Description of the picture:
Port at sunset – Claude Lorren. 1639. Oil on canvas, 103×137 cm
Seaports, slightly touched by the setting sun, or, on the contrary, embraced by the last colors of a luminary hiding beyond the horizon, are the leitmotif that is quite often found in the work of Lorren. This plot really attracted the master, it was in nature that Lorren found inspiration, marveling at the harmony of the structure of this natural world. Contemporaries preserved their memoirs, as a painter could lie for hours or sit in a frozen pose, directing his own gaze into the sky, trying to catch and remember the smallest changes in sunlight. This method of close observation will be in favor with the Impressionists centuries later.
In the painting “Port at Sunset”, the color dominant is ocher-red tones. The master depicted the time of the day when, only a moment later, darkness descended on the port, and now it is still lit up with red flashes. The composition was solved in a favorite way – the movement into the interior of the picture is supported by a solar path on the water and buildings and masts surrounding the port.
As usual, people are unimportant to Lorren, he does not attach importance to the lack of a dynamic plot. The main role is assigned to nature, and architecture is intended only to help create a composition aimed at singing the beauty and colorfulness of the sunset."