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 a Sacrifice to Apolio (n03) | Landscape with Rest in Flight to Egypt fg | St Peter's (mk17) | Ulysses Returns Chryseis to her Father vgh | The Rest on the Flight into Egypt |
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Joseph Denis Odevaere
1778-1830,Flemish painter. He attended evening classes at the Bruges Academie in 1794-5 and then went to Paris, where he entered the studio of the Bruges artist Joseph-Benoet Suvee. In 1801 he began training under Jacques-Louis David and in 1804 won the Prix de Rome for his Death of Phocion (Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.), in which he faithfully adhered to the principles of David's teaching. Before going to Italy he spent a year in Bruges carrying out portrait commissions, including the Marquis de Chauvelin (1805; Bruges, Groeningemus.). During his time in Rome (1805-12) he copied antique and Renaissance works, taking a particular interest in Raphael, who features in his wash drawing the Master of Urbino Introduced by Bramante to Julius II (1807; Bruges, Groeningemus.), a study for a lost painting. Around 1811 he was among the artists chosen to decorate the Palazzo del Quirinale for Napoleon's visit, although he never executed more than a sketch, Tanaquil Predicting the Future Greatness of Servius Tullius (c. 1811-12; Dijon, Mus. Magnin). Odevaere successfully exhibited in Paris in 1812 and then moved to Ghent, showing works at the Salon there two years later. After the union of the Low Countries in 1815 he became official painter to William I. As a result of this post he executed several works illustrating the history of the Dutch royal family, including the Prince of Orange Wounded at Waterloo (1817) and the Battle of Nieuwpoort (1820; both Brussels, Pal. Nation, on dep. Brussels, Pal. Justice). In 1815 he was commissioned to recover works of art taken from the Low Countries by the French. David's arrival in Brussels in 1816 coincided with the beginning of Odevaere's most ambitious composition, the Departure of the Athenians for Salamis (1816-25; Brussels, Mus. A. Anc.), inspired as much by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as by David, although the latter frequently advised Odevaere on the painting. From 1825 to 1829 he worked on a series of paintings conveying his support of the philhellenic committees created during the Greek War of Independence.