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 :. | Sermon on the Mount (mk17) | Port Scene with the Embarkation of St Ursula | Marine with the Trojans Burning their Boats dfg | View of La Crescenza | Embarkation of St Paula Romana at Ostia |
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Sir Edward john poynter,bt.,P.R.A
1836-1919 English painter, draughtsman, decorative designer and museum official. He came from an artistic family: his great-grandfather was Thomas Banks the sculptor, and Ambrose Poynter, his father, was an architect and watercolour painter. Edward began studying art in 1852 under Thomas Shotter Boys, a friend of his father. In 1853-4 Poynter visited Rome, where he was greatly impressed by the large-scale academic painting of Frederic Leighton. Returning to London, he studied at Leigh's Academy and the studio of William Dobson (1817-1898). Poynter entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1855 but his admiration for French painting led him to Charles Gleyre's studio in Paris the following year. He remained there until 1859, with fellow students George Du Maurier, Thomas Armstrong and Whistler; their activities are described in Du Maurier's novel Trilby (1894). At this time Poynter received his first commissions for decorative work. He began designing stained glass and painting furniture and, after his return to England, he was employed by his friend the architect William Burges to decorate the ceiling of Waltham Abbey, Essex, in 1860.
David, Jacques-Louis
French Neoclassical Painter, 1748-1825 Jacques-Louis David is famous for his huge, dramatic canvasses of Napoleon and other historical figures, including Oath of the Horatii (1784), Death of Marat (1793) and The Sabine Women (1799). Early in his career he was a leader in the neoclassical movement; later his subjects became more modern and political. David was himself active in the French Revolution as a supporter of Robespierre and is sometimes called the chief propagandist for the Revolution; after the Reign of Terror ended he was briefly imprisoned for his actions. When Napoleon took power David became his court painter and created several grand canvasses of the Emperor, including the heroic Napoleon Bonaparte Crossing the Alps (1801) and the enormous Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine (1807). David also painted Napoleon in His Study (1812),
impressionist painter
1882-1885