Caffi. Voyage Along the Mediterranean

On 2 June 2006 an exhibition opened in the General Staff building presenting more than 100 works by Ippolito Caffi (1809-1866), one of the best known masters of the Venetian Veduta (urban landscape).

The exhibition was organized by the State Hermitage together with the Province of Belluno and with the Administration of Rome with the cooperation of the Ministry of Culture and Artistic Heritage of the Italian Republic and the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of the Italian Republic with support from the General Consulate of the Italian Republic in St. Petersburg.

Ippolito Caffi was one of the most widely appreciated artists of his time, a restless individual who was an indefatigable and curious traveler and a sincere patriot. Having decided to devote himself to landscape painting, Caffi chose to study in Venice, which had a centuries old tradition of urban landscape that was developed in the 18th century by outstanding masters from Canaletto to Bellotto and Guardi. After completing his course of studies at the Venetian Academy, he settled in Rome, where he was caught up in the city's stormy artistic life.

Caffi was long considered the last important representative of the "Veduta" and a direct heir to Canaletto. However, he was fully a man of the 19th century and belonged to a new breed of artist. At this time photography appeared on the scene and entered into competition with the painting of landscapes and views. Dry topographical accuracy which was inherent in the painting of imitators of Canaletto no longer satisfied the artist.

Ippolito Caffi saw his calling as a chronicler of history as it was developing before his eyes. His thirst to see everything and capture it on canvas or paper prompted Caffi to join the French balloonist Francisque Arban on a flight over Rome. The artist saw the Eternal City as no other painter had seen it before. The panoramas captured by Caffi are also shown in this exhibition.

The painter invites the spectator to delight in views of the most important Italian and European cities - Venice, Turin, Milan, Genoa, Naples, Paris, Nice, Geneva and Athens - and also to immerse himself in the atmosphere of the Orient at the end of the 19th century while examining his views of Jerusalem, Istanbul and Cairo.

The curator of the exhibition is doctor Annalisa Scarpa, the curator of the State Hermitage's exhibition is doctor Irina Artemieva, senior researcher of the State Hermitage's Department of History of Western European Art.

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Claudia Bettiol, representative of the province of Belluno

At the opening ceremony of the exhibition

At the exhibition