1833
oil on paper, laid down on panel
30.0 x 44.5 cms
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Almost inevitably, Thomas Fearnley along with many of his contemporaries felt the pull of Italy, spending three years there, from 1832 to 1835, where he produced many of his finest oil studies under the powerful Mediterranean sun. Crossing the Alps, he left behind in Dresden his teacher and fellow Norwegian artist Johan Christian Dahl who thought him 'his Naturvei', to be close to nature and to paint out-of-doors. In Munich he left behind his close friends, the North Germans Christian Morgenstern and Hermann Kauffmann and the Danes Jörgen Sonne and Wilhelm Berndz. With them he painted the scenery of the Bavarian Alpine Lakes finding a new naturalism and fluency of brushwork which was in direct opposition to the 'retardataire' style of the Nazarene painter Peter Cornelius so in favour with Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria.
On his arrival in Rome in 1832 he became a member of the 'Ponte Molle Society', a group of German artists who met in the Café Greco and was closely connected with the Danish artists who surrounded Thorvaldsen. His gregarious character and 'joie de vivre' made him also an easy travel companion. On almost all his painting excursions in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, England and Norway, one or more of his painter-friends, who enjoyed his ebullient personality, and shared his wish to combine creativity and camaraderie, accompanied him. In the spring of 1833 accompanied by his fellow Danish artists Christian Hansen, Christensen and S. Bindesböll he left Rome and the Campagna for the purpose of taking a trip around Sicily. It first led him to explore Naples and it's surroundings before the group reached Palermo in mid June. It was on his way to Sicily that he made his detour to Procida.
The Island of Procida is the smallest and least visited of the three islands in the Bay of Naples. While not as spectacular as Capri or Ischia, it is unspoiled and easily reached by boat from either Naples or Pozzuoli. As Fearnley was really on his way down to Sicily, Procida was a good choice for a one-day boat trip as it is easily reached from the main land. The multi-coloured houses resting on the tufa rock make the island's architecture one of the most distinctive of the region. Fearnley's view from the terrace is most probably taken from the islands' small harbor, the 'Marina di SancioCattolico' built up in the 17th and 18th century and overlooking the Golf of Pozzuoli. In the distance and on the mainland is the 'Monte di Procida' and
Baia, the Romans' most fashionable bathing resort.
Although a number of Fearnley's outdoor paintings are executed in a casual, sketch-like technique, the majority of his studies have the quality of carefully planed 'plein air' paintings. At first glance, like in our picture, they appear to have been rapidly completed at one 'sitting', but closer inspection of their balanced composition and rich detail shows that the artist spent at least a day - and often more - in front of his subject. In this sense Fearnley followed Dahl's practice of painting out-of-doors, although he was less interested than his master in portraying fleeting atmospheric phenomena. Here on the terrace, the artist is mostly interested in the intensity of the sunlight. How the light is reflected in the sky and blue sea, glowing in the white of the far mountain, deflected in the different shadows thrown through the wine onto the white wall and flower pots and de-fussed in the dark shadows of the lower side-wall and stone floor.
CONTACT GALLERY
Sigurd Willoch, Maleren Thomas Fearnley, Oslo 1932, illustrated page 233
Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo, 1966Blaafarvevaerket, Drammen, 1986Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, 1995
