Giovanni Paolo Pannini
Italian, 1691-1765 ca.
Saint Paul Preaching Among the Ruins, n.d.
oil on canvas
39 ½ x 54 in.
SBMA, Gift of William P. Nelson Estate
1948.27.1
Portrait of the Artist Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1736 by Louis Gabriel Blanchet
RESEARCH PAPER
In Pannini's “Saint Paul Preaching Among the Ruins”, of circa 1750, a low viewpoint opens up onto archaeological fragments and monumental columns that evoke the architecture of the Roman Forum. Anchored by arches and pediments strewn with vegetation, these ruinous elements on the left-side of the composition seem in discourse with the equally stoic and powerful Pantheon monument and famous Laocoön sculpture on the right. Within this architectural stage-set the verticality of the Column of Trajan and the red-robed Saint Paul direct the eye upwards toward the expansive blue sky where billowing clouds tinged with evening light become horizontal streaks that balance out the composition's strong verticals. Saint Paul and his followers are cached within these elements, presented in a dynamic fashion with varied, active poses. They encircle the apostle and are framed within the open arches of the Basilica-like ruin in the background. The introduction of color in an otherwise cool and limited palette is exciting and draws our attention to the assembled group despite their small size relative to the ruins. There is great drama in the contrasts of scale and light and dark, and the presentation of the figures, monuments and sculpture is equally theatrical. The epic scale of the ruins combined with our low vantage point and distance from the assembled circle as viewers prevents our personal engagement in the scene as anything other than a witness.
Pannini specialized in painting views of Rome and particularly views of its antique ruins. This painting is one of these view paintings, or vedutes, and belongs to the tradition of the Grand Tour, when travel to Italy became a fashionable part of the education of the European, and particularly of the British aristocracy. Vedutes fulfilled a need to document and provide souvenirs of one’s travels, affording owners the opportunity to show off their learnedness. Where the appeal of Italy to earlier tourists had been religious, by the 18th century the focus was nostalgia for the past and a newfound interest in antiquities. Rome, home to the Forum and the greatest antiquities, was the heart of the Grand Tour’s itinerary.
Although the large ruin on the left of the painting evokes the Temple of Antoninus and Faustinan and the one on the far right suggests the Temple of Castor and Pollux, technicalities preclude formal designation. Though we do have identifiable buildings and monuments such as the Column of Trajan, the Pantheon, the Laocoön sculpture, and the Borghese vase in the left foreground, artistic license and relative placement prove this painting is a capriccio, a hodge-podge of famous architectural remains and elements not intended to be an accurate, topographical representation. Capricci were popularized in the 18th century, and painters such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Canaletto also painted them. They were intended to be placed over a door in a palace to proclaim a spirit of worldliness and culture.
In our painting, Saint Paul stands atop a rock, evoking the famous sermon he delivered on the areopagus, the most dramatic and important speech in Saint Paul's career. The areopagus was a rock in Classical Athens that functioned as the site of the Court of Appeals where cases were tried. In Acts 17:16-34, Saint Paul states, 'As I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship - and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.' Although his speech took place in Athens, it is fitting that Pannini chose to situate this moment in the Forum, the Roman venue for public speeches, monuments to multiple Gods, and the heart of ancient Rome with its cultural ties to Greece. Saint Paul points to the famed statue of the Laocoön and his sons, one of the most important antiquarian discoveries of Renaissance Italy when it was unearthed in Rome in 1506. It depicts the event in Vergil's “Aeneid” when the Trojan priest, Laocoön, and his sons are strangled by sea snakes, sent by the gods who favored the Greeks in retribution. According to Pliny, a source with which a classically-taught gentleman of this time would be familiar, this was the greatest of the ancient sculptures, famed for its depiction of human agony. In Acts 28:4, Saint Paul is bitten by a viper which he shakes off, yet unlike Laocoön, he is unharmed. Pannini may have chosen this comparison as a meditation on Christian superiority over other faiths. Like Bernini and Michelangelo before him, Pannini's art celebrated the superiority of the church, with Christian Rome being the natural continuation of ancient Rome.
Another reason Pannini may have juxtaposed the saint and the Laocoön may have to do with art historical developments of his time. The German art historian and archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann promoted the notion of an idealized Greek art history in his 'Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums' of 1764, helping to usher in the neo-classical era of the late 18th century. Works such as those by the 17th century painter Nicolas Poussin, along with recent excavations of antique treasures, served to renew an interest in harmony and proportion. According to Winckelmann, the best artists pick and choose elements from nature to create a beauty that surpasses reality. One could argue that Pannini's capriccio with his choice of architectural and figural elements, a balanced composition, thoughtful use of color and precise drawing attempts the same. Perhaps Pannini is directly referencing his own creative powers here. Winckelmann wrote of the paradox in admiring beauty while seeing a scene of death and failure, such as when witnessing the Laocoön. If Saint Paul is discussing the perils of false worship and ignorance, Pannini is linking this discussion with sculpture and therefore to art itself. The late 17th century brought forth the Age of Enlightenment, a cultural movement that emphasized reason over tradition, and intellectual and philosophical interchange over the limitations of the Church. Pannini's ruins express the transitory nature of the human existence, and that the protagonist is a prophet further serves to underscore the prescient nature of this work, belying a shadowy side of Enlightenment spirit, and suggesting Pannini's concern for what was to come for his generation.
Before too much credence is given to one or other of the above theories regarding the significance of the interaction between Saint Paul and the Laocoön, it should be noted that over half a million works have been attributed to Pannini and his studio, and countless similar renditions of this painting exist. In one version in Belgium, the Farnese Hercules has been substituted for the Laocoön whereas another version of the painting in the Hermitage includes the Statue of Apollo and replaces Saint Paul with Saint Sibyl. This would suggest that this composition was a quasi stock image that could be adjusted and customized or personalized with classical and Christian sources as a client saw fit.
Pannini was born in 1691 and trained in Piacenza, Italy, under Giuseppe Natali and Andrea Galluzzi and then under stage designer Francesco Galli-Bibiena. By 1711 he had moved to Rome where he designed the interiors of palaces. By 1719 Panini was a member in both the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon, one of the ten Pontifical Academies under the direction of the Pope, and the Accademia di San Luca, an exclusive association of Roman artists concerned with the elevation of art's status. From the 1720's he painted decorative frescoes for the Pope and he also taught at the Académie de France in Rome where he influenced a generation of French artists, including Jean-Honoré Fragonard. His patrons were Italian and French aristocrats, and he was known as 'The Italian from France', eventually gallicizing his name from Giovanni Paolo to Jean-Paul.
Prepared for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art Docent Council by Monica Babich, January 1, 2014.
Bibliography
Arisi, Ferdinando. ''G.P. Panini e i fasti della Roma del 1700''. Rome, 1986. catalogue raisoneé. Quoted in Turner, Jane. ''The Dictionary of Art''. New York: Grove, 1996.
Bean, Jacob and William Griswold, eds. ''18th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art''. New York, 1990.
Bowron, Edgar Peters and Joseph J. Rishel, eds. ''Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century''. London: Merrell, 2000. (pages 416-29 on Pannini)
Corbett, Patricia. "Pannini (1691-1765)." Apollo, March 1993: 189-90.
English Heritage. http://www.englishheritageimages.com/panini-st-paul-preaching-at-athens-n070481/print/5521595.html. Web 1 Jan. 2014.
Galerie Heim, France. http://www.galerieheim.fr/oeuvre-details.php?id_oeuvre=198&lng=2. Web 27 Dec. 2013.
Hermitage. http://www.hermitagemuseum.org. Web 1 Jan. 2014.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/52.63.1 and http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/437244. Web 27 Dec. 2013.
Museo del Prado. https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/galeria-on-line/galeria-on-line/obra/ruinas-con-san-pablo-predicando/?no_cache=1. Web 28 Dec. 2013.
Nagel Auction House. http://www.auction.de. Web 1 Jan. 2014.
Royal Museums of Fine Art, Belgium. http://www.fine-arts-museum.be. Web 27 Dec. 2014.
Wilton, Andrew and Ilaria Bignamini, eds. ''Grand Tour: The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century''. London: Tate Gallery, 1996.
Notes
The painting was recently conserved at the Paintings Lab at the Getty Museum to remove older retouches and to correct cleaning damage.
Similar renditions of this painting include an undated work of 63.5 x 49 cm which went up for auction as lot 540 in sale 696 of June 2013 at the Nagel auction house in Germany which includes the same twisted man in the fore-left of the grouping. There is a 63 x 48 cm landscape of the same subject with a different composition at the Museo del Prado in Madrid dated to 1735. Pannini uses the same grouping of people in one of a pair of paintings on sale via Galerie Heim in France dated to 1731. And there exist almost identical paintings at both the Royal Museum of Fine Art in Belgium, 'Roman Ruins with a Preacher' of 98 x 135.5 cm and the Hermitage, 'Saint Sibyl's Sermon in Roman Ruins with the Statue of Apollo' of the 1740's and 81 x 125 cm.
COMMENTS
Giovanni Paolo Pannini (Italian, 1691-1765) was born in 1691 in Piacenza and died in 1765 in Rome. He was trained as a stage designer but became famous in Rome as the leading painter of real and imaginary views of the city. He was the first artist to devote his painting to the study of ruins. He also did paintings of festivities and historical events and taught perspective at the Academie de France in Rome. His decision to concentrate on ruins and imaginary views took hold after his move to Rome in 1717. Pannini often created paintings documenting Rome's public celebrations and festivities, as well as happenings of historical significance.
Highly skilled at portraying architectural detail, Pannini demonstrates his excellence in draftsmanship in the Gallery of the Views of Ancient Rome, painted in 1758. Unbelievably descriptive, the painting brings to life the historical and famous monuments of Rome, including the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Column of Trajan , various triumphal arches dedicated to rulers of Rome, and other significant ruins of antiquity.
Pannini's paintings gained favor with French aristocracy and established a foothold for him in the French Academy in Rome. Tourists competed for his paintings of the vogue sites in the city and many galleries made a point of obtaining his very popular works. Pannini exercised a powerful influence upon a number of French painters in Rome, including Hubert Robert.
Pannini's importance lies in the fact that as a teacher at the most prestigious art academy in Rome, the Academie de France, Pannini taught a generation of French and Italian painters how to synthesize the heritage of the Italian renaissance with the innovations of recent French painting.
- " Giovanni Paolo Pannini," Bat Guano Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ, Web, n.d.
SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS
Giovanni Paolo Pannini was an Italian painter working during the height of the Grand Tour era, where gentlemen, typically from England, would travel through the European continent finishing their education. Highlights of the Grand Tour included visiting ancient Roman ruins in cities like Rome and Pompeii. The admiration for Greco-Roman art and architecture was such an integral part of a classical education that gentlemen on the Grand Tour would often take home paintings such as this one depicting scenes of famous buildings, fantastically combined into a single picture as a reminder of their trip.
- Art on the Human Scale, 2012 & Ludington Court Reopening, 2021