Art Knowledge News
Splendor of Ruins in French Landscape Painting |
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| Saturday, 23 July 2005 16:37 |
 HOUSTON, TX.-The Splendor of Ruins in French Landscape Painting, 1630-1800, just opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. It brings together nearly 40 paintings by 18 French landscape artists borrowed from some of the most important collections in the United States and Canada and explores various interpretations of the architectural ruin in a period spanning the careers of two of the greatest of French landscape painters, Claude Lorrain and Hubert Robert. The exhibition was organized by Dr. Stephen D. Borys, curator of Western Art at Oberlin College. The MFAH will be the only other museum to host The Splendor of Ruins in French Landscape Painting. "During the 17th century, Rome was the cultural capital of Europe, a city whose architecture encompassed the triumphs of the classical, medieval, and the baroque. In the midst of this splendor was the ruin, revived in the life of the painted landscape," said Borys. "The exhibition examines the ruin as an enduring and evolving artistic and cultural resource."
Spurred in part by a post-Renaissance interest in classical culture, the incorporation of ruins and subjects of antiquity in French landscape painting emerged in the early 16th century. The inclusion of historical references and remnants of antiquity lent greater credibility to landscape painting, which until the 17th and 18th centuries was viewed as inferior to history painting. By the close of the 18th century, however, French landscape painting was held in high esteem. The Splendor of Ruins in French Landscape Painting covers four thematic areas: ruins in historical paintings; ruins in the natural landscape; ruins in the Rococo landscape and the tradition of fête champêtre (romantic figures in idealized outdoor settings); and ruins in archaeologically-based compositions. Related themes allude to ruins as objects of pleasure and contemplation; artificial ruins based on antique or medieval prototypes; landscape gardening; the Picturesque; and the Grand Tour. Among the artists represented in the exhibition, whose paintings were gathered from a collection of 24 museums across North America, are Etienne Allegrain, Gaspard Dughet, Laurent de La Hyre, Jacques Patel, Jean-Baptiste Pater, and Claude-Joseph Vernet. Paintings range from François Boucher´s sensitive depiction of a pastoral country scene titled The Dovecote, 1758, on loan from the St. Louis Art Museum, to Vernet´s picturesque Imaginary Landscape, Italian Harbor Scene, 1746, lent by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, an assemblage of a busy port, rocky coastline, and fragments of ruins — both real and fantastical.Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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