Claude Lorrain, whose real name was Claude Gellée and who was called "Le Lorrain" (which is French for "the Lorrainer"), was an important landscape painter of the French Baroque.
Born in 1600 in Chamagne, Vosges, Lorraine.
Died on November 23, 1682 in Rome.
Claude Lorrain, who originated from a poor farming family, received his knowledge of landscape painting from the Roman architectural painter Agostino Tassi and Gottfried Wals, by whom he trained in veduta painting during a five-year stay in Naples. After a two-year stay in France, Claude Lorrain traveled back to Rome. Thanks to many orders of Roman aristocrats and of some popes, he became the most popular landscape painter. Before changing to biblical and mythological subjects in the 1640s, he painted lyrically idealized landscape paintings with shepherd and fishing scenes, influenced by the works of Annibale Carracci and Adam Elsheimer. With his classical-romantic style of painting, he is to be considered the antipode to Nicolas Poussin. Both artists were labeled as senior masters of the Roman High Baroque. In his works, Claude Lorrain gave the impression of infinity, as he succeeded in directing the contemplators' views into the vastness of an ocean or a landscape. Through his lyrical and romantic compositions, his works greatly influenced the English landscape painters of the 18th and 19th centuries. |
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Oil Paintings