Caspar van Wittel

Adriaans Caspar van Wittel, called Gaspare Vanvitelli (* 1653 in Amersfoort, Utrecht, † September 13, 1736 in Rome) was a Roman landscape painter of Dutch origin.

Life

Van Wittel received his first training as a painter in the Netherlands. At the age of 22 years he lived in Rome, where he was employed in the construction of the Tiber regulation. May here be interested in a topographically precise inventory of architecture was awakened. His first preserved Roman vista is dated from 1681, an early date for view painting.

Van Wittel made ​​numerous trips to Italy, where he painted views of the cities of Florence, Urbino, Bologna, Padua, Venice, Naples and Verona or views from the Simplon and 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 images often appear under the name ' Gaspare degli occhiali ( German: Kaspar with the glasses ) on; perhaps his nearsightedness was the reason for a decline in productivity in old age. He spent his last years in both Naples and Rome, where he died in 1736.

In the 17th century there were in Rome for pilgrims and travelers a strong demand for views of the major attractions that had previously been satisfied by engravings. Van Wittel was the first painter in Italy who carried vistas as an oil painting. He had by his Dutch origin experience with Dutch landscape painting of his time, he was able to bring in his Italian vistas. During a creative period of about thirty years, he produced a large number topographically accurate views of Rome. Van Wittel was the preferred landscape painter of the Roman noble families such as Odescalchi, the Colonna, the Albani or the Ottoboni, whose palaces and villas he painted.

His light-filled landscapes with their bright colors were of great influence on the Italian landscape painters such as the Romans and the Venetians Panini Guardi and Canaletto.

The vistas Van Wittel are still mainly in private ownership. Maybe that's one reason why Van Wittel was respected by the art history for a long time little. A first overall view of his paintings was held only in the year 2006 by the Museo Correr in Venice. His rarely offered at auctions images fetch high prices in general.

Works

  • The Tiber Island in Rome, 64.5 x 102 cm, National Gallery of Stuttgart
  • View of the Grand Canal ( 1706), 45.5 x 75.4 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
  • View of Vaprio d' Adda, Landesmuseum Mainz
  • St. Peter's in Rome (1700/1710), 45 x 85 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
  • Tiber Island in Rome ( 1685), 48,5 x 98,5 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
  • View of the Castel Sant'Angelo, 25 x 43 cm, Capitoline Museums, Rome
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