Читать книгу Claude Lorrain - Sergei Daniel - Страница 3

If we liken history to a river, then, extending the analogy, we might say that its course is as uneven as that of any river. Some epochs create the sense of a measured, even slow passage of time, while in others the historical process moves forward by leaps and bounds, like an imperious, rushing stream. The 17th century in Europe was just such an epoch of accelerated, stormy progress.

Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome

c. 1630–1635

Brush drawing in brown wash over pen and brown ink, and graphite, 17.3 × 11.8 cm

Teylers Museum, Haarlem

This heightened dynamism is the primary reason why we find it so difficult to give an adequate name to the period. Of the many designations which have so far been proposed, none has been accepted decisively. Depending on their point of view, some scholars have called it the Age of Absolutism, others the Age of the Counter-Reformation, still others, the Baroque Period, and in their search for the dominant historical factor, they were each time faced with obvious alternatives. Perhaps the closest anyone has come to an inclusive definition is a simple progressive formula, “from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment”.

Landscape with Groves and Seated Figure

c. 1630–1635

Brush drawing in brown wash over graphite heightened with white, 19.6 × 27.1 cm

Teylers Museum, Haarlem

This was a period of brilliant scientific discoveries which led to profound changes in man’s image of the world. In natural science, the researches of Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Fermat, Pascal, Harvey, Leeuwenhoek, Huygens, Newton, and Leibniz produced a kind of permanent revolution, whose enormous amplitude was marked, as it were, by the telescope at one end, and the microscope at the other.

Embarkation of a Queen

Attributed to Agostino Tassi, c. 1628

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes

The idea of the unity of the physical world was associated with that of the unity of all biological forms. Science was placed on a firm basis of experiment and mathematical analysis. The rapid development of scientific knowledge and the increasing variety of its different branches called for a new synthetic philosophy, and 17th-century thinkers responded to this demand with an unprecedented effort, elaborating the doctrine of universal order.

Landscape with an Artist Drawing

c. 1630

Etching, 10.2 × 16.8 cm

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

It was not without reason that some historians of science and philosophy called the 17th century the Age of Geniuses: this century saw the publication of writings by Bacon, Gassendi, Descartes, Spinoza, Pascal, Hobbes, Locke, and Leibniz.

For art, closely interwoven with all other forms of cultural activity, this was also an age of discoveries.

John Donne wrote in the early 1610s:

The Siege of La Rochelle by Louis XIII (October 1628)

c. 1631

Oil on canvas, 28 × 42 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris

Mill on a River

c. 1631

Oil on canvas, 61.6 × 84.5 cm

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

This passage may be viewed as a poetic expression of the new general pattern of thought, for it gives an eloquent formula of Baroque relativism, which permeated contemporaries’ entire conception of the Universe. The proud and confident Renaissance optimism was replaced by a Baroque mood of morbid sensitivity, full of deep inner contradictions.

The Age of World Theatre is another name justifiably applied to the 17th century, and not only because the period included such authors as Shakespeare, Dryden, Congreve, Gryphius, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Alarcon, Calderon, Corneille, Racine, and Moliere.

Morning in Seaport

c. 1634

Etching, 12.4 × 19.2 cm

State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg

The very nature of the theatre made it particularly congenial to the spirit of the age. On the stage, appearances easily replace reality, reality wears a mask of illusion, and the world at large appears as an endless chain of transformations. It became a truism to compare the world to a stage where each plays a role assigned to him. Hence such maxims as “All the world’s a stage”, “Life is a dream”, or phrases like “The comedy of life”. The underlying idea may be summed up in the words, “Life is a play”, and thus we may speak of the theatralisation of reality during the Baroque era.

Trees and Rocks by a Waterfall

c. 1635

Brush drawing in brown wash, heightened with white over black chalk, on buff paper, 38.8 × 25.2 cm

British Museum, London

For all its love of strong spectacular effects, 17th-century art never moved too far from reality; on the contrary, it sought to convey the fullest possible picture of life, reproducing its infinite wealth of detail and the unity of its various aspects, and often deliberately exaggerating the contradictions. Whatever its form – whether it be a stage performance or a poem, a novel or an architectural ensemble – a work of Baroque art is always dramatic in spirit and form and always synthetic in nature.

Rocky Stream with an Artist Seated on the Left

c. 1635

Brush drawing in brown wash over graphite red chalk and black chalk, 26.4 × 35.7 cm

Teylers Museum, Haarlem

The general picture is not one of the different arts tending to converge in a common focus, rather that each of the arts, having consolidated its position within its own province, began to expand into the adjoining areas, broadening its sphere of influence and jockeying for dominance in the arts. The result was what seemed a paradoxical situation: there was, so to speak, a struggle for the throne in the realm of culture, and yet there were no losers, for each participant benefited by borrowing from the others, constantly increasing its own chances of dominance. This productive exchange of values carried the arts as a whole to new heights. We should particularly note that the greatest 17th-century writers more often than not chose to convey their ideas in dramatic form, from whence derives the theatricality of Baroque poetry and prose. At the same time, the fine arts went hand-in-hand down the same path as literature.

Landscape with the Rest on the Flight into Egypt

1635–1636

Oil on canvas, 73 × 97.5 cm

Private collection, New York on loan to the Hamburger Kuntshalle

Tree Study

c. 1635

Brush drawing in brown wash with pen and brown ink, 28.9 × 20.5 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris

The classical principle ut pictura poesis retained its significance for both aesthetic and artistic practice; in the sphere of music, there emerged such new dramatic forms as opera and the oratorio, which were of paramount importance for the later development of music; in garden design, we see the dramatisation of Nature itself; and there are strong grounds to speak of a specifically dramatic quality to 17th-century architecture, sculpture, and painting.

The Colosseum

c. 1635–1640

Brush drawing in brown wash, over pen and brown ink and black chalk, 19.2 × 26.2 cm

Teylers Museum, Haarlem

The idea of the close intercourse between and especially the essential homogeneity of the arts was central to the aesthetic doctrine of the period. In 1642, a treatise by Baltasar Gracian, one of the leading theoreticians of the Spanish Baroque, was published. This work, reprinted in 1648 under the title Agudeza y arte de ingenio (The Art of Quick Wit), was innovatory, giving a new direction to aesthetic thought by shifting its focus from Aristotle’s Logic and Poetics to his Rhetoric. The Spanish author strictly differentiated between man’s powers of logical and aesthetic judgement.

View of the Campo Vaccino

1636

Oil on canvas, 56 × 72 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris

The latter is designated by the word gusto, or taste, which is determined by creative intuition capable of grasping the essence of disparate objects of phenomena and establishing affinities between them. “The art of quick wit” was given a theoretical basis in the writings of Gracian’s contemporary, Emmanuelle Tesauro, who was justly called the Boileau of the Baroque. His treatise Il Cannochiale Aristotelico (The Telescope of Aristotle, 1655) contains a systematic exposition of the new principles of poetics.

Trees and Rocks by a Stream

c. 1635

Brush drawing in brown wash, with pen and brown ink heightened with white, 25.2 × 19.3 cm

Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Taking, like Gracian, Aristotle’s Rhetoric as his point of departure, he placed an even stronger emphasis on the independence of Arte Nuova, new art, from any logical schemes, and dwelt at great length on this art’s specific character. Tesauro declared the concetto, ingenious conceit, to be divine, and placed artists capable of it on a level with the Creator, who in turn is thus transformed into an accomplished rhetorician. The art of quick wit uses metaphor as its principal instrument, whereas logic assigns this role to concept.

Landscape with a Goatherd and Goats

c. 1636–1637

Oil on canvas, 52 × 42 cm

National Gallery, London

Hence the basic importance of metaphor and allegory in the poetics of the stile moderno: the theory of art and aesthetics cognition takes on certain features of general rhetoric.

The rhetorical orientation of art and aesthetics in the 17th century is closely bound up with a phenomenon aptly described in more recent literature on the subject as a “mythology explosion”.

The 17th century is essentially the beginning of the end for mythology’s dominant role in artistic subject matter, after holding undisputed sway for several millennia.

The Cowherd

1636

Etching, 12.6 × 19.5 cm

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

And precisely at this crucial point, in a seemingly unfavourable historical and cultural situation, the mythological theme suddenly burst into flower, with an unprecedented growth in its repertory of themes and with an infinite wealth of forms and interpretations. In this respect, the 17th century left the preceding periods of art history so far behind that, by comparison, we may indeed describe the increase in its scope and intensity as a sort of mythology explosion.

Seaport with the Setting Sun

1637

Oil on canvas, 74 × 99 cm

Alnwick Castle, Alnwick

Alongside the marked tendency towards extending the stock of subjects beyond the traditional limits, and the increasing variety of genres, 17th-century art demonstrates an unflagging interest in myth. The question of interrelationship of myth and reality will be found to be central to any branch of Baroque art we turn to. Painting seems to have achieved more in the exploration of this problem than any other art. To convince oneself of this, it is enough to recall the work of such leaders of the different national schools as the Carracci, Caravaggio, Velazquez, Poussin, Rubens, and Rembrandt.

The Dance

c. 1637

Etching, 19.2 × 25.5 cm

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

The 17th-century approach to mythology had some characteristic traits, most notably a breaking away from traditional iconography (within certain bounds, of course) and the predominance of individual interpretations of mythological themes. Does that imply that myth was no longer perceived as myth in the proper sense of the word, but only as a body of material previously built up in the collective consciousness and liable to free creative interpretation? At any rate, it is an indisputable fact that 17th-century artists exercised considerable freedom in the treatment of mythological sources.

Seaport with the Rising Sun

c. 1637–1638

Oil on canvas, 74 × 99 cm

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Moreover, the “mythology explosion” in Baroque art may have been prompted by a desire to employ the synthesising potential of myth in a rational way. Viewed like this, myth may be understood as a particular means of generalising reality, as an instrument of artistic cognition. This granted, it takes only one step to establish a direct relationship between mythology and rhetoric in 17th-century art. The idea of such an interconnection can already be found in the treatises of the leading theorists of the Baroque era.

Oak Tree in the Campagna

1638 (?)

Chalk and brown wash, 32.9 × 22.4 cm

Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Later this idea was brilliantly developed by Giambattista Vico, who advanced, in particular, the concept of the mythological roots of poetic tropes; Vico held that every metaphor is a myth in miniature.

Fundamental to the understanding of 17th-century art is the problem of its principal stylistic concepts. Among a wide variety of stylistic trends, there were two leading ones, the Baroque and Classicism. It has been suggested that the Baroque played a prevalent, and Classicism a subsidiary role.

Pastoral Lanscape

1638

Oil on canvas, 100 × 132 cm

Collection at Parham House, West Sussex

Some authorities distinguish yet a third trend, unconnected with either the Baroque or Classicism. We are not inclined to adopt either the former, or the latter view, believing as we do that the notions of Baroque and Classicism, neither of which can be placed in a subordinate position to the other, amply suffice for the reconstruction of a complete picture of 17th-century stylistic evolution, with all the interaction of its conflicting trends. The terms Baroque and Classicism may be said to mark the two extreme points between which the process of style formation developed as a struggle between opposing tendencies.

Pastoral Caprice with the Arch of Constantine

Oil on canvas, 98 × 145 cm

Duke of Westminster Collection

The Baroque style can be characterised in a general way, using such features as heightened expressiveness, eccentricity, a rejection of the norms and rules, a taste for sharp contrasts and extravagant effects, a combined use of different viewpoints, imagery of exuberant splendour, metaphorical language, love of allegory, and a strong and direct appeal to the emotions and the imagination in a deliberate effort to overwhelm the spectator.

Landscape with Lowland Plain in the Vicinity of Rome

c. 1638

Brush drawing in brown wash with pen and ink, 19.6 × 30.5 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris

Classicism is based on the cult of Reason and the Classical ideal of Antique art. Hence its fundamental features: a sense of measure, structural logic, clarity of form, strictly ordered and well-balanced composition, rational self-control and discipline, and, last of all, an elevated, didactic tone in addressing the viewer.

Heinrich Wolflin, who was the first to systematically apply typological principles to the study of style, drew a clear and sharp dividing line between the Renaissance and the Baroque. But a similar demarcation between styles can obviously be effected within the Baroque era itself.

Stone Pines with Two Figures

c. 1638–1641

Brush drawing in brown wash, over pen and brown ink and graphite, 18 × 25.1 cm

Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Whereas the Baroque style arose largely in opposition to the preceding artistic system, 17th-century Classicism was a sort of a “negation of the negation”, reasserting much of what the Baroque denied. But the role of 17th-century Classicism is not confined to this sort of positive conservatism. The rise of the Baroque style was associated with the process of the destruction of the old picture of the world; it was a generalised expression of the dynamic spirit of the time.

An Artist Studying Nature

1639

Oil on canvas, 78.1 × 101 cm

Gift of Mary Hanna, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati

By contrast, Classicism contributed to the creation, on the ruins of the old foundations, of a new building, no less strong and stable than the demolished one. Just as Newtonian mechanics produced an absolute space and time framework of reference, so did French Classicism elaborate a strict logical system of artistic representation, totally opposed to the relativism of the Baroque. Nor could this system have ever emerged otherwise than in opposition to the Baroque. Thus the two leading, and rival, 17th-century styles owed a fair amount to one another.

Two Ships in a Storm

1638–1640

Brush drawing in grey wash, over pen and brown ink and graphite, on beige paper, 31.9 × 22.4 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris

Having outlined the historical, cultural, and artistic problems facing the student of 17th-century art, we will now turn our attention to the more specific theme of this book.

Claude Lorrain occupies a leading position among the great artists of the 17th century. But the question arises of how far, if at all, we may be justified in assessing his art as a cultural phenomenon. We would feel no scruples on this score, were we to deal with Galileo or Bernini, Leibniz or Rubens, Rembrandt or Spinoza, Poussin or Descartes, for the scale of their activities is obvious and speaks for itself.

The Draughtsman

1639

Etching, 12.4 × 17.3 cm

State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg

By comparison, the art of Claude Lorrain might seem to be a local phenomenon, fully confined within the realm of the visual arts, and even within the limits of a single genre. Such a view would seem to be corroborated by the popular legend of the artist as a simple soul, safely removed from the temptations of a sophisticated intellect, hardly able to sign his own name, and creating art as naturally as a bird sings.

Pastoral Landscape with Lake Albano and Castel Gandolfo

1639

Oil on copper, 30.5 × 37.5 cm

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

We intend to show that this stereotype is at least superficial, if not totally incorrect. Claude Lorrain’s descent held no great promise of a brilliant future. Claude Gellée, later nicknamed Lorrain after his native province, was born into a peasant family, and received hardly any education as such. Nor did local artistic tradition leave any imprint on his mind. It was only later that Claude’s artistic instinct was awakened during a trip to Rome where he journeyed for reasons presumably having nothing to do with art.