IV. Views of Rome

61. Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes Toulouse 1750 – 1819 Paris In his Élémens de perspective pratique, Valenciennes wrote of Rome as the city par excellence, “one could not speak of it without admiration, see it without enthusiasm, nor leave it without regret”. Having first visited the city in 1769, he would indeed return several times and settled in Italy (…)
62. André Giroux Paris 1801 – 1879 Paris Giroux spent five years in Italy after receiving the Prix de Rome in 1825, where he produced a great number of plein air sketches. Some of these compositions were further developed as larger paintings intended for exhibition at the Paris Salon. In the case of this view of Rome, seen from just (…)
63. Louis Dupré Versailles 1789 – 1837 Paris This view of the convent and church of Trinità dei Monti was painted from the oft-repeated vantage point of the Villa Medici, seat of the French Academy in Rome since 1803. Though Dupré himself was not a pensionnaire (he had received a grant from Jérôme Bonaparte for a journey to Rome and was (…)
64. André Giroux Paris 1801 – 1879 Paris Though taken from an almost identical viewpoint, Giroux’s depiction of Trinità dei Monti stands in stark contrast to Dupré’s (cat. 63). Here there was no time to painstakingly focus on details, as the city had just been covered by a highly unusual snowfall and Giroux had to work quickly in order (…)
65. François-Marius Granet Aix-en-Provence 1775 – 1849 Aix-en-Provence The son of a mason, Granet began his training in his native Aix-en-Provence before moving to Paris in 1797 and joining the atelier of David. He first travelled to Rome in 1802, and would spend most of the following two decades in the city. Fascinated by the motif of the arch, Granet made several (…)
66. Camille Corot Paris 1796 – 1875 Paris A pivotal figure in the history of plein air painting, Corot influenced several generations of landscape painters during his lifetime and, already in 1845, was placed by Baudelaire “at the head of the modern school of landscape.” Corot never attended the École des Beaux-Arts, but was encouraged (…)
67. Edgar Degas Paris 1834 – 1917 Paris Above all a painter of urban pleasures and the human figure, Degas preferred working in the studio and was critical of the plein air landscape artist. He claimed he was soon overcome with boredom when contemplating nature and satirised the outdoor antics of his Impressionist colleagues by (…)
68. Carl Blechen Cottbus 1798 – 1840 Berlin Blechen was 30 years old when he undertook the journey to Italy on 6 September 1828. He would return to Berlin 14 months later with many drawings and plein air sketches of a remarkable freedom which greatly influenced his working practice and appreciation of landscape. The freshness and (…)
69. François-Marius Granet Aix-en-Provence 1775 – 1849 Aix-en-Provence Here, Granet once again chooses an unusual angle for depicting this celebrated antique site (see cat. 65). The Arch of Janus, seen immersed in a midday shadow, occupies almost the entire right side of the painting and creates a sharp contrast with the brightly-lit left side of the composition. (…)
70. Raymond Monvoisin (known as Quinsac-Monvoisin) Bordeaux 1790 – 1870 Boulogne-sur-Seine An artist now largely forgotten in Europe, Quinsac-Monvoisin studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux before training in the studio of Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774–1833) in Paris. After receiving the Prix de Rome, he lived in Rome between 1821-25, when he painted this surprisingly fresh (…)
71. Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg Blaakrog, Denmark 1783 – 1853 Copenhagen Considered the father of the Danish School of painting, Eckersberg studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and in the Paris workshop of David before undertaking the journey to Rome in 1813. When he returned to Denmark three years later, he brought back the technique of painting en (…)