IDYLLIC LANDSCAPE WITH A RIVER
Francesco Zuccarelli, Italian, 1702-1788
Oil on canvas, 104.1 x 110.5, sn#174
Provenance- with Boiler before 1930; acquired John Ringling
by Susan K. Johnson April 6, 2000
ARTIST:
Francesco Zuecarelli was born in Florence in 1702 at Pitigliano. His early training was
Florentine and Roman. Little of this phase of his life is known, apart from conflicting
statements of chroniclers. The evidence points to his learning landscape at Rome where the
pro-classical manner survived from the 17 the century. He may well have gotten to know the
work of Locatelli and other view-painters.
He went to Venice in about 1730 and was thoroughly influenced by Marco Ricci. Although it
is likely that he was not a pupil of Ricci's, since Ricci was probably dead when
Zuccarelli arrived on the scene. Zuccarelli practiced landscape painting showing
"nature" as kept well in hand - his paintings were sorer than Rosa's and did not
show any of the seasonal effects that are evident in Marco Ricci's paintings (nephew of
Sebastiano). There is no doubt that Zuccarellis felt the influence of Ricci; however, when
had finished a painting, he had "created his own style of landscape" with
"skies forever blue; trees forever green and the whole scene appeared bathed in a
pinkish sweet mist."
Zuccarelli's reputation was considerable. The English, particularly, were his great
admirers (although they later became his harshest critics.) He was preferred to Richard
Wilson, the Welsh landscape artist, whom Zuccarelli had met in Venice in 1751. Wilson, is
recorded as receiving "strong impressions of color and effect" from Zuccarellis
landscapes. It may have been Zuccarelli who influenced Wilson to take up landscape
painting.
Consul Smith, the English consul in Venice, collected both Zuccarelli's and Marco Ricci
landscapes. In fact, Wilson wrote home to England that Zuccarelli was a "famous
painter in Venice." Perhaps Smith introduced Wilson to Zuccarelli. Smith employed
Zuccarelli to produce landscapes and also work with Antonio Visentini (1688-1782) an
architect and engraver. Visentini provided the classical English Palladian buildings and
Zuccarelli painted the landscape. A sort of"caprice" - a witty blend to two
worlds - which was growing more popular in Venice at that time. The two painters signed
and dated the painting 1746.
The landscapes Zuccarelli painted were probably of nowhere in particular. They were just
generalized and charming paintings of Italy; imagined as a country with picturesque but
well-behaved peasants, delightful weather and pretty rural scenery - a blending of the
pastoral with the classical ( very Italian). His paintings were very popular and he varied
his work only by minor changes.
Zuccarelli did try his hand at some religious and mythological figures and scenes but
these were not very successful. He did a small altarpiece in Chiari but it was said to
have lacked taste in composition or proportion. He had some Italian patrons (Algarotti)
who sent some of this work to Dresden. Francesco felt the need to travel and he chose
England. No other Italian painter had such a success in 18th century London as Zuccarelli.
He spent some 10 years or so in England, from 1752 and returned in 1765; he exhibited at
the Royal Academy (of which he was a founder member) and at the Free Society and the
Society of Artists. In England, Zuccarelli's pictures had considerable success; they
remain in hundreds of English country houses, "those beautiful landscapes which must
ever please."
In 1761 he was in Venice and became president of the Academy. He died at Florence in 1778.
PAINTING:
Zuccarelli figures come alive in rural scenes. "It's as if he were to imagine
episodes and suddenly touch them with life from his innermost being." Many of his
paintings are at Windsor castle (Smith gave his collection to the monarchy). They are
"couched in this dream-like and tender poetic vein; figures and landscapes are one,
whole and indivisible." Zuccarelli's feeling for nature has a contemplative aspect,
concentrated less on the object than it's essential space-time relation.
In the 1750's his technique reached it's peak; his handling of paint was very responsive
to mood, bright with regard to color, ''thinly laid on and yet vibrantly effective."
Tassi (1793) remarked that he paints "landscapes with the most charming figures and
thus excels not only artists of modern times but rivals the great geniuses of the past;
for no one previously knew how to combine the delights of a harmonious background with
figures gracefully poised and represented in the most natural colours."
Zuccharelli's paintings are agreeable in manner, often adorned with pastoral touches. He
had a love of "escapism" not uncommon during the 18th century. He provided a
"charming impression" of a country many of his patrons did not know. A landscape
by him would be a "decoration" set in a wall above a fireplace, not a depiction
of an actual view of a season. Trees flank his compositions, and a river or road - in the
Ringling collection, a river - gently leads the eye toward the pale hills of the distance,
past picturesque pines and peasants, into a soft blue endless sky. No clouds darken his
views, no rain or snow falls and the trees are never bare. His figures are indigenous to
the scene, watering their cattle or posing with their flocks; in the painting at the
Ringling it is evident that this is a group of people out for the day, enjoying the
country and posing with their animals.
HISTORICAL:
Zuccarelli's depictions of a gentle countryside could be the last evocation of the view of
Greece and the classical period as a "deliberately golden-age place." His
paintings represent a "fairyland" which was in tune with the pastoral poetry of
the period. In a room of the Roccoco period, Zuccarelli's "sugary tones" plays
an appropriate decorative part. This was a world where Lyrical Ballads had been published
and republished. In Victorian times, which were far more puritan, distrust of the
continent had already begun and Zuccarelli's paintings would be seen as
"artificial" compared to the "sturdy morality" of the 'Victorians. The
whole category of "landscape painting" was not as popular in Italy as it was
with the English. Eventually, in Rome, landscape painting had merged into a
"ruin-piece". In Venice, the landscape was merging with a category called
"the view picture"- Algarotti's idea was to reconcile two opposites "nature
and art." Cannaletto, who arrived in England in 1746, was not as popular as
Zuccarelli, since his style had changed somewhat, to the "cappricio" advocated
by Algoratti.
Zuccarelli's decorative landscapes appealed to the English nobility, returning home after
they had completed their "grand tours." They represented the
"idealized" Italy - and the never changing pastoral scene. This was the period
made famous by Louis XIV-although England was governed more or less, by a monarchy and a
parliament, it was the movement of the middle class and the "gentry" who aspired
to be considered as "nobility". Their sons and daughters did the "tour of
the continent" alongside the offspring of the "nobility" and Italian
landscapes like Zuccarelli'~ were treasured for their representation of the idyllic scenes
one was supposed to encounter on one's travels.
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