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 :. | Paisaje de un puerto | Landscape with Goatherd | Aeneas-s Farewell to Dido in Carthago | Port with the Ville Medici (mk17) | Concordia (mk17) |
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Jean-Baptiste Capronnier
(1814-1891) was a Belgian stained glass painter. Born in Brussels in 1814, he had much to do with the modern revival of glass-painting, and first made his reputation by his study of the old methods of workmanship, and his clever restorations of old examples, and copies made for the Brussels archaeological museum. He carried out windows for various churches in Brussels (including the Église Royale Sainte-Marie), Bruges, Amsterdam and elsewhere, and his work was commissioned also for France, Italy and England. At the Paris Exhibition of 1855 he won the only medal given for glasspainting. He died in Brussels in 1891.
PENCZ, Georg
German Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1500-1550 German painter, draughtsman and engraver. He arrived in Nuremberg in 1523 and entered Albrecht D?rer's workshop. On 12 January 1525 he was imprisoned with the brothers Barthel Beham and Sebald Beham and charged with disseminating the radical views of Thomas M?ntzer (c. 1490-1525) concerning religion and government. The council banished them from Nuremberg, but, after an appeal and intercession by Graf Albrecht von Mansfeld, Pencz was sent to nearby Windsheim, and on 16 November all three were pardoned, though placed under orders regarding their future behaviour.
Marco Ricci
(5 June 1676 - 1730) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He was the nephew of Sebastiano Ricci. After receiving his first instruction in art from his uncle, he visited Rome, where he was for some years occupied in drawing vedute. Ricci was born at Belluno. In 1710 he came to England with his uncle, and his vedute of ruins and architecture (capricci) found many patrons. Marco Ricci etched several plates from his own designs, consisting of views and landscapes, with ruins and figures, including a set of twenty-three prints, entitled Varia Marci Ricci Pictoris priestantissimi experimenta ab ipsomet auctore inventa, delineata atque incisa, et a me Carolo Orsolini Veneto incisore in unum collecta, c. Anno 1730, Venetiis. He died in Venice.