Poussin and Claude—The Allure of Rome .....................................
Lecture 35
From the middle of the 15th century Italy, and especially Rome,
had increasingly drawn artists from other countries to visit, study,
and work.
T
his interest was the result of the À ourishing of Rome during the High
Renaissance (the ¿ rst two decades of the century), when Raphael,
Michelangelo, and the architect Bramante were transforming St.
Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican, and other Roman sites. The monuments of
antiquity were a constant draw, but so were the works of the great Renaissance
masters, and the style of Michelangelo, in particular, was exported to Holland
and the southern Netherlands.
In the 17th century, one ¿ nds an entire sub-category of Dutch landscape
painters, known to us as the Dutch-Italianate artists, who went to Rome
and other Italian localities, made drawings and paintings of the Roman
campagna, and recorded the Alps as they journeyed to and from the north.
All these motifs delighted the art patrons of the Netherlands. The city and the
art of antique and Renaissance Rome were irresistible references for artists
from the 15th century into the 19th century, and this allure has never been
surpassed in European art history.
We begin with a Self-Portrait (1640) by Rembrandt, who never traveled to
Italy. Although Rembrandt did not travel to Italy, he had a deep admiration
for Italian art. In fact, he did not have to travel abroad, because the
Amsterdam art market was the busiest and most important in Europe, and
Italian paintings constantly came through Amsterdam.
In this self-portrait, Rembrandt shows himself as a gentleman. He sits behind
a sill that is illuminated slightly; the background is neutral but has a shifting
glow of light. His face is serious, intelligent, and focused. In creating this
pose, Rembrandt used two works that he had recently seen. One of these
was Raphael’s Baldassare Castiglione (c. 1514–1515). Castiglione faces
the opposite direction from Rembrandt in his portrait, but the similarities