Saturday, January 11, 2014

Landscapes: Back to the Masters --- Day 2/365 (Year 2, That's a Wrap)

Walk: Legion of Honor
Distance: 1 mile

Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain were contemporaries and close friends and both perfected the relatively new genre of idealized landscape. Can you tell one's art from the other?  What differences do you see?

NICOLAS POUSSIN (French, 1594-1665)


Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with a Calm, 1651, o/c
Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with Diogenes, ca 1647, o/c
Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with a Man Killed by a Snake, ca 1648, o/c


CLAUDE LORRAIN  (born Claude Gellee, signed art 'Claude', French, ca 1605 - 1682)


Pastoral Landscape
Claude Gellée, known as Claude Lorrain (1600 or 1604/05 – 1682)
1644
Oil on canvas
The vista of the Roman countryside with its ancient and modern buildings, including the Temple of the Sibyl and the Villa d’Este, made the town of Tivoli famous. Unlike Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain was apparently not very interested in depicting landscapes in dramatic weather—storms, rain, and thunder. What Sir Joshua Reynolds called “the accidents of nature” in 1787 are absent from Claude’s universe. In the serene world of his paintings, fine weather reigns forever, uninterrupted—which is also the case in his drawings, apart from a few exceptions.
Claude Lorrain, Pastoral Landscape, 1644, o/c
Claude Lorrain, Pastoral Landscape, ca 1648, o/c
Shepherd - Claude Lorrain
Claude Lorrain, Landscape with Shepherd, ca 1657, o/c


Seems fitting to honor the past on this last day of CIWT, Year 2.  To be continued tomorrow in CIWT YEAR THREE.......

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