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 Mythological Figures (mk17) | Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula | A Seaport | chamagne | Landschaft mit Ziegenhirt |
Related Artists:
David Dalhoff Neal
(October 20, 1838 - May 2, 1915), was an American artist. David Dalhoff Neal was born to father Stephen Bryant Neal and mother Mary (Dalhoff) Neal, on Middlesex Street, in Lowell, Massachusetts. His grandparents were Stephen Neal, and David Dalhoff and Sally (Bean) Dalhoff of Canterbury, New Hampshire, Dolhoffs that emigrated from Russia in 1763, for whom he was named. His mother's family, the Beans, migrated from Holland in the early 1830s. His aunt Elizabeth Dolhoff was very artistic, and his uncle Jesse Dolhoff was a great singer. He attended Lowell grammar schools, and high school at Lawrence, Massachusetts. Deciding to devote himself to the study of art, he then attended art classes at the recently opened Andover Academy in Andover, New Hampshire. When Neal was 14, his father died and his fortunes were "impaired", so he set sail for New Orleans. Here at the age of 15, he worked the docks as a wharf clerk with a wood shipping firm dealing in Brazilian and Honduran mahogany.
Harvey T. Dunn
American, 1884-1952
Jorg Breu the Elder
(c. 1475 -- 1537), of Augsburg, was a painter of the German Danube school. He was the son of a weaver. He journeyed to Austria and created several multi-panel altarpieces there in 1500-02, such as the Melk Altar (1502). He returned to Augsburg in 1502 where he became a master. He travelled to Italy twice, in ca. 1508 and in 1514/15. After his death in 1537, his son, Jörg Breu the Younger continued to lead his Augsburg workshop until his own death 10 years later.