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 :. | Pastoral Landscape | Vedute von Delphi mit einer Opferprozession | Landscape with a the Penitent Magdalen | Landscape with Shepherds fdg | Seated Woman and Plants (mk17) |
Related Artists:
Pehr Hillestrom
Swedish, 1732-1816,was a Swedish artist and since 1794 a professor at the Swedish Royal Academy of Art. He became the director in 1810. He produced numerous paintings of mostly women and children performing various daily tasks inside upper- and middle-class homes in Stockholm. Dresses and furniture were painted exactly the way they looked and provide a valuable source of information about what life was like in those days. In addition to this he painted craftsmen in action at mills and other early industrial workplaces. Between 1757 and 1772 he worked as a master tapestry weaver, after learning the trade in France.
Ary de Vois
was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Ary de Vois was the son of Alewijn de Vois from Utrecht, who was organist in the Pieterskerk, Leiden, in 1635. Ary became a pupil in Utrecht of Nikolaus Knepfer, who also taught Jan Steen. Ary then returned to Leiden to study with Abraham van den Tempel, who lived there between 1648 and 1660. De Vois joined the Leiden Guild of St Luke on 16 October 1653, paying dues until 1677. He was dean in 1662-64, headman in 1664-65 and dean again from 1667-68. He married Maria van der Vecht, on 5 February 1656. According to Houbraken his marriage caused a lull in his production, especially when he moved to Warmond where he took up fishing as a hobby. He had to move back to Leiden in order to keep his production levels high
Domingo Garcia y Vasquez
painted Ponta do Cavalao - Niteroi in 1883