orig. Claude Gellée
born 0441; 1600, Chamagne, France
died Nov. 23, 1682, Rome
French painter.
Born in the duchy of Lorraine, he went to Rome as a youth, and there trained with the landscape and fresco painter Agostino Tassi and encountered the work of Nicolas Poussin . He became known as the master of the ideal landscape, a view of nature more beautiful and harmonious than nature itself; his landscapes and coastal scenes contain architectural fragments and figures. His reputation is based particularly on his sensitivity to the tonal values of light and atmosphere. By the 1630s he was well known and successful, with illustrious patrons among the French and Italian aristocracy. His work influenced the Dutch painters in Rome in the 1630s and '40s, as well as the entire course of European landscape painting. Some 250 paintings and over 1,000 drawings by him survive.