Contemporary taste -- if that term still makes sense -- has veered far from paintings in the manner of Claude Gelée de Lorrain (1600- 1682). But anyone who loves drawing will thrill to see ...

Without the 17th century Lorrainese artist, Claude Lorrain, that most quintessentially British of all art genres, the landscape, might never have developed, or certainly never grown in the way it did.

And just for that reason, strangely, it's the thing that crowns the work. Take the extraneous figures in Claude Lorrain's Landscape with Jacob, Laban and his Daughters. There is the landscape.

The National Gallery is pinning its hope on arguably Britain's most famous painter — Turner — and how he was inspired by the works of Claude Lorrain (known as Claude). Claude was a master of ...