| Pieter Claesz one of the most celebrated still life painters from the period, Claesz is particularly admired for his skill at painting, with a restrained palette, simple still lifes consisting of objects that seem to be simultaneously both the random product of a casually abandoned breakfast table and a brillantly arranged work of art completely controlled, carefully composed, and beautifully executed. Claesz,together with Willem Claesz Heda helped introduce the simple, monochrome still life to Haarlem and produced some of the most superb examples of the genre. Claesz was born in Westphalia of Dutch parents his birthdate has been cited from 1596 to 1598 by various scholars. He may have been a pupil of Floris van Dijck. Pieter's early works are similar to those of Willem Claesz Heda. Married in Haarlem in 1617, Pieter is recorded in documents that year as a painter. His later career is not well documented. He seems to have spent most of his life in Haarlem, where he probably died in 1660 or 1661. Dated works survive from 1621 to 1660. Claesz's earliest known dated work, a still life dated 1621, reflects the then current manner of spreading objects out across the picture and treating each as individual forms. By 1623 he had brought new cohesion to his still lifes, developing both compositional and painterly techiques that unified his images, overlapped the objects, and evoked a stronger effect of texture and surface. His style matured quickly in the 1620s the device of adding a table edge to contribute a sense of depth to the image, combined with a reduction of the number of objects, demonstrates his inventiveness within the restrictive conentions of the breakfast piece. His works commonly feature simple tableware pewter, pottery and plain food fish, apples, cheese, and a peeled lemon with a glass of beer. Claesz not only rendered them with great sensitivity to light and texture but set them on a beautifully rendered white tablecloth, considered one of the most difficult materials to paint. The objects in his pictures became increasingly palpable by virtue of his ability to depict them as though seen through atmosphere and light. Claesz also occasionally painted vanitas themes see Stilt Life with Skull, signed and dated 1630, The Hague, Mauritshuis. By the late 1630s and early 1640s, Claesz began to respond to the changing taste for more elaborate still lifes by introducing more luxurious objects as well as greater color into his pictures. His application of paint grew more vigorous and his handling of form less detailed. However, Claesz never developed the more sumptuous manner of Jan Davidsz de Heem, whose banquet pieces eclipsed Claesz's more modest still lifes in popularity. Today, the still lifes of Pietcr Claesz are more fully appreciated, and he and his contempoiary, Willem Claesz Heda, are considered the two most important still life painters of early seventeenth century Holland. Pieter Claesz is also regarded as a significant contributor to the development of still life in the work of Chardin. Claesz's son Nicolaes Pietersz became an important landscape painter and later took the name Berchem.* ADDITIONAL WORKS: Aachen, SLM, Still Life. Amsterdam, R, Stilt Life with Bread, Fruit, Glass (1647), s.; Still Life with Turkey Pie; Still Life (1624); Vanitas Still Life with the Spinario. Bamberg, SNR, Stilt Life. Berlin, SMG, Still Life with Silver Bowl. Bonn, RL, Breakfast Piece. Boston, MFA, Still Life, (163[9?]); pendant Still Life (1642). Bremen, KB, Still Life (1647). Chicago, AIC, Still Life (1630). Cologne, WRM, Still Life. Darmstadt, HL, Still Life. Dordrecht, Museum Mr. Simon van Gijn, Still Life with Lemons. Dusseldorf, KD, Still Life with Glasses (1650); Still Life. Haarlem, FHM, Stilt Life; Vanitas. The Hague, DVR, Still Life with Herrings; Still Life. M, Still Life with a Burning Candle; Vanitas Still Life. Hamburg, HK, Still Life. Indianapolis, IMA, Still Life (1640). Heidelberg, KM, Breakfast Piece. Kansas City, NAMA, Still Life (1638). Karlsruhe, SK, Breakfast Piece with Silver Goblet. Kassel, SKK, Breakfast Piece (1638). Leerdam, Hofje van Aerden, Still Life with a Rummer, Crayfish and Oysters. Malibu, JPGM, Vanitas Still Life (1634). Minneapolis, MIA, Still Life (1643). Munich, AP, Vanitas Stilt Life (1634). Munster, WL, Still Life (1644). New York, MMA, Vanitas Stilt Life (1623). Nuremberg, GM, Vanitas. Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, Vanitas; Still Life. Rotterdam, MBVB, Still Life with Goblet and Seafood (Little Breakfast) (1636). San Diego, Timken Art Gallery, Breakfast Still Life (1627). SchleissheJm, NSS, Still Life (1631); Still Life (1636). Utrecht, CM, Still Life with a Rummer. Wiinburg, MWM, Still Life (1640). BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bergstrom 1956; Duparc and Graif 1990; Grabski 1984; Haak 1984; Houbraken 1718-21; Kahr 1978; Sutton 1987; Thiel 1975. CLAUDE Lorraln Geliee (GeKe) (Champagne, near Nancy 1600-Rome 1682), French. Draftsman, painter, etcher, Claude Lorrain was the most successful foreign artist in Rome during his lifetime and has remained famous ever since for his landscapes, particularly for his coasts and harbors drenched in the waning afternoon sun. Claude is celebrated equally among the French (who ri jhtly claim him as their own), the British (who collected his work so extensively during the eighteenth century that England today has the largest body of his work), the Italians (where he worked for nearly his whole life), and the Americans (who have devoted considerable scholarship to him). Claude is the epitome of the "ideal landscape" painter: he harmonized the irregularities of nature into a beautifully ordered, spacious, and tranquil vision. Light suffuses and unifies his images, which are a remarkable fusion of natural observation and fruitful imagination. The facts of Claude's life are simple; they come down to us through two contemporary biographers, Joachim von Sandrart and Filippo Baldinucci, who must have known him. Sandrart lived in Rome in 1628-35 and claims to have joined Claude in numerous excursions into the Roman Campagna to draw. Baldinucci probably visited Claude's studio in 1680 while he was in Rome working on a biography of Bernini. He also interviewed Claude's nephews after Claude's death in 1682. Generally called Le Lorrain by the French and Claude Lorrain by the English, his actual name was Claude Gellee. Claude was orphaned at twelve and went to live with a brother in Freiburg-im-Briesgau, where he learned engraving. Later (perhaps by 1613) he arrived in Rome with a relative who dealt in lace. In Rome, Claude became a pastry cook in the house of Agostino Tassi, the architecture (quadrature) painter, who taught him the basics of painting. Around 1623 Claude was in Naples for a short time studying with Goffredo Wals, a Fleming. It is thought that the landscapes and vistas of the Gulf of Naples, Pozzuoli, Sorrento, and the islands of Capri and Ischia deeply affected him. In 1625 Claude traveled to Loreto and Venice, the Tyrol, Bavaria, and then to Nancy, filling a sketchbook as he went. Unlike Poussin,* who wrote innumerable letters, Claude set pen to paper infrequently–only three letters survive. His career is best documented through his Liber Veritatis begun around the mid-1630s and continued until his death. It contains 195 drawings which record his paintings, often with meticulous notations. In 1625 Claude returned to Lorrain and assisted Claude Deruet with frescoes (now destroyed) for the Carmelite church in Nancy. However, by 1627 Claude was back in Rome, living in the foreign artists' quarter. In 1628 Herman van Swanevelt* is recorded as living in his house. In 1650 Claude changed residences but remained in the same section of Rome. No other travels outside Italy are recorded for Claude, and travels within Italy are matters of speculation. Clearly, the Roman Campagna was the major source of inspiration for his work. Claude apparently never married, though he had a daughter, Agnese, born 1653. His nephews, Joseph and Jean, joined his household in the 1660s. Except for one assistant, Claude had no workshop. Indeed, none would seem necessary for a painter who painted easel pictures almost exclusively. Only two instances are cited, early in Claude's career, in which he might have painted frescoes. Baldinucci reports that he painted frescoes for the Muti and the Crescenzi family palazzi. The Muti frescoes are destroyed, but some scholars feel the Crescenzi frescoes still survive. Claude's fame rests on his easel pictures. His reputation grew after he supplied paintings to Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio and to Urban VIII, among others. In the 1630s Claude was invited to provide some of the decoration for the Buen Retiro palace in Spain and thereafter became internationally known. He remained a perennial favorite despite the vicissitudes of changing tastes and patrons. By the lime he died, all the popes from Urban VIII to Innocent XI had bought Claude's pictures, as had many members of the papal circle. Claude's clients were leading Italian and French citizens, and his popularity demonstrates the importance placed on landscape paintings in their collections. Claude seems to have had other landscape painters as his friends during his lifetime. We know he was a lifelong friend of Poussin, and he sketched with Sandrart; at other times he traveled with Poussin and Pieter van Laer* to Tivoli. Swanevelt lived with him, and Bartholomeus Breenbergh* was also apparently a friend. Claude's approach to picture making was a fusion of fact with fantasy. He did not aspire to archaeological accuracy, and he rarely depicted actual ruins. His fanciful architecture recalled a bygone era, a golden age–at once delicate and powerful. Throughout his life, Claude chose to represent an ideal, hospitable, yet through its perfection, an inaccessible world – one that could be entered by the mind and where the soul had peace. Viewing his paintings, one's mind could contemplate perfection and rest from wearying reality. Sensuality, mortality, brutality, and excess were avoided; only serenity and perfect stillness emanate from his images. Claude's career is generally divided into three phases. The early phase, or roughly 1627-1640, is the most difficult because some seven years elapsed before Claude recorded his work in the Liber Venturis. Claude's earliest signed, dated, and now accepted work is Landscape with Shepherds (signed and dated 1629, Philadelphia Museum of Art). This, together wiih other early works such as Idyll, shows Claude mastering the theme of the bucolic and picturesque landscape, having learned the lessons of the Carracci, Elsheimer, and Agostino Tassi. In these years Claude produced a number of small cabinets, sometimes painted on copper, in addition to the later easel pictures. Claude's earliest known experiment with a seaport, for which he became so famous, is Marine (dated 1633, Selkirkshire, Duke of Buccleuch at Bowhill collection). During the 1630s Claude evolved most of the subject matter which would occupy his maturity: landscapes with ancient ruins, idylls bordering on pure landscape but containing some figures with narrative elements; occasional topographical scenes and seaports. By the mid 1630s Claude had Embarkation of St. Paula Madrid, Prado. Claude's mature years span the two decades between 1640 and 1660. The acknowledged masterpiece which marks the beginning of his mature phase is the Embarkation of St Ursula (dated 1641, London, National Gallery). The large body of drawings which survive from this period show Claude incessantly wandering and sketching the Roman Campagna, as well as inventing landscape themes in his studio. Mingling the actual with the imaginary, Claude sought to produce romantic, not intellectual, responses from viewers of his paintings. One of Claude's most beautiful fusions of the pastoral with the real is View of La Crescenza New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, while among his most ambitious works are the two versions of Landscape with Dancing Figures (also known as The Mill, dated 1648, Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphili and London, National Gallery). In 1650 Claude entered his so-called grand manner phase which concentrated on more architectonic landscapes, generally used as settings for some important episode taken from a sacred or mythological text. Perhaps Poussin's increasing seriousness of purpose, manifest after his return to Rome in 1642, had some impact on Claude. A notable example is Marine with a Battle on a Bridge (signed and dated 1655, Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts). Over the years Claude's atmospheric and lighting effects became subtler and softer, and Claude's method became increasingly meticulous in its approach. His late phase begins in roughly 1660 and lasts until his death in 1682. His output decreased during these last two decades but his images are no less captivating, though they strike a less dramatic and often dreamier note. Among his most poetic visions is the Landscape with Psyche at the Castle of Amor London, National Gallery, which had as a pendant Landscape with Psyche Saved from Suicide Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Muscum. Claude tended to favor themes taken from Virgil's Aenead. He often turned to asymmetrical compositions unified by an even greater reliance on atmosphere and soft light. Notable works include Apollo and the Muses on Mount Parnassus signed and dated 1680, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts and View of Carthage with Dido and Aeneas signed and dated 1676, Hamburg, Kunsthalle, both of which show Claude's experimentation with diverse vantage points, asymmetry, and dense, almost brooding atmosphere. Claude's last painting, Landscape with Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Silvia signed and dated 1682, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, shows no waning of inventive or interpretive powers. Instead, it reveals a great figure meditating on the theme of his own mortality with a poetic sensibility strengthened by unceasing practice and deepened by time. |
