The works of De Nittis are Phillips CollectionA fascinating and revelatory exhibition ofGiuseppe De Nittis: Italian Impressionists in Pariswas born into a wealthy family in Puglia, Southern Italy. However, he also worked in Paris and London, where he became friends with Manet, Degas and Gustave. He had a substantial career as a painter until his sudden death of a stroke in 1884, at the age of 38.
He was very talented, very skilled, with a unique eye and sensibility, yet little is known. De Nittis’ early death may have something to do with it. However, his ability as a painter and his ability to produce both sophisticated salon work and ambitious visual experiments likely made him a difficult artist to define. He was a “middle man,” as one of his essays put it. And art history is not kind to anything that hints at compromise or indecision.
The museum is replete with Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists who captured, but failed to capture the essence of, the new painting style trends that emerged in Paris in the late 19th century. De Nittis was not that kind of artist. His exploration of color and composition was as unique and even radical as his prominent friends and colleagues. But he is deeply and apologetically bourgeois in his basic worldview, and elegant dresses, sumptuous fabrics, and beautiful faces are as appealing to him as light refracting through clouds, fog, or smog. was.
An exhibition of Denittis’ work in Paris more than a decade ago used the subtitle ‘Elegant Modernity’ to describe his work. When he painted nightlife, he turned to the soft, flattering light of opulent salons rather than the demi-monde of noisy cafés and circus spectacles. They weren’t blinded by too much alcohol or bowed to the intrusive stares of their male customers and patrons. They were well-dressed, self-possessed, and attentive to the world around them.
In a late work from 1884, Denittis captured his wife and son having breakfast at an outdoor table in their manicured garden. The colors have a mane-like brightness and glare, and against the backdrop of the sun-drenched grass, you might want a pair of sunglasses. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is gentlemanly and calm. Fine dishes and flowers on the table invite the viewer to linger in the pool in perfect shade. The artist shakes up our sense of color and light, but doesn’t get in the way of breakfast.
Combining grace and modernity, these works are seamless, as if there is no contradiction between the two. In the case of De Nittis, perhaps that was not the case. But that doesn’t make him a complacent or bland artist. Especially when you see the elegance of his salon in the larger context of his early landscapes, including paintings of passing trains.
Both the elusive train and blown up trees hint at an invisible force. It’s not even clear in which direction the train is going, given what feels like a wave of smoke drifting towards the viewer (either it’s being carried by the wind faster than the moving train itself, or it’s moving through the background). Do they lazily drift toward us as we pass?) . as if he were trying to capture both his ambition to produce art in the 19th century capital and his growing sense of movement as a transport network. Roads that seem to rush into the distance were a common theme in De Nittis’ early work.erased It erased the distance between Naples and Paris, and the idea of home and permanence.
There is a similar sense of unease in the streets of Paris after him. Paris was transformed during the time De Nittis lived there (he settled in Paris in his 1868). War and revolution left their scars, and the massive disruption of Baron Haussmann’s urban renewal efforts turned the city into a permanent building site, full of pristine order and beauty, as well as chaos and chaos in construction. .
De Nittis’ work expresses the ruggedness of urban life architecturally, rather than through social indicators such as poverty and exploitation. Captured in Place des Pyramids in 1875, his street scene is as cold and damp as his 1877 glowing cobblestones in Caillebotte.Paris street; rainy dayBut the scaffolding around the building, the hodgepodge of street signs, and the lowering clouds are perfectly controlled, even if the graceful people scattered in the crowd are not entirely attuned to this evolving space. You may feel an instinctive reach into the pocket that holds your wallet, or a firm grip on your wallet.
There are even unseen cataclysmic forces in De Nittis’ amazing 1872 series of paintings of Mount Vesuvius. In two images, he captures not only the volcanic eruption, but also the masses of onlookers and day-trippers involved in the eruption. Drama. These works were too radical for De Nittis dealers at the time, but in the same year he produced one of his first great successes, The Road from Naples to Brindisi. Did. closely.
Heat radiates from the broad, treeless streets, and a man’s leg sticks out of the carriage door. The surrounding landscape is flat and featureless, and the sky is a lazy, ferocious summer void. Its people, including those attached to those mysterious legs sticking out of the carriage, are trapped in the space in between, coming and going without arriving or staying.
These are paintings stronger, more interesting, more convincing than some of the elegant Parisian scenes De Nittis paints years later. But his ambiguous landscapes and unsettled city vistas do something more to the artist’s true sensibilities than his salon-friendly works of ice-skating, watching horse races, and churning tea in gorgeous gardens. They are not radically different or irreconcilable worldviews, but two views of the same world, relying heavily on each other’s innate truths. Elegance comes at a cost. Modernity has disrupted time and space, making it far cheaper for ordinary people to set up a great table and dress up for the night.
De Nittis died young, famous, well-respected and well-liked, and deeply in debt. Although his personal ties to the Impressionists remained strong, he maintained a professional distance from the label. Phillips’ exhibition, curated by Renato Miracco, remains unclear in which direction De Nittis went, towards elegance or modernity. — he may have gained influence. Full disclosure: Miracco is a friend. But the exhibitions he put together let De Nittis speak for himself. And although De Nittis speaks clearly with a distinct and individual voice, and it may appear that he was a “man in the middle”, the work argues otherwise. Whether it’s the harsh glare of the southern sun or the warm glow of gas lamps, I’ve painted the world as I see it. Those worlds were connected and he lived in both.
Italian Impressionists in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis At the Phillips Collection until February 12th. phillipscollection.org.