The Landscape Masters of the Baroque - Essay Example

Poussin and Lorrain: The Landscape Masters of the Baroque Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain are two of the most distinguished artists of the classical baroque style from France. Although their landscape paintings are all done in the baroque style, and its theoretical precepts established in France from the mid-17th century, the two artists fulfill expressive ends that are antithetical to each other. While Poussin was interested in an objective rendering of the imposing monumentality and archaeological precision present in imperialist Rome, Lorrain sought to depict the rolling countryside’s deserted ruins in a romantic manner (Tyndall 72). To the latter’s proponents, his landscapes are a visual counterpart to natural beauty and a profound sentiment of the natural world. On the other hand, Lorrain sought to de-emphasize man’s role in nature to enhance the role of cosmic forces, although Tyndall (p. 72) contends that the classical tradition hindered his attempts to uncouple man and nature to any significant degree. Whereas Lorrain’s work can be taken as pioneering in the development of pictorialism, which gave rise to the early impressionists and romantics of the 19th century, Poussin’s art can be considered as the last phase of landscape painting’s history of rational formalism. In fact, Tyndall (p. 84) argues that synthesizing the divergent messages of art present in the poetic Lorrain and the scholarly Poussin can be seen in the unification of nature’s poetic content within classical composition’s formal elements. For the most part, French baroque art can be considered as an expression of the French Crown’s values, particularly those of King Louis XIV (Kitson 24). King Louis built the Versailles palace as a symbol of the Crown’s total authority, of which the design of both the palace and surrounding land was a direct product of a rigid, rational, and disciplined approach meant to show the state and government control of the king. The sculptures, paintings, and architecture that were chosen to decorate this palace were, stylistically, purely classical in nature, conveying the timeless and orderly truths of the policies pursued by King Louis XIV (Kitson 24). However, not every artist in France wanted to be employed by the government with majority of them electing to leave the country, contending that this was better than placing their artistic creativity in political service. The two most distinguished artists of this period, Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin, chose to move to Italy, where they got inspiration from the gentle landscape in Rome (Kitson 34). Claude Lorrain elected to paint the lovely countryside in form of poetry, populating the landscapes with ancient monuments and their picturesque ruins, as well as flocks of sheep. Poussin also sought to depict similar features in his landscapes on the countryside in Rome. However, Poussin sought to do more than delight the audience or viewer. Instead, he utilized the classical setting to present human history in dramatic form. On top of delighting his landscapes’ viewers, he also set out to instruct them. In short, Kitson (p. 35) contends that the purpose for Poussin’s art was to elevate the human mind to its most moral and highest state. (Sachs 29) Diogène jetant son écuelle by Poussin Ulysse remet Chriséis à son père by Lorrain According to Sachs (p. 29), both Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain transport their audiences to exotic locales. This is through making their audiences travel in time and end up in a place, which is; from a long time ago or far away, as well as both far away and long ago and that, the further their audiences move in time and space, the more they get suspended in reality’s weight. The two artists, both from the 17th century, applied these insights when painting their landscapes, showing improvements over nature using their pastoral sights that was a window into fantasy, rather than into reality (Sachs 29). In the two landscape paintings above, it can be seen that both Poussin and Lorrain clung to anecdote, showing variants of their realism commitment as illustrators of fantasy stories. Claude Lorrain dresses Ulysses in clothes from the renaissance era as buildings and ships provide the context of the 17th century. Poussin clothes Diogenes in toga with the background showing a version of the Greek polis that is relatively convincing. Poussin and Lorrain’s intentions are similar by seeking to tempt the audience’s eyes by painting a view where figures in the foreground are a pretext or a detail, in which one could claim that it is easier to understand the narrative by peering into the distance (Sachs 30). Both Lorrain and Poussin share similar classical composition and content, although it can also be said that their styles differ slightly. They share various unifying themes, such as balance, charity, and harmony in their work, while also creating ideal and gentle scenes and, in addition, their landscape paintings are ordered using a seemingly formulaic approach (Sachs 32). While both Lorrain and Poussin painted landscapes, however, their intentions in painting these landscapes were different. Poussin’s landscapes were more focused on narrative, especially regarding the moral of the story he was attempting to tell. Lorrain, on the other hand, focused his landscapes on sun-light and its atmospheric effects. “Diogène jetant son écuelle” by Poussin, for instance, shows the virtues of human life, and living with nothing else but what one has. In contrast, Claude Lorrain’s “Ulysse remet Chriséis à son père” shows more interest in the sky and the variety of colors in the sky than Poussin attempts in his landscapes. While Lorrain seems to explore new color territories for his time, Poussin looks somewhat restricted by the confines of color popular during the era (Sachs 32). Their differing interests could be as a result of their different work and employment sources. Whereas Lorrain’s landscapes often worked on commission from the Church to produce art for decorating chapels and cathedrals, Poussin generally worked for private commissions for collectors that were, at the time, quite radical by past standards. Nicolas Poussin’s reveals his interest in bas-relief through his use of strong horizontals that are in contrast to Lorrain’s landscapes that use strong verticals, which lead up to the vanishing point of his landscapes (Sachs 33). By comparing landscapes from the two artists, it is clear that Poussin has stronger interest in creating compositional classical landscapes compared to Lorrain, especially because the former centers the vanishing points of his landscapes more than the latter. Lorrain, on the other hand, tends to break away from this tradition of centering the landscape’s vanishing point, instead painting a landscape composition that is classical in style and context with a vanishing point that is off centered. Although the initial viewing of the composition by Lorrain seems to show that the center is the waterway, looking more carefully shows that the ship, which is very detailed and located in the waterway, is the center. Although Poussin can be considered as having an eye for detail that seeks to lead the viewer’s eye, his environmental detail is less developed compared to Claude Lorrain (Sachs 29). (Sachs 52) The Judgment of Paris by Claude Lorrain Diogène jetant son écuelle by Poussin While Lorrain’s landscapes also possess narratives, these narratives cannot be considered as moralizing as the narratives painted by Poussin (Sachs 53). “The Judgment of Paris” has a narrative that involves Zeus attempting to make a judgment about who among Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera was the prettiest goddess. Lorrain elects to portray the moment before Zeus has to make a decision about the three goddesses, rather than to narrate the moment at which Zeus makes the decision. This allows Lorrain to create tension, which is normally non-existent in works by his contemporary Poussin. Poussin’s work in “Diogène jetant son écuelle”, for example, shows the unfolding of an entire narrative for the viewer. In this painting, Poussin seeks to narrate the moment during which the philosopher makes his ideas known and not the moment after or the moment before he does so. Instead, he seeks to focus on the narrative’s climax. Another difference between the two painters is that one portrays a philosophical narrative, while the other portrays a mythological narrative. Because Poussin elects to use mainly philosophical narratives in his landscapes, he is able to create a subject matter that is more stoic and serious than Lorrain who, rather than focus on the message, is more concerned about the story’s outcome (Sachs 53). Claude Lorrain mainly painted his landscapes in the city, which enabled him to portray antiquity scenes that he imagined. Poussin, however, had to research on these antiquity elements like architecture, clothing, and pots that he portrayed. The latter painter’s accuracy in his depiction of the antiquity elements is most likely attributable to spending most of his time and artistic career as a painter in Italy (Sachs 55). Although Lorrain was also significantly affected by artists and artistic styles in Italy, particularly the Italian artist Annibale Caracci, he was not as interested in antiquity research compared to his contemporary. The two artists also utilized techniques aimed at leading their viewers to concentrate on the background. Poussin and Lorrain tended to pain the foreground in dark colors, while their backgrounds were lighter in color, which gave the audience an impression of far and deep space (Sachs 55). Poussin, in Diogène jetant son écuelle, for example, uses red color as a way to highlight the clothing on the figure and to lead the viewer’s eye to the landscape’s background. In a similar manner, Lorrain uses lines that lead up to a vanishing point that is centered on the landscape background. Both Lorrain and Poussin also use the tactic of establishing a color scheme of blue, green, and brown in the background, middle ground, and foreground as a way to enhance their respective illusions of space (Lagerlöf 41). In addition, they also create highlights in order to disrupt the shadowy areas, a tactic that is present across majority of their work, to lead the viewer to the background. However, looking at the paintings featured here, as well as other paintings by the two artists, Poussin’s work tends to handle the paint in a smooth, dry, and thin manner. This is in contrast to Lorrain whose handling of paint is laden with impasto that seeks to emphasize detail and texture, while the paint is also thick. In their respective landscape paintings, both artists tend to lump the figures of importance in a corner of the canvas and to the foreground, which enhances their importance by creating a scale hierarchy (Lagerlöf 42). However, Poussin elects to include additional paintings within his landscapes that are, however, too small to make out as being important to his narrative. On the other hand, Lorrain elects not to include other figures apart from the most important ones in his landscapes. Lorrain, in comparison to Poussin, showed relatively less interest in the landscape’s subject matter, which made him more like his contemporaries in this respect. This meant that, while the subject matter was expected to be obvious to the viewer who was looking for it, it was not supposed to distract the viewer from appreciating the landscape’s beauty (Lagerlöf 44). Beginning in the mid 17th century, Lorrain is identified as the inventor of the best compromise between landscape painting and subject matter. This was in place of repeating his earlier subjects like Fight into Egypt, at which point he begun to draw on poetry, especially that of the Roman poet Virgil, as the major inspiration for subject matter. In addition, unlike Nicolas Poussin who attempted to imitate the source of his inspiration as accurately as he could, Lorrain sought to draw on poetry for inspiration on landscape subject matter. The pastoral poetry of Virgil, especially the Georgics and Eclogues, had already been utilized by Lorrain in a generalized manner for majority of his scenes (Lagerlöf 44), such as dancing shepherds, resting shepherds, and shepherds taking care of their flock, as well. Lorrain showed the ability to translate even the most wistful of Virgil’s verses into landscape sans making any pedantic references to particular verses or arousing argument about which passage he had precisely narrated (Lagerlöf 46). For instance, in “Aeneass Farewell to Dido in Carthago” (to the left), Lorrain depicts a passage from Virgil’s Aeneid. Here, Aeneas and Dido who were lovers spent an entire winter in each other’s company. This was until Aeneas received a visit from Mercury, who was the gods’ messenger, with a strict message for Aeneas from Jupiter to return immediately to the gods. Deciding to leave and amid scenes full of tears, vituperation, and pleading, Aeneas departs, leaving Dido kill herself on a funeral pyre they had built using a sword left by Aeneas. Compared to Poussin who sought to imitate his inspiration as accurately as humanly possible, Lorrain sought to adapt his inspiration’s subject matter into his landscapes (Lagerlöf 46). In spite of the noted differences in their narrative moments, landscape interests, paint handling, among others, Poussin and Lorrain painted in a similar manner using similar concepts. It is, however, vital to keep in mind that the two artists defied the norm. Whereas Lorrain challenged the general art market, Lorrain sought to challenge classical landscape painting and its conventions. In addition, while they represented the popular trend towards Roman and Italian vogue, they also maintained their French identity, adapting these foreign influences to their original artistic genius to produce a new pictorial subject mode. Works Cited Kitson, Michael. Studies on Claude and Poussin. London: Pindar, 2010. Print. Lagerlöf, Margaretha R. Ideal Landscape: Annibale Carracci, Nicolas Poussin, and Claude Lorrain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Print. Sachs, Samuel. "Poussin, Claude, and Their World: Seventeenth-century French Drawings from the Ecole Des Beaux-Arts, Paris: September 18 Through December 1, 2002." Members Magazine. 2012. Print. Tyndall, Audrey. Claude and the Poussins. London: National Gallery, 2013. Print. Work Cited Read More