The Claudian Dream 

‘It was quite a Claude Lorrain scene and, the more fully to enjoy it, I entered a hay-field and seated myself upon a grassy bank. A delicious stillness crept over my senses, and the heaving chaos of my ideas was lulled to repose. A majestic oak stretched its gnarled arms in sullen dignity above my head. Woodbines and wild roses hung from every hedge, mingling their perfume with that of the new-mown hay.’ This is a quote from The Claudians: gardens, landscapes, reason and faith: John Claudius Loudon and Claudius Buchanan, Tom Turner (Kindle, 2024).  Jane Webb Loudon is the speaker - it's a quotation from The Mummy.

Exploring the Claudian Dream: Claude Lorraine's Legacy in Landscape and Gardens

Art historians use the term ‘Claudian Dream’ to describe the characteristic style of Claude Lorrain's landscapes. His paintings depict harmonious, sun-drenched scenes often inspired by Italian countryside, composed with the classical principles of balance and order. They depict a dreamlike state with a peaceful atmosphere, soft lighting, and use of atmospheric perspective create a sense of serenity and tranquillity. This became a defining characteristic of the Golden Age of Landscape Painting, influencing countless artists thereafter. In the eighteenth century it influenced English landscape gardens. Jane Loudon spelt the artist's name with a 'e' Lorraine, as in the name of the region in which he was born.

George Grahame (in Claude Lorrain 1895) wrote that: ‘The first impression which we receive as we turn over the pages of the Liber Veritatis is that of the intense artificiality of the art that it records. It is, as it were, a man speaking Latin instead of his own mother-tongue. Classic ruins, seaports, pasture lands, herds and herdsmen, piping shepherds, dancing peasants, gods, saints, banditti, sportsmen, all seem to belong to an unreal world-a world where things arrange themselves, or rather are evidently arranged by the artist, with a view to certain preconceived ideas about composition. The harmony of line, the unity of ensemble, aimed at by the artist, and nearly always attained, aggravate the eye of a generation taught to shun in landscape art the well-balanced composition which delighted the seventeenth century. The eye gradually accustomed to the Claudian world, bewitched by its sunlight and its atmosphere, begins to dwell with pleasure on the ruins and the marble palaces, the wooded hillsides crowned with convenient towers, the meanderings of impossible rivers. We are carried far away from this workaday world of ours into an ethereal domain whence all toil, distress, and terror have purposely been banished by the painter. The inhabitants of this ideal world are as gods. Its skies are all but cloudless. All the rough places in it are made smooth. When at last you close the book and turn from this world of Claude's to nature, you feel for a moment like a man who steps from a concertroom, where he has been listening to the music of Beethoven and Mozart, into the din and glare of the street.’ 

Claude and Poussin were seen to be illustrating the rural retirement theme which poets celebrated. Sir Kenneth Clark has described their paintings as a representation of 'the most enchanting dream which has ever consoled mankind, the myth of a Golden Age in which man lived on the fruits of the earth, peacefully, piously, and with primitive simplicity'. It was an enchanating dream of an 'earthly paradise.....a harmony between man and nature'.

Note that (1) the term ‘Claudian Dream’ is also used to refer to an event in Roman history involving the Emperor Claudius I. According to the Roman historian Suetonius, Claudius had a dream in which he saw himself as a monstrous creature. This was interpreted as a prophecy of his future rise to power. Suetonius The Twelve Caesars was written in the early 2nd century AD. (2) Marcus Aurelius Claudius "Gothicus" (214 – 270), also known as Claudius II, was Roman emperor from 268 to 270. Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (10 BC – AD 54) was Roman emperor from AD 41 to 54.

The Influence of Claude Lorrain on Modern Landscape Architecture

Claude Lorrain's impact extends beyond historical art; his principles have shaped modern landscape design. His use of light and composition continue to influence garden designers and architects. The principles of harmonious balance and idealised nature found in his paintings inspire contemporary landscape aesthetics. Designers often draw on Lorrain’s techniques to create spaces that evoke serenity and beauty, reflecting his timeless vision of pastoral perfection. His influence can be seen in various public and private gardens, which strive to recreate the idealised landscapes of his works, blending natural elements with artistic harmony.

Kenneth Clark on THE GOLDEN AGE 

In his book Landscape into Art, Kenneth Clark wrote that: 'Two poets of antiquity, Ovid and Virgil, furnished the imaginations of the Renaissance artists. Of these the first, with his clear and detailed descriptions of the fabulous, was the favourite with figure painters ; but Virgil was the inspiration of landscape. The reason lies not only in the delicate suggestions of scenery which occur in the Aeneid, but also in the myth of ideal rusticity of which he was the master. His works show a first-hand knowledge of the country, and many a good humanist, from Petrarch onwards, managed his estates on the advice of the Georgies. But this element of realism is combined with the most enchanting dream which has ever consoled mankind, the myth of a Golden Age in which man lived on the fruits of the earth, peacefully, piously and with primitive simplicity. This conception of the early history of mankind is the exact opposite to that which produced the landscape of fantasy, and is, I believe, known by sociologists as soft primitivism ’ as opposed to 4 hard primitivism \ We might be tempted to call it poetic as opposed to scientific truth, were it not that the evolutionary conception of our origins had inspired Lucretius’s poetry and Altdorfer’s painting. 

For more on Jane Loudon's Claudian dream, see: https://www.gardenvisit.com/jcl/claudian_dream