CLAUDE-LOUIS CHATELET (1753-1795)
Mount Vesuvius (1, 281m - 4,203 ft current)
Italy
In Vue du Vésuve et de la Baie de Naples, Oil on canvas, 1781, Private collection
The mountain
Mount Vesuvius (1,281 meters- 4,203 ft current) 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 french artist Claude-Louis Châtelet, died guillotined May 7, 1795, is a painter, draftsman and engraver French. He first distinguished himself by his contribution to the monumental work edited by the influential farmer general Jean-Benjamin de La Borde, Topographical Tables of Switzerland, commented by Baron Zurlauben around 1776. Then he became one of the favorite painters of Queen Marie-Antoinette, who commissioned him a number of illustrations of albums depicting the Trianon and its gardens, albums offered by the Queen to her distinguished visitors.
Châtelet is also known for many animated landscapes of Italy and England.
The paintings and drawings of Claude-Louis Châtelet reveal a technique, a talent and a style of a high degree of accomplishment. The characters animating the landscapes blend with charm and poetry in an atmosphere where dense foliage and fertile nature contrast with the geometric mastery of buildings and architectural elements. The games of light and shadow give these paintings a spatial depth and a perspective in which the gaze is lost, going from one group of characters to another and lingering on stair steps or some sumptuous abode. without having breathed the scent of a nature always present and reassuring. This painter, because of his short existence and his political engagements, has left posterity too limited a production to be retained by the history of art as an important figure in the painting of the eighteenth century French. However, his style and mastery, his connections and his talent, could have made, like Hubert Robert, one of the most eminent and endearing painters of this century, if only he had dedicated all his energy to the nobility of his art.
