Natural Light: The Art of Adam Elsheimer

Interesting online lecture from ARTscapades on the 17th century artist Adam Elsheimer.

I’d not come across this artist before so was intrigued to be introduced to him by artist and writer, Julian Bell, in this talk based in his new book on the artist. I seem to be drawn to this century at the moment so it was useful to add Elsheimer to my knowledge bank.

Bell focused on Elsheimer’s “Flight into Egypt” of 1609 to highlight his style and tell his story. He explained how Elsheimer’s works when he arrived in Rome were small pieces painted on copper. Sadly, partly because he seemed to have worked slowly, he ended up in debtors’ prison and died aged 32.

Bell placed us into the world of Northern artists in Rome at this period and described how Elsheimer and Rubens became friends. He also looked at how the art world had been shaken by the works of Caravaggio and a moving away from the elegance of Raphael.

He talked us through the expensive sky in this work and how that might relate to the discoveries of Galileo however he concluded that they weren’t link but that Elsheimer had produced the work based on observation possibly using a telescope which had been invented in 1608.

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