Landscape with Nymph and Satyr Dancing

Claude Lorrain helped pioneer the development of the “ideal” landscape: balanced, harmonious compositions often featuring classical ruins and figures from ancient history or mythology. Here, a flute-playing shepherd and his companion make music with a reclining nymph (female nature spirit). A lusty satyr (a forest spirit that is part goat) coaxes a rather reluctant nymph to dance with him. The late afternoon sunlight falls on the group through the columns of the crumbling temple, setting this enchanted glade apart from the civilized world represented by the distant town. It is the clarity of light in his paintings and its unifying effect that set Claude apart from many other landscape artists of the time.

Born Claude Gellée, Claude moved to Rome from his native Lorraine, France at the age of about 12. He is said to have started as a pastry cook in the house of Italian painter Agostino Tassi, and then to have become Tassi’s studio assistant. By the 1630s he was the most sought after landscape artist in Italy, if not all of Europe.