GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE (1848-1894)
Vesuvius (1,281m - 4,203ft)
Italy
In Sur une route à Naples (c. 1872), Oil on canvas, 60 x 40 cm. Private Collection
About the painting
The mountain was not, strictly speaking, Caillebotte's main subject of interest ! He painted very little, (not to say) no mountains! The canvas above is his only known example and still represents a mountain (the Vesuvius) seized as by accident while he wants especially to paint the horse-drawn car which led him in this Neapolitan campaign to observe this most famous volcano under a nes angle. The result is a masterwork with this unexpected view of the volcano !
The mountain
Mount Vesuvius (1,281 meters- 4,203 ft at present) is one of those legendary and mythic mountains the Earth paid regularly tribute. Monte Vesuvio in Italian modern langage or Mons Vesuvius in antique Latin langage is a stratovolcano in the Gulf of Naples (Italy) about 9 km (5.6 mi) east of Naples and a short distance from the shore.
It is one of several volcanoes which form the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera caused by the collapse of an earlier and originally much higher structure.
Mount Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman antique cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and several other settlements. That eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ash, and fumes to a height of 33 km (20.5 mi), spewing molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima bombing. At least 1,000 people died in the eruption. The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus.
Vesuvius has erupted many times since and is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years. Nowadays, it is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people living nearby and its tendency towards explosive eruptions (said Plinian eruptions). It is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world.
Vesuvius was formed as a result of the collision of two tectonic plates, the African and the Eurasian. The former was subducted beneath the latter, deeper into the earth. As the water-saturated sediments of the oceanic African plate were pushed to hotter depths in the earth, the water boiled off and caused the melting point of the upper mantle to drop enough to create partial melting of the rocks. Because magma is less dense than the solid rock around it, it was pushed upward. Finding a weak place at the Earth's surface it broke through, producing the volcano.
he area around Vesuvius was officially declared a national park on June 5, 1995. The summit of Vesuvius is open to visitors and there is a small network of paths around the mountain that are maintained by the park authorities on weekends.
There is access by road to within 200 metres (660 ft) of the summit (measured vertically), but thereafter access is on foot only. There is a spiral walkway around the mountain from the road to the crater.
The first funicular cable car on Mount Vesuvius opened in 1880. It was later destroyed by the 1944 eruption. "Funiculì, Funiculà", a famous Neapolitan song with lyrics by journalist Peppino Turco set to music by composer Luigi Denza, commemorates its opening.
The painter
The very important french painter Gustave Caillebotte, (known in US more than his own country) was a member and patron of the artists known as Impressionists,(or independents) although he painted in a more realistic manner than many others in the group. Caillebotte was noted for his early interest in photography as an art form.
With regard to the composition and painting style of his works, Caillebotte may be considered part of the first movement after Impressionism: Neo-Impressionism. The second period of Pointillism, whose main representative was Georges Seurat, announced its influence in the late works that Caillebotte painted at his country house in Petit Gennevilliers.
Caillebotte's style belongs to the School of Realism but was strongly influenced by his Impressionist associates. In common with his precursors Jean-François Millet and Gustave Courbet, as well his contemporary Degas, Caillebotte aimed to paint reality as it existed and as he saw it, hoping to reduce the inherent theatricality of painting. Perhaps because of his close relationship with so many of his peers, his style and technique vary considerably among his works, as if "borrowing" and experimenting, but not really sticking to any one style. At times, he seems very much in the Edgar Degas camp of rich-colored realism (especially his interior scenes); at other times, he shares the Impressionist commitment to "optical truth" and employs an impressionistic pastel-softness and loose brush strokes most similar to Renoir and Pissarro, although with a less vibrant palette.
The tilted ground common to these paintings is very characteristic of Caillebotte's work, which may have been strongly influenced by Japanese prints and the new technology of photography, although evidence of his use of photography is lacking. Cropping and "zooming-in", techniques that commonly are found in Caillebotte's oeuvre, may also be the result of his interest in photography, but may just as likely be derived from his intense interest in perspective effects. A large number of Caillebotte's works also employ a very high vantage point, including View of Rooftops - Snow (Vue de toits (Effet de neige) 1878, Boulevard Seen from Above (Boulevard vu d'en haut) 1880, and A Traffic Island (Un refuge, boulevard Haussmann), 1880.
Caillebotte is best known for his paintings of still life , water sports and urban Paris, The latter is almost unique among his works for its particularly flat colors and photo-realistic effect, which give the painting its distinctive and modern look, almost akin to American Realists such as Edward Hopper.
The tilted ground common to these paintings is very characteristic of Caillebotte's work, which may have been strongly influenced by Japanese prints and the new technology of photography, although evidence of his use of photography is lacking. Cropping and "zooming-in", techniques that commonly are found in Caillebotte's oeuvre, may also be the result of his interest in photography, but may just as likely be derived from his intense interest in perspective effects. A large number of Caillebotte's works also employ a very high vantage point, including View of Rooftops - Snow (Vue de toits (Effet de neige) 1878, Boulevard Seen from Above (Boulevard vu d'en haut) 1880, and A Traffic Island (Un refuge, boulevard Haussmann), 1880.
Caillebotte is best known for his paintings of still life , water sports and urban Paris, The latter is almost unique among his works for its particularly flat colors and photo-realistic effect, which give the painting its distinctive and modern look, almost akin to American Realists such as Edward Hopper.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
