Art History Today

Painting Landscape in the Bay of Naples with Claude Lorrain and Others. (10)

Vanvitelli & the Bay of Naples in the Early Eighteenth Century.

With the waning of Naples’s importance due to a number of factors: political upheavals; the death of wealthy patrons and collectors; and the exodus of major painter like Lanfranco to Spain, painting in Naples and Sicily went into decline. Later in the 18^th century landscape would increasingly fuse with genre as in the paintings of Pietro Fabris (active 1756-1779 in Naples) a Neapolitan Canaletto; “pure landscape” however would become the territory of foreign artists drawn by the Bay of Naples and its views. One of the most significant was the Dutch painter, van Wittel, was better known in Italy as Gaspare Vanvitelli (1653-1736). Vanvitelli received his first training at Amersfoort, Holland, although he was in Rome by the time of the Jubilee of 1675. He worked as a draughtsman on a scheme for regulating the Tiber and this probably gave him the idea of making large and very accurate topographical drawings which could be worked up into 'vedute'; he therefore be the link between Dutch topographical painters like van der Heyden and later Italian 'vedutisti'. He is now recognized as an extremely important forerunner of painters like Carlevaris, Canaletto and Pannini, since there are dated Roman vedute by him of 1681. He went to Venice in the 1690s and there is a dated veduta of 1697 (Prado, Madrid), which antedates Carlevaris. He was in Naples in 1700, when his son Luigi, later the great Neapolitan architect, was born. He spent his last years in Naples and Rome, where he died. He was nicknamed 'Gaspare degli Occhiali' (Gaspar with the spectacles) from at least 1712, and his short sight may have prevented his working after c. 1730. Old sale-catalogues often refer to e.g. 'Two landskip by Ochiali'.

Painting Landscape in the Bay of Naples with Claude Lorrain and Others. (9)

Claude, Tassi, Wals & Naples

If Rosa represented one trend of landscape painting in Rome and Naples, then Claude Lorrain stood for another. In Rome he was trained as an artist by Agostino Tassi, a landscapist and the leading Italian painter of illusionistic architectural frescoes. At what stage and for how long he was apprenticed is uncertain, and, either before or during this period, Claude probably spent two years in Naples with Goffredo Wals, another pupil of Tassi. Agostino Tassi (1578- 1644) taught Claude the basic vocabulary of his art - landscapes and coast scenes with buildings and little figures - and Tassi gave Claude a lasting interest in perspective and, thus, in landscape painting (above). Tassi would eventually become “Rome’s foremost painter of illusionistic architectural decoration”[1] and in the words of Patrizia Cavazzini, “the key to the merging of northern and southern traditions of landscape painting.”[2] In 1625, according to his second biographer, Filippo Baldinucci, Claude left Tassi and went back to Nancy, the capital of Lorraine, where he worked for a year as assistant to Claude Deruet on some frescoes (since destroyed) in the Carmelite church. But, in the winter of 1626-27, Claude returned to Rome and settled there permanently. According to early sources, Wals (1600-38/40) left Cologne at the tender age of fourteen and ventured to Italy. In Naples he found work colouring engravings, while from 1616 or 1617 until the end of November 1618, he worked in the Roman studio of Agostino Tassi. Further information about his career is limited. However, Filippo Baldinucci tells how Wals's fame as a painter of landscapes and perspectives encouraged Claude Lorrain to study with him in Naples, probably from 1620-22. Tassi is thought to have inspired Wal’s designs; “simple stratification across three planes.”[3] The tondo form which he favoured may have been meant to suggest a mirror- “a mirror of nature.”[4] Claude's time with Wals was instrumental in his development of the idealised Italianate landscape. In Naples, Wal’s greatest patron was the Flemish merchant Gaspar Roomer who owned no fewer than 60 pictures by the German painter.[5] It is significant that Roomer’s favourite type of painting seems to have been small landscapes or storms at sea, animal paintings and still lifes, “most of them painted by foreign artists, unfamiliar to Neapolitan artists.”[6]

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[1] Bio in the Genius of Rome, 384

[2] Patrizia Cavazzini “Towards the Pure Landscape” in Genius of Rome, 208-247, 235.

[3] Bio in ibid, 385.

[4] Cavazzini “Towards the Pure Landscape” in Genius of Rome, 239.

[5] Marshall, Baroque Naples, 202

[6] Roomer quoted in Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters ( Yale, 1980), 206.

Painting Landscape in the Bay of Naples with Claude Lorrain and Others. (8)

Poussin & Neapolitan patrons.

It has long been known that Poussin had strong links with the southern city of Naples. His earliest patron Giambattista Marino was one of the Neapolitan intellectual elite and Poussin illustrated his poem Adone, possibly some of the “Marino drawings” of the 1620s (Windsor). Research by Blunt, Costello and others have revealed more about Poussin’s pictures done for Neapolitan patrons.[1] Amongst these pictures were ones owned by the Sicilian Fabrizio Valguarnera such as the Plague of Ashdod (Louvre); one of the two versions of the Kingdom of Flora (Louvre and Dresden), possibly the Midas (Ajaccio). Another Neapolitan patron who has been connected with Poussin is Cardinal Ascanio Filomarino who was born in Naples in 1583, settled in Rome in 1617 and became a close friend of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII in 1623.[2] Filomarino boasted a collection with works by Annibale Carracci, Pietro da Cortona, Castiglione, Tassi, Guercino and Lanfranco. He also had a “strong Francophile taste” even making a down payment on Vouet’s celebrated Circumcision.[3] Filomarino had three Poussins which are recorded in his collection that were housed in his palace in Naples: an Annunciation, a risposo, and a Flight into Egypt all known through drawings by Fragonard done for his patron Saint-Non in 1781.[4] The “Annunciation” is probably the one at Chantilly; Blunt thought that Fragonard’s free treatment of a holy family in a landscape should be matched with the festive Rest on the Flight painting previously owned by Dr and Mrs Heinemann, and now in the Metropolitan, New York (above).[5] But perhaps the most problematical work by Poussin is the Adoration of the Golden Calf, of which just an autograph fragment exists (Dulwich) and pastiche, probably by Andrea de Leone (San Francisco).[6] Poussin’s original seems to have been completely destroyed by the mob during the Revolt of Masaniello in 1647. Whether the destruction of his painting by the Neapolitan mob prompted Poussin to lament the uprising (amongst other troubles like the execution of Charles I in England and the revolt of the Cossacks in Poland) in a letter to his patron Chantelou is not known.[7]

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[1] Anthony Blunt, “Poussin Studies VII: Poussins in Neapolitan and Sicilian Collections,” Burlington Magazine Vol 100, No. 660, (March 1958), 76-87. And on Poussin’s dealings with the Sicilian diamond smuggler Fabrizio Valguarnera, Jane Costello “The twelve pictures ordered by Velasquez” and the trail of Valguarnera,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XIII, (1950).

[2] For a good overview of Filomarino’s collecting habits, Marshall, Baroque Naples, 205.

[3] Ibid, 205.

[4] On the problems of identifying these, Blunt, “Poussins in Neapolitan and Sicilian Collections,” 80.

[5] But it should be noted that the measurements of the existing pictures do not tally with those in the Filomarino/Della Torre inventory, Poussin Bio in Painting in Naples, 274-5. According to Marshall (Baroque Naples, 302, n 74, Falcone’s Crossing of the Red Sea quotes Poussin’s New York Holy Family. Marshall believed that Poussin’s picture may have been owned by Roomer and the quotation was a form of flattery. Not having seen Falcone’s picture I cannot comment.

[6] On the two heads fragment, Blunt, Poussin Studies II, “Poussin: Three Early Works,” Burlington Magazine, Vol. 89, No. 535 (Oct 1947), 266-271.

[7] Ibid: Poussin’s biographer Félibien said that the “Golden Calf” was executed for a Neapolitan patron and damaged in the revolt of Masaniello in 1647.

Painting Landscape in the Bay of Naples with Claude Lorrain and Others. (7)

Francois de Nomé & Didier Barra.

For a long time the painter from Metz- Didier Barra (1590- Naples until 1644)- was known by the enigmatic sobriquet of “Monsù Desiderio” a “renowned painter of views” (de Domenici).[1] Barra emerged into his own limelight with the discovery that he was responsible for collaborating with the altar painter Palumbo on a large painting showing St Gennaro and the Trinity hovering over Naples; he rendered the bird’s eye view, one of his specialities. To make matters more complex Barra was confused for a long time with the artists known as Francois de Nomé (1593- Naples until 1644) who was active in the city in the first half of the seicento. The two artists were merged into the personality of “Monsu Desiderio” though they couldn’t have been more different in their method and choice of subject. To take de Nomé first: this artist specialised in bizarre scenes of buildings collapsing, or on fire, environments usually peopled with gloomy martyrs and agitated saints (above). There is something “gothic” about Francois de Nomé’s art and there is nobody in the entire 17^th century with such a flair for theatricality in art and such disregard as the rules of painting. In complete contrast Didier Barra – also from Metz- was characterised as “a careful view painter, who accurately recorded panoramic views of Naples.”[2] In addition to painting topographical and lyrical views of the city, Barra also painted views of Vesuvius, a genre that would come to fruition in the next century. It is thought that Barra’s panoramas owe much to the Calabrian topographer Alessandro Baratta whose work Barra knew from engravings.[3]

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[1] Bio in Painting in Naples (London, 1982), 108-9. Christopher Wright, The French Painters of the Seventeenth-Century (Orbis, London, 1985), 175-6, though both artists listed as “Monsù Desiderio”. Olaf Koester and Humphrey Wine, Poussin and Claude and French Painting of the Seventeenth-Century (Copenhagen, 1992, no. 15 and bio.

[2] Bio in Painting in Naples, 108.

[3] Ibid, 109.

Painting Landscape in the Bay of Naples with Claude Lorrain and Others. (6)

Salvator Rosa & Early Landscapes in Naples.

Though Salvator Rosa (1615- 1673) is better known for his work in Rome and Florence, he did start his career in his hometown of Naples. According to Rosa’s biographers, forced by want caused by his father’s death in 1621 and needing to feed a growing family, the young Salvator resorted to “painting landscape sketches on paper” that he sold to dealers for cheap prices.[1] The rivenditori (merchants) marked up Rosa’s prices, and according to the story the great painter Lanfranco swept by in his carriage and paid more than the asking price for one of Rosa’s landscapes which led to the rivenditori demanding more from the artist. Lanfranco is supposed to have purchased Rosa’s Hagar and the Angel which he showed to his connoisseur friends in Rome whose verdict was “tocco con gran gusto pittoresco” (“brushed with great picturesque taste”).[2] And following the encouragement of his brother-in-law, Francesco Fracanzano (1612-1656?)- another painter- Rosa was exhorted to produce fully developed landscape paintings. Scholars are divided about the veracity of this reason for Rosa taking up landscape, a genre he subsequently denigrated, though he certainly drew and painted fishermen and peasants along the Neapolitan shoreline in his early phase (above).[3] Sadly, none of Rosa’s sketches of nature have survived, and only a few coastal scenes exist; these were either painted in Naples or in Rome containing echoes of landscape painters like the Italians like Filippo Napoletano, Domenico Gargiulo, the storm clouds of Ribera (Langdon), Claude’s Neapolitan idylls, and the landscapes of the German specialist Gottfried Walls.[4]

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[1] Cited in Marshall, Baroque Naples, 97.

[2] Helen Langdon, “The Art and Life of Salvator Rosa” in Salvator Rosa (Dulwich/Fort Worth, 2010), 11-44, 14.

[3] Marshall (Baroque Naples, 98) says the anecdote is “suspiciously reminiscent of the story of D’Arpino’s discovery of the young Aniello Falcone” though he concedes that coming from a poor background Rosa would have needed to have sold any kind of art.

[4] Langdon, “Landscapes” in Salvator Rosa, 135.

Painting Landscape in the Bay of Naples with Claude Lorrain and Others. (5)

Some Notable Neapolitan Landscape Artists.

Perhaps the first great Neapolitan landscape artist is Filippo Napoletano (Filippo d’Angeli or de Ligno 1589-1629) who was trained by Wals in Naples until 1614 when Napoletano moved to Rome and worked with Tassi and had his career furthered by Caravaggio’s patron Cardinal Dal Monte. Strongly influenced by Adam Elsheimer, Paul Bril and Agostino Tassi, Napoletano painted “fires and boats” according to Mancini.[1] With the increase of Falcone’s and Gargiulo’s ambitions, they wanted to claim landscape for Naples itself: Falcone wondered if he could take the military scenes of Jacques Callot and Essais Van der Velde, and create a “Caravaggesque Neapolitan idiom”; while Gargiulo wanted to synthesise a new kind of landscape mixing the Roman Bamboccianti (street scenes) with topographical views imbued with an unmistakeable Neapolitan flavour. Gargiulo also became something of a documentarian too with his views of the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631 and his topsy-turvy canvas showing the Piazzo del Mercato during the Revolt of Masaniello in 1647. Eventually Gargiulo would become aware of French classical painters like Poussin and Claude, and along with the prints of Jacques Callot would insert many figures into landscapes. Gargiulo also won a contract to paint a series of frescoes at the Certosa di San Martino (above) which solidified his reputation as the foremost landscape painter in Naples. By placing religious figures into “idealised views of the Neapolitan compagna and the Bay of Naples” Gargiulo created a new genre whose influence was to last into the nineteenth-century with the “School of Posillipo.”[2] Viviano Codazzi (1604-1670) came from Bergamo, and after a long period in Rome, arrived in Naples in 1634.[3] Under the influence of Agostino Tassi, Codazzi fused architectural caprice with landscape; he also collaborated with other artists like Artemesia Gentileschi and Micco Spadaro, another name for Gargiulo.

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[1] Bio in the Genius of Rome, 381.

[2] Marshall, Baroque Naples, 78.

[3] Bio in Painting in Naples, 148.

Painting Landscape in the Bay of Naples with Claude Lorrain and Others. (4)

Landscapes at the Lower End of the Market.

In 1608 when he was testifying to the Inquisition, van Swanenburgh told the authorities the names of dealers and patrons with whom he had had dealings.[1] One of these was the comte de Montemiletto who we learn paid 50 ducats to the early landscape specialist Cornelio Ghesenz for “six paintings that he has to complete of landscapes with figures.” This forgotten painter belonged to the colony of northern artists working in Naples who would have taken their cue from earlier landscape specialists like Filippo Napoletano and Gottfried Wals (above). Another painter, even more obscure, the Principio de Concilio had a contract with a ship captain Andrea de Sillia to paint four large narrative paintings for an unidentified private patron. De Concilio was producing what Marshall calls “semi-fantastic nocturnal landscapes set amongst ruins” that would become the stock in trade of more famous artists like the aforementioned Francois de Nomé and Cornelius Brusco. So there was some demand for this eccentric genre in Naples, though to what extent is difficult to determine as some have certainly been lost. Many of these artists subsisted at the lower end of the market, usually on “day wages” working to attract dealers. Falcone began his early career working for one of these dealers, Nicola di Martino who was probably related to Salvator Rosa’s early dealer, Pietro di Martino. For Nicola’s shop, Falcone painted some battle pictures which were noticed by the Cavalier D’Arpino as well as Gaspar Roomer who operated in a much more lucrative league.

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[1] Information from Marshall, Baroque Naples, 99.

Painting Landscape in the Bay of Naples with Claude Lorrain and Others. (3)

Origins of Landscape Painting in the Bay of Naples.

Where did Neapolitan landscape painting originate? In his survey of painting in 17^th century Naples, Christopher R. Marshall picks up the story in the 1630s when painters like Aniello Falcone, Andrea de Leone and others launched the genre.[1] Prior to the 1630s there was no identifiably distinct kind of home grown landscape painting in Naples; but with “the conjoining of Northern and Italian influences” in the cabinet pictures of Falcone and his “school,” a new phenomenon occurred. Also contributing to the flowering of Neapolitan landscape painting was the influx of northern artists who had emigrated to southern Italy due to the disruption caused by religious wars in France and the Netherlands. At the time Jan Breughel was achieving great success in Rome in the 1590s, we hear in Naples of patrons paying Flemish artists for “views of Naples and the entire gulf.”[2] This was an early example of architectural painting which would continue into the 17^th century with such artists as the Frenchman Didier Barra who would earn a living as a veduta painter, sometimes collaborating with history painters like Onofrio Palumbo as in the St Gennaro Interceding for Naples of the 1650s (above). Also topographical artists like Viviano Codazzi (1604-70) and Domenico Gargiulo (1609/10-1675) would enjoy acclaim with their architectural caprices and heavily populated cityscapes respectively.

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[1] Christopher R. Marshall, Baroque Naples and the Industry of Painting: The World in the Workbench (Yale University Press, 2016), 75.

[2] Ibid, 76.

Painting Landscape in the Bay of Naples with Claude Lorrain and Others. (2)

Northern Landscape Painting & Southern Italy.

It should be made clear that for a very long time landscape in southern Italy was considered mainly a Flemish genre; the names of landscape painters encountered on the Neapolitan art market were predominantly from the north. There are familiar names such as Leonard Bramer (1596-1674), Cornelis Poelenburgh (1594/95-1667), Jan Breughel and Goffredo Wals; but there are also forgotten names like Loys Croys who painted hermits in landscapes; Jacopo Coppola, Giacoba Zoabia, Jacopo Lumiello, and the Ghesenze brothers.[1] These northern artists were mainly known from their work in Neapolitan collections, though some actually lived and worked in Naples. One was Jacob van Swanenburgh from a family of Leiden painters, and the future teacher of the young Rembrandt. But before he taught Rembrandt, van Swanenburgh had a thriving practice in 17th century Naples. To boost trade he decided to hang samples of his art outside his workshop in the street. However these weren’t harmless pictures of saints and madonnas as in the picture of a street near the Palazzo Gravina- but scenes of witchcraft in infernal landscapes. These witchcraft scenes haven’t survived, but something of their nature can be discerned from VS’s scenes of Hell (above). The offending pictures came to the attention of the Naples Inquisition who raided VS’s shop and cross-examined the painter. No punishment was imposed, but the incident soured van Swanenburgh’s relations with Naples. He returned to Leiden and taught the young Rembrandt.[2] Wisely, Rembrandt decided to steer clear of the fire and brimstone themes. VS said he wanted his pictures to “bring pleasure to people.” Whatever people’s response to them, they certainly attracted attention!

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[1] Ibid.

[2] On Rembrandt and the van Swanenburghs, Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt, His Life, His Paintings (Penguin, 1985), 20f.

Painting Landscape in the Bay of Naples with Claude Lorrain and Others. (1)

Landscape painting, wherever it was practiced, was always considered an inferior genre in the 17^th century compared to history painting. Why was this? Several reasons, amongst which was the absence of figures in landscape which were needed to convey the affetti or passions in line with academic doctrine; landscape would eventually gain respectability with the advent of figurative landscapes by Claude, Domenichino and Poussin. But for a long time landscape was regarded as an non academic genre fit only for the delectation of specialised collectors. Yet there were attempts to theorise landscape. About 1620, Caravaggio’s biographer and the art theorist Giulio Mancini (1559-1630) drew up a model of landscape based upon the tendencies of specific northern and Italian artists. As physician to Pope Paul V and various cardinals Mancini perceived that landscapes hung in princely collections possessed healing qualities.[1] Mancini was especially appreciative of Jan Breughel the Elder’s ability to use copper as a painting surface which resulted in striking surface light effects, a method which had been pioneered by the German artist Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610).[2] If one looked for a similar landscape painter in Naples, one might turn to the bizarre Frenchman known as Francois de Nomé who achieved equally striking effects by completely different means. And as we shall see opportunity could knock for artists of all nationalities- including Flemish - specialising in landscape, though the genre evolved through different traditions down in the south compared to Rome and other parts of Italy. Finally, as Ernst Gombrich pointed out in a seminal essay, a distinction must be made between the “rendering of an outside scene” and “the established and recognised genre of art.”[3] Landscape painting as a genre, and as distinct from scenes of daily ritual and everyday life, became “an acknowledged subject for both paintings and prints” towards the end of the 16^th century.[4] Flemish artists like Jan Breughel the Elder (1568-1625) and Paul Bril (1553/54-1626) (above) produced art fit for collection and display by eager Italian patrons including those living in Naples and Sicily like Gaspar Roomer and Don Antonio Ruffio.

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[1] Frances Gage, “Exercise for Mind and Body: Giulio Mancini, Collecting, and the Beholding of Landscape Painting in the Seventeenth Century,” Renaissance Quarterly 61 (2008): 1167-1207, 1186f. The four landscape artists most worthy of attention by Mancini, what he called “perfect landscape” were Jan Breughel, Paul Bril, Annibale Carracci, and Domenichino, ibid, 1189.

[2] Francesca Cappelletti, “The Enticement of the North: Landscape, Myth and Gleaming Supports,” in The Genius of Rome, 174-205.

[3] Ernst Gombrich, “The Renaissance Theory of Art and the Rise of Landscape” in Norm and Form: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (Phaidon Press, 1966, rep 1971), 107-121, 107.

[4] Ibid, 108.