Macdonald Stewart Art Centre launches exhibit
The Macdonald Stewart Art Centre (MSAC) launched an exhibit featuring French artist Claude Lorrain on Jan. 23, 2014. With 40 pieces gifted to the MSAC from scholar Andrew Bink’s personal collection, Ink and Light: The Etchings of Claude Lorrain is a look into the mind of the painter, draughtsman, and engraver whose landscape work inspired generations of French and English artists.
Born Claude Gellee, not much else is known about the early life of the artist who would become Claude Lorrain. Any history of the artist or his family first came through Joachim von Sandrat’s Teutsche Academie, and Filippo Baldinucci’s Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua – books published between 1675 and 1728. Interesting to note is the conflict between Sandrat and Baldinucci, whose books offer opposing claims regarding Lorrain’s early childhood.
Sandrat claimed that Lorrain was a weak academic who apprenticed to become a pastry baker, whereas Baldinucci believed that Lorrain was taught the basics of the artist’s profession by his older brother, Jean Gellee. Baldinucci also claimed that Lorrain’s parents died when he was 12, at which point Lorrain travelled to Freiburg to live with his older brother. Sandrat, however, believed that Lorrain travelled to Rome to be a cook and servant to Agostino Tassi, who taught Lorrain how to draw and paint. Modern scholars agree that Lorrain was apprenticed to Goffredo Wals from 1620 to 1622, and that Lorrain was apprenticed to Tassi from 1622 to 1625.
The conflicting arguments of Lorrain’s childhood only serve to intensify the scope of Lorrain’s contribution to the field. The peasant’s son would go on to produce over 1300 drawings and revolutionize landscape paintings, architectural drawings, and portrayals of light.
“Claude Lorrain knew the real world by heart, down to its minute details,” said German writer and polymath, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. “He used it as a means of expressing the harmonious universe of his soul.”
Indeed, much of this expression is on display in Lorrain’s work at the MSAC. Pieces like Les Depart pour les champs (Departure for the fields) reveal a finely tuned eye for detail. Here, Lorrain draws three shepherds leaving for grazing land with their flock. A gentle breeze can be observed in the direction of the swaying tree in the foreground, as well as in the direction of the smoke leaving a chimney in the background.
What makes Lorrain so fascinating is his decision to provide information to complete an entire scene. Far off mountains, rolling hills, and even smoke-filled chimneys are drawn with life-like finesse. His work is less like painted art and more like photography captured with a pen.
“I have quoted Claude Lorrain’s [influence] in my earlier work,” said artist Monica Tap, whose paintings are also currently on display at the MSAC. “Lorrain was one of my go-to guys in my early work; he’s one of the top people in landscape historically. He was one of the pioneers in landscape, drawing, and etching. He’s got a remarkable sense of using light and dark in a drawing.”
Lorrain’s pieces in the MSAC also reflect the artist’s intellectual involvement with his work. There is little waste, even with the names of his drawings. Pieces are not named with any particular amount of creativity; instead, the names of his pieces are meant to prepare viewers for the scenes they are about to observe. Le Danse au bord de l’eau (The Dance on the River Bank), for example, features two figures dancing on a riverbank, surrounded by onlookers and cattle.
Of course, there is more to the drawing than two figures dancing. Heavily shaded sequences, silhouetted characters, and an almost clinical attention to detail all permeate through this piece.
“[His art] seems quite realistic, and he has quite a bit of detail in [his work],” said University of Guelph student Shelby Cady. “I feel that Lorrain’s work is easier to understand and identify with than some of the more abstract work of his peers.”
Ink and Light: The Etchings of Claude Lorrain will be on display until Mar. 30, at which point the drawings will return to their home in The Brink Collection.