Not So Sweet Claude Lorrain

I've always wanted to use that line. Saturday Rebecca and I went to the show of Claude Lorrain drawings at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The guy was just amazing. He has this absolute bravura in his ink and wash drawings, especially with foliage. He'll finely outline leaves in one part of a tree, then throw down a puddle of brown wash, fearlessly but with control, that perfectly captures the shade. Then a white wash (or was he just leaving the paper exposed? I dunno) on the sunlit side of the tree, where he has made almost no ink marks, will make that side pop out with volume. There was a drawing of a grove of tall, thin pine trees with the branches jutting out in stark dark strokes from the trunk, and fine hatches in a few different weights to establish the volume of the needles. You could practically smell the pines.

His figures aren't very impressive, and he can't accurately draw a boat to save his life. There are a few of his paintings in the show too, and they aren't that great either ... except for the foliage again, which he nails even though the technique is very different from what he's doing in the drawings. But those drawings! Yow.

The show is at the Legion of Honor for a couple more months, http://www.famsf.org/legion/exhibitions

The drawings are on loan from the British Museum. I've been there a few times, but don't recall seeing them there.