CAFFI, Ippolito - b. 1809 Belluno, d. 1866 at sea - WGA

CAFFI, Ippolito

(b. 1809 Belluno, d. 1866 at sea)

Italian painter. After training initially in Belluno (1821-25), then in Padua with his cousin Pietro Paoletti (1801-47), Caffi attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice (1827-31), studying under Teodoro Matteini (1754-1831), Francesco Bagnara (1784-1866) and Tranquillo Orsi (1771-1845). In 1832 he moved to Rome, acquiring immediate fame as a vedutista. He displayed a virtuoso command of spatial construction; in 1835 he published a textbook on perspective, Lezioni di prospettiva pratica, with Antonio Bianchini. Caffi modernized the veduta vocabulary inherited from Canaletto, selecting new points of view, and he showed an interest in nocturnal scenes with artificial or lunar illumination, in recording the effects of light and atmosphere at particular times, and in chronicling unusual events such as eclipses and balloon flights.

He is a highly fascinating artist and romantic figure, among the greatest and most original vedutisti of 19th-century Italy. During his short yet intense lifetime he achieved great fame and admiration, his landscapes and other works of art taking on a European dimension and breadth that make him similar to Corot. Yet in addition to being one of the most acclaimed artists of his time, Caffi was also a bold, restless person, an adventurous soul, an untiring traveler and a devoted patriot with his involvement in the movements of 1848-49, Austrian persecution and the Third War of Independence until his premature death at only age 57 during the battle of Lissa aboard the flagship Re d’Italia.

His most famous work, the Last Hour of Carnevale in Rome (The Candles) (1837; Venice, Ca’ Pesaro), displays the originality of his style. Rome appears as an illusionistically vast stage on which human figures are simply sparks of light and patches of vivid colour. Exhibited in Venice, it met with enormous success; Caffi executed 42 replicas, a practice he adopted for other popular subjects. Veiled light and heavy atmosphere are the main elements of Venice in the Snow (1850; Trieste, Museo Civico Revoltella).

A View of Florence

This painting presents a view of the Piazza della Signoria with the Loggia dei Lanzi (at left) in Florence. Caffi built on the perspective methods developed by Canaletto and published a textbook on the subject in 1835. This unfinished view of the Piazza della Signoria exhibits his drawing skills, particularly in the architectural renderings of the Loggia dei Lanzi,

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Bombardment of Marghera on the Night of May 24, 1849

The Neo-classical movement in Venice included a number of artists of note, who often painted the cultivated and refined decorations for buildings erected or renovated in the period. Among the artists who continued to draw inspiration from the great Venetian Vedutisti were Vincenzo Chilone and Ippolito Caffi. Caffi was the most original of Venetian Vedutisti and the true successor to Canaletto. He achieved a style of his own by combining the eighteenth-century tradition with romantic effects of mist and nocturnal light. He painted seascapes and naval battles that contrast with the idyllic scenes of his contemporaries.

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Nocturnal Celebrations in Via Eugenia at Venice

Nocturnal celebrations here give the artist the opportunity to transform the city under the dazzling light of the fireworks, offering the observer an unusual vision of streets and palazzos cloaked in a magical, almost supernatural atmosphere.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 18 minutes):

Handel: Fireworks Music

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Snow and Fog on the Grand Canal

As can be seen in this painting, Caffi owed much to eighteenth-century view painting in both the sharpness of his outlines and his perspective configurations. The unusual meteorological conditions that suspend Venice between sea and sky in an ash-gray mist enable the artist to unveil a range of colours his predecessors never imagined.

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View of the Pantheon, Rome

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