Home Online catalogues True to Nature. Open-air Painting 1780-1870 88. Christian Johannes Wilberg Havelberg 1839 – 1882 Paris Vesuvius seen from Posillipo Considered an innovator of German panorama painting, Wilberg worked as a house painter in his hometown before moving to Berlin in 1861 to begin his artistic training with Eduard Pape (cat. 154). He first visited Italy in 1872/73 and returned several times throughout the decade, travelling to Rome, Naples, Capri, Venice and Sicily. In 1880, he created a large panorama of the Bay of Naples for the International Fishery Exhibition in Berlin (now lost). At the time, his landscapes were described as “extremely true in form and colour, and yet composed in a free, picturesque way.”1 This small painting of Vesuvius seen from Posillipo is executed with remarkable boldness and was clearly painted very quickly. The artist indicated the brightly coloured yellow and pink houses characteristic of the region with thinly applied areas of colour behind the group of sketchily rendered trees. The sea is reduced to a thin azure line separating the foreground from the mountain. 1http://www.smb-digital.de/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=959356&viewType=detailView.
Considered an innovator of German panorama painting, Wilberg worked as a house painter in his hometown before moving to Berlin in 1861 to begin his artistic training with Eduard Pape (cat. 154). He first visited Italy in 1872/73 and returned several times throughout the decade, travelling to Rome, Naples, Capri, Venice and Sicily. In 1880, he created a large panorama of the Bay of Naples for the International Fishery Exhibition in Berlin (now lost). At the time, his landscapes were described as “extremely true in form and colour, and yet composed in a free, picturesque way.”1 This small painting of Vesuvius seen from Posillipo is executed with remarkable boldness and was clearly painted very quickly. The artist indicated the brightly coloured yellow and pink houses characteristic of the region with thinly applied areas of colour behind the group of sketchily rendered trees. The sea is reduced to a thin azure line separating the foreground from the mountain. 1http://www.smb-digital.de/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=959356&viewType=detailView.