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| Seaport at sunset |
Claude Gelee (1600-1682), was a celebrated French landscape painter who
is best known as Claude Lorrain, after his birthplace. He was born in
the village of Champagne, the third of his lowly parents' five
children. Orphaned at 12, Lorrain was forced to gain a livelihood. At
16 he was in Rome. There he saw the landscapes of a Flemish painter,
Godfrey Walls. He went to Naples and lived and studied with the Fleming
for two years. On his return to Rome Claude Lorrain found employment in the
studio of another painter; later he studied in Germany and in France.
During this time his genius was maturing, and the technical perfection
and tonal harmony of his later work is marvelous. He is the most
important classical landscape painter of the 17th century. The warm,
rich color, and the reflections of light in sky, cloud and water are the
finest qualities of Lorrain's work. In order that no fraudulent copies
of his work should be sold, he made tinted outline drawings of his
pictures. These drawings he signed with the name of the purchaser. He
gathered them into book form and called them
Libri di Verita. His finest
works include
Plagar in the Desert,
Embarkation of St. Ursula,
Seaport,
Landing of Cleopatra at Tarsus,
Flight into Egypt and
The Village Dance.
