Thursday, October 15, 2015

Landscape Gallery

Claude Lorrain
Departure of the Herd
1636-37
Prado

Claude Lorrain
Ford of a River
1636
Prado

Here are a few more of the fifty landscape paintings we read about yesterday. They were commissioned en bloc in Italy by agents of the King of Spain for the "Landscape Gallery" in the new-built Buen Retiro palace outside Madrid. An expatriate community existed in mid-17th century Rome  French, Dutch and Flemish painters with established reputations as landscape specialists. Today's Prado preserves approximately half the original collection of these Roman landscapes – "one of the most spectacular and beautiful decorative ensembles of the seventeenth century."

Jacques d'Arthois
Landscape
1630s
Prado

Jacques d'Arthois
Landscape with Riverbank
1630s
Prado

Jacques d'Arthois
Landscape with Fête Champêtre
1630s
Prado

Jan Both
Landscape with Fisherfolk
c. 1639-41
Prado

Jan Both
Landscape with Mountain Pass
1639-41
Prado

Jan Both
Landscape with Trail from a Landing Place 
1639-41
Prado

Herman van Swanevelt
Landscape with Hermit Preaching
1639-41
Prado

Herman van Swanevelt
Landscape with Fisherfolk
1639-41
Prado

Herman van Swanevelt
Landscape with Cabin & Vegetables
1634-39
Prado

Herman van Swanevelt
Landscape with Travelers & Shepherd
1635-36
Prado

Herman van Swanevelt
Landscape with Travelers & Boy
1639-41
Prado

Herman van Swanevelt
Landscape with St. Francis in Meditation
1634-39
Prado

Herman van Swanevelt
Landscape with St. Rosalia de Palermo
1634-39
Prado

Pictures were hung densely in Baroque interiors, with neighboring pictures commonly pressing close against each other on all four sides. In winter they were taken down and replaced by tapestries. More fragile than paintings, these tapestries have seldom survived, yet in their day they carried more prestige and were more expensive than even the best-regarded paintings.