Landscape

Claude

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Claude. The drawing is a landscape with an apparently rocky foreground, and a large tree in the centre. Further trees are behind this and there are two figures, one with an arm outstretched, sketchily drawn. The perspective is from a high place, looking down on another cluster of trees. Behind this there appears to be a shoreline and water, with mountains on the horizon. Text from the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society: "No. 26 CLAUDE GELLÉE (b. 1600; d. 1682) LANDSCAPE Library of Christ Church, Oxford, F. F. 21. Pen and sepia, and sepia wash. 18 x 13 cm. (7 1/16 x 5 1/16 in.). The 'classical landscape', of which for two centuries Claude was the supreme exponent, has lost some of its glamour during the last fifty years. Yet this decline, far from decreasing Claude's reputation, rather augments it. In his sketches from nature almost all modern painting is foreshadowed; so it will be no surprise to those who know Claude to find him, as in this majestic drawing from Christ Church, the precursor of Courbet and, through Courbet, of Cézanne. C. J. H."