L'Embarquement de sainte Paule à Ostie

This Embarkation of Saint Paula at Ostia, around 1649, in the Louvre, depicts the Roman noblewoman departing for the Holy Land to join Saint Jerome's monastic community. Claude transforms the hagiographic subject into one of his great harbor scenes, the religious narrative subordinated to the luminous architecture and water. Claude Lorrain, born in Lorraine but active in Rome from the 1620s until his death in 1682, was the most influential landscape painter in the history of European art. His vision of the Mediterranean landscape — organized by the principles of classical composition, suffused with the golden light of the Roman campagna, populated by figures from the classical and biblical traditions — defined the ideal landscape for two centuries of European painting and garden design. His influence on the English landscape garden of the eighteenth century (gardens literally designed to look like Claude paintings), on Turner's early work, and on the entire tradition of ideal landscape makes him a cultural force beyond any other landscape painter in European history.

The harbor architecture frames a view of the open sea, with ships and figures providing narrative content. Claude's mastery of contre-jour lighting—the sun low on the horizon, backlighting the architecture—creates his most atmospheric harbor effect.