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^^3 liliiiilillliiillliilliiiilililii^^
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CLAUDE LORRAIN
PART 69 VOLUME 6
BatcjianCKiuiliKlotnpanij,
42turt ^Painting
VOL. 3. VOL. 4.
Part 25. —PHIDIAS Part 37.— ROMNEY
PART26. — PERUGINO Part j8.— FRA ANGELICO
Part 27. — HOLBEIN g Part 39.— WATTEAU
Part 28. —TINTORETTO Part 40. -RAPHAEL*
Part 29. — P. deHOOCH Part 41 — DONATELLO
Part JO.— NATTIER Part 42.— GERARD DOU
Part 31.— PAUL POTTER Part 43.— CARPACCIO
Part 32.— GIOTTO Part 44.— ROSA BONHEUR
Part 33.- PRAXITELES Part 4;.— GUIDO RENI
Part 34.— HOGARTH Part 46.— P. dhCHAVANNES
Part 35.— TURNER Part 47.— GIORGIONE
Part j6.— LUINI Part 48.— ROSSETTl
g Drawings * Frescos
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POHTHAIT OF CLAUDE LORRAIN BT JOACHIM VOX SANDRAHT
Tn his will Claude left a copy of a portrait of himself to the Church of St. Luke.
Portrait and copy have both disappeared. The only likeness of the artist which has
any claim to authenticity is the engraving by Sandrart in his "Academia Nobilissimse
Artis Pictoriae," published at Nuremberg in 1683.
[ses]
MASTERS IN ART
atlunXit ^tlUt
CALLED
€i^ntit %oxvKin
BORN 16 00: DIED 1682
FRENCH SCHOOL
CLOSE to the northern boundary of the modern French department of
the Vosges, some half-mile distant from the right bank of the Moselle,
and hard by the Forest of Charmes, is the little village of Chamagne. In this
rural hamlet, once the chief place in the seignory of the same name in the old
Duchy of Lorraine, Claude Gellee — or,to give him the name, Claude le Lor-
rain, which he received from his native country, although not a sixth part of
his long life w^as spent in it — first saw the light in the year 1600. The exact
place of hi^ birth can still be pointed out. Towards the end of the village
street, where it approaches the meadows which form the common grazing-
ground, is an old house which bears on its walls a tablet, commemorating that
therein the great landscape-painter of the French school drew his first breath.
Beyond the fact that his parents, Jean Gellee and Anne Padose, were in
humble circumstances, the exact nature of the rustic occupation which kept
the wolf from their door is now unknown. They had a large family, of whom
five were sons: Jean, Dominique, Claude, Denis, and Michel.
Thus far the brief accounts of Claude's birth and parentage present no
difficulty. Concerning the events of his boyhood and youth, however, his
biographers differ considerably. Their information is derived from two
sources. One of these is Joachim von Sandrart, a Gernian painter, engraver,
and writer on art, who resided some years at Rome, where he became intimate
with Claude. His reminiscences of him are contained in his 'Teutsche Acad-
emie,' of which a Latin translation, entitled 'Academia Nobilissimae Artis Pic-
toriae,' was published in 1683. The other authority is Filippo Baldinucci, a
Florentine artist, whose account was derived from Jean Gellee and the Abbe
Joseph Gellee, the grand-nephew of the painter, and is included in his 'Notizie
de' professori del disegno.'
According to Sandrart, Claude was a dull boy, a very dull boy — scientia
[359]
24 MASTERSINART
valde medtocri — and learned little or nothing at school — parum, imo nihil
fere, proficeret. The statement is borne out by such scraps of writing as Claude
in later years scrawled on the backs of his drawings. In these short notes he
jumbles up French, ItaHan, and Latin; he spells his own name in a half-dozen
different ways, so much so that in his will he has to record the correct spelling
of it as Gellee; and in his attempt to spell other people's names, even those of
his best friends, he goes hopelessly astray.
Seeing that there was nothing to be made of the boy as a scholar, his parents
apprenticed him to a pastry-cook. Later Claude set off with some of his
countrymen for Rome, "whither," so Sandrart informs us, "the cooks and
pie-makers of Lorraine had for centuries been accustomed to repair."
Thus far Sandrart. Baldinucci's narrative differs. Claude, he tells us, had
lost both his parents by the time he was twelve years old, and was obliged to
cross the Rhine and seek a home under the roof of his eldest brother, Jean,
who had set up at Freiburg as a wood engraver and carver. Here Claude re-
mained twelve months, receiving instruction from his brother in the elements
of drawing. At the end of that time a relative, a dealer in lace, the production
of which was then, as it is now, an important industry in the neighborhood of
Claude's native place, passing through Freiburg, on his way to Rome with his
wares, offered to take the boy with him. In Rome Claude found a lodging
near the Pantheon, and continued his studies as best he could, apparently
unaided.
Thrown entirely on his own resources, Claude made his way to Naples, at-
tracted thither, it would appear, by the reputation of a German landscape-
painter, Gottfried Waels, with whom he remained two years, studying archi-
tecture, perspective, and color. Then he returned to Rome, where he was
admitted into the household of Agostino Tassi, from whom he received
board, lodging, and "instruction in the best principles of art," in return for
his services as stable-boy, color-grinder, and general "slavey." Such is
Baldinucci's account. The only point of real importance in which it does not
tally with that of Sandrart is as to the instruction from Waels.
How long Claude remained under Tassi's roof Sandrart does not tell us.
Baldinucci states that he left Rome in April, 1625, and began a series of wan-
derings, which lasted over two years. His first stage was the Santa Casa of
Loretto. Thence he went to Venice; then through Bavaria to his native village
in Lorraine. This short account given by Baldinucci of Claude's journey has
been amplified by later biographers and adorned with picturesque details.
Knight Payne, for example, would have us believe that the young painter
spent some time at Harlaching, a little village near Munich. To commemo-
rate this supposed sojourn of Claude at Harlaching, a monument, bearing his
portrait and an inscription, was erected in 1865 by King Ludwig i. of Bavaria.
From Chamagne Claude repaired to Nancy, the capital of Lorraine and
seat of the Ducal Court, a court famous for its love of luxury and its patronage
of the arts. Through a relative who resided there, Claude was fortunate enough
to secure an introduction to Claude Deruet — Dervent in Baldinucci's text —
painter-in-ordinary to the reigning duke.
[360]
CLAUDE LORRAIN 25
Shortly after Claude's arrival at Nancy Deruet was called on by the prior
of a Carmelite monastery, erected at the beginning of the century, to ornament
the roof of the newly built church of the community. On this task Claude was
set to work, along with Deruet's other assistants, Claude's share in the work
was, according to Baldinucci, restricted to the architectural ornaments. Un-
fortunately this church and its contents were destroyed during the French
Revolution. This work proved distasteful to Claude, and, having already
tasted the joys of life under a southern sky, he quitted the uncongenial service
of Deruet, left Nancy and his native country, which he was destined never to
see again, and in the summer of 1627 set his face southward, and made his way
toward Italy, choosing this time the most rapid route, namely, by Lyons to
Marseilles. Here, while waiting for a ship to take him to Italy — so at least
his later biographers relate — he was stricken by an attack of fever, which
well-nigh proved fatal. On his recovery he found that he had been robbed of
nearly all he possessed. After a series of adventures he finally reached Rome
by way of Civita Vecchia on St. Luke's Day 1627.
To read the account of his life given by Baldinucci, one would be tempted
to believe that Claude at once sprang into notice and sold his works to wealthy
patrons, both Italian and foreign. Sandrart, however, who arriveji about this
time in Rome, and made Claude's acquaintance there, gives us an account
from which we gather that the next few years of Claude's life were years of
constant study, and that the results of this study, though in the end they
brought both fame and riches, were at first of small pecuniary profit.
"Claude" — it is Sandrart who speaks — "was indefatigable in his en-
deavor to get a real solid basis of art-training, to penetrate into the inmost
secrets of nature." Day after day he would be up before dawn and far out
into the Campagna. Heedless of fatigue, he would stay there till after night-
fall, noting every phase of dawn, straining to seize the tints of sunrise, sunset,
and the gloaming hours, tints which he would endeavor to match with his
colors on his palette. Then in his studio or garret he would set to work with
the palette thus prepared, and endeavor to produce a transcript of the eflPects
which he had seen, and which he succeeded in rendering "with a veracity
which no painter before him has ever obtained."
During this period of study, and before he had succeeded in producing
those landscapes which the connoisseurs of his day sought so eagerly, Claude
executed several frescos which are referred to by his biographers with almost
unstinted praise. They were landscape subjects, of realistic treatment, but
have been either destroyed or repainted.
When not engaged in studying in the open air or painting frescos for his
livelihood, Claude would spend his time drawing from the life, or from statues
at the Academy. In this pursuit he persevered diligently, even to his latest
years. His appHcation, so far from being profitable to him, was noxious. The
fact is that Claude did possess a certain facility for indicating figures, as is
shown by many of his drawings. When, however, he set himself to elaborate
these sketches, to put in all the muscles which the Academic teaching of the
day insisted upon, he produced very painful results. In his pictures this defect
[361]
26 MASTERSINART
asserts itself even more plainly. The figures are nearly always painted with
all the conscientiousness of incapacity, and with a heavy touch which is en-
tirely out of harmony with the treatment of the rest of the canvas; the atmos-
phere which envelops the landscape seems, as it approaches the figures, to be-
come suddenly exhausted; sometimes the sun forbears to cast a shadow!
Of his weakness in this branch of art the painter was fully conscious. He
used to say that he sold the landscapes, but gave the figures.
Following a custom common in his century, Claude had frequently recourse
to other artists for the execution of the figures in his pictures, but he always
himself carefully indicated their movements and their place in the composition.
Among the painters from whom he derived assistance in this branch were
Francesco Allegrini, Filippo Lauri, Jan Miels, and one, perhaps both, of the
brothers Courtois. It was, however, in his middle and later periods that Claude
had recourse to these collaborators; in his earlier works the figures are nearly
always his own, occasionally by Allegrini.
A hard worker, both from love of his art and from the necessity of gaining
his daily bread, the young Lorrain had little leisure or inclination to mingle in
society. With the exception of Sandrart, he does not appear to have had any
intimate friends among the cosmopolitan colony of artists in Rome. The most
prominent French painter then residing at Rome was Nicolas Poussin, an
artist with the general bent of whose genius Claude must have had much sym-
pathy. The character of the two men, however, was entirely diflFerent —
Claude, a rustic by birth and breeding, illiterate, simple; Poussin, an aristo-
crat, a scholar, a would-be-philosopher, not to say a pedant. It would only
have been by the law of contraries that these two men could have been friends.
"Absorbed in his work, Claude," says De Piles, "never visited any one."^
"Of a kind and sincere nature," says Sandrart, "he sought no other pleasure
than that which came to him from his art." Apart from the intrigue for pat-
ronage, apart from the drinking and brawling in taverns in which so many of
his contemporaries passed a large portion of their lives, Claude led a serene,
secluded existence, his days measured by the uprising and the setting of the
sun, his soul wrapped in the contemplation of nature, his heart in his work.
How and when Fame first came to Claude we cannot exactly determine. It
would appear from his account that before Sandrart left Rome Claude's repu-
tation was firmly estabHshed. Sebastian Bourdon, a French painter remark-
able for his wandering and adventurous career, arrived in Rome about 1634.
Having seen in Claude's studio a half-finished landscape, on which the artist
had been engaged for a fortnight. Bourdon set to work, and in eight days pro-
duced a finished copy of it, executed with such mcestria that it was hailed by
the connoisseurs of Rome as a masterpiece of Claude. Claude had the curi-
osity to go and see the forgery, and was so enraged at it that he would have
taken a summary vengeance had not Bourdon discreetly kept out of his way.
Bourdon would scarcely have been at the trouble of counterfeiting the work
of a man who had not already won a reputation. We also know that before
Sandrart left Rome Claude had sent for a nephew, Jean Gellee, to whom he
entrusted the whole management of his household, even the purchase of hist
[362]
CLAUDELORRAIN 27
colors, in order to have his time quite free. From all this we may gather that
before 1635 Claude had an established reputation and clientele.
One of Claude's earliest patrons would seem to have been Philippe de
Bethune, Comte de Selles et de Charost, who in 1627 was for the second time
appointed ambassador of France at the Papal Court. For him Claude painted
two fine canvases now in the Louvre, one representing a seaport with a classic
arch and a long vista of marble palaces, bathed in the golden light of the west-
ering sun, the other a view of the Campo Vaccino, or Forum.
It was apparently about this time that Claude came under the notice and
the protection of Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, one of the most distinguished
prelates of the Roman Court, and one of the ablest diplomatists of the day.
For this influential patron Claude painted two landscapes. This commission
proved the turning-point in the artist's career. The Cardinal, who was an old
and intimate friend of the then Pope Urban viii., brought these works under
the notice of the pontiff, and aroused his interest in the young painter.
When the Pope showed the example, the Cardinals and Monsignori of his
court hastened to follow it. Among the great prelates who patronized Claude
in the earlier part of his life were Cardinal Rospigliosi (afterwards Pope, under
the name of Clement ix.), Cardinal Medici, Cardinal Faustus Poli, and Cardi-
nal Angelo Giorio. For the last-named prelate Claude painted no less than
seven canvases: three landscapes, three seaports, and a figure-subject.
Claude's reputation was not limited to Rome. Orders soon began to come
to him from beyond the Alps. As early as 1644 we find him painting a picture
for England, the exquisite little landscape, introducing the fable of Echo and
Narcissus, which now hangs in the National Gallery, Many of his works at
this period were executed, as the 'Liber Veritatis' shows, "pour Paris," or for
French patrons. Amongst them was M. Passart, the mditre des comptes, who
was also the patron of Nicolas Poussin. For this amateur Claude painted two
fine landscapes, one now in the museum at Grenoble, the other at Windsor.
Both represent views of Tivoli, and are remarkable as being direct renderings
of actual scenes rather than classical compositions.
In 1644 Claude lost his two most influential patrons, Cardinal Bentivoglio
and Urban viii., who died within a few months of each other. The conclave
held in th^ same year resulted in the election of Cardinal Giambattista Pamfili,
who now assumed the tiara under the title of Innocent x. These changes do
not appear to have affected Claude prejudicially. On the contrary, he gained
by them a new patron in the person of the Pope's nephew. Prince Camillo
Pamfili. For him Claude painted four pictures. Three of these, a landscape
with 'Mercury Stealing the Cattle of Admetus,' 'The Mill,' and 'The Tem-
ple of Apollo at Delos' — the two latter perhaps Claude's most celebrated
pictures — still form part of the Doria Collection at Rome. The fourth pic-
ture of this set,' The Ford,' is in the National Gallery at Pesth.
For the Due de Bouillon Claude painted a replica, with some variations, of
'The Mill,' or, as it is otherwise called, the 'Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca,'
and another picture, a seaport, entitled the 'Embarkation of the Queen of
Sheba.'
[363]
28 MASTERSINART
Claude had now achieved a world-wide celebrity. The crowning honor
came to him in a commission from Philip iv. of Spain. It has been surmised
that the order came through the agency of Velasquez, for the great Spanish
painter had been sent to Italy in 1649 ^^^^ 2 roving commission to purchase
works of art for his royal patron.
The order consisted, according to Baldinucci, of eight works: four subjects
from the Old Testament, four from the New. All these, with the addition of
two from the collection of Philip v., are now in the Prado. Time and the
climate of Madrid have wrought havoc with several of the number. Those
which have escaped unharmed show Claude at his best.
It was about the time of this commission, according to Baldinucci, that
Claude, annoyed by the constant forgeries of his work, determined to form an
album containing sketches of all works produced by him. Baldinucci calls
this book the 'Libro d'Invenzioni' or 'Libro di Verita'; in England it is better
known by the Latin title 'Liber Veritatis.'
In calling the 'Liber Veritatis' a monument to Claude's memory we are
using no figure of speech. In this wonderful book we have an epitome of the
artist's life and work, an epitome written and illustrated by his own hand. It
is a collection of two hundred drawings — not, as the title might lead us to ex-
pect, studies from nature, but sketches from or perhaps for the artist's pictures.
"Poor Claude," says Baldinucci, "simple-minded as he was by nature, not
knowing whom to guard against among the many who frequented his room,
nor what precautions to take, seeing that every day similar pictures were
brought to his house that he might pronounce whether they were by his hand,
resolved to make a book, which I saw with great pleasure and admiration, he
himself showing it to me in his own house in Rome; and in this book he began
to copy the composition (/«i'^«z/o«^) of the works which he executed, expressing
in them with a truly masterly touch every smallest detail of the picture itself,
making a note also of the person for whom it had been painted, and, if I re-
member rightly, the sum he had received for it."
The motive assigned to the artist by Baldinucci for the composition of the
'Liber Veritatis' has been frequently called in question. Were the drawings
studies for or sketches from the pictures .? The generally received opinion is
that they were made from his finished pictures, as is asserted by Baldinucci.
The 'Liber Veritatis' was to Claude much what the fly-leaf of the family
Bible was to many families of the last generation — a place to register the
birth of each new member and note any important events of after life. To
Claude his pictures were his children.
The first impression which we receive as we turn over the pages of the ' Liber
Veritatis' is that of the intense artificiality of the art that it records. It is, as it
were, a man speaking Latin instead of his own mother-tongue. Classic ruins,
seaports, pasture lands, herds and herdsmen, piping shepherds, dancing
peasants, gods, saints, banditti, sportsmen, all seem to belong to an unreal
world — a world where things arrange themselves, or rather are evidently
arranged by the artist, with a view to certain preconceived ideas about com-
position. The harmony of line, the unity of ensemble, aimed at by the artist,
[364]
CLAUDE LORRAIN 29
and nearly always attained, aggravate the eye of a generation taught to shun
in landscape-art the well-balanced composition which delighted the seven-
teenth century. You have but to surrender yourself to the charm of this un-
real world, however, to lose sight of its unreality and live in it as one lives in a
dream.
Side by side with their poetic charm the drawings possess technical qualities
of a high order. They express the most difficult effects of light and atmos-
phere with a simplicity and a directness which it would be difficult to surpass.
The two hundred drawings are executed with pen or pencil, washed with
bistre or Indian ink, the high lights touched in with white.
The value which the artist set on the 'Liber Veritatis' is shown by the spe-
cial mention which he makes of it in his will; and his wishes were strictly ad-
hered to. The 'Liber Veritatis' remained for some time an heirloom in the
Gellee family. About 1770 it was purchased by the then Duke of Devonshire,
and since then has remained in the possession of the Cavendish family in that
great treasure-house of art, Chatsworth.
Besides the drawings contained in the 'Liber Veritatis,' and numerous
others still preserved in public and private collections, there are extant some
forty-four etchings by Claude. From the dates which some of them contain
it would appear that the artist devoted himself to etching at two distinct
periods, between 1630 and 1637 and in 1662 and 1663. Claude's etchings
are of unequal merit, but in his best work he attains a delicacy and tender-
ness which few other etchers of any period have equaled, none surpassed.
The next personage of importance for whom Claude worked was the son of
the Comte de Brienne, Secretary of State to Louis xiii., Henri Louis de
Lomenie, for whom — or perhaps through him for Louis xiii. — Claude
painted the two curious little oval pictures now in the Louvre, representing
the siege of La Rochelle and the forcing of the pass of Susa, the figures in
which are attributed to one of the brothers Courtois, probably Jacques. Both
are painted on copper plated with silver, a new invention about that time.
In 1653 Claude painted for Signor Cardello the big picture 'The Worship
of the Golden Calf,' now in Grosvenor House.
In 1655 Innocent x. died, and was succeeded by Alexander vii., who de-
voted himself to the patronage of men of letters, architects, and artists. Among
the last-named was Claude, who painted for him two pictures. One of these
represents 'The Rape of Europa,' apparently a favorite subject with the artist,
for he has treated it in three other canvases, in an etching dated 1634, and in a
finished sketch dated 1670, in the British Museum. The other is a landscape
known as 'The Battle of the Bridge,' from the bridge covered with combatants
which forms the foreground. Both these pictures are now in the gallery of
Prince Youssoupoff in Russia. For one of the Pope's nephews, Don Camillo,
the splendid palace in the Piazza Colonna was built. For this magnificent
abode Claude painted in 1658 the picture now in the National Gallery, vari-
ously known as 'David at the Cave of Adullam' and 'Sinon Brought before
Priam.' For the grand simplicity of composition and for the rendering of at-
mosphere this canvas ranks as one of the artist's best.
[365]
30 MASTERS IN ART
The year following the election of Alexander vii. was marked by a visitation
of the plague which decimated Rome. Many fled the city. Claude and Poussin
remained, painting on serenely. Among the three pictures mentioned in the
'Liber Veritatis' under this date, one, a landscape with 'Jacob Bargaining for
Rachel,' remarkable for a peculiar silvery quality of light, deserves special
mention. It is now one of the chief treasures of Petworth.
It would be impossible within the limits of our space to enumerate all
Claude's works during the next few years. The artist, if he was a slow worker,
was an assiduous one, sometimes producing as many as five pictures in one
year. The whole number credited to him in his long life is about four hundred.
Among the principal pictures of this period we may mention the 'Metamor-
phosis of the Apuleian Shepherd' painted for M. Delagarde in 1657, now in
the Bridgewater Collection, a combination of landscape and marine with fig-
ures of Polyphemus, Acis, and Galatea for the same patron, now in the Dres-
den Gallery, a very fine ' Flight into Eygpt,' painted for Antwerp, now in the
Hermitage, and 'The Decline of the Roman Empire,' now in Grosvenor
House.
Fame and wealth had come to Claude, but the latter years of his life were
not without their trials. One of these was his failing health. Baldinucci in-
forms us that from the age of forty Claude was much troubled with the gout.
To a man of Claude's active habits such a malady must have been a terrible
burden. No more walks in the dewy morning or the misty evening over the
Campagna, no more sunny days at Tivoli and Subiaco; the poor artist, mewed
up in his studio, would be obliged to have recourse to his souvenirs and to his
sketches from nature. How much store he set on the latter we know from
Baldinucci, who relates that Claude painted one very fine picture for himself
from nature at Vigna Madama, near Rome, for which his Holiness Clement ix.
offered him as many gold pieces as would cover it, but was never able to get it
out of his hands; for he asserted, as was indeed true, that "he made use of it
every day to see the variety of trees and foliage." We may note too that in his
will Claude expressly qualifies two of the pictures which he kept in his house,
'The Flight into Egypt' and 'The Journey to Emmaus,' as "painted on the
spot by my hand" and "a landscape painted from nature." From this will
we learn that in February of 1663 Claude was suffering from an illness which
threatened to prove fatal. Believing his end to be at hand, the artist set about
putting his affairs in order, and on February 28, 1663, made his will.
His illness did not, however, last long, for we find an entry under May 26,
1663, in the 'Liber Veritatis,' referring to a large landscape with Mercury and
Bacchus now in the Collection of the Duke of Devonshire. The artist's energy
was unimpaired. For the next few years he continued to produce three or four
pictures every year. His skill, however, was not always on a level with his
energy. His hand, doubtless under the influence of the gout, often seems to
have lost its old cunning. Side by side, however, with canvases which show
sad evidences of advancing age we find others in which the artist's genius re-
asserts itself with all the old charm.
The chief patron of Claude's latter years was the Constable of Naples, Don
[366]
CLAUDE LORRAIN 31
Filippo Colonna, head of the great Roman family of that name. The * Liber
Veritatis' records eight pictures painted for this nobleman. The major part
of these pictures, and most of the others by Claude, which once adorned the
Palazzo Colonna in Rome, are now in private collections in England. One,
'Egeria and Her Nymphs,' is in the Museum of Naples. The most famous is
the exquisite landscape, one of two in which the artist has introduced the
myth of Cupid and Psyche, generally known as 'The Enchanted Castle,' now
in the possession of Lord Wantage.
Another constant patron of the artist at this period was Monseigneur de
Bourlemont. Claude painted three landscapes and a marine for him: 'Moses
and the Burning Bush,' 'Cephalus and Procris,' 'Apollo and the Cumasan
Sybil,' and 'Demosthenes on the Seashore.' Of these works, one, the 'Ceph-
alus and Procris,' is in the Doria Palace at Rome; the others have found their
way to England.
Commissions continued to come to Claude from all sides. In 1668 he
painted two landscapes for a German patron, the Count Waldstein. Both
these pictures are now in the Pinakothek at Munich.
In June of 1670 Claude was again so seriously ill that on the twenty-fifth of
the month he sent for a notary to add a codicil to his will; but he was not long
recovering from this illness. His energy was still unabated. Not so his powers.
From Baldinucci we know that the artist in his latter years was able to work
only two or three hours a day. In all the works of this period there is evidence
of his failing health. It becomes more marked in some of his subsequent pic-
tures. The cold tone which pervades many of them is totally unlike the golden
sunshine of Claude's earlier days.
It would seem that ill health was not the only cross which cast its shadow
over the latter years of the artist's life. Envy and ingratitude conspired to dis-
turb his peace of mind. He continued to suffer from the old annoyance of
forgeries. In connection with this Baldinucci tells a curious story. Claude,
mindful perhaps of the kindness which he himself had received at Tassi's
hands, had taken into his household a poor lame and deformed boy, Giovanni
Domenico. Domenico passed twenty-five years under Claude's roof, and is
said to have acquired great skill in painting after the manner of his master.
Envious tongues whispered that Claude's works were not painted by his own
hand. The whispers reached Domenico's ears, and so inflated him with vanity
that, having quitted Claude's house, he claimed remuneration for his services
during the years that he had been the artist's pupil and protege. Claude,
valuing his peace of mind more than his money, without delay or demur
caused the claim to be paid out of his funds in the Bank of Santo Spirito.
Domenico, it is added, died very shortly after.
Though Claude's powers were failing him, his patrons, new and old, kept
him fully occupied. The latest date which occurs in the 'Liber Veritatis' is
168 1, in which year Claude painted several pictures, among them one for
Constable Colonna, a landscape, 'Parnassus and the Muses.' We know, how-
ever, from a drawing of 'The Temple of Castor and Pollux' dated 1682, now
in the British Museum, that the artist worked up to the last year of his life.
[367]
32 MASTERS IN ART
Despite the high prices paid to him for his pictures, Claude died relatively
poor. Baldinucci states that owing to his great generosity to his relatives dur-
ing his life, the artist's property at his death amounted only to the value of
10,000 scudi.
Claude vv^as buried, as his Mrill directed, in the Church of Sta. Trinita de'
Monti. Over his grave in front of the chapel of the Santissima Annunziata
his nephews placed a slab with a laudatory Latin epitaph. In 1798, during
the occupation of Rome by the French, this church was ransacked by the
soldiery; the slab disappeared, and for nearly forty years Claude's grave re-
mained unmarked. In 1836 the French Government decided to remove the
great artist's remains from the Trinita de' Monti to the Church of St. Luigi
de' Francesi, near the Pantheon. — abridged from g, grahame's mono-
graph ON CLAUDE LORRAIN IN *THE PORTFOLIO'
Cfje art of Clautie iLorram
GEORGE GRAHAME 'PORTFOLIO* 1895
THE man who first substituted for the golden or colored chequer back-
ground in picture or illuminated letter a blue sky graduated to the hori-
zon may rank as the initiator of landscape-painting, as we understand that
art. This was, as one critic has remarked, "the crisis of change in the spirit
of medieval art," the transition from the symboHc to the imitative method.
It took place early in the fifteenth century. Giotto having got hold of some-
thing sufficiently like a mountain or a tree to pass for such in the eyes of
men who know nothing about geology or botany and do not scrutinize real
trees and real mountains, several generations of Italian painters — Masaccio
always excepted — are satisfied to go on painting the Giottesque mountain
and tree without further reference to nature. While landscape, always a mere
accessory, is being thus cultivated by the Italians, the Flemish artists, Hubert
and Jan van Eyck, take up the tale and unfold to the wondering eyes of the
northern world visions of Paradise based on their own glimpses into southern
lands. Rome, while contributing nothing to the arts, save the memory of her
greatness, became the meeting-place of all schools. Educated in this art center,
Claude united the Flemish love for and knowledge of perspective — Orizonte
was the nickname by which Claude was known among the Flemish artists in
Rome — to the atmospheric touch of the Venetians.
Claude's landscapes are seldom, if ever, true in color; and yet, contrast
them with the works of some colorists. Take Corot, for instance. Step from
Claude's picture of the Campo Vaccino in the Louvre to the study of Corot,
which hangs in an adjoining room, of the same subject from another point of
view. Corot is infinitely superior to Claude in his analysis of each separate
fragment of the color-mosaic of the scene; but which of the two artists has
[368]
CLAUDE LORRAIN 33
most successfully rendered the general impression of that scene ? Every one
who loves Rome and know^s its atmosphere will, I think, decide in favor of
Claude.
Claude has sometimes been called "the father of modern landscape art;"
but that title might be claimed for Titian and other Venetian painters, who
before Claude's day had from time to time painted landscape pure and simple.
Claude's real merit, a merit as to the magnitude of which his admirers and
his detractors are at one, his real service to landscape art, lay in this: that he
was the first painter to grapple seriously with the problem of representing the
disc of the sun. Claude took up the idea seriously and worked it out success-
fully. It is difficult for us who have been accustomed to see the sun constantly
represented in pictures to realize how great a revolution he thereby wrought in
landscape art.
Claude's influence on the landscape art of his own and of the following cen-
turies was enormous. The result of it was deplorable. Landscape-painters
went to Claude instead of going to nature. They copied, as imitators are prone
to do, all the defects of their model; they failed to perceive the good points.
They borrowed all Claude's formulas of composition and never moved beyond
them. Nature was poured like jelly into a mold.
This influence left its mark indelibly on Turner. In his 'Carthage'
and Claude's 'Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba' the two artists have
treated kindred subjects in a kindred way; indeed. Turner's picture shows
at every point the influence of Claude. In both we have the same well-bal-
anced masses of pseudo-classic architecture, a too evidently artificial compo-
sition, helped out by the judicious disposition of the figures, a similar effect
of sunlight. At the very first glance we see the superiority of Turner, the
limitation of Claude. Claude seems like a caged bird, singing, and singing
very sweetly, but always the same trill. Turner is like Shelley's skylark.
He has seen all heaven and all earth, and caught in his flight the real radiance
of the sun.
It is in the rendering of lights, particularly of the direct rays of the sun, that
Turner is incontestably Claude's superior. Claude had grasped one big fact,
the warm glow of sunlight, and repeated it ad infinitum, spreading it with an
even touch over every inch of canvas. Turner went a step further. He ana-
lyzed this glow, caught from nature the secret of the subtle silvery tones, the
touches of cold color which occur even in the warmest effiects of light and help
to heighten those effects.
To Turner, moreover, sunlight was the first, the essential thing. He never
hesitated to sacrifice other things to it. Not so Claude. With a complacency
bordering upon dullness, he painted square and fair every stone of his edifices,
and, obedient to a tradition handed down from the early Italian masters
through Perugino and Raphael, traced carefully and mechanically, as it were,
with compass and ruler, every line of his architecture, showing thereby that he
considered the object illuminated quite a« worthy of his skill as the light it-
self.
Yet when all has been said that can be said about Turner's superiority and
[369]
34 MASTERS IN ART
Claude's shortcomings, there remains to the older master a charm of serenity
and sweetness which it is impossible to gainsay. Just as it is possible to ad-
mire the colossal genius of Wagner and yet listen with enjoyment to the melody
of Mozart or Haydn, so too we may give Turner all his due without shutting
our eyes to the merits and beauties of Claude.
SARAH TYTLER reserved and sober, broad and free in handling, and of an extremely fine
silvery tone." Sweetser also says of it, "One of Claude's noblest works, re-
plete in beauty and variety, and flooded with fresh and sparkling air." In the
foreground a group of priests and priestesses is seen, leading a sacrificial bull
towards the temple of Apollo. Beyond there is a vast expanse of country dotted
with groves and buildings, intersected by rivers, and bounded by a broad sea.
A magical light suffuses the picture. The foreground is less dark and somber
than is customary with Claude, while nothing detracts from the delicate charm
of the distance; the enchanted country which leads toward the setting sun
shows a world of charming details, finally lost in the waters of the river which
flows towards the distant sea. The great mass of trees which occupies the cen-
ter contrasts its shadows with the brilliant light of the distance and the sky.
This is a kind of contrast for which the painter had a great fondness, and
which he often repeated.
The picture was painted for Prince Camillo Pamfili, and still remains in
the Doria Gallery. It is represented by No. 119 of the 'Liber Veritatis,' and
measures four feet one inch high by six feet seven inches long.
jtticelli, Rembrandt, Rt-ynolda, Millet, Oinv. Bellini, Murillo, Main, and
Raphael.
Volume II ( I go I ) treats of Ruben*, Da Vinci, Diirer, Michelangelo
(Sculpture), Michelangelo (Painting), Corot, Burne-Joncs, Ter Borch,
Delia Rubbia, Del Sarto, Gainsborough, and Correggio.
Volume III (190a) treats of Phidias, Perugino, Holbein, Tintoretto,
Pieter De H(M»ch, Nattier, Paul Potter, Giotto, Praxiteles, Hogarth, Tur-
ner, and Luini.
Volume IV (1903) treats of Romncy, Fra Angelico, Wattcau, Ra-
phael's Frescos, Donatello, Gerard Dou, Carpaccio, Rosa Bonheur, Guido
Rcni, Puvjs De Chavannes, Giorgionc, and Rotsctti.
Volume V (1904) treats of Fra
Bartolommeo, Grcuze, Diirer' s En-
gravings, Lotto, Landscer, Vcrmccr of
Delft, Pintoricchio, The Brothers Van
Eyck, Meissonier, Barye, Veronese,
and Copley.
Volume VI (1905) treats of Watts,
Palma Vecchio, Madame Vigce Le
Brun, Mantegna, Chardin, Benf«zo
Gozzoli, Jan Steen, Memling, Claude
Lorrain, Verrocchio, Raeburn, Fra
Filippo Lippi.
Cloth Binding
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gilt top.
The Half-Morocco Binding is in green, with green and goW marbled paper sides
and end papers, gold tooled back designed by Mr. B. G. Goo 'iB6T
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