Attitudes to the Outdoors in Western European Painting during the Baroque Period
The Baroque period in the history of art may not be the obvious point to look at when talking about art in the outdoors. But during that time, which lasted roughly through the 17th and into to the first half of the 18th centuries, the attitude towards depicting nature shifted. This allowed for the grander and the epic, names we associate with more natural outdoor artworks. Constable, Freidrich, Turner, giants of the Romantic movement and of works of art depicting the natural world, all were preceded by the Baroque artists and were partly influenced by them.
Before the 17th century, nature in European art was idealised. It was based on a tranquil world of quiet streams that ran through verdant fields, dark trees sat aside the scene like theatre curtains, inviting the viewer in to the serene paradise where the subject just happened to be. And there had to be a subject, nature itself wasn’t the focus of the painting. Usually it was biblical, historical or even mythical yet this was to become increasingly unimportant as the subject became the excuse to paint the landscape with Baroque period artists.
Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) in his later years painted pictures with titles such as Landscape with Travellers Resting, Landscape with St John on Patmos where St John is relegated to a small figure sitting down. Or take Landscape with Ruins. The ruins are not specific, it is imagined antiquity. It isn’t even an historical place or time period. He had ceased to be the painter of subject and was increasingly interested only in the landscape. The sky is darker and is more realistic. Storms approach, lightning strikes somewhere. Contrast this with the perfect sky of Titian or Annibale Carrachi where nature is beautiful but in order, contained by both reason and God.
Renaissance artist were known for detail and looking at nature in a far more scientific way. Leonardo famously made incredibly detailed studies of nature, yet think of how he depicts the natural world in his most famous work, the Mona Lisa. Get past the smile and the most intriguing part of the painting is the otherworldly land she inhabits. It looks like it could be our Earth, but it is a puzzling place, roads and bridges go nowhere and the landscape doesn’t even match up. This is a sci-fi land.
Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) runs with ideas similar to Poussin and almost ditches the subject altogether. There is not much in the way of tales to be told, no moral to be reminded of in Claude’s work, and if there is a story in there, it is small, a reminder maybe that we are insignificant to the world of nature regardless of the episode that may be happening. Light becomes his primary concern, and he obsessed over it, detailing the changing moods of the day. Both Constable and Turner were massive fans.
Later, Canaletto (1697- 1768) would develop this mastery of light and detail most famously in his depictions of Venice. He made countless drawings on location, his subject being the city itself, before painting the final master work in his studio. But let us turn attention to something more northern, and Protestant.
Jacob Van Ruisdael (1629- 1682) was most likely the preeminent Dutch landscape artist of the period. And through his work we see major differences between the Flemish and Italian schools of painting of the time. His painting suggest the passing of time, no longer are we stuck in one perfect dramatic moment of unknown time and place. His View of Haarlem from the Dunes at Overveen (1670) shows the omnipresence of God by making the sky take up two thirds of the picture. No angels, no heavenly glory but a meteorologically correct sky, changing before our eyes. Although still concerned with God, Van Ruisdael looks through scientific eyes. He studies, measures, observes, and records, and in doing so, nails the lid of the coffin of art influenced primarily from Rome and Catholic Italian states as solidly as Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg cathedral.
Live Deliberately
Barry
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