Thursday, March 2, 2017

Landscape Compositions from 17th-century Europe

Marten Ryckaert
Landscape with Lake
ca. 1616
oil on panel
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"Ludius in the time of the Divine Augustus began the charming custom of putting murals on walls: pictures of farms, porticoes, fancy gardens, groves, pastures, hills, fishing ponds, waterways, rivers, strands, or whatever one might choose. To these he added various groups: people out for a walk or sail, or arriving at the farms on asses or in their carriages, others fishing, chasing birds, or hunting, or even gathering grapes. Outstanding among his works are farms approached across marshlands, also one of bridegrooms with their wives on their shoulders confusedly bumping into each other. There are said to be quite a few more of that sort, of nimble and superior wit. The same man also started the custom of painting seaport scenes on open terraces, allowing a pleasant view at minimal expense. But no glory has come to muralists, only to those whose paintings can be framed. This illustrates why the artists of old better deserve our respect. For they did not adorn walls simply to please the owners, or paint on houses which were confined to one place and could not be snatched from a fire. Protogenes was content to have a cottage in a tiny garden. There were no murals in Apelles' whitewashed home, for it was not yet an agreeable effect to have paint all over the walls. All their art was civic labor, and a painter belonged to the world in common."

 from Pliny's Natural History, as rendered in the Catalogus Architectorum published by Franciscus Junius in 1694, translated by Keith Aldrich for University of California Press in 1991

Guercino
Landscape with Boat crossing a River
late 1620s-1630s
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Jusepe de Ribera
Landscape with Shepherds
1639
oil on canvas
Collection of the Dukes of Alba, Salamanca

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Landscape with Bathers
17th century
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Jan Both
Italian Landscape with Roman Warriors
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gaspard Dughet
Plain of Latium with River
ca. 1645-50
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

David Teniers
Landscape with Grotto and Gypsies
ca. 1640-45
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Claude Lorrain
Landscape with Figures
ca. 1634-36
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Jacques d'Arthois
Landscape
ca. 1678-86
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Giovanni Domenico
Edge of a Lake
ca. 1650
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Paul Brill
Landscape with Flight into Egypt
before 1626
oil on copper
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Tobias Verhaecht
Landscape with Tobias and the Angel
1617
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Jan Brueghel the Elder
Landscape with Rest on the Flight into Egypt
1607
oil on panel
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Rembrandt
Canal with Angler and Swans
1650
etching
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Jacob van Huchtenburg
Campo Vaccino, Forum Romanum
1671
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Guercino
Landscape with Resting Traveler
1630s
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg