61. Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes

Toulouse 1750 – 1819 Paris

View of Rome, c. 1782-1785

In his Élémens de perspective pratique, Valenciennes wrote of Rome as the city par excellence, “one could not speak of it without admiration, see it without enthusiasm, nor leave it without regret”.1 Having first visited the city in 1769, he would indeed return several times and settled in Italy for most of 1777-85. His oil sketches painted in and around Rome stand out in the early history of the technique for their informal character. The artist was clearly less interested in precise topographical or architectural descriptions than in capturing effects of light and atmosphere. Valenciennes often made several versions of these compositions, and an almost identical view of Rome is preserved in the Louvre.2 These would later serve as teaching aids in his atelier, illustrating his recommendation that artists study a motif at various times of day and in different meteorological conditions, anticipating the experiments of the Impressionists by several decades.

1“Rome, la ville par excellence, dont on ne peut en parler sans admiration, qu’on ne sauroit voir sans enthousiasme, ne quitter sans regret”, Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, Élémens de perspective pratique a l’usage des artistes, suivis de Réflexions et conseils à un élève sur la peinture et particulièrement sur le genre du paysage, Paris, 1799/1800, p. 590.