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 :. | Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba | Moses Rescued from the Waters | henri 11 of lorraine | lenbskap med nymfen egeria | Morning in the Harbour |
Related Artists:
GOES, Hugo van der
Netherlandish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1440-1482 South Netherlandish painter. In 1467 he enrolled as master in the Ghent painters' guild, sponsored by Joos van Wassenhove, master painter in Ghent in 1464 after registering in Antwerp in 1460. In 1469 the two together acted as guarantors for the illuminator Sanders Bening when he became a master, and it was from Hugo that Joos borrowed money when he went to Rome. Sanders Bening was married to Kathelijn van der Goes, perhaps Hugo's sister. Hugo's status within the guild is further attested by the fact that he was guarantor for two other painters in 1471 and 1475, that he was one of the dean's jurors in 1468-9 and that he himself served as dean from towards the end of 1473-4 to at least 18 August 1475.
Albert Bierdstadt
painted Bernese Alps in 1859
Vilhelm Melbye
(14 May 1824 - 6 October 1882) was a Danish marine artist, the brother of Anton Melbye and Fritz Melbye. He worked in London from 1853 to 1866 and, over the course of his career, painted seascapes, coastal and harbor scenes, sailing vessels and topographical subjects in many parts of Europe, especially in the Mediterranean region. Knud Frederik Vilhelm Hannibal Melbye was born on 14 May 1824 in Elsinore, Denmark. He first trained to become a merchant but then turned to painting, studying under his older brother Anton, already an established marine painter, and attending the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1844 to 1847. He also took private classes in perspective drawing with Carl Dahl. In 1847, he went on his first journey, to Iceland aboard the corvette Valkyrien, and the following year he traveled to Paris by way of Desseldorf. In Paris he studied with Theodore Gudin (1802 - 1880) before returning to Denmark in 1849. From 1853 to 1866, he lived in London and it was here he changed his name from Vilhelm to Wilhelm. He was appointed Professor at the academy in Copenhagen in 1880 but died in 1882 in Roskilde. He is interred at Assistens Cemetery in Copenhagen.