Claude GelÉe, commonly called Claude Lorraine, was born in 1600, at the village of Chamagne in Lorraine, of very indigent parents. He was apprenticed to a pastry-cook; but at the end of his term of service, whether from disgust at his employment, desire of change, or perhaps influenced by the love of art, he engaged himself as a domestic to some young painters who were going to Italy. On arriving at Rome he was employed as a colour-grinder by Agostino Tassi, an artist then in high repute whose landscapes are spirited and free, and particularly distinguished by the taste displayed in the architectural accompaniments. Tassi first induced him to try his abilities in painting. His earliest essays were implicit imitations of his master’s manner, and evinced no symptom of original genius; perhaps even in his matured style some indications of Tassi’s influence may be traced. He continued, as opportunity occurred, to exercise his pencil, obtaining little notice and still less reward. By degrees however he succeeded sufficiently to venture on giving up his menial employment; and having acquired from Tassi a tolerable expertness in the mechanical part of his profession, he appears from thenceforth to have given little attention to the works of other painters, relying on his own discernment and diligent observation of nature. Many years elapsed, however, before the talents of Claude reached their full maturity, whence his biographers have inferred that he owed his excellence rather to industry than genius: as if such excellence were within the reach of mere application.

He drew with indefatigable diligence, both from antique sculpture and from the living model, but to little purpose; and he was so conscious of his incapacity, that he used to observe, “I sell the landscapes, and throw the figures into the bargain:” and sometimes he employed Filippo Lauri and Courtois to insert them. But his figures, however faulty in themselves, are always well adapted to promote the harmony of the whole composition; being judiciously placed, and shaded, illuminated, sharpened out, or rendered indistinct, with nearly as much skill as is shown in the other parts of the picture. And not unfrequently, however feebly drawn, they partake of that classical and poetic air, which Claude, beyond every other landscape painter, has diffused over his works.

It is said, and the circumstances of his early life render it probable, that he was very deficient in general acquirements. Assuredly he had no opportunities of becoming a profound scholar, nor in relation to his art was it necessary that he should; why should he have sought through the medium of books that imagery which lay before him in reality? Rome, and its environs, the banks of the Tiber, and the broad Campagna, supplied his imagination with the best food, and his pencil with inexhaustible materials. He was accustomed to spend whole days in the open air, not only studying Nature in her permanent aspects, but making memorandums of every accidental and fleeting effect which presented itself to his observation. Sandrart, who sometimes accompanied Claude in his excursions, relates that he was accustomed to discourse on the visible phenomena of nature with the intelligence of a philosopher; not only noting effects, but explaining their causes with precision and correctness, whether produced by reflection or refraction of light, by dew, vapour, or other agencies of the atmosphere. Broad as is his style, he entered minutely into detail, and made drawings of trees, shrubs, and herbage, marking all their peculiarities of shape, growth, and foliage. By this practice he was enabled to represent those objects with undeviating accuracy, and to express, by a few decided touches, their general character.

Amidst the splendour of his general effects, the distinguishing qualities of objects are never neglected; fidelity is never merged in manner; and hence it is, that the longer we look at his pictures, the more vivid is the illusion, the more strongly is the reality of the represented scene impressed upon us. Combining with his fine imagination the results of observation thus long and intensely exercised, he accomplished in his works that union of poetic feeling with accurate representation of nature, which forms the highest excellence of art, and in which, as a landscape painter, he stands unrivalled.

Claude found in Rome and its neighbourhood the materials of his scenery, but the combination of them was his own: he selected and copied portions, but he seldom or never painted individual views from nature. His favourite effects are those of sunrise and sunset, the periods at which nature puts on her most gorgeous colouring. Beauty and magnificence are the characteristics of his compositions: he seldom aims at sublimity, but he never sinks into dulness. Above all he never brings mean or offensive objects into prominent view, as is so often the case in the Dutch pictures. His fore-grounds are usually occupied by trees of large size and noble character, and temples and palaces, or with ruins august in their decay. Groves and towers, broad lakes, and the continuous lines of arched aqueducts enrich the middle space; or a boundless expanse of Arcadian scenery sweeps away into the blue mountainous horizon. In his admirable pictures of seaports, he carries us back into antiquity; there is nothing in the style of the buildings, the shape of the vessels, or the character of any of the accompaniments which, by suggesting homely associations, injures the general grandeur of the effect. The gilded galleys, the lofty quays, and the buildings which they support, all belong to other times, and all have the stamp of opulence, magnificence, and power.

As Claude’s subjects are almost uniformly those of morning or evening, it might naturally be supposed that his works possess an air of sameness. To remove such an impression, it is only necessary to look at his pictures side by side. We then perceive that he scarcely ever repeats himself. The pictures of St. Ursula and the Queen of Sheba, in the National Gallery, are striking instances of that endless variety which he could communicate to similar subjects. In each of these pictures there is a procession of females issuing from a palace, and an embarkation. The extremities of the canvas are occupied by buildings, the middle space being assigned to the sea and shipping, over which the sun is ascending. After the first glance, there is no resemblance in these pictures. The objects introduced in each are essentially different in character; in that of the Queen of Sheba they are much fewer in number; the masses are more broad and unbroken, and the picture has altogether more grandeur and simplicity than its companion. Its atmosphere too is different: it is less clear and golden, and there is a swell on the waves, as if they were subsiding from the agitation of a recent storm. The picture of St. Ursula is characterized by beauty. Summer appears to be in its meridian, and the whole picture seems gladdened by the freshening influence of morning. The vapoury haze which is just dispersing, the long cool shadows thrown by the buildings and shipping, the glancing of the sun-beams on the water, and the admirable perspective, all exhibit the highest perfection of art. It was thus that Claude, although he painted only the most beautiful appearances of nature, diversified his effects by the finest discrimination. Sea-ports such as these were among his most favourite subjects; and there are none in which he more excelled: yet perhaps it is with his pastoral subjects that we are most completely gratified. The Arcadia of the poets seems to be renewed in the pictures of Claude.

In the general character of his genius, Claude bears a strong affinity to Titian. He resembles him in power of generalization, in unaffected breadth of light and shadow, and in that unostentatious execution which is never needlessly displayed to excite wonder, and which does its exact office, and nothing more. But the similitude in colour is still more striking. The pictures of both are pervaded by the same glowing warmth; and exhibit the true brilliancy of nature, in which the hues of the brightest objects are graduated and softened by the atmosphere which surrounds them. The colours by which both produced their wonderful effects were for the most part simple earths, without any mixture of factitious compounds, the use of which has been always prevalent in the infancy, and the decline of art, administering as it does to that unformed or degenerate taste which prefers gaudiness to truth.

Claude’s success raised a host of imitators. He was accustomed, on sending home the works which he had been commissioned to paint to make a drawing of each, which he inscribed with the name of the purchaser, as a means by which the originality of his productions might be traced and authenticated. He left six volumes of these drawings at the time of his death, which he called his Libri di VeritÀ. One containing two hundred designs is in possession of the Duke of Devonshire; these have been engraved by Earlom, and published by Boydell under the title of Liber Veritatis. Another of these books was purchased a few years since in Spain, and brought into this country; where it came into the possession of Mr. Payne Knight, and was bequeathed by him to the British Museum. Some of Claude’s pictures have been finely engraved by Woollet. There are twenty-eight etchings extant of landscapes and seaports, by Claude’s own hand, executed with the taste, spirit, and feeling which we should naturally expect.

England is rich in the pictures of Claude, some of the finest of which were imported from the Altieri Palace at Rome, and from the collection of the Duc de Bouillon at Paris. There are ten in the National Gallery: the two to which we have adverted, that of St. Ursula especially, he has perhaps never surpassed. The little picture of the Death of Procris is also singularly beautiful. The Earl of Radnor’s Evening, or Decline of the Roman Empire, is one of the most exquisite of Claude’s works. The Marquis of Bute’s collection at Luton, is also enriched by some of the finest specimens of this artist in England.

His private history is entirely devoid of incident. From the time of his arrival in Italy he never quitted it: and though claimed by the French as a French artist, he was really, in all but birth, an Italian. He lived absorbed in his art, and never married, that his devotion to it might not be interrupted by domestic cares. His disposition was mild and amiable. He died in 1682, aged eighty-two.

For more detailed information we may refer to Sandrart ‘Academia Artis PictoriÆ.’ It is extraordinary that in Felibien’s elaborate work, “sur les Vies et sur les Ouvrages des plus excellens Peintres anciens et modernes,” Claude is entirely omitted. The English reader will find the substance of the information given by Sandrart, in Bryan and Pilkington.