In the mid-18th century Europe witnessed an intellectual and cultural explosion known as The Enlightenment that emphasized reason over superstition and empirical truth over blind faith. This humanist revolution prompted seismic shifts in philosophy and politics and enormous advancements in every field of science, and the invention of a new one.
In 1748, excavations outside the Italian city of Naples had begun to unearth long-lost Roman settlements buried in the famous eruption of AD79 and the remarkable artifacts discovered there sparked a new interest in human prehistory and the birth of archaeology. Although news of Pompeii and Herculanium re-emphasized the importance of Naples on the itinerary of every Grand Tourist its oldest attraction was not about to be overshadowed. Rome may have boasted the ancient splendour of the Colosseum and Venice the faded beauty of the Grand Canal, but Naples had one of the great wonders of the natural world in Mount Vesuvius.
‘Vesuvius from Portici, Naples’ by Joseph Wright
Image courtesy of the Huntington Art Museum, California
As if to coincide with world events Vesuvius (appropriately located above Italy’s most unpredictable and volatile city) had recently entered a new phase of volcanic activity that would last until the turn of the 19th century. Traditionally known by Neapolitans as “The Sleeping Giant” the volcano was now fully awake and with its promise of scientific revelation and free pyrotechnics (tinged with the threat of sudden death) Vesuvius became a must-see. Even the indolent sons of the English gentry, whose Grand Tour was mostly undertaken in pursuit of debauchery rather than self-improvement, now enthusiastically lined up in Naples keen to test their mettle at the mouth of the mighty volcano.
Upon arrival in the city aristocratic or otherwise notable visitors were invariably met by a very interesting gentleman by the name of Sir William Hamilton. The son of the Governor of Jamaica and husband of Emma Hamilton (the future mistress of Admiral Nelson) ostensibly he was the British envoy to the Kingdom of Naples but Hamilton spent little of his 36-year stay in the city doing any actual diplomat-ing, instead devoting his time to amassing what was then the world’s most extensive collection of ancient Roman artifacts. Hamilton was also a keen vulcanologist and frequently guided tourists up the slopes of Vesuvius to witness the eruptions from a (reasonably) safe distance. Among the many eminent visitors he chaperoned to the summit were Goethe, Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun, and in 1770, Leopold Mozart and his precocious son Wolfgang; a real-life encounter with sturm und drang that no doubt left a lasting impression upon the young composer.
‘Sir William Hamilton’ by David Allan
Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London
In recognition of his services to geology and archaeology (and hospitality) William Hamilton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath by King George III. In David Allen’s portrait of Sir William he wears both the sash badge and star of The Order and in his right hand is his treatise on Vesuvius published by the Royal Society. Also visible, though the open window, is the volcano itself.
By the late 1760s joining the tipsy aristos, terrified teenage composers, and dilettante vulcanologists on the slopes of Vesuvius were a growing number of artists understandably eager to sketch the volcano’s fountains of fire. The following artists represent the most important European painters of Vesuvius during the Age of Enlightenment – vedutisti as opposed to capriccisti – who visited the city and painted the volcano at first hand.
‘Vésuve en Éruption la Nuit’ by Charles-François Lacroix de Marseille
Image courtesy of Compton Verney Art Gallery
The first artist of real quality to paint an eruption of the volcano during this period was the French painter Charles-François Lacroix (c.1700-1782). As evidenced in his waterside vistas “Lacroix de Marseilles” (as he is called) was formerly a pupil of Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) and painted the first of his many Vesuvian landscapes ‘Vésuve en Éruption la Nuit’ in 1761 and would go on painting views of the volcano long after returning to France. Lacroix was probably the first artist to attract wealthy buyers for 18th century Vesuvian paintings.
In 1768 a young English painter of riverside views called William Marlow (1740-1813) arrived in the city. The sketches and paintings he made of the Bay of Naples are typically tranquil and delicately coloured in the style of his teacher Samuel Scott (1702-1772) and (inevitably) the highly influential early British landscape artist Richard Wilson (1714-1782). Very much the exception is Marlow’s painting of the volcano in eruption. ‘Vesuvius Erupting at Night’ is colourful and theatrical and unlike anything else Marlow would ever paint. When it was exhibited at the Society of Artists in London in 1768 one astonished reviewer wrote… “A dreadful (terrifying) scene! But so elegant is the execution… that while we look with pleasure on its beauties, we cannot help getting into the belief that we are indeed on the spot and really beholding an eruption of that terrible volcano.” William Marlow was the first British artist to paint an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, a full 50 years before JMW Turner (who I am not including in this school of Vesuvian painters as he was of a later generation and because gets more than enough attention).
‘Vesuvius erupting at Night’ by William Marlow
Image courtesy of Denver Art Museum
At the conclusion of his extensive travels, Marlow returned to London and his serene vedute pictures of the Thames. The artist would never again find a subject that enabled him to showcase his talents as Vesuvius had done.
The aforementioned Claude-Joseph Vernet and his pupil Pierre-Jacques Volaire (1729-1799) arrived in Naples the following year. Vernet had come to paint the fisherfolk who made a living around the bay, but Volaire was immediately drawn to the great mountain of Hercules and its explosive displays. Already a skilled painter of high-contrast chiaroscuro, Voliare’s ‘nocturnes’ of Vesuvius soon became hugely popular and helped satisfy the growing demand for Vesuvian pictures. When Vernet moved on Volaire stayed on in Naples. In Vesuvius, the 40-year-old journeyman had found his muse and enough clients to set up on his own.
‘Bay of Naples, Eruption of Vesuvius’ by Pierre-Jacques Volaire
Image courtesy of North Carolina Museum of Art
For the next 30 years Volaire made Naples his home and the Vesuvian pictures he produced are some of the most spectacular ever painted. Although residing in Naples would restrict the number of paintings he exhibited at the salons back in Paris, Volaire’s fame in France grew sufficiently to attract the attention of Louis XVI. Unfortunately, before Volaire could close what no doubt would have been his most prestigious (and lucrative) sale, Louis was advised not to buy. In 1770 it may have been (just about) acceptable for a gentleman to purchase a landscape painting but not a king. Although the vast majority of Volaire’s pictures depict the volcano after dark it was left to the world’s great “painter of light” to show what could be accomplished by juxtaposing an eruption of Vesuvius with a full moon.
‘Vesuvius from Posillipo, Naples’ by Joseph Wright
Image courtesy of the Art Gallery of South Australia
Joseph Wright of Derby (to give him his superfluous identifying suffix) visited Naples in October of 1774 but his month-long stay would provide him with enough material to last the rest of his life. Wright and the erupting Vesuvius were a marriage made in heaven and inspired by the volcano the 18th century’s foremost painter of chiaroscuro set to work. Most modern-day accounts of Wright’s visit to Naples claim the artist never actually witnessed a full eruption implying that he sexed-up the action in his Vesuvian paintings but this is incorrect. In early November 1774, whilst still in Naples, Wright wrote to his brother back in England…
“When you see Whitehurst (John Whitehurst, a fellow member of the Lunar Society), tell him I wished for his company when on Mont Vesuvius; his thoughts would have center’d in the bowels of the mountain, mine skimmed on the surface only; there was a very considerable eruption at the time, of which I am going to make a picture. ‘Tis the most wonderful site in nature.”
Furthermore, Tate Britain’s recent chemical analysis of the ground layer and pigments used in Wright’s ‘Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the Bay of Naples’ found evidence suggesting the canvas was both prepared and painted in Italy rather than in England.
Correcting this oft-repeated inaccuracy does not mean that Wright’s Vesuvian paintings are literal reproductions of what he saw or that they do not contain interpretations or mimesis. Such improvisations (based upon first-hand observation) are what that earlier painter of Neapolitan chiaroscuro, Caravaggio would have known as licentia poetica and have been a perfectly legitimate part of the compositional process for artists since (that first age of enlightenment) the Renaissance. As the great Royal Academician Richard Redgrave pointed out;
“The painter must treasure up the incident of feeling that awoke the sense of pleasure in the scene and must reproduce it on his canvas – an act of memory – or he will find that even to himself, much more to the public, his work will be tame and spiritless. Thus, mere imitation is precluded in practise and must be assisted by memory.”
Joseph Wright’s return to England coincided with publication of our friend Sir William Hamilton’s treatise on Vesuvius entitled ‘Campi Phegraei’ (Fields of Fire), one of the most important scientific books of The Enlightenment whose striking illustrations captured the public’s imagination and did for the popularity of Vesuvian art what the Egyptian pictures of David Roberts would do for Orientalism sixty years later. In addition to its scientific detail, ‘Campi Phlegraei’ – or to give it its typically snappy 18th century title; ‘Campi Phelgraei; Observations on the Volcanos of the two Sicilies as they have been communicated to the Royal Society of London’ – is accompanied by reproductions of wonderfully scenographic paintings of Vesuvius, Posillipo, and Pozzuoli (which gave its name to the earthy red pigment used in oil paint), of the Solfatara and Nisida, the island of Ischia, and the excavations at the temple of Isis.
‘The Eruption of Vesuvius from Ponte della Maddalena, 1767’ by Pietro Fabris
Image courtesy of Sotheby’s
The artist responsible was Pietro Fabris (fl.1756-1784), a quixotic Italian who liked to refer to himself as “Peter” and claimed to be of English extraction. In my opinion Fabris is a tremendously interesting artist and the extensive sketches, gouaches, and oil paintings he made for Hamilton and his friend Kenneth Mackenzie (Lord Fortrose and later Earl of Seaforth) are of significant artistic as well as scientific importance. From 1768 Fabris exhibited at both the Society of Artists and the Free Society in London and by the following year was fashionable enough in England for William Hamilton to send a pair of his Vesuvian paintings to King George III.
‘Concert in the home of Lord Fortrose’ by Pietro Fabris
Image courtesy of the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Although obviously not a Vesuvian picture, Fabris’ interior scene ‘Concert in the Home of Lord Fortrose’, painted in 1770, is worth including here as it illustrates the close relationship between the artist and his English patrons. It also affords a glimpse inside the Neapolitan apartments of an important Enlightenment antiquarian and on a very auspicious occasion. In the centre of the room sit Sir William Hamilton (left) and the famous Italian composer Gaetano Pugnani (right) playing violin, and to the far left the 14-year-old Mozart sits with his father at the harpsichord. Fabris paints himself into the picture as he sketches the soiree.
Pietro Fabris (with the 14-year-old Mozart in the background)
Of the numerous full-blown eruptions of Vesuvius in the mid-18th century none was as powerful and deadly as the one that rocked Naples in August 1779. In the weeks preceding the big bang William Hamilton and his relation, the eccentric art collector Frederick Hervey, had ensured their favourite Vesuvian painters would be in Naples to record the event. Working on commissions for Hamilton were Jacob Philipp Hackert (1737-1807) and Michael Wutky (1739-1823).
‘The Eruption of Vesuvius on August 8th, 1779’ by Jacob Philipp Hackert
Image courtesy of Kunsthaus Lempertz, Cologne
Hackert was already resident in Naples having accepted a position as official painter to the Neapolitan court of King Ferdinand I. I have no doubt that Sir William had seen (or at least had seen a reproduction of) Hackert’s ‘Fireworks at the Castel Sant’Angelo’ painted in Rome four years earlier, and one glance at this sparkling picture would be enough to convince anyone that Hackert’s next painting should be the erupting Vesuvius. The same event was subsequently painted by Pietro Fabris, in all probability a commission from Sir William.
‘Fireworks at Castel Sant’Angelo’ by Jacob Philipp Hackert
Image courtesy of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar Foundation
Hackert’s academically correct Claudian compositions are enlivened by bravura touches of Romantic drama, and he was one of the artists who helped bridge what was/is seen as the opposing philosophies of the Neoclassical and Romantic movements.
‘View of Vesuvius Erupting’ by Michael Wutky
Image courtesy of Christie’s
The other beneficiary of William Hamilton’s patronage, the Austrian painter Michael Wutky, is known to have made the climb to the rim of Vesuvius with Hamilton and his group in 1779, an event that no doubt inspired his painting ‘View of Vesuvius Erupting’. Seen lower left are the figures of Sir William Hamilton and Lord Fortrose standing either side of a pair astonished/terrified Grand Tourists.
Meanwhile, the flamboyant and controversial Frederick Hervey – or “The 4th Earl of Bristol” as he was listed in the newly founded Debrett’s Peerage, or “The Bishop of Derry” as he was known to his fellow clergy, or “That Wicked Prelate” as he was called by King George III – had engaged the services of his regular collaborator, the Scottish landscape painter Jacob More (1740-1793) who had set up a studio in Rome several years earlier. The President of the Royal Academy Sir Joshua Reynolds was also a patron of More and called him; “The nearest to Claude (Lorrain) of any painter I know.” The name of Jacob More may not be a well-known one today but his contribution to the development of not only Scottish but British landscape painting should not be underestimated.
‘Mount Vesuvius in Eruption’ by Jacob More
Image courtesy of the National Galleries of Scotland
More’s Vesuvian paintings rank alongside those of Fabris and Volaire in quality and appeal but fall short of the enormous skill and subtlety on display in ‘The Eruption of Vesuvius’ painted in 1810 by Abraham Pether (1752-1812). I discuss the life and work of Abraham Pether (and his son Henry) in my the article ‘The Pether Family and the 19th Century Nocturne’ and so will not repeat myself here, suffice it to say that Pether was one of the greatest ever painters of moonlit landscapes on a par with his near contemporary Joseph Wright.
‘Eruption of Vesuvius by Night’ by Abraham Pether
Image courtesy of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City
We cannot be sure that Pether visited Naples in person but the amount of detailed information in (and the colouring of) his painting ‘Eruption of Vesuvius by Night’ makes it quite possible. In any event, one look at the painting itself – which today hangs in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City – confirms its outstanding quality and the enormous talent of the artist himself.
As wonderfully evocative as these paintings of the erupting volcano are; in order to get as close to the real thing as most of us would ever care to we should recall the words of Charles Dickens and his account of a trip up Vesuvius on the evening of February 17th, 1845. His experience that night might almost have been the inspiration for Michael Wutky’s painting ‘The Summit of Vesuvius’…
‘The Summit of Vesuvius’ by Michael Wutky
Image courtesy of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
“Yesterday evening, at four o’clock, we began (a small party of six) the ascent of Mount Vesuvius, with six saddle-horses, an armed soldier for a guard, and twenty-two guides. The ascent was very nearly perpendicular. High before us, bursting out of a hill at the top of the mountain, the fire was pouring out, reddening the night with flames, blackening it with smoke and spotting it with red-hot stones and cinders that fell down again in showers. At every step everybody fell… into a bed of ashes, now over a mass of cindered iron, and the confusion in the darkness (for the smoke obscured the moon in this part), and the quarrelling and shouting and roaring of the guides, and the waiting every now and then for somebody who was not to be found and was supposed to have stumbled into some pit or other, made such a scene of it as I can give you no idea of. The sensation of struggling up it, choked with the fire and smoke, and feeling at every step as if the crust of ground between one’s feet and the gulf of fire would crumble in and swallow one up, I shall remember for some little time. But we did it. We looked down into the flaming bowels of the mountain and… I never saw anything so awful and terrible.”
by Gavin Claxton
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