Tramonto a Bacoli

As in La penisola sorrentina al tramonto the landscape in Tramonto a Bacoli is marked by the presence of trees, which occupy the two sides of the work in this case, spreading towards a horizon dominated by a luminous sky. Gigante depicts the same time of day as evoking the special range of emotions that he had found in Petrarch, “the hour that wakens fond desire”, its highest expression in poetry.
The theme of the introduction of human emotions becomes an organic part of the work, in accordance with the programme of the new Neapolitan school. The opening of 19th-century Neapolitan painting to a vision going beyond traditional, anecdotal vedutism to link landscape intimately with the motions of the soul is again confirmed in this precious work of Gigante’s maturity.