Paintings of the Bay of Naples: 79 CE to 1857

This weekend we’re not off skiing, but seeking the mild winter in the Bay (or Gulf) of Naples, on the western coast of south Italy. This sweeps anti-clockwise through three-quarters of circle, from the island of Ischia in the north-west, through the great city of Naples in the north, past the slopes of Mount Vesuvius with the remains of Pompeii, to Sorrento in the south-east, and ends with the island of Capri in the south.

Over the centuries it has been visited frequently by artists, many of whom have overwintered here, and on the island of Capri. In this article I show landscape paintings starting from before the catastrophic destruction of the Roman city of Pompeii, and ending just before the birth of Impressionism. I conclude tomorrow with paintings well into the first decades of the twentieth century.

Although it took nearly 1500 years before Giorgione made one of the first ‘proper’ landscape paintings in modern European art, by the first century CE the Romans of Pompeii were only too pleased to see pure landscapes with no discernible narrative content on the walls of their villas.

Artist not known, Port Scene (before 79 CE), fresco, originally from Stabiae, near Pompeii, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Italy. By WolfgangRieger, via Wikimedia Commons.

Above is a port scene found as a fresco in Stabiae, near Pompeii, presumably showing that port at its height just before it was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE.

Seventeen hundred years later in Naples, a pioneering Welsh artist created one of the gems now in the National Gallery in London.

Thomas Jones (1742-1803), A Wall in Naples (c 1782), oil on paper laid on canvas, 11.4 x 16 cm, National Gallery, London. Wikimedia Commons.

Thomas Jones started making landscape sketches in oils in the 1770s. He worked in Italy from 1776 to 1782, around Rome and Naples, where he completed many plein air paintings in oils, including this tiny Wall in Naples from about 1782. He’s now recognised as being the father of Welsh painting, and one of the first painters to make oil sketches in front of the motif.

Giovanni Battista Lusieri (1755-1821), A View of the Bay of Naples, Looking Southwest from the Pizzofalcone Toward Capo di Posilippo (1791), Watercolor, gouache, graphite, and pen and ink on six sheets of paper, 101.8 x 271.9 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, CA. Wikimedia Commons.

A little later, a local landscape painter Giovanni Battista Lusieri became one of the first to create true panoramas in his watercolour views of the city. For this View of the Bay of Naples, Looking Southwest from the Pizzofalcone Toward Capo di Posilippo from 1791 he joined several sheets of paper together to depict the northern shore of the bay.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), Lake Avernus: Aeneas and the Cumaean Sybil (1814-15), oil on canvas, 76 × 92.7 cm, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. Wikimedia Commons.

JMW Turner’s second version of Lake Avernus: Aeneas and the Cumaean Sybil, dates from 1814 or 1815, and is true to the spirit of Claude’s earlier landscapes. This is a beautiful setting of Lake Avernus, near Pozzuoli, to the west of the city of Naples. In the distance is Baiae and the cliffs of Cape Miseno. The Sibyl is seen holding aloft a golden sprig rather than a bough, and Aeneas stands with his back to the viewer, as if he too is enjoying the view.

Achille Etna Michallon (1796–1822), Sea View, Salerno (1822), oil on canvas, 26 x 38 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Shortly afterwards, the great French landscape artist Achille Etna Michallon painted this Sea View, Salerno (1822), showing the coast to the south-east of Naples.

At about the same time, the Bay became a focus of attention for JC Dahl and some of the German Romantic artists. Dahl had aroused the interest of Prince Christian Frederik of Denmark, who had become his patron and friend while he was still in Copenhagen. In 1820, the prince invited Dahl to join him in the Bay of Naples to paint there for him.

Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857), The Gulf of Naples. Moonlight (1820-21), oil on canvas, 35.8 x 51.9 cm, Statens Museum for Kunst (Den Kongelige Malerisamling), Copenhagen, Denmark. Wikimedia Commons.

Dahl’s The Gulf of Naples. Moonlight (1820-21) is deeply influenced by Caspar David Friedrich, with its Rückenfigur wearing a top hat looking out to sea, fishing boats and nets, and the bright moonlight.

His visit to the Bay coincided with an active phase for the local volcano Vesuvius, during which JMW Turner visited and painted an eruption. Although Dahl was sufficiently enthused to make several oil sketches and take some to completion as finished works, he didn’t become as obsessed as others did.

Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857), The Bay of Naples by Moonlight (1821), oil on canvas, 49.7 × 68 cm, Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark. Wikimedia Commons.

In The Bay of Naples by Moonlight, painted the following year, he has used the warm red light from a more modest eruption to provide colour contrast, and enhance fine details of fishing nets in the foreground.

Carl Gustav Carus (1789–1869), Castel dell’Ovo in Naples (1828), oil over pencil on wove paper mounted on cardboard, 23.8 × 27.6 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

In 1828 Carl Gustav Carus visited the Bay, where he painted this wonderful view of Castel dell’Ovo in Naples. Given that it was made in oils over a pencil drawing on paper, this appears to have been painted in front of the motif.

Carl Gustav Carus (1789–1869), Balcony Room with a View of the Bay of Naples (via Santa Lucia and the Castel dell’Ovo) (c 1829-30), oil on canvas, 28.4 x 21.3 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

Carus appears to have visited Naples on other occasions too. In about 1829-30, he stayed close to Castel dell’Ovo and framed a view from sea level in his Balcony Room with a View of the Bay of Naples (via Santa Lucia and the Castel dell’Ovo). The district of Santa Lucia consists of the waterfront buildings seen here between Carus’ accommodation and the Castel dell’Ovo.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl (1823), oil on canvas, 145.4 x 237.5 cm, The Tate Gallery (part of the Turner Bequest 1856), London. © The Tate Gallery and Photographic Rights © Tate (2016), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-bay-of-baiae-with-apollo-and-the-sibyl-n00505

JMW Turner returned to the same location and mythological theme in The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl in 1823. Apollo is on the left, with his lyre, and the dark-haired Sibyl has adopted an odd kneeling position. She’s holding some sand in the palm of her right hand, asking Apollo to grant her as many years of life as there are grains. Opposite the couple, on the other side of the path, under the trees, is a white rabbit.

When Ivan Aivazovsky was sponsored by the Imperial Academy to study in Europe, he travelled to Italy, where he visited Florence, Amalfi, and Sorrento, then stayed in Naples and Rome until 1842. During this period he painted many beautiful views of the Italian coast, and of Venice.

Ivan/Hovhannes Aivazovsky (1817–1900), The Bay of Naples (1841), oil on canvas, 72.6 x 108.5 cm, The Cottage Palace Museum, Peterhof, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Wikimedia Commons.

The Bay of Naples (1841) is a good example of Aivazovsky’s early paintings from Italy, in which he often sought the rich colours of sunrise and sunset. These aren’t large canvases, but he shows fine details such as the rivulets of water falling from the oars.

A later visitor was the accomplished British coastal painter Clarkson Frederick Stanfield.

Clarkson Frederick Stanfield (1793–1867), Ischia and the Castello d’Ischia, near Naples (1857), oil on panel, 31.4 x 60.9 cm, The Victoria and Albert Museum (Bequeathed by John Jones, 1882), London. Image courtesy of and © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

This view of Ischia and the Castello d’Ischia, near Naples, from 1857, shows how subtle Stanfield could be when depicting the distant snow-capped mountains of Ischia.

Clarkson Frederick Stanfield (1793–1867), The Gulf of Pozzuoli (date not known), oil on cardboard, 30 x 35.5 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

This undated view of The Gulf of Pozzuoli appears to be one of his few coastal views in which there is not a breath of wind, and the sea is calm.