aspects of the world outside
Giovanni Domenico Cerrini
(1609-1681), also called Gian Domenico Cerrini or il Cavalier Perugino, was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Rome and influenced in large part by painter of the Bolognese School. Born in Perugia, Cerrini initially apprenticed under Giovanni Antonio Scaramuccia, then in 1638 moved into the Roman studio of Guido Reni, but strongly influenced by Lanfranco, Guercino, Domenichino, and Andrea Sacchi. He was patronized by the family of Cardinal Bernardino Spada. Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi gave him the commission to decorate the cupola of Santa Maria della Vittoria (1654-5). His style has the monumental clarity of Domenichino, but somewhat sapped of vitality. Paintings of his can be found in many of the churches of Rome, where he died, including Santa Maria in Traspontina, San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane, Chiesa Nuova, San Carlo ai Catinari, Santissimo Sudario dei Piemontesi, Sant??Isidoro, as well as in Galleria Colonna, Palazzo Spada, and the Palazzo Corsini art gallery.
Giovanni Domenico Ferretti
1692-1768 Italian Giovanni Domenico Ferretti Location Italian painter. He was the son of the goldsmith Antonio di Giovanni da Imola and Margherita di Domenico Gori. His mother family, which included her brother, the antiquarian ANTONIO FRANCESCO GORI, was extremely influential in Florence and proved very important for Ferretti. In the first years of his life he lived in Imola, where he was sent to study (1708) with the local painter Francesco Chiusuri. After the family moved to Florence, Ferretti was taught there by Tommaso Redi and Sebastiano Galeotti. Later he spent five years in Bologna, an important centre for the practice and teaching of academic painting, where, in the workshop of Felice Torelli, his work acquired its characteristic style.