Richard Cooper II

Richard Cooper’s view of ruins near Tivoli is decidedly generalized, relying heavily on the compositional formulae established by 17th-century artists Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. Like his predecessors, he presents the landscape as a perfect harmony of forms within the rectangle of the picture frame. Yet true to his own century, Cooper is sure to identify his scene—albeit vaguely—with the many actual ruins tourists encountered on their way to Tivoli. Cooper used his brush like a pencil, modeling his forms with hatched lines as opposed to brushing on color in fluid washes.