|
Date: |
|
Description: | Giovanni Paolo Panini was one of the most popular artists in Rome in the eighteenth century. The Fairfax House painting shows various topographical scenes arranged together in one place, typical of the eighteenth-century capriccio, a genre popular among tourists and the type of painting for which Panini was best known. The artist, one of Panini's contemporaries, has depicted Trajan's Column from Trajan's Forum, the Temple of Vesta that still stands between the Forum and the River Tevere (Tiber). Through the arches of classical ruins which dominate the foreground of the painting can be seen the dome of St Peters', with the Sistine Chapel to the right. A few puffs of black smoke are painted rising up from this chapel's ceiling, denoting the choice of a new Pope. In the background, a port or harbour can be seen (perhaps Ostia), allowing the artist to depict a Roman' boat. Romantic figures in Roman dress populate the foreground ruins. The painting, and the other capricci like it that still exist, were inexpensive souvenirs of the tourist's visit to the Eternal City. They would usually depict a group of buildings, and events, that appealed most to the tourist's fancy. The rituals of the Catholic Church were fascinating, if bewildering, to most English (Protestant) visitors to the city: the ceremony of choosing a new Pope was one of the most interesting they could observe. Paintings such as this can also be understood as offering important information on the idealised, sentimentalised and historicized way in which the city of Rome was regarded in the eighteenth century. | Subjects: | place (Rome) | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: Panini, Giovanni Paolo (Italian painter, ca. 1692-1765) Æ Attributed to school of | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=8722... | Go to resource |
|
|