Andrea Locatelli
Roman, 1695–1741
Landscape with Fishermen by a Stream, 1730 ca.
Oil on canvas
18 13/16 x 15 7/16"
Glasgow Museums, Archibald McLellan Collection, purchased 1856
160
COMMENTS
Locatelli was primarily a painter of easel pictures, which were sought after by an international clientele, and he was supported by distinguished Roman patrons, including Cardinal Alessandro Albani and Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. In 1783 the Colonna family owned 80 of his pictures. Throughout his career he experimented with many genres and his art developed from a realism close to that of his 17th-century sources to an increasingly graceful idealization. He first specialized in river and coastal scenes, influenced by the marine pictures of Salvator Rosa. The "Landscape with a Group of Figures on the Shores of a Lake", in which the emphasis is on a distant view of the sea, is one example. Also from his earliest period is a group of works that show landscapes with ancient ruins, such as the "Three Figures at the Ruins of the Temple of Vespasian. His interest in this genre was brief, although he established himself as a brilliant imitator of Giovanni Panini. Later he painted idyllic views of the Roman Campagna, influenced by Gaspard Dughet, reinterpreted through the lighter, clearer pictures of Jan Frans van Bloemen. Other works set mythological scenes in Arcadian landscapes.
Locatelli painted few realistic "vedute" [highly detailed, usually large-scale paintings of cityscapes or some other vistas], although the "View of the Piazza Navona with a Market", 1733, is an exceptional work, which concentrates less on the monumental beauty of the square than on the vitality and vivid colors of the market-day crowd. He also painted "bambocciate" [genre paintings of usually small size produced in Rome in the 17th century] with, in the late years, elegant and graceful figures. Locatelli died, after a dissolute life, in poverty and unlamented, his widow renouncing all claim to an estate that was crippled with debts.
- From Olivier Michel, "Locatelli, Andrea", Dictionary of Art, Macmillan, 1966, v.19, pp.524-5.
SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS
Locatelli specialized in small-scale landscapes of idyllic pastoral beauty. Although inspired by the Roman campagna, the countryside around Rome, his landscapes are idealized and imaginary, rather than representing actual topography.
Locatelli is following the tradition of ideal landscape invented by 17th-century painters like Domenichino, but his are lighter, prettier and more decorative. The fishermen too are essentially decorative embellishments. They have no narrative function, although the central fisherman’s reclining pose cleverly refers to ancient sculptures of river gods.
- Botticelli, Titian, and Beyond, 2015