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 :. | River View with Trees (mk17) | Port Scene with the Embarkation of St Ursula | View from Monte Mario (mk17) | The Harbor of Baiae with Apollo and the Cumaean Sibyl | Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba (mk17 |
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August Ahlborn
(October 11, 1796 - August 24, 1857) was a German landscape painter. Ahlborn was born in Hanover, and studied with Karl Wilhelm Wach in Berlin. He went to Italy in 1827, where he converted to Roman Catholicism, and lived in Florence, Ascoli, and Rome. He painted mainly Italian landscapes, but also some Nordic ones, as well as a few portraits and religious works. He died in Rome in 1857.
SERRA, Pedro
Spanish painter active 1363-1399
Ernest Lawson
1873-1939 Ernest Lawson Galleries Ernest Lawson (March 22, 1873 ?C December 18, 1939) was a Canadian-American painter and a member of The Eight, a group of artists which included the group's leader Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, George Luks, and William J. Glackens. Lawson was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Though Lawson mostly painted landscapes, he also did some realistic urban scenes which were shown at the 1908 exihibition of The Eight. His painting style is heavily influenced by Impressionism, especially the style of John Henry Twachtman, Alfred Sisley, and J. Alden Weir. Lawson exhibited as a member of the Canadian Art Club from 1911 to 1915. He died in Miami Beach, Florida in 1939.