In the 18th century, Joseph Vernet was uncontestably the greatest landscape painter of his generation. In this episode of Anatomy of an Artwork, discover how the ambitious and poetic landscape of ‘View of Tivoli’ pays tribute to the Italy Vernet loved so dearly.
Claude-Joseph Vernet was the leading French landscape painter (with Hubert Robert) of the later 18th century. He achieved great celebrity with his topographical paintings and serene landscapes. He was also one of the century’s most accomplished painters of tempests and moonlight scenes.
Vernet was born at Avignon and trained there with his father, Antoine, and with the history painter Philippe Sauvan. He spent the years 1734 to 1752 in Rome, where he studied classical landscapes in the tradition of Claude and Gaspard Dughet, as well as the dramatic paintings of Salvator Rosa. In Rome he was influenced by the contemporary Roman topographical painter Giovanni Paolo Panini. He had many English clients and admirers in Rome, including Richard Wilson, whom Vernet is thought to have encouraged as a landscape painter.
Unseen since 1949 and set to appear at auction for the first time, this beautiful work is a quintessential example of Henri Matisse’s sensuous odalisques. The elegant model is Italian countess Carla Avogadro, reclining on an extravagant Venetian Rococo armchair that Matisse bought on a whim and, in his own words, became “obsessed” with. ‘Danseuse dans un intérieur, carrelage vert et noir’
It was the Impressionists, 
Since the turn of the century, the sleepy fishing villages and remote towns of the Provençal hills had lured artists from Paris and beyond — the bright light, dazzling colours and palpable presence of the classical past all serving to inspire and revive jaded spirits.
Boomers Daily 