On a Painting Tour with Edward Lear in Calabria.
In addition to the academic reconstruction of Southern Italian cities like Pompeii and Herculaneum there were other genres emerging though these were more in tune with the growing interest in open-air painting. Though Naples was still visited by late 19th century artists like Mikhail Nestorov from Russia, who kept a painter’s journal of his experience, there were artists who ventured even further south to regions like Calabria and Capri. As we shall see, John Singer Sargent took a trip to the latter in 1878; but in 1842 the poet and landscape artist Edward Lear (1812-1888) made a trip to Calabria, the great landmass on the opposite side of the Messina straits. More known for his nonsense prose and poetry such as “The Owl and the Pussycat” (1871) Lear was an accomplished artist, though that side of his career has escaped the attention of the general public. A well-travelled man, Lear visited Greece and Egypt (1848-49), India and Ceylon (1873-75). His illustrated Italian journeys began a journey in 1842 into the Italian peninsula. Travelling through the Lazio, Rome, Abruzzo, Molise, Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, Lear sketched and commented on local people and customs. His Journals of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria were illustrated with eighteen lithographs of buildings and landscape of the Italian peninsula (above).[1] After a long decline in his health, Lear died at his villa in San Remo in 1888 of heart disease, from which he had suffered since at least 1870. Lear's funeral was said to be a sad, lonely affair by the wife of Dr. Hassall, Lear's physician, none of Lear's many lifelong friends being able to attend. Lear is buried in the Cemetery Foce in San Remo. On his headstone are inscribed these lines about Mount Tomohrit (in Albania) from Tennyson's poem To E.L. [Edward Lear], On His Travels in Greece: “all things fair. With such a pencil, such a pen. You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there.”
[1] Lithography (from Ancient Greek λίθος, lithos, meaning 'stone', and γράφειν, graphein, meaning 'to write') is a method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water.The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by German author and actor Alois Senefelder as a cheap method of publishing theatrical works. Lithography can be used to print text or artwork onto paper or other suitable material.
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