This lavishly illustrated volume retraces the crucial phases of the evolution of landscape painting in Italy through the study of over eighty paintings. The reoccurring theme is light, the fundamental element of truth and harbinger of a new perception of landscapes, but also the perfect instrument to spread, through painting, ideas and subjective awareness in a process to intensify the representation of reality.
From the numerous essays light and its study emerge as the bearer of unforeseen events, alongside the new scientific discoveries which, as never before, will bring into focus a different and powerful new view of reality. This is a broad vision, geared towards infinity, which draws places closer and shortens distances, which shifts the perception of reality and visibility, broadening individual horizons and heightening sensibilities.
The essays, contributed by distinguished experts, retrace and examine the evolution of landscape painting in Italy: from the wandering Caffi to the major exponents of the art movement known as the Scuola di Posillipo, from the Macchiaioli to De Nittis, touching upon the “Magnificent Views” of Genoa and the Rivieras, from Fontanesi to the painters of post-unification Lombardy, up until Ciardi’s “Paesaggi dell’Anima” (the landscapes of the soul), the new Venetian painting movement and the others, to the symbolic landscape of Divisionism.
The book includes an exhaustive biographical appendage of the featured artists.