Landscape with Aeneas at Delos by Claude Lorrain
Formal Analysis of Canonical Painting by 17th-century French Painter
Aug 19, 2009
While Poussin's The Finding of Moses represents a significant episode from The Old Testament, Lorrain's landscape shows an episode derived from ancient mythology. The scene depicts a story of Aeneas, the hero of Greek mythology, as narrated by Virgil in his poem Aeneid and Ovid in Metamorphoses.
History Painting Inspired by Classical Mythology
Classical and biblical themes were highly regarded by the standards of the day and would have been known to the educated 17th century audience. Such religious and mythological stories served as a standard source of inspiration for grand history paintings.
Compositional Balance Creates Solemn Mood
The emphasis is on natural surroundings, while the human figure plays a secondary role. The painting offers a panoramic view of the seaport of the island of Delos, including classical architecture and a few figures.
The airiness and lightness of the whole scenery is enhanced by the large stretch of bright blue sky across the upper part of the picture. Only a few trees in the middle foreground interrupt the sky, and they, along with the buildings (especially their columns) serve as vertical elements elongating the pictorial space and counterbalancing the prominent horizontal lines of land and sea. The big tree at the centre divides the space vertically into halves. In this way the artist achieved nice equilibrium between solidity and lightness, creating impression of a calm, peaceful setting.
Perspective and Coherent Space
The spectator views the scenery from a high viewpoint, slightly above and to the left of the platform on which the temple nearer to the picture plane is situated. This viewpoint draws the viewer into the scene by following the path down to the stream, then around the nearer temple and past the figures, and then is directed by Anius' gesture along the string of grazing animals towards the central tree.
From the tree the sight slides along the cluster of buildings in the far distance to the temple of Apollo and then back to the near temple and the figures in the foreground. Then perhaps, we can follow the path towards the bridge and out of the scene. This way, Lorrain invites us to explore the painting's illusory space in multiple directions by taking different routes leading along and across different pictorial planes. These different paths and planes are interconnected with great fluidity which creates spatial coherence.
The spectator is led as far as the distant hills beyond the stretch of sea. Very small scale of the hills in comparison with the large proportions of the foreground temple indicates the skill with which Lorraine used perspective to suggest distance and vastness of his landscape.
Cool Colours Suggest Distance
Receding size of all the objects and figures is also achieved by the use of colour in order to create the illusion of spatial depth.
Cool blues and whites suggest distant in contrast to warmer browns with patches of dark green in the foreground. Despite this contrast between cool and warm tones, colour is also a unifying factor here. The trees appear to be connecting the coolness of the sky and the warmth of the earth. The sky tones are echoed in the blue and white robes of the figures. The limited use of subtle, subdued tones together with evenly diffused soft light give the scene a feeling of stillness and serenity.
Greek Hero and King of France
It is likely that Lorrain's painting of a famous Trojan hero's story would have referred to the king of France, Louis XIV. Virgil's narrative renders Aeneas as protected by divine authority. Such a theme was appropriate for enhancing the glory of the king as a representative of god.
Sources:
- Gill Perry and Colin Cunnigham: Academies, Museums and Canons of Art, Yale University Press
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