Waterfall

This 1620 waterfall is one of Claude's earliest works, painted during his formative years in Rome when he was studying under Agostino Tassi and developing his approach to landscape. The early works show Claude experimenting with dramatic natural features before settling on his mature classical idiom. 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 early painting demonstrates Claude's developing interest in natural phenomena, with the dynamic water movement creating a more vigorous composition than his later, more serene pastoral works.