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 Abraham Expelling Hagar (mk17) | Sunset Sketchbook (mk17) | Coast Scene with Europa and the Bull | Landscape with Merchants sdfg | The Sermon on the mount |
Related Artists:
BRESCIANINO, Andrea del
Italian painter (b. ca. 1487, Ferrara, d. after 1524, Ferrara)
COURTOIS, Jacques
French Baroque Era Painter, 1621-1676 was a French painter. He was born at Saint-Hippolyte, near Besançon. His father was a painter, and with him Jacques remained studying up to the age of fifteen. Towards 1637 he went to Italy, was received at Milan by a Burgundian gentleman, and entered, and for three years remained in the French military service. The sight of some battle-pictures revived his taste for fine art. He went to Bologna, and studied under the friendly tutelage of Guido Reni; thence he proceeded to Rome, where he painted, in the Cistercian monastery, the "Miracle of the Loaves." Here he took a house and after a while entered upon his own characteristic style of art, that of battle-painting, in which he has been accounted to excel all other old masters; his merits were cordially recognized by the celebrated Cerquozzi, named Michelangelo delle Battaglie. He soon rose from penury to ease, and married a painter's daughter, Maria Vagini; she died after seven years of wedded life. Prince Matthias of Tuscany employed Courtois on some striking works in his villa, Lappeggio, representing with much historical accuracy the princes military exploits. In Venice also the artist executed for the senator Sagredo some remarkable battle-pieces. In Florence he entered the Society of Jesus, taking the habit in Rome in 1655; it was calumniously rumoured that he adopted this course in order to escape punishment for having poisoned his wife. As a Jesuit Brother, Courtois painted many works in churches and monasteries of the society. He lived piously in Rome, and died there of apoplexy on 20 May 1676 (some accounts say 1670 or 1671). His battle-pieces have movement and fire, warm colouring (now too often blackened), and great command of the brush, those of moderate dimensions are the more esteemed. They are slight in execution, and tell out best from a distance.
antoine pesne
Antoine Pesne, född 23 maj 1683 i Paris, Frankrike, död 5 augusti 1757 i Berlin, Preussen, var en fransk målare under rokokon. Pesne gick i lära hos sin far, målaren Thomas Pesne, samt hos Charles de la Fosse i Paris. Under åren 1705?C1710 företog han en resa i Italien och vistades huvudsakligen i Venedig, där han anslöt sig till Andrea Celesti, vars måleri tydligt påverkade Pesnes tidiga verk. 1710 kallades han av kung Fredrik I av Preussen till Berlin som hovmålare. Därefter företog han under de följande åren kortare resor till hoven i Dessau (1715), Dresden (1718), London (1723) och Paris (1724). 1733 utnämndes Pesne till ledare för konstakademin i Berlin. Han anses vara en viktig förmedlare av den franska konsten till Brandenburg-Preussen. Pesne var i huvudsak verksam som porträttmålare, men han utförde även talrika vägg- och takmålningar för Fredrik den store i de kungliga slotten. Ett av Pesnes mest berömda konstverk är Dansösen Barbara Campanini (cirka 1745). Detta porträtt med sin lätta och schvungfulla formgivning, det spontana penseldraget och de ljusa, pastelliknande färgerna är karakteristiskt för Pesnes arbeten och för rokokon i allmänhet. På ett virtuost sätt framställer Pesne den med tygblommor dekorerade sidenklänningen. Fredrik den store uppskattade sin hovmålares berömda plein-air-porträtt och lät hänga det på en framträdande plats i sitt arbetsrum i slottet i Berlin.