Ippolito Caffi (Belluno 1809 - Lissa 1866)

Ippolito Caffi (Belluno 1809 – Lissa 1866) trained in his native town and in Padua, later attending the Venice Academy. He had a truly adventurous life, meeting his death during the Italian naval defeat off the shores of Lissa. Initially, he was influenced by the 18th century Venetian vedutisti, but this changed in 1833 when he moved to Rome.
There, Caffi encountered the work of Camille Corot. This led him to approach the new manner of landscape painting being developed in France, which would later evolve into the broad style of 19th-century French art leading to Impressionism and beyond.
Another important aspect of Caffi’s artistic experimentation was his attention to photography, both as a means of immediate and faithful reproduction and for the perspective possibilities of the camera, permitting broader sections of the landscape to be included in the picture than with traditional perspective.
In recent years Ippolito Caffi’s place among the landscape painters of his time has been re-assessed in a positive and more accurate light.