Here is a small selection from works on show in Expanding Horizons: Giovanni Battista Lusieri and the Panoramic Landscape. Select the OPEN links to read more about a work, and select the image to enlarge it.
This is one of the three views taken among the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla that were part of Lusieri’s Italian studio property at the time of his death. The viewpoint chosen by Lusieri for this watercolour is remarkable for its informality, for its lack of architectural motif. Instead, the towering masonry recedes from the left of the composition like a massive crumbling cliff face, dwarfing the two minuscule figures below.
The lucid, crystalline view of this cityscape, with its unerring draughtsmanship and beautifully rendered effects of light and aerial perspective, marks a new and lasting departure in Lusieri’s approach to landscape, the first real evidence of his penchant for the panoramic. The high viewpoint and absence of an anchoring foreground reinforce the seemingly detached neutrality of his vision.
This breathtaking view must rank as one of the most spectacular demonstrations of the art of watercolour ever created. Painted on six large sheets of paper joined together and measuring nearly nine feet across, Lusieri worked on it over a period of two years. The views embraces the stretch of waterfront from the Castle dell’Ovo past Pizzofalcone and along the Riviera di Chiaia to Mergellina and Posillipo beyond, its waterfront buildings beautifully reflected in the water.
This work shows the spectacular 1794 eruption of Vesuvius. Although fully finished, the watercolour was apparently retained by Lusieri as a private record of the cataclysmic event. It differs from other views of Vesuvius erupting by night in that it concentrates solely on the exploding volcano and the fiery lava flows, with no shoreline in the foreground and no figures, boats or trees.
In the light of Lusieri’s twin enthusiasms for classical monuments and volcanic phenomena, it is surprising that this is his only known portrayal of Pompeii. Lusieri’s vantage point was a mound above the Via dei Sepolcri, just outside the Herculaneum Gate on the fringe of the ancient city. Groups of tourists are being guided around the site and pointing out notable features. The ruins and surrounding vegetation are described in Lusieri’s meticulous detail, their materials and textures painstakingly differentiated.
Unfinished in the immediate foreground, this view was taken from the hill of Monreale and shows the coastal plain known as the Conca d’Oro with the city of Palermo in the background, silhouetted against the sea. The beauty of this landscape is rendered by Lusieri with his customary all-embracing view. The highly tactile treatment of the rocky surface in the left foreground is particularly striking. This is the only large watercolour painted by Lusieri in Sicily.
about 1805 - 1807
In 1799 Lusieri was employed by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, as his resident artist and agent in Athens, where he remained until his death. Lusieri was closely involved in supervising the removal and transport to Britain of the Elgin Marbles. He is best known for his meticulously detailed, large-scale landscape watercolours. The same exacting technique was applied to this, his only known work in oil. The monument, which survives in more or less this state on the Mouseion Hill in Athens, was erected in 114-116 AD in honour of Gaius Julius Philopappos, Roman Consul of Athens under the Emperor Trajan. A watercolour version of this composition is in the collection of the present Lord Elgin.
Lusieri arrived on Kythera in April 1807, having fled Athens after Britain decalred war on Turkey in February that year. He was clearly impressed by the rugged landscape of Kythera, reporting to his patron Lord Elgin: ‘On this island there are sublimely picturesque subjects the like of which I have not seen elsewhere.’ Six drawings have been identified dating from the time he spent on the island.
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