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Early Life
Two traditions exist about Claude's early training (he was the third of
five sons). Sandrart claimed that he was originally apprenticed to a pastry
cook; Baldinucci claimed that he began in the studio of his elder brother,
a wood engraver in Strasbourg.
Classical Landscape Under Agostino Tassi
However, his significant training began
in Italy where he had arrived by 1615. He may have worked for the German
painter Gottfried Wals in Naples for the first two years. The first certain
evidence is his apprenticeship to Agostino Tassi (1580-1644) in Rome in
1618. He stayed with this artist until 1625. Tassi was a major influence
on the formation of Claude's style. As a decorative landscape painter
working predominately in fresco, his art was firmly based on the classical
traditions of landscape. It used the elements of landscape and coast scenes,
with pastoral, biblical, or mythlogical figures, architecture and shipping.
All these themes are to be found later in the work of Claude.
One must remember that in 17th century
Counter-Reformation Rome, the philosophical centre of Italian art and
a city still strongly influenced by the high-mindedness of Renaissance
art, landscape as an independent subject was not taken seriously.
Ranked four out of five in the Hierarchy
of the Genres, it lacked the aesthetic and ethical value of the top
painting genres - History Painting and Portraiture. To overcome this,
landscape artists like Claude injected mythological narrative and noble
themes to their pictures, in order to add extra seriousness.
Recognition
After his return to Italy in 1627 Claude
received commissions for frescos in the Palaces of certain High Churchmen
in Rome. However, he quickly abandoned this medium in favour of easel
painting. His patrons remained drawn from aristrocatic circles - the Medici,
Cardinal Bentivoglio, Pope Urban VIII, Philip IV of Spain. In this he
differed from his contemporary, Poussin, whose paintings were generally
commissioned by the intellectual bourgeoisie.
First Period: Seascapes, Landscapes
In his first period, up to the 1640s, Claude
produced many seascapes and landscapes which greatly developed the rather
schematic compositions of the landscapes of Tassi and Paul Bril (1554-1626).
He succeeded in connecting the planes of his compositions by subtle aerial
gradations which achieved real unity of atmosphere. His landscapes are
suffused with light - a result of his observations of nature, also evidenced
in the many studies he made in the open air. He was the first to attempt
to depict the sun on canvas and to explore its effects as accurately as
possible.
Second Period: Greater Emphasis on Mythological
Elements
In his second period, from the 1640s until his death, Claude's naturalism
is increasingly affected by a classical humanist feeling. This derives
from his study of the art of Domenichino (1581-1641) and of Annibale Carracci
(1560-1609), especially as seen in the latter's contributions to frescoes
in the Palazzo Aldobrandini, Rome (c.1604). His artistic purpose became
more ambitious with the inclusion of specific subjects drawn from Classical
mythology or the Bible. His compositions were more posed and complicated
than the earlier pastorals, and can be considered as fully historical:
the form of the landscape depends directly on the significance of the
subject matter, and the figures play an integral part in the composition.
This mature style is brilliantly represented by pictures such as Landscape
with Dancers (1669; Hermitage museum, Leningrad) and View of Carthage
(1676; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg) in which Claude has manipulated
the figures and the scenery with great dramatic effect.
In search of a more severe, epic style, Claude turned for inspiration
to Virgil's Aeneid which increasingly suited his mood towards the end
of his life. The last paintings achieve a supreme blend of poetic feeling
and decorative skill equal in sublimity to that of the Classical poet.
There is no perceptible falling off in technical ability or his sublime
use of colour tones. The acceptance
of the qualities of Mannerism now allow his very personal handling of
his figures to be recognized as an essential ingredient of his art, and
not as the failing they had for long been considered. This is quite evident
in his last painting, Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Silvia (1682;
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), painted in his 82nd year.
Works
Throughout his career, Claude kept a careful record of his compositions
and his patrons in the so-called Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth).
This is a chronological series of drawings
in pen and ink of his major commissions and are as remarkable an achievement
as his paintings. About 50 percent are studies from nature. Drawn freely
in chalk or pen ink and wash, they are more spontaneous than his paintings
or studio drawings and comprise a collection of informal motifs - trees,
ruins, waterfalls, parts of meadows or riverside views in sunlight - that
Claude witnessed on his sketching expeditions in the Italian Campagna.
Claude's vision of the Classical world was quite different in conception
to that of Poussin, the artist who worked most closely to him during his
life. The latter's landscapes are intellectual constructs that depend
directly on the imagination of the artist. The landscapes of Claude, while
no less ideal, are rooted in his observation of the natural world. It
was this quality that made his art of such consistent appeal to later
generations, especially to those who fell under the spell of the Classical
terrain of Italy. In 18th-century England this admiration was translated
by the aristocracy and landed gentry into real terms in the Classical
arrangement of their parks. But above all, he remained a painter of nature,
which was why the great John
Constable - one of the key figures in the English
School of Landscape painting - described Claude Lorrain as "the
most perfect landscape painter the world ever saw". Claude was also
much admired by Dutch Realists like Aelbert
Cuyp.
Paintings by Claude Lorrain
One of the greatest of 17th century Old
Masters, works by Claude Lorrain hang in many of the world's best
art museums, as can be seen from the following list of his major canvases.
- Landscape with Cattle and Peasants (1629)
Philadelphia Museum of Art.
- Landscape with Merchants (1630) National Gallery of Art, Washington
DC.
- Landscape with Goatherd (1636) National Gallery, London.
- The Ford (1636) Metropolitan Museum, New York.
- Port with Villa Medici (1637) Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
- Finding of Moses (1638) Prado Museum, Madrid.
- Pastoral Landscape (1638) Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
- Seaport (1639) National Gallery, London.
- Seaport at Sunset (1639) Louvre, Paris.
- View of Campagna (1639) Royal Collection, London.
- Embarkation of Saint Paula Romana at Ostia (1639) Prado Museum, Madrid.
- The Embarkation of St. Ursula (1641) National Gallery, London.
- Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba (1648) National Gallery, London.
- The Disembarkation of Cleopatra at Tarsus (1642) Louvre, Paris.
- The Trojan Women Setting Fire to their Fleet (1643) The Met, NY.
- View of Tivoli at Sunset (1644) San Francisco Museum of Art.
- Mercury Stealing Apollo's Oxen (1645) Galleria Doria-Pamphilj, Rome.
- Landscape w. Cephalus and Procris reunited by Diana (1645) London.
- The Judgement of Paris (1645-46) National Gallery of Art, Washington
DC.
- Sunrise (1646-47) Metropolitan Museum, New York.
- Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac & Rebekah (1648) London.
- Landscape with Paris and Oenone (1648) Louvre, Paris.
- View of La Crescenza (1648-50) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
- Landscape with Dancing Figures (1648) Galleria Doria-Pamphili, Rome.
- View of La Crescenza (1648-50) Metropolitan Museum, New York.
- The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1651-61) The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
- Landscape with Acis and Galatea (1657) Gemaldegalerie, Dresden.
- Landscape with Apollo and Mercury (1660) Wallace Collection, London.
- Coast Scene with the Rape of Europa (1667) Royal Collection, London.
- The Expulsion of Hagar (1668) Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
- Seaport (1674) Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
- Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Sylvia (1682) Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
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