Attributed to GENNARO GRECCO (Naples, 1663-1714).
"Caprice in ruins".
Oil on canvas. Re-coloured.
Size: 77 x 102,5 cm.
This landscape shows a port in the foreground, dominated by monumental and scenographic classical ruins. Among them move different characters, talking and strolling. In the background, following the winding line that ends in a hill. The majestic ruins, the true protagonists of the scene, are silhouetted against a broad sky that occupies two thirds of the painting, dominated by luminous clouds on the left, which seem to emerge from the horizon.
In Italy at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century, two very different models of landscape flourished. On the one hand, the Venetian "veduta" of Canaletto and his followers, and on the other, the one we see here, which is based on the classicist model created by the Carracci and evolved along the monumental and architectural lines of Claude Lorrain. It is a type of heroic landscape, a model of representation that was experiencing a renewed boom at this time thanks to the mass consumption of engravings with views of ancient or modern cities, fantastic evocations of the past and anecdotal images of the present presided over by monumental classical architecture, as in the case of this canvas.
Also known as "Il Mascacotta", he was an Italian architectural painter active in Naples during the late Baroque period. He is known for his architectural paintings, known as capricci, compositions with ruins, as well as for his vedute. His vedute fall mainly into the category of so-called vedute ideate which depict closely observed views of entirely imaginary landscapes. He originally trained as an ornamental painter and painted the settings for religious celebrations and perspective frames in the works of other artists. His carpicci images were born after studying the works of Andrea Pozzo. Pozzo had written a treatise on perspective for painters and architects, Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum (1693-1700) and promoted in the treatise the practice of vedute ideata, i.e. realistic-looking landscapes combining illusionistic architectural details with fantastic elements.