‘Storm Landscape’ by Gaspard Dughet

Despite the hierarchy of genres established within the Paris Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which prioritised history painting above all else, the^17th century was a golden age for landscape painting. Throughout Europe, the depiction of nature for its own sake was the subject of precise, often theoretically underpinned artistic exploration. The greatest masters practised this genre, such as the Carracci and Domeniquin in Italy, Rubens and Rembrandt in the North, and, amongst the French, Laurent de La Hyre, Philippe de Champaigne, Sébastien Bourdon and Nicolas Poussin. Some devoted their entire lives to it out of a sense of vocation, such as Albert Cuyp, Jan van Goyen and Jacob van Ruysdaël in Holland, and the great Claude Lorrain in Rome. The genre not only brought the artist renown, but the public was also prepared to pay very high prices.

In the first half of the century, a particular focus on studying atmospheric effects led painters to explore subjects that had rarely been depicted before. Beyond the beautiful open countryside, a painter such as Laurent de La Hyre took pleasure in depicting marshy clearings bristling with rushes. This interest in atmospheric tones also led painters to depict the various times of the year and the day, in order to capture the unique light of each.

Gaspard Dughet (1615–1675) was one such landscape painter. He was Italian and , Nicolas Poussin’s brother-in-law – a relationship so significant that he was also known as Gaspard Poussin. He was no doubt introduced to painting by Poussin himself, before specialising in landscape painting of the Roman countryside. Alongside his contemporary Salvator Rosa (1615–1673), who also painted storm scenes (London, National Gallery), he became one of the most highly regarded artists in this genre.

Less technically accomplished than Poussin, Dughet was drawn to Flemish and Dutch painting, with its emphasis on direct and precise observation of nature, but also to its fantastical dimension. The Dutch influence is, in fact, particularly evident in this painting, as it depicts a natural phenomenon – in this case, the chaos of the trees during the storm – suggested here by a meticulous rendering of a gnarled tree, which is not without anthropomorphic features, to the extent that it could have inspired a drawing by Walt Disney.

A comparison with the *Stormy Landscape with Pyramus and Thisbe*, painted by Nicolas Poussin in 1651, highlights by contrast Dughet’s distinctive style. In this painting, Poussin blends a depiction of human passions – with his figures expressing the full range of fear – with a depiction of nature unleashed. Poussin certainly also sought to paint a landscape for its own sake, from life, with its swaying trees, illuminated by the shifting light of the sky, but in Gaspard Dughet there is a keener curiosity about the natural elements, a delight in rendering picturesque features, which stand in contrast to Nicolas Poussin’s restraint and intellectual concern for composition.

The theme of the storm or tempest is not, strictly speaking, a new one, and Giorgione had already attracted the interest of art lovers with his depiction at the very beginning of^{the 16th} century in Venice (Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia). With his realistic and dramatic vision, Gaspard Dughet was one of the first painters to explore this new genre: the storm landscape. The genre flourished in the following century and explains the great success the painter enjoyed amongst English collectors and painters such as Gainsborough.

Marie-Nicole Boisclair, Gaspard Dughet: His Life and Work 1615–1675, Paris, Arthéna, 1986.