(b Chamagne, Lorraine, ?1604–5; d Rome, 23
Nov 1682).
French painter, draughtsman and etcher, active in
Italy. He has long been known as the greatest of all ideal
landscape painters. Ideal landscape is a term signifying the
creation of an image of nature more beautiful and better
ordered than nature itself. The term is closely linked to
the pastoral, and contented shepherds guarding their flocks
and herds are usually an integral feature of Claude’s
pictures. He was far from being the inventor of this art
form, which first emerged in Venetian painting around 1510,
but he brought it to a pitch of refinement not reached by
anyone else. Claude’s distinctive contribution to the genre
was to use light as the principal means both of unifying the
composition and of lending beauty to the landscape. He was
also able to introduce into the artificial formula, to an
unusual degree, effects studied from nature itself. Almost
from the first, his work reflected courtly values of ‘high
finish’ and decorum, and it is no accident that his most
important patrons were members of the European nobility and
higher clergy.
Landscape with the Finding of Moses
1637-39
Oil on canvas, 209 x 138 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Landscape with Merchants
c. 1630
Oil on canvas, 97,2 x 143,6 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington
The Campo Vaccino, Rome
Oil on canvas, 56 x 72 cm
Musee du Louvre, Paris
Port Scene with the Villa Medici
1637
Oil on canvas, 102 x 133 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
Port Scene with the Embarkation of St Ursula
1641
Oil on canvas, 113 x 149 cm
National Gallery, London
The Disembarkation of Cleopatra at Tarsus
1642-43
Oil on canvas, 119 x 170 cm
Musee du Louvre, Paris
Italian Coastal Landscape
1642
Oil on canvas, 97 x 131 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin
Imaginary View of Tivoli
1642
Oil on copper, 21,6 x 25,7 cm
Courtauld Institute Galleries, London
Discuss Art
Please note: site admin does not answer any questions. This is our readers discussion only.