Claude: The Roman Landscape

Calm beautiful and serene...' is how Turner, the great nineteenth-century landscape painter, described the landscapes of the seventeenth-century master, Claude Lorraine. This video examines the ways in which Claude drew his inspiration from classical and contemporary poetry, the remains of ancient, medieval and Renaissance Rome and the countryside around the city. Shot on location in Italy and from original paintings and drawings, it demonstrates not only the artist's powers of evocation but also the naturalism which dazzled his contemporaries, and caused Turner's rival Constable to claim that it was Claude who first taught him `how to look at nature.'

© 1998-2001 The Roland Collection & Pira Intl.