Claude Lorrain
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 :. | Coast Scene with Acis and Galatea (mk17) | Morning | Vedute von Delphi mit einer Opferprozession | Coast Scene with Europa and the Bull | Pastoral Landscape with Piping Shepherd (mk17) | Related Artists: anna maria thelottAnna Maria Thelott, född 1683, död 1710, var en svensk konstnär. Thelott var en av de första självförsörjande och professionella kvinnliga konstnärerna i Skandinavien.
Anna Maria Thelott var dotter till instrumentmakaren och konstnären Philip Jacob Thelott d.ä., som ursprungligen kom från Schweiz, och syster till konstnären Philip Jacob Thelott d.y. Hon arbetade redan som barn sin med far och sina bröder i arbetet med att illustrera Olof Rudbeck d.ä.:s "Campus Elysii" och "Atlantica", och bidrog snart till hushållets försörjning genom att ensam utföra olika konstnärliga arbeten mot betalning, vilket gjorde henne till landets troligen första kvinnliga yrkeskonstnär.
Familjen bodde ursprungligen i Uppsala, men flyttade år 1702 till Stockholm efter den stora stadsbranden då en stor del av Uppsala brann ned.
Thelott var en mångsidig konstnär som var kunnig på en rad områden; hon utförde träsnitt och kopparstick förutom teckning och illustrationer med allegoriska och religiösa motiv, miniatyrer och bilder av djur och landskapsmålningar. Hon utförde elva träsnitt av tyska städer med tillhörande informativ text på uppdrag av Posttidningen år 1706 och anlitades för att illustrera Peringskiölds arbeten.
År 1710 dog Anna Maria Thelott i Stockholm som en av många offer för den sista pesten i Sverige. På Uppsala universitetsbibliotek finns en skissbok av henne utförd 1704-1709. Allan Ramsay1713-1784
British Allan Ramsay Galleries
Allan Ramsay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the eldest son of Allan Ramsay, poet and author of The Gentle Shepherd.
Ramsay's first wife, Anne Bayne, by Ramsay
Ramsay's second wife Margaret Lindsay, by RamsayFrom the age of twenty he studied in London under the Swedish painter Hans Huyssing, and at the St. Martin's Lane Academy; leaving in 1736 for Rome and Naples, where he worked for three years under Francesco Solimena and Imperiali (Francesco Fernandi). On his return in 1738 he first settled in Edinburgh, attracting attention by his head of Duncan Forbes of Culloden and his full-length portrait of the Duke of Argyll, later used on Royal Bank of Scotland banknotes. He later moved to London, where he was employed by the Duke of Bridgewater. His pleasant manners and varied culture, not less than his artistic skill, contributed to render him popular. His only serious competitor was Thomas Hudson, with whom he shared a drapery painter, Joseph van Aken. In 1739 he married his first wife, Anne Bayne, the daughter of a professor of Scots law at Edinburgh, Alexander Bayne of Rires (c.1684?C1737), and Mary Carstairs (1695??C1759). None of their 3 children survived childhood, and she died on 4 February 1743 giving birth to the third of them.
One of his drawing pupils was Margaret Lindsay, eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick and Amelia Murray (granddaughter to David Murray, 5th Viscount of Stormont and sister to the naval officer John Lindsay). He later eloped with her and on 1 March 1752 they married in the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, though her father never forgave her for marrying an artist. Ramsay already had to maintain a daughter from his previous marriage as well as his two surviving sisters, but told Sir Alexander that he could provide Margaret with an annual income of £100 which would increase ??as my affairs increase, and I thank God, they are in a way of increasing?? and that his only motive for the marriage was ??my love for your Daughter, who, I am sensible, is entitled to much more than ever I shall have to bestow upon her??. There were three surviving children from their long and happy marriage, Amelia (1755?C1813), Charlotte (1758?C1818?), and John (1768?C1845).
Ramsay and his new wife spent 1754?C1757 together in Italy, going to Rome, Florence, Naples and Tivoli, researching, painting and drawing old masters, antiquities and archaeological sites, and (to earn an income) painting Grand Tourists' portraits. This and other trips to Italy involved more literary and antiquarian research than art. After their return, he was in 1761 appointed to succeed John Shackelton as Principle Painter in Ordinary to George III, beating Hudson to the post; and so fully employed was he on the royal portraits which the king was in the habit of presenting to ambassadors and colonial governors, that he was forced to take advantage of the services of a host of assistants--of whom David Martin and Philip Reinagle are the best known.
He gave up painting in about 1770 to concentrate on literary pursuits, his health shattered by an accidental dislocation of the right arm and his second wife's death in 1782. With unflinching pertinacity, he struggled until he had completed a likeness of the king upon which he was engaged at the time, and then started for his beloved Italy, leaving behind him a series of fifty royal portraits to be completed by his assistant Reinagle. For several years he lingered in the south, his constitution finally broken. He died at Dover on 10 August 1784. swabian schoolthe lovers
1470
the cleveland museum of art, delia and l.e. holden funds
|
|
|