Michael Spens reviews the recent exhibition Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The exhibtion will be on view at Stadel Museum, Frankfurt from February 3 to May 6, 2012.

Spens notes that "The essence of Claude's predominantly landscape subject matter was one of sublimity, even serendipity, expressing the primacy of nature over humanity. To this extent, the paintings in the exhibition have especially shown man in harmony with nature, or else surviving natural phenomena, as shipwrecks at sea or as in his etching of brigands on the prowl."