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With some painters, their influence on later artists may be just as important as their own work. Historian Rudolf Wittkower writes of Giovanni Ghisolfi, “…he made his fortune as Italy’s first painter of views with fanciful ruins.” These imaginary views—called capricci, or vedute ideate—became a distinct genre of Italian painting for the next 150 years. This painting, showing robed philosophers holding forth in an imaginary setting, epitomizes the “characteristically Roman” composition cited by Wittkower, and is a clear precursor to later work by Panini. Historian Giancarlo Sestieri describes this painting as one of the artist’s “absolute masterpieces.” See "All Roads Lead to Rome: 17th–19th Century Architectural Souvenirs from the Collection of Piraneseum", on display, pre-security, in the International Terminal. http://bit.ly/AllRoadsRome
This image was posted on July 05, 2017.