+ Expand
Dimensions: 11 by 13 3/4 in.; 28 by 35 cm.
+ Expand
Exhibited: Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, Claude Lorrain and the Ideal Landscape, September 15-December 6, 1998, no. 55, illustrated.
+ Expand
Literature: M. Roethlisberger, "Claude Lorrain's 'Dance of the Seasons'" in Pantheon, vol. XLV, 1987, pp. 103-106, illustrated p. 105;
M. Roethlisberger, "The Dimension of Time in the Art of Claude Lorrain" in Artibus et Historiae, no. 20, Vienna 1989, pp. 73-92, illustrated p. 74.
+ Expand
Notes: The recent appearance of this copper dateable to 1662 represents an important addition to the oeuvre of Claude Lorrain. The Dance of the Seasons is Claude's only allegory, depicting a concept supplied by Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, the future Pope Clement IX (1667-1669), who four years earlier had authored the musical drama The Human Life or The Triumph of Piety. The learned prelate had previously commissioned three paintings by Claude and was responsible for introducing him to Poussin while he was working on his Seasons series. The overall classicism of the figures and the composition in this copper conform to Claude's stylistic evolution in the 1660s. Painted at the same time as Poussin's Four Seasons, Claude's composition, thematic idea and pose of Father Time are all borrowed from Poussin's, The Dance of the Seasons to the Music of Time from the late 1630s in the Wallace Collection.
Marcel Roethlisberger describes this copper as "outstanding on several accounts. Immaculately preserved, it shows a chromatic intensity no longer found in his canvases, most of which have darkened. It is also his [Claude's] last painting on copper done not on commission, but for himself to keep, and bequeathed in his will to his nephew Jean, who shared his house." (see Artibus and Pictoriae Literature reference below, p. 73). In his will of February 28, 1663, Claude made bequests to his daughter Agnese, and then to his nephews Jean and Claude. Jean lived with Claude at the end of his life, and it was to him that he left "un quadro con la sua cornice indorato che rappresenta il ballo della Quattro staggione" ("a picture with its gilt frame which represents the dance of the four seasons"). A total of twelve paintings are mentioned in the will, but only the first picture is listed as "by my hand", which leads one to believe the picture was of particular importance to Claude.
This is Claude's final and in Roethlisberger's words "most serene solution" (op. cit.) of a design, which Claude elaborated in a pictorial drawing and in an engraving, both dated 1662. The drawing is in the Pallavicini (ex Rospiglioso) collection in Rome. Only one later etching by Claude exists, dated 1663. The painting is the last of fourteen extant paintings by Claude on copper. Intricately painted with a finesse of handling, Roethlisberger notes that there are aspects in the form of the landscape, the trees and the clouds which "hark back to the school of Elsheimer and Lastman". The seated figure of Chronos, the winged Father Time is depicted playing Apollo's lyre, directly opposite from the dancing group with Apollo and the Seasons. They are dressed in diaphanous robes of changing hues with garlands on their heads appropriate to their Season. Above the figure of Chronos, the central motif of time passing is reinforced by the ruins, the cascade of water and the rocky cavern. In contrast the landscape behind the dancing figures opens up into the distance beyond suggesting the infinite nature of the seasons. Claude borrowed his figure of Chronos from Poussin. His group of Apollo and the dancers he borrowed from the woodcut of The Four Hours in the 1571 edition of Vincenzo Cartari's Imagini in which there is a chapter on Le Gratie followed by a woodcut plate of Mercury with the Three Graces. Stylistically there is also a notable affinity with the work of Francesco Albani on copper. Albani's treatment of Cybele with the Four Seasons, which was clearly influential to Claude, is in Fontainebleau. The figures of Chronos and Apollo recall Carracci's fresco of Mercury returning the Lyre to Apollo from the Farnese Palace, which Claude would have most likely known from engravings. Painted shortly after two of Claude's largest masterpieces, Milesian Oracle and the Flight into Egypt, the present work is classically balanced and steeped in tradition. It clearly resolves Claude's lifelong artistic exploration of the expression of the harmonious rhythm of nature and the passing of time.
