Claude Lorrain. ‘The Expulsion de Hagar’ (Claude Lorrain, ‘Die Verstossung der Hagar)

Claude Lorrain has worked out his own form of an ideal landscape, which he painted in a lofty classical style.
Here we see his two pictures linked within the framework of the same subject. These are ‘The Expulsion of Hagar’ and ‘Hagar and Ismael in the Desert’. In order to get to the root of the artist's idea we should turn to the Scripture. It is said in the Old Testament, in Genesis, as follow. Now Sarai, Abrams’s wife had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. And Sarai, Abram’s wife, took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave him the name Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael. When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said that he had made him a father of many nations. And Abram (whose name became Abraham from that day) and his descendants must keep the Covenant established by the Lord, and in sign of this Covenant every male among the generations to come who would be eight days old should be circumcised. The Lord then said that Abraham’s ninety years old Sarai (whose name became Sarah from that day) would give him a son. So it happened. And they called him Isaak. Now, Sarah who had her own son, said to Abraham to expulse Hagar together with Ismael. The Lord gave advice to Abraham to listen to whatever Sarah told him. Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a wineskin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert. The first picture shows just this moment. The landscape is majestic. The human figures are small, but the classic architecture that surrounds them, though in Bible times there was no trace of such architecture, sets the tone of immensity to the scene.