38. Giovanni Battista Camuccini

Born into a privileged artistic milieu, Giovanni Battista Camuccini was the son of one of the leading neoclassical history painters in Rome, Vincenzo Camuccini (1771–1844). He trained at the Academy in Bologna, and was encouraged to paint en plein air by the landscapist Giambattista Bassi (1784–1852). Camuccini made numerous studies of the area around Lake Albano, where he holidayed with his family. In this view, he shows only a glimpse of the lake on the left, and focuses instead on the fall of light on overgrown rocks. The dimensions of the painting, its low viewpoint and richness of detail give the humble subject a monumental quality. There is a freshness and spontaneity to the treatment of the rocks, painted before the motif, while much of the grass and foliage is executed more meticulously, and was probably finished in the studio. By the early 1850s Camuccini had abandoned his artistic aspirations in order to manage the substantial family estate. The landscape studies of his youth remained little-known outside his immediate circle, and it was the recent rediscovery of a group of oils on paper in the family villa at Cantalupo, in Sabina, which prompted the re-evaluation of this highly original artist.¹