Claude glass
A Claude glass is a small, tinted, framed, slightly curved mirror that was used in the 18th century to aesthetically view areas - as depicted in the paintings of landscape painters - as landscapes . The Claude glasses, which first appeared in England, are named after the French landscape painter Claude Lorrain (1600–1682).
The user of a Claude glass held the mirror in front of his face so that he could see the landscape behind him in the frame. The aim of this special way of looking at nature was to discover and aesthetically enjoy sections of the landscape that were reminiscent of Lorrain's paintings. Due to the convex curvature of the mirror, the landscape captured by the mirror was displayed in a significantly smaller field of view, so it could be captured at a glance. The tint of the glass also emphasized the color gradations more clearly.
Lorrain's influence on the perception of landscape of his time went even further. His idealized landscapes became a model for landscaping. "The balance of parts achieved by Claude, the harmony between man, nature and history that became visible, became a model not only for many painters of the coming centuries, but also for many private individuals to design their surroundings as a garden according to this pattern."
Individual evidence
- ^ Victoria and Albert Museum: Drawing Techniques
- ^ Matthias Eberle and Adrian von Butlar: Landscapes and Landscape Garden, in: German Institute for Distance Learning at the University of Tübingen: Funkkolleg Kunst, Studienbrief 7, Tübingen 1985, pp. 11–50