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 :. | Landschaft mit Apollo und Merkur | The Judgment of Paris | The Trojan Women Setting Fire to their Fleet | Rest on the Flight into Egypt (mk17) | Landscape with Cephalus and Procris Reunited by Diana sdf |
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Charles Wellington Furse
(January 13, 1868 - October 16, 1904) was an English painter. He was born at Staines, the son of the Rev. C. W. Furse, archdeacon of Westminster, and rector of St John's, Smith Square and descended collaterally from Sir Joshua Reynolds; and in his short span of life achieved such rare excellence as a portrait and figure painter that he forms an important link in the chain of British portraiture which extends from the time when Van Dyck was called to the court of Charles I into the 20th century. His talent was precocious; at the age of seven he gave indications of it in a number of drawings illustrating Scott's novels. He entered the Slade School in 1884, winning the Slade scholarship in the following year, and completed his education at Julians Atelier in Paris. Hard worker as he was, his activity was frequently interrupted by spells of illness, for he had developed signs of consumption when he was still attending the Slade school. An important canvas called Cain was his first contribution (1888) to the Royal Academy, to the associateship of which he was elected in the year of his death. For some years before he had been a staunch supporter of the New English Art Club, to the exhibitions of which he was a regular contributor. In October 1900 he married Katharine Symonds, the daughter of John Addington Symonds. She later became known as Dame Katharine Furse. The couple had 2 sons. His fondness for sport and of an open-air life found expression in his art and introduced a new, fresh and vigorous note into portraiture. There is never a suggestion of the studio or of the fatiguing pose in his portraits. The sitters appear unconscious of being painted, and are generally seen in the pursuit of their favourite outdoor sport or pastime, in the full enjoyment of life. Such are the Diana of the Uplands, the Lord Roberts and The Return from the Ride at the Tate Gallery; the four children in the Cubbing with the York and Ainsty, The Lilac Gown, Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Fishing and the portraits of Lord Charles Beresford and William Johnson Cory. Most of these pictures, and indeed nearly all the work completed in the few years of Furse's activity, show a pronounced decorative tendency. His sense of space, composition and decorative design can best be judged by his admirable mural decorations for Liverpool town hall, executed between 1899 and 1902. A memorial exhibition of Furse's paintings and sketches was held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1906.
Jensen Johan
Danish 1800-1856
Max Klinger
German Symbolist Painter and Sculptor, 1857-1920 German painter, printmaker, sculptor and writer. He was one of the most versatile German artistic personalities of the turn of the 20th century and was especially celebrated for his cycles of prints, which were influential.