Ippolito Caffi

Ippolito Caffi (16 October 1809 – 20 July 1866) was an Italian painter of architectural subjects and seascapes or urban vedute.

Biography

Early life and education Ippolito Caffi was born at Belluno on 16 October 1809. After training initially in Belluno (1821–5), then in Padua with his cousin Pietro Paoletti, Caffi attended the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia (1827–31), studying under Teodoro Matteini, Francesco Bagnara and Tranquillo Orsi. By 1830, he had won awards for his vedute at the academy. In 1832 he moved to Rome, acquiring immediate fame as a vedutista. He displayed a virtuoso command of spatial construction; in 1835 he published a textbook on perspective, Lezioni di prospettiva pratica, with Antonio Bianchini.

Career Caffi modernized the veduta vocabulary inherited from Canaletto, selecting new points of view, and he showed an interest in nocturnal scenes with artificial or lunar illumination, in recording the effects of light and atmosphere at particular times, and in chronicling unusual events such as eclipses and balloon flights. His most famous work, the Last Hour of Carnevale in Rome (The Candles) (1837; Venice, Ca' Pesaro), displays the originality of his style. Rome appears as an illusionistically vast stage on which human figures are simply sparks of light and patches of vivid colour. Exhibited in Venice, it met with enormous success; Caffi executed 42 replicas, a practice he adopted for other popular subjects.

The first work of his that created a sensation was Carnival at Venice. This was exhibited at Paris in 1846, and was admired for its brilliant effects of light. Veiled light and heavy atmosphere are the main elements of Venice in the Snow (1850; Trieste, Revoltella Museum). Caffi travelled extensively in Italy, the Orient (1843–4) and around Europe (1850s), recording his experiences in numerous sketches. Extremely prolific, he received many commissions for paintings and frescoes throughout Italy. A fervent patriot, he painted many episodes of the Risorgimento (e.g. the Arrival of Victor Emanuel II in Naples, 1860–61; Venice, Ca’ Pesaro; large version, Turin, Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento Italiano). He joined revolutionary movements in Venice in 1848, and had to retire into Piedmont. His aim of commemorating in paint the first Italian naval engagement was frustrated when the Re d'Italia, on which he travelled, was destroyed on 20 July 1866 by the Imperial Austrian Navy at the battle of Lissa, drowning him along with his comrades.

In 2005–2006, an exhibition on Ippolito Caffi was held in his native Belluno.

Gallery