Gaspar van Wittel
Caspar Adriaans van Wittel , called Gaspare Vanvitelli (* 1653 in Amersfoort near Utrecht , † September 13, 1736 in Rome ), was a Roman vedute painter of Dutch origin.
Life
Van Wittel received his first training as a painter in the Netherlands. At the age of 22 he was already in Rome, where he was involved in building the Tiber regulation . It is possible that his interest in a topographically precise inventory of architecture was aroused here. His first surviving Roman vedute is dated 1681, an early date for vedute painting.
Van Wittel made numerous trips in Italy, on which he painted views of the cities of Florence, Urbino, Bologna, Padua, Venice, Naples and Verona or views of the Simplon and the Gotthard Pass . From 1700 he lived for a long time in Naples , the birthplace of his son Luigi Vanvitelli , who became an important Neapolitan architect. In old inventories his pictures often appear under the name Gaspare degli occhiali (German: Kaspar with glasses ); perhaps his nearsightedness was the reason for a decline in productivity in old age. He spent the last years of his life in Naples and Rome, where he died in 1736.
In the 17th century there was a strong demand among pilgrims and travelers in Rome for views of the important sights, which had previously been satisfied by copperplate engravings . Van Wittel was the first painter in Italy to do vedutas as oil paintings . Due to his Dutch origins, he had experience with the Dutch landscape painting of his time, which he was able to incorporate into his Italian vedute. During a creative period of about thirty years he produced a large number of topographically accurate views of Rome. Van Wittel was the preferred vedute painter of the Roman noble families like the Odescalchi , Colonna , Albani or Ottoboni, whose palaces and villas he painted.
His light-flooded landscape paintings with their light hues were of great influence on the Italian landscape painters such as the Roman Panini , Luca Carlevarijs and the Venetians Guardi and Giovanni Antonio Canal , known as Canaletto.
Van Wittel's vedutas are still mostly in private hands. Perhaps that is one reason why Van Wittel received little attention from art historians for a long time. The Museo Correr in Venice only organized a first comprehensive exhibition of his pictures in 2006 . His paintings, which are seldom offered at auctions, usually fetch high prices.
Works
- The Tiber Island in Rome , 64.5 × 102 cm, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
- View of the Grand Canal (1706), 45.5 × 75.4 cm, Alte Pinakothek , Munich
- View of Vaprio d'Adda , Landesmuseum Mainz
- Peterskirche in Rome (1700/1710), 45 × 85 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna
- Tiberinsel in Rome (1685), 48.5 × 98.5 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna
- View of the Castel Sant'Angelo , 25 × 43 cm, Capitoline Museums , Rome.
- View of Messina from the sea, with the Church of Santa Maria della Grotta , 66.5 × 173.3 cm, oil on canvas, Bassenge Berlin.
Web links
- Literature by and about Gaspar van Wittel in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ^ Heidrun Ludwig: The paintings of the 18th century in the Landesmuseum Mainz . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2007, ISBN 3-8053-3747-7
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wittel, Gaspar van |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Vanvitelli, Gaspare; Wittel, Caspar Adriaans van |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian vedute painter of Dutch origin |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1653 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Amersfoort , near Utrecht |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 13, 1736 |
| Place of death | Rome |