Lecture 35: Poussin and Claude—The Allure of Rome
had been born. The domed temple of Apollo predicts the Roman Pantheon,
referring to the prophecy by the oracle at Delos of the future grandeur
of Rome.
This is a meditative painting about history and time. Claude’s perfectly
balanced composition of gentle diagonals, horizontals, and verticals, softened
by the arcs of the treetops and dome, is enveloped by a À uid atmosphere of
silvery-blues and blue-greens. The painting is at once majestic and deeply
personal. The careers of these two great French painters living in Rome
form a fascinating chapter in the history of art. Poussin had a much greater
inÀ uence on the development of art in France than in Italy; Claude was to
inÀ uence the subsequent development of landscape painting in Europe, and
later, in America, more widely than any painter before him. Ŷ
Claude Lorrain:
Landscape with Aeneas at Delos, 1672, oil on canvas, 3’ 3 ¼” x 4’ 5”
(99.6 x 134.3 cm), National Gallery, London, Great Britain.
Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca (The Mill), 1648, oil on canvas,
5’ x 6’ 7” (152.3 x 200.6 cm), National Gallery, London, Great Britain.
Nicolas Poussin:
The Arcadian Shepherds (Et in Arcadia Ego), c. 1650, oil on canvas,
6’ 1” x 3’ 11 ½” (185 x 121 cm), Musée du Louvre, Paris, France.
Eliezer and Rebecca at the Well, 1648, oil on canvas,
3’ 10½” x 5’ 7 ¼” (118 x 199 cm), Musée du Louvre, Paris, France.
Massacre of the Innocents, 1632–35, oil on canvas, 4’ 10” x 5’ 7 ¼”
(147 x 171 cm), Musée Condé, Chantilly, France.
Realm (Kingdom) of Flora, 1631, oil on canvas, 4’ 3 ½” x 6’
(131 x 182 cm), Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, Germany.
Sketch of Baldassare Castiglione, 1639, pen and ink drawing, Albertina,
Vienna, Austria.
Works Discussed