Descrizione

ANONYMOUS – A night-time eruption of Vesuvius (Naples, first quarter of the 19th cent.)
Gouache on paper, in bright colors, dimens. 323 x550 mm., small tears at upper edge in the sky area (easily fixable).

After the middle of the eighteenth century, starting from England, the taste for the “picturesque” began to spread. Far from the ideal of classical beauty, this new attitude captured in the natural world a spirit very similar to the human sensibility able not only to participate in the emotions of the viewer, but above all to arouse them. Thus, to the serene atmosphere of the idealized traditional landscapes, the picturesque replaced the scenery of a wild and irregular nature, free and rich in contrasts capable of awakening emotions full of nostalgia and anxiety at the same time. The landscapes in which the roughness and unpredictability of nature allow a strongly pictorial use of lights and colors are favourite subjects of this kind. The spectacle that erupting Vesuvius offered to foreign visitors in Naples was the most “picturesque”view one could imagine and soon many representations of this scene, especially at night-time, were made. Alongside the paintings, this subject inspired the creation of a long series of watercolors that soon became a “genre” and they were attractive souvenirs for Grand Tour travelers.