The Claude Glass – Forerunner of Photo Filters

It's no secret that when photographing the world around us, we like to embellish the image a little, and a whole array of filters — adding warmth, coziness, spaciousness, nostalgia, or some other visually pleasing effect — have become an inseparable part of social media. They can give even the simplest amateur photo a mood and bring out its most important elements. Yet this is far from a modern discovery. As early as the 17th century, painters had an intriguing device through which they observed the landscape around them. It was a darkened, slightly convex mirror known as the Claude glass. In its reflection, the chosen landscape seemed to separate itself from the rest of the scenery through a simplified colour palette, the resulting image simplified and uncluttered by detail.

This mirror reflection resembled the paintings of the French landscape painter Claude Lorrain so closely — with their striking play of evening or morning light gently rippling across treetops or the surface of the water — that the device was named in his honour, and the English, enchanted by Lorrain's paintings, began carrying the darkened glass with them, hoping to imitate Claude's painterly style or to experience the same impressions as the painter himself. What's more, the more ambitious painters of the period carried glasses tinted in different colours, which allowed them to convey various landscape tones. Thanks to tinted glass, daylight could easily be transformed into sunrise, sunset, or moonlight.

Eventually the Claude glass became so popular that it was carried not only by painters but also by nature enthusiasts, tourists, and travellers. Thanks to it, "uninteresting" places became popular, worth visiting, and worth painting.

But don't be mistaken — although the device is named in honour of the 17th-century painter Claude Lorrain, there is no evidence that he invented it or ever used it at all.

Claude Lorrain (Claude Lorrain, real name C. Gellée; 1600-1682). French landscape painter and etcher. From 1613 he studied the finer points of painting under celebrated painters of the time. He studied the illumination of landscape and developed his own distinctive painting style. The young Claude's work was influenced by the painting of Paul Bril and Adam Elsheimer. His paintings are precisely divided into tonal planes – the first dark, the second bright green, and the third icy blue. Claude's work stood out for its ability to convey light and mood. He honed his skills by constantly observing and drawing rural landscapes coloured by morning or evening light, striving to capture the surrounding atmosphere, and continually training his hand and eye. He painted his large works in the studio, carefully planning the composition, calculating precisely, and paying great attention to detail.

A favourite motif was the landscape of central Italy with temples or ruins bathed in evocative morning or evening light. Staffage ((Ger. Staffage) - secondary elements of a landscape or other pictorial composition: small figures of people, animals, household objects, etc., creating an illusion of realism in landscapes; staffage was especially characteristic of 16th-17th-century painting.) was often served by biblical or mythological scenes. The pinnacle of his mastery – harbour scenes painted in warm golden tones ("Ulysses Handing Chryseis Over to Her Father", 1646; "Seaport at Sunrise", 1634). In his late works, from 1660, cooler, silvery-grey tones prevailed ("The Expulsion of Hagar", 1668). Claude's work had a decisive influence on 18th- and 19th-century landscape painting.

"Seaport at Sunrise", 1634, photo Wikimedia Commons

"Ulysses Returns Chryseis to Her Father", 1644, photo Wikimedia Commons