Art on the Grand Tour. Week 8: “See Naples and Die!” A Hazardous City for Art Lovers

Painting under the Bourbons

JOLI, Antonio, Arrival of Charles III in Naples, Oil on canvas, 128 x 205 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid

 MENGS, Anton Raphael, Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, 1760, Oil on canvas, 179 x 130 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid

VERNET, Claude-Joseph, View of Naples, 1748, Oil on canvas, 100 x 198 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

TRAVERSI, Gaspare, The Drawing Lesson, c. 1750, Oil on canvas, 154 x 206 cm, Nelson-Atkins, Museum of Art, Kansas City.

One of the most significant dates in Naples’s history was 1734 when after 250 years of misgovernment by the Viceroys of Madrid, Naples became the capitol of an independent kingdom under the reign of Charles de Bourbon, younger son of Philip V of Spain.[1] In this year Charles III entered Naples in triumph, an event which is recorded in a number of paintings like Joli’s depiction of the arrival of the monarch’s fleet.  After weakening the power of the Church, strengthening Naples’s financial position and controlling his nobles, Charles turned his attention to his palaces. For his court to become renowned Charles would have to recruit a large number of artists and painters, which he did. Though Charles consolidated the Neapolitan school of painting established by Solimena and Francesca de Mura, he hired foreign architects like Luigi Vanvitelli for his palace, the son of the famous vedute painter of the same name. Charles’s grand projects never came to fruition, and he left Naples in 1759 to become King of Spain. Charles’s successor was his second son Ferdinand, and with his tenure, Neapolitan painters began to slip away and were replaced by an influx of foreign painters like the German artist Tischbein who was appointed Rector of the Academy founded by Charles.  Other Germans included Angelica Kauffman and Philip Hackert, a landscape painter who became official painter to the king. The French contingent in Naples were represented by Claude Joseph Vernet, Hubert Robert and Fragonard, and as Blunt stresses, Vernet did more than most to popularize views of the Bay of Naples. As for the English, they were there mainly due to the presence of Sir William Hamilton who was archaeologist, geologist, volcanologist and artistic patron and friend to a steady stream of artists and visitors like William Beckford, John Robert Cozens, Thomas Jones and William Marlow. The Italian painters held their own with such artists as Gaspare Traversi who with his flair for the grotesque in elegant situations comes across as a Neapolitan Hogarth! 

Painting on a Volcano.

Between 1765 and 1794, Mount Vesuvius was subject to a series of spectacular explosions which in addition to scaring the locals, provided a once-in-a lifetime   If visitors left Rome with the sight of St Peter’s in their mind’s eye, then Vesuvius was the equivalent in the Neapolitan peninsular. Many of these volcano painters moved in the orbit of Sir William Hamilton who published in 1776 the first part of his book on geology, Campi Phlegraei which contained hand coloured copper engravings after the pictures of Peter Fabris, an Anglo-Italian artist and picture dealer residing in Naples. The plates range from views of Vesuvius to illustrations of lava samples collected by Hamilton himself on the slopes of the volcano. Of course the eruptions of Vesuvius were linked with the fate of Pompeii, but rather than the volcano destroying the town it ensured its immortality.  Hamilton, dubbed the “Professor of Earthquakes” by Horace Walpole, probably revived volcanology and was instrumental in attracting many visitors to Naples who would undertake the perilous hike up the fire mountain.  Goethe tried the ascent up the volcano only to be overcome with belching smoke and hot ash. Among the painters, one of Vesuvius’s most famous visitors was Joseph Wright of Derby who visited Naples between October and November 1774. Of the volcanic explosions, Wright declared “Tis the most wonderful sight in Nature” though he worried that his renditions of Vesuvius were slight and, literally, superficial. Instead of probing deep within the volcano Wright concentrated on the surface, the “epidermis” of the land, an approach that was consistent with the theorists of the picturesque like William Gilpin who never used the word to describe the inner quality of the earth.  Wright was, however, aware of the new “connoisseurship of the earth” propounded by John Whitehurst who made illustrations of the structure of volcanic landscape and knew of the reactions deep down. There were many painters of the eruptions of Vesuvius, but after Wright the most prolific is probably the Frenchman Pierre Volaire from Toulon who specialised in night scenes and took advantage of the eruptions during his sojourn in Naples in 1769. Compton Verney have some fine examples of Volaire’s volcanos.

 ALLEN, David, Sir William Hamilton  and his first Wife, Catherine Hamilton in the villa at Posillipo with a View of Vesuvius in the Background, 1770, Compton Verney, oil on canvas, 45.7 x 61 cms.

WRIGHT, James, Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the Bay of Naples, 1776-80, Derby Art Gallery, 122 x 176.4 cms.

VOLAIRE, Pierre-Jacques, Eruption of Vesuvius by Moonlight, 1771, Compton Verney, Oil on canvas, 105 x 205 cm.

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WUTKY, Michael, The Summit of Vesuvius Erupting, Oil on canvas, 95 x 146 cm, Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna.

Painting the People. 

Long before the era of the Grand Tour, the city of Naples was regarded as a “paradise inhabited by demons, a lush almost tropical zone of plenty which should be conducive to human life and happiness, and yet is actually a place of danger, especially to foreigners.”[2]  The city had a reputation of danger encapsulated in the famous phrase “Vedi Napoli e poi muori”, though Goethe reassured his correspondents that he was in no danger during his stay in the city.[3] Still, the city and Vesuvius were perceived as hostile to visitors, and the violent animation of the volcano was eventually correlated with the people of Naples themselves who were dominated in many senses by Vesuvius.[4] This becomes a trope in the literature of the Grand Tour with writers equating the temperament of the people with the volcanic air that they breathe which accounts for their "volatile" nature. Mme de Stael's novel Corinne provide an excellent example of this parallel. De Stael like many others also devotes a lot of attention to the lazzaroni, a derogatory word used by the Spanish to describe the beggars in Naples.  Describing the people of Naples in general, De Stael comments on their gaiety accentuated by their artistic attitude to dress, which she says gives “a picturesque quality to the rabble.”[5] This image of the Neapolitan people is captured in the many scenes of the populace: fishermen, beggars, washerwomen, executed by artists during the epoch of the Grand Tour, a stark contrast to the aristocratic Grand Tourists that Fabris also painted. Images of the Neapolitan people are “picturesque” in the sense that they present a deliberately superficial view of a complex race lacking deeper sociological analysis such as we encounter in Goethe's account of his stay.

 REBELL, Joseph, The Mole at Portici, 1818, Oil on canvas, 38 x 55 cm, Neue Pinakothek, Munich.

FABRIS, Pietro, Naples, a View of Mergellina, 1777, Oil on canvas, 104 x 157 cm, Private collection.

FABRIS, Pietro, The Festival of the Madonna dell'Arco, 1777, Compton Verney, 102.6 x 153.7 cm, oil on canvas.

FABRIS, Pietro, Kenneth Mackenzie (1744–1781), 1st Earl of Seaforth, at Home in Naples: Fencing Scene, 1770, Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, Oil on canvas, 35.5 x 47.6 cm.

Naples and Antiquity 

HACKERT, Philip, The Ruins of Pompeii, 1799, National Trust, Attingham Park, oil on canvas, 118 x 164 cms.

 FABRIS, The Temple of Hera at Paestum, Italy, Compton Verney, Oil on canvas, 56.6 x 90.5 cm.

COZENS, John Robert, The Two Great Temples at Paestum, 1782, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

ROMNEY, George, Portrait of Emma Hamilton as a Circe, 1785, Tate Britain, London, Oil on canvas, 53.3 x 49.5 cm

During the 18^th century Naples increased in importance thanks to the excavations carried out at Herculaneum and Pompeii. Grand Tourists in Rome, especially if they had a taste for the ancient world, would make the journey south to see these sites and sights.  The finds from Herculaneum would be exhibited in a museum near the site, which tourists would visit after the city of Naples itself. [6] The domestic was emphasised since a Roman kitchen had been re-created complete with ancient utensils. Interestingly, drawings of Herculaneum and Pompeii were strictly forbidden unless a patron could use their clout as in the case of Hackert who produced rare paintings of Pompeii, only because he was Official Painter to the King of Naples. [7] A third site was Paestum in the Gulf of Salerno, formerly a colony of ancient Greece which boasted three surviving temples which enjoyed the attention of artists like Piranesi, John Robert Cozens and Elizabeth Vigée LeBrun. One of the most impressive renditions of Paestum is Piranesi’s etching which captures the gloomy grandeur of the ruins, also of great interest to architects. All of this week’s topics might seem isolated, but they are all tightly bound together. Sir William Hamilton developed his career during the Bourbon dynasty, carried out his researches against a backdrop of Neapolitan culture including the city and its people. As for his interest in antiquity, he employed the same research principles to collecting antique vases as he did in pioneering volcanology in the Neapolitan peninsular. He made the mountain portable and placed it in a lavishly decorated setting as he did with his vases, some of which like the Portland Vase were given by him to the British Museum. So Hamilton’s collection consisted of the volcano, the antique vases, and to it he was to add the beautiful young woman Emma Hamilton, née Hart, the third component of Hamilton’s collection- the “ideal of the female body in motion.” [8]

 

Slides. 

1)      JOLI, Antonio, Arrival of Charles III in Naples, Oil on canvas, 128 x 205 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid

2)      BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder, Naval Battle in the Gulf of Naples, 1558-62, oil on panel, 42 x 71 cm, Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome.

3)      PARET Y ALCAZÁR, Luis, Charles III Dining before the Court, c. 1788, Oil on wood, 50 x 64 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid.

4)      VANVITELLI, View of Naples, 1700-10, Oil on panel, 45 x 98 cm, Private collection

5)      MENGS, Anton Raphael, Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, 1760, Oil on canvas, 179 x 130 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid

6)      HACKERT, Jacob Philipp, Autumn, c. 1784, Oil on canvas, 96,5 x 64 cm, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne.

7)      REINHOLD, Heinrich, Terrace of the Capucin Priory in Sorrento, 1823-24, Oil on canvas, 42 x 55 cm, Neue Pinakothek, Munich.

8)      HACKERT, Italianate Landscape, 1778, Oil on canvas, 65 x 89 cm, Private collection

9)      TISCHBEIN, Johann Heinrich the Younger, Conradin of Swabia and Frederick of Baden Being Informed of Their Execution in Prison in Naples, 1785, Oil on canvas, 66 x 92 cm, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

10)   VERNET, Claude-Joseph, View of Naples, 1748, Oil on canvas, 100 x 198 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

11)   JONES, Thomas, Houses in Naples, 1776-83, Oil on paper, British Museum, London

12)   MARLOW, William, View of the Bay of Naples from Posillipo, 1777-79, Oil on canvas, 65 x 100 cm, Private collection.

13)   TRAVERSI, Gaspare, The Drawing Lesson, c. 1750, Oil on canvas, 154 x 206 cm, Nelson-Atkins, Museum of Art, Kansas City.

14)   WRIGHT, Joseph, View of Vesuvius from Posillipo, Oil on canvas, Private collection

15)   ALLEN, David, Sir William Hamilton  and his first Wife, Catherine Hamilton in the villa at Posillipo with a View of Vesuvius in the Background, 1770, Compton Verney, oil on canvas, 45.7 x 61 cms.

16)   The Portland Vase, British Museum, Roman Glass Cameo Vase, AD 1 and AD 25.

17)   WRIGHT, James, Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the Bay of Naples, 1776-80, Derby Art Gallery, 122 x 176.4 cms.

18)   WRIGHT, Joseph, Portrait of John Whitehurst, 1782-83, Derby Art Gallery, oil on canvas, 92.1 x 71.1 cm.

19)   VOLAIRE, Pierre-Jacques, Eruption of Vesuvius by Moonlight, 1771, Compton Verney, Oil on canvas, 105 x 205 cm.

20)   VOLAIRE, Pierre-Jacques, Eruption of Vesuvius by Moonlight , 1774, Compton Verney, 130 x 260 cm.

21)   WUTKY, Michael, The Summit of Vesuvius Erupting, Oil on canvas, 95 x 146 cm, Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna.

22)   DAHL, Johann Christian Clausen, Eruption of the Vesuvius, c. 1823, Oil on canvas, 93 x 138 cm, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo.

23)   REBELL, Joseph, The Mole at Portici, 1818, Oil on canvas, 38 x 55 cm, Neue Pinakothek, Munich.

24)   FABRIS, Pietro, Naples, a View of Mergellina, 1777, Oil on canvas, 104 x 157 cm, Private collection.

25)   BLECHEN, Karl, Fishermen at the Gulf of Naples, 1829-30, Oil on canvas, 20 x 34 cm, Nationalgalerie, Berlin

26)   FABRIS, Pietro, The Festival of the Madonna dell'Arco, 1777, Compton Verney, 102.6 x 153.7 cm, oil on canvas.

27)   FABRIS, Pietro, Kenneth Mackenzie (1744–1781), 1st Earl of Seaforth, at Home in Naples: Fencing Scene, 1770, Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, Oil on canvas, 35.5 x 47.6 cm.

28)   HACKERT, Philip, The Ruins of Pompeii, 1799, National Trust, Attingham Park, oil on canvas, 118 x 164 cms.

29)   PIRANESI, Paestum, Temple of Neptune, 1778, etching, 45.3 x 67.8 cms.

30)   FABRIS, The Temple of Hera at Paestum, Italy, Compton Verney, Oil on canvas, 56.6 x 90.5 cm.

31)   FABRIS, Pietro, View of Paestum, Oil on canvas, 77 x 130 cm, Private collection

32)   COZENS, John Robert, The Two Great Temples at Paestum, 1782, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

33)   ROMNEY, George, Portrait of Emma Hamilton as a Circe, 1785, Tate Britain, London, Oil on canvas, 53.3 x 49.5 cm

34)   GILRAY, James, A Cognoscenti contemplating ye Beauties of ye Antique, 1801, satire on Nelson and Lady Hamilton.

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[1] Anthony Blunt, “Naples Under the Bourbons, 1734-1805”, Burlington Magazine, Vol. 121, No. 913, April 1979., 207-211.

[2] David D. Nolta, “The Body of the Collector and the Collected body in William Hamilton’s Naples”, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1997, 108-114, 108.

[3] Goethe, Italian Journey, 3^rd March, 1787.

[4] Nolta, “The Body of the Collector”, 109.

[5] De Stael, Corinne, Book XI, Chap. II

[6] David Irwin, Neoclassicism, (Phaidon, 1997), 37f.

[7] Ibid, 41.

[8] Nolta, “The Body of the Collector”, 110.