Color in Painting
Claude Lorrain
Sunrise
possibly 1646–47
Oil on canvas, 102.9 × 134 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Today the depth reads mostly through light: the brightest values sit at the low horizon, and the land steps darker toward the viewer. A pale blue-gray mountain at the left marks the farthest distance.
- The Met's catalogue credits the low horizon, thin pink clouds and widely spaced, see-through trees for the sense of light and breadth.
- The foreground and middle ground have darkened with age, a not uncommon change in Claude's canvases, while the horizon kept its glow; the steps from near to far are now harder to see.
Claude set his idealized countryside near Rome in the light of sunrise or sunset. A low sun puts the lightest passage at the most distant point.
Concepts
Image: The Met Open Access · CC0