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 :. | landscape with jacob and laban and his daughters | The Judgment of Paris | 2nd third of 17th century | The Embarkation of St Paula in Ostia | Landscape with St Onofrio (mk17) |
Related Artists:
James Baynes
James Baynes (5 April 1766 ?C 12 May 1837) was an English watercolour painter and drawing-master. Little is known of his family apart from the fact that he was born in Lancaster as the song of a local tradesman and was the eldest of six children, his grandfather being a Catholic priest in Kirkby Lonsdale where his father was born. As a boy he showed a love of the arts and had been employed to draw heads and work devices until Dr. Campbell, a local Physician, having seen some of these works sent some sketches to his friend George Romney. The young Baynes was then sent to London to study under Romney at the expense of Dr. Campbell. In 1784, at the age of 18 he became a student at the Royal Academy. He wedded Mary Mann (1766-1845) in 1785 at Marylebone Church, London. Their son, Thomas Mann Baynes (1794-1854), was also became a noted watercolour artist.
Victor Meirelles
Victor Meirelles de Lima (August 18, 1832 -February 22, 1903) was a 19th century painter. He studied art in Paris but painted most of his works in and about his native Brazil. His religious and military paintings helped him become one of the most popular and celebrated Brazilian painters. His The first Mass in Brazil was the first Brazilian painting to be accepted in the Salons of Paris and is one of the most well known paintings in his native country, being reproduced in every book of History for elementary schools.
john D.rockefeller
new york metropolian museum, cloisters collection