Grandeur
David Wakefield
The most interesting exhibition by far to be seen on Bond Street at the moment is Souvenirs of the Grand Tour at Wilden- stein's (20 October to 1 December). The paintings are all on loan from National Trust properties throughout the country; many will no doubt be familiar to visitors of those houses (Uppark, Felbrigg, Stourhead figure prominently), but they gain an added significance by being brought together in this way, The exhibition is small, but carefully chosen and well hung. It follows a natural progression, starting with portraits of famous patrons of the age by Pompeo Batoni, Rosalba Carriera and Vigee- Lebrun, through some minor but charming topographical artists like Busiri and Ducros, to a climax of a handful of really great paintings by Joseph Vernet, Canaletto and Bellotto.
All the exhibits, including some rare pieces of sculpture and furniture, are devoted to the theme of the Grand Tour. A period of travel in Europe (especially Italy) became de rigueur for any well-born and well-off young Englishman in the 18th cen- tury, when he hoped to acquire some smat- tering of the classical culture which his tutors had probably failed to din into him at home and where, with luck, he might ac- quire a few masterpieces at bargain prices — although the chances, it seems, of him being grossly overcharged were greater, and young Englishmen were notoriously fair game for the many duds and fake classical statues then in circulation. Most of them, however, like Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh from Uppark or William Windham from Febrigg in Norfolk, had enough sense to choose wisely, backed up by good advice from English artists. The result is the superb collections of paintings still in English country house collections today.
The highlight of the Grand Tour was Ita- ly. 'A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority', Dr Johnson pronounced. English visitors were captivated not only by the country's art, but also by its scenery, its climate (so dif- ferent from our own), the picturesque aspects of native life and the attractions of its women. Through the eyes of many English artists who stayed in Italy in the 18th century — Wilson, Joseph Wright, Cozens, Towne among others — the coun- try acquired that romantic aura which it has retained even today, despite the appalling depredations to the landscape which have occured in the last two centuries. The rem- nants of classical civilisation, like the 'Arch of Titus' and the 'Ruins of Augustus's Bridge over the Nera' in two of Ducros's gouaches from Stourhead, were still part of the everyday scene, crumbling and
overgrown with rampant weeds, and had not yet been scrubbed and cleaned for the benefit of archaeologists. We are still in the age of Gibbon and his imaginative re- creation of the past, before Winckelmann and his school of neo-pedantry finally gain- ed the ascendant in the 19th century. This combination of the artificial and the natural constitutes the particular charm of these Italian landscapes, for example the 'View of Loreto' by John Warwick Smith or 'Lake Nemi' by Cozens, with its mass of soft blue- green foliage. Many are by quite minor ar- tists, Ricciardelli (two views of Naples from Saltram), Ruiz, Vanvitelli and others, who recorded the scenery accurately and without great artistic pretensions. English tourists in the 18th century quite rightly treasured these modest vedute as souvenirs of their youthful travels, like the delightful series of gouaches by Busiri in the Cabinet at Felbrigg which evoke the spirit of the Grand Tour so vividly.
The great painters of the Italian scene, however, instantly rise above topography to the level of imagination and, occasionally, to poetry. The exact borderline between the two is sometimes hard to define, in, for ex- ample, the 'View of Verona' by Bellotto, from Powis Castle. At a cursory glance this magnificent painting seems merely a detail- ed and highly accurate townscape; but there is something sombre and mysterious in its lighting effect, revealing sudden patches of a brilliant chalky white on the facades 'of the old houses lining the muddy green waters of the Adige as it flows swiftly past. This indefinable quality of mood or at- mosphere is what, to my mind, raises Bellotto's painting far above Canaletto and places it on a par with a work like Vermeer's 'View of Delft'. Canaletto, with all his skill and technique, was a virtuoso, seen to advantage in the two views of Venice from Tatton Park, but less so in the large and rather coarse picture from Upton House. But does he merit our exaggerated esteem for him today, and was there perhaps a grain of truth in Ruskin's remark that all his compositions look as if they had been measured out with a ruler?
The poetic element, missing in Canaletto, is there in abundance in the paintings of Joseph Vernet, represented by the superb set of four seascapes from Uppark. Com- missioned in 1750 directly from the artist in Rome by Benjamin Lethieullier, they depict different times of the day at some half-real, half-imaginary Italian seaport. Unlike the other artists represented in this exhibition, Vernet shows scant respect for topograhica- cal accuracy and cheerful mingles elements from the Genoese coastline (the huge mountain in the 'Shipwreck', and the light- house in the 'Evening' scenes, for instance) with other geographical features which belong to the bay of Naples. In fact, Vernet uses buildings, ships, rocks and trees as so many decorative motifs, to be moved and altered according to his fancy. In the fore- ground his agile, well-drawn figures twist and turn to the rhythm of their work, haul- ing boats and fishing nets. Like an air with variations, Vernet returns to the same theme many times, but nearly always avoids monotony by his superb artistry and innate feeling for atmosphere and harmony. In the first picture, the 'Seaport', a warm almost sugary sunlight steals over the tranquil har- bour; in the second a fierce storm — a spec- tacle loved by 18th-century spectators has broken out and dashed a ship to pieces, while in the last two scenes peace has returned, creating an atmosphere of magical stillness. In 'Evening' the silhouette of a large galleon in full sail looms out of the yellow-grey mist. The 'Night' scene, however, is perhaps the most poetic and beautiful of all, with its irresistible com- bination of fire, moonlight and water (soon adopted and popularised by Joseph Wright of Derby), articulated by the curving masts of the ship anchored in the harbour and the dark shaggy mass of the rock on the right.
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