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Claude LorrainFrench painter
Country:
 France |
Content:
Biography of Claude Lorrain
Claude Lorrain was a French painter, draftsman, and engraver, and one of the creators of classical landscape. He was born in 1600 in Chamagne, Lorraine, which is why he acquired the nickname "Le Lorrain" meaning "the Lorrainer".
During his early years, Claude Lorrain studied engraving in Freiburg-im-Breisgau and then worked in Naples under the guidance of the painter Gottfried Wals. In 1619, he began studying in Rome under Agostino Tassi. After six years, the artist returned to France, visiting various Italian cities along the way, and worked for about a year in Nancy, assisting the court painter Claude Deruet in painting the vaults of the Carmelite Church.
In 1627, Claude Lorrain returned to Rome. By the 1630s, his landscapes began to attract the attention of art connoisseurs and wealthy patrons, including the Spanish king and popes. His "ideal" landscapes exuded a soft and elegiac mood, with the gentle morning or evening light enveloping the outlines of trees and hills. Biblical, mythological, or pastoral narrative motifs were entirely subordinated to the depiction of beautiful and majestic nature, such as in his paintings "The Departure of St. Ursula" (1646, London, National Gallery) and "The Expulsion of Hagar" (1668, Munich, Alte Pinakothek).
Claude Lorrain left behind a multitude of drawings, including numerous studies of trees and plants, as well as several sketches made directly from nature. The Duke of Devonshire's collection at Chatsworth House houses the famous "Libro Veritatis" series, which consists of 200 landscape drawings. Among them are sketches for his paintings, as well as drawings made from his own works. This collection of drawings is of immense significance not only due to its aesthetic and artistic value but also because it sheds light on the chronology and compositional characteristics of Lorrain's paintings.
