River Landscape with Herdsmen 1628 - 1632
claudelorrain
statensmuseumforkunst
canvas
charcoal drawing
possibly oil pastel
oil painting
canvas
acrylic on canvas
underpainting
surrealism
painting painterly
animal drawing portrait
surrealist
watercolor
"River Landscape with Herdsmen" is a painting by Claude Lorrain, a leading figure in the development of landscape painting. Created between 1628 and 1632, the painting showcases Lorrain's masterful use of light and atmospheric perspective, creating a sense of depth and tranquility. The scene depicts a serene river flowing through a picturesque landscape, with herdsmen tending to their cattle in the foreground. The distant hills and a towering tower add to the idyllic composition, embodying the ideal of the "Golden Age" in art. This painting, now housed in the SMK - Statens Museum for Kunst, demonstrates Lorrain's significant contribution to the Classical landscape tradition.
Comments
The trees tower majestically above the idyllic landscape in which shepherds and animals are painted like small, pretty ornaments within the vast countryside that stands like a well-ordered stage set around them. A sense of sweetness rests over this landscape; everything is shrouded in a slight haze, but it is an appealing scene, inviting us to explore nature. We might say that Claude Lorrain turned the landscape into poetry, or that he eroticised landscape. Nature is marvellous and inviting; it encourages intimacy and rapture. It is ready to be explored, tying in well with the advent of modern natural science. Works that present nature in a position somewhere between the idyllic and the monstrous, where nature is certainly greater than man, but not dangerous, are called "picturesque" or "pastoral" landscapes. By contrast, images that depict nature as overwhelming and frightening are called “sublime" landscapes.
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This landscape is not a real-istic depiction of a specific lo-cation, even though the Tiber valley and its castle ruins were often the subject of the artist’s open-air studies. The artist has created a landscape that surpasses nature itself, a so-called ideal landscape. Hills and mountains disappear gradually into the gradient aer-ial perspective where the col-ours of the sky and earth merge on the horizon. Our eye travels smoothly through the various planes of the image, where shepherds with their flock, walkers and ferries pro-vide variety. Claude’s land-scapes were keenly collected, especially by art aficionados among the aristocracy and clergy. Originally from Lorraine, Claude lived and worked in Rome throughout most of his career. For many years he kept a modest home in Via Margutta near Piazza di Spa-gna, a favourite haunt of for-eign artists in Rome.
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