Paesaggio fluviale con caseggiati e lavandaie

Painted towards the end of the 1830s, thus still during the artist’s youth in Rome, this landscape showing a river with houses and laundresses links two inspirations: the new ideas of a direct view of the landscape and the creation ¿ like a stage setting ¿ of a composition intended to satisfy a more traditional sense of harmony.
It is true that the large rock rising up on the left of the picture to upset the balance of the composition is evidence of an already clear acceptance of the concepts of the new style painting. In both Naples and Rome ¿ thanks to the stimulus of English and French artists ¿ this movement was encouraging artists to set aside the traditional balanced composition.
Paesaggio fluviale is an important example of how far Neapolitan painters of the generation following that of the innovator Giacinto Gigante had come in developing their own specific characteristics.