1626
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
A View of Bracciano with the Church of S. Maria Assunta is a 1626 by Bartholomeus Breenbergh, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a quiet Italian hill town by a lake, with a big church rising above the rooftops. The sky is soft pink, and the light looks like late afternoon. Breenberg painted this scene after traveling through Italy in his twenties. He sketched the real place—Bracciano—but added the church from memory. Back in Amsterdam, he turned those sketches into paintings like this one, mixing what he saw with what he remembered. If you like this calm, golden light, look up *chiaroscuro*.
In the early 1600s, artists from Northern Europe began to take long trips to Italy as part of their artistic training. Bartholomeus Breenberg traveled to Italy around 1620 and probably stayed for at least 12 years. While there, he sketched ancient ruins and the countryside, features he would use in his paintings when he returned to Amsterdam in the 1630s. The area around the Lago di Bracciano, a volcanic lake northwest of Rome, was home to several medieval villages that provided charming vistas for artists. In his view, Breenberg emphasized the crumbling turret of a medieval castle in…
In the early 17th century, European artists were just beginning to make sketches such as this one outdoors and onsite.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Bartholomeus Breenbergh (before 13 November 1598 – after 3 October 1657) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of Italian and Italianate landscapes, in Rome (1619-1630) and Amsterdam (1630-1657).
See the richer artist page
