05.05.2022-06.03.2022
Travel in Swiss Art
Prints, watercolors, gouaches and drawings XVIII-XIXth centuries
Artists of the exhibition: Johann Heinrich Bleuler (1758-1823), Salomon Corrodi (1810-1892), ALR Ducros (1747-1810), Carl Hackert (1740-1796), Johann Peter Lamy (active 1791-1839), Jean Antoine Linck (1766-1843), Jean Philippe Linck (1770-1812)
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Switzerland was at the heart Grand Tour, a trip which represented a rite of passage to adulthood that was undertaken by the middle-class and nobility of Europe. Before reaching Italy and investigating its ancient culture, these travellers would stop in the small alpine country to discover a landscape brimming with lakes, peaks and glaciers. Swiss artists thus offered views that tourists could take home as souvenirs. But some artists were also attracted by the Italian peninsula, its golden light, its museums and churches filled with masterpieces of Western art. It was fashionable to go to Venice, Florence or Rome in order to study the pictorial and statuary production and to perfect one's education as a painter. Some artists, such as Salomon Corrodi or ALR Ducros, settled permanently in the Eternal City. The prestigious clients of the latter, including Catherine II of Russia and King Gustav III of Sweden, contributed to his reputation and made his studio a must for any tourists who happened to be passing through on their own Grand Tour. An impressive watercolour engraving of the Pantheon of Rome by Ducros is part of our selection.
Carl Hackert, of Prussian origin, settled in Geneva after a formative trip to France and Italy. He opened a gouache and engraving workshop where he trained Jean Antoine and Jean Philippe Linck, as well as Wolfgang Adam T pffer. He specialized in views of the Alps and the landscape in and around the city of Calvin. Lake Geneva became one of his favourite subjects, as you will discover in our exhibition through two of his beautiful gouaches which represent the lake as seen from Divonne and Lausanne.
Whether in Switzerland or in Italy, these Swiss landscape painters have given us representations of a sublime nature with incomparable light
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Carl HACKERT (Prenzlau 1740 – 1796 Morges)
Vue prise à Divone
Gouache sur papier vergé , titrée en bas gauche, signée et datée en bas à droite Peit par Carl Hackert 1784
32 x 44,9 cm