Exhibitions & Displays: Past

In partnership with the Städel Museum, Frankfurt, the exhibition will bring together 140 works from international collections, created at different points in the artist’s career. By uniting ‘pairs’ of Claude’s paintings and making a comprehensive survey of his work in different media, the exhibition brings new research to bear on his working methods, to reveal an unconventional side to Claude which has previously been little known.

Born in France, Claude travelled first to Italy at the age of 13 or 14, settling in Rome for the rest of his life in 1627. The scenery of his great compositions was based on his studies of the ancient ruins and the rolling country of the Tiber Valley and the Roman Campagna. Claude’s ability to translate his vision of the countryside and the majesty of natural light with the aid of his brush won him the admiration of his contemporaries, above all else, as a ‘natural painter’. It has been his signature treatment of classical landscape and literature which has impressed itself on generations of artists and collectors, and which has made his name synonymous with great landscape painting.

The cult of Claude which grew up in the 18th and 19th centuries, begun by British ‘Grand Tourists’, has left a profound mark on our history and landscape. English country houses are well stocked with both originals by Claude and with copies. Responding to aristocratic taste and fashion, designers such as Capability Brown, Henry Hoare and William Kent reproduced his ideal views in the parklands of great houses, from Blenheim Palace, and Rousham House to Stowe and Stourhead. Claude’s drawings were collected with no less enthusiasm by English connoisseurs, as a result, over 40% of his drawings are now in the British Museum. Claude’s influence on later artists is apparent in the work of Gainsborough, Turner and Constable, who described him as ‘the most perfect landscape painter the world ever saw’. 

A lesser-known side to Claude is the eccentricity of his graphic art. CLAUDE LORRAIN: THE ENCHANTED LANDSCAPE will exhibit 13 paintings alongside related drawings and etchings from international and private collections, and from the Ashmolean’s own extensive holdings. Claude was a dedicated graphic artist. He drew for the sake of mastering the world of nature but also because drawing was a pleasure in itself. Many of his drawings were made as works of art in their own right. During his own lifetime Claude’s fame grew rapidly. As a guard against forgeries, he made copies of his paintings in a book, the Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), which, by the time of his death, contained 200 drawings. The book also gave him a collection of ideas which he could reuse when necessary. Although he made only 40 prints in total, all of which are on display, he took a serious interest in printmaking. Similar to his drawings, his principle focus was to explore the potential of the medium. His exceptional technique - a painterly brush-and-ink style replicating natural effects - was a novelty in contemporary printmaking. The spectacular ‘Fireworks’ series, ten etchings made during a week of firework displays in Rome, illustrate his experimental style and will be on show together in the Ashmolean’s exhibition.

Unlike contemporaries who had an academic training, Claude’s style and artistic process were unique to him. He worked frequently with existing materials progressing from one painting to another through a process of variation and combination. His sketching excursions provided him with a stock of motifs, including trees, hills, rivers and antique ruins, which became constant accessories in his paintings. Figure groups were shifted from one composition to another. Landscapes, like stage scenery, were taken out for reuse with a different set of characters. Elsewhere he would cut compositions in two or enlarge them with separate sheets. Occasionally, he would pick up a discarded study and add detail to make it a finished work of art, often with peculiar results.

Claude was also the first artist to specialise in painting ‘pairs’. Approximately half his compositions were made as companion pieces, the earliest of which, on display here, are Landscape with the Judgement of Paris and Coast View (both 1633). The idea of pairs is also found among his prints. While many of his pairs show a compositional correspondence, contrast played as great a role as similarity. Often an Arcadian landscape is combined with a maritime view, or a morning scene with an evening setting. The pairs were not always executed concurrently: his very last painting, the Ashmolean’s great Ascanius and the Stag of Sylvia (1682), was made 5 years after its companion, Aeneas’s Farewell to Dido in Carthage (1676) now in Hamburg.

CLAUDE LORRAIN: THE ENCHANTED LANDSCAPE will display some of Claude’s greatest masterpieces, works which have made his art familiar and well-loved. In placing these beside his graphic art and exploring his singular methods of working, the exhibition aims to expose an unexplored dimension to one of the western canon’s most famous names.

“Claude’s art is recognisable to almost all of us, even if we are less familiar with his name, and this important exhibition will reintroduce us to one of the greatest painters of all time.” Dr Jon Whiteley, Exhibition Curator and Senior Assistant Keeper of Western Art, Ashmolean Museum.

Dates: 6 October 2011–8 January 2012
Tickets: £9/7 (Gift Aid included) online booking will be available from September 2011

Catalogue:     CLAUDE LORRAIN: THE ENCHANTED LANDSCAPE, published by The Ashmolean,   features essays by Dr Jon Whiteley, Dr Martin Sonnabend and Dr Christian Rumelin. It can be purchased in the Ashmolean Shop or online at www.ashmolean.org/shop. Paperback Price: £25 (£20 with an exhibition ticket - offer available through the Ashmolean Shop only) 

Städel Museum
Established by the banker and businessman Johann Friedrich Städel as a foundation under civil law in 1815, the Städel Museum is the oldest and most prominent museum foundation in Germany. Its collections comprise 2,900 paintings, 600 sculptures, 500 photographs and more than 100,000 prints and drawings, ranging over 700 years of European art history, from the late Middle Ages to the present day. The Städel holds a programme of internationally acclaimed special exhibitions and a varied education programme for the community and wider regions. The museum is currently undergoing a major redevelopment project to build a new 3000 square-metre building for exhibitions and the permanent collections of modern and contemporary art. CLAUDE LORRAIN: THE ENCHANTED LANDSCAPE will tour to the Städel Museum from 3 February–6 May 2012.

European prints and drawings at the Ashmolean
The Ashmolean’s Western Art Print Room houses one of the finest collections of European prints and drawings in Britain. It includes approximately 25,000 drawings and 250,000 prints from the fifteenth century to the present day. It is open to members of the public, students and visiting scholars alike, for the study and enjoyment of the collections. Amongst the highlights are drawings and prints by Claude Lorrain, the world’s finest group of drawings by Raphael, works on paper by Rembrandt, Dürer, Guercino, Watteau and Cézanne; English drawings and watercolours by JMW Turner and Samuel Palmer; the Pissarro family archive and John Ruskin’s teaching collections.