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 :. | View of the Aventine in Rome (mk17) | Landscape with Ascanius Shooting the Stag (mk17) | The Sermon on the mount | Landscape with Paris and Oenone fdg | The Expulsion of Hagar |
Related Artists:
Frans Jansz van Mierisi
1635-1681 Dutch Frans Jansz van Mierisi Gallery
Cristobal Rojas
Cristobal Rojas (Cua, Miranda, 15 December 1857 e Caracas, 8 November 1890) was one of the most important and high-profile Venezuelan painters of the 19th century. Rojas's styles varied considerably throughout his life, and he displayed talents in painting that ranged primarily for dramatic effect, to works done in the Impressionist style. Cristebal Rojas Poleo was born in the city of Cea in the Valles del Tuy to parents who worked in the medical profession. Part of his childhood occurred during the middle of the federal war (1859 - 1863) and Cea was particularly affected by the events of the war. He initiated studies under his grandfather, Jose Luis Rojas, who taught him how to draw and motivated him to improve. At 13 years old, his father died and he was forced to begin work in a tobacco factory in Cea to help support his family. In 1878, an earthquake devastated the Valles del Tuy region, and the Rojas faced poverty. As a result he moved to Caracas where he continued his painting studies, despite again having to work in the tobacco industry to support his mother and family. In Caracas he attended classes by Jose Manuel Mauco at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Between 1880 and 1882, he developed a keen interest in oils and displayed a primitive technique that would prevail in his later paintings such as Ruinas de Cea despues del Terremoto and Ruinas del templo de la Merced. During this time he became acquainted with the painter Antonio Herrera Toro, also coming under contract as Toro's assistant to paint Caracas Cathedral.
Elioth Gruner
New Zealand-born Australian Painter, 1882-1939,Australian painter. The son of a Norwegian father and Irish mother, he came to Sydney from New Zealand with his family in 1883. He received his first art lessons from Julian Rossi Ashton, although for many years he had little time for painting, instead working to support his family. He finally achieved recognition as an artist around the beginning of World War I. Following successful sales he became a full-time painter, championed in Sydney as the exemplary heir to the impressionist pastoral tradition of Australian art, which had been established in the late 19th century. Between 1915 and 1920, under the influence of Max Meldrum, he focused on the landscape as seen against the light. Painting en plein air he specialized in effects of early morning, for example Morning Light (1916; Sydney, A.G. NSW), one of a series painted at Emu Plains (1915-19),