Casa Gargano Blog
Images, words, places and flavors from the Amalfi Coast
1 hour away from Casa Gargano: the treasures of Pompeii
Pompeii: a dining room decorated with characters and subjects inspired by the Trojan war has emerged from the new excavations.
Joseph Selleny (1824 Wien - 1875 ebd.), "Eisenhammer im Thal zu Amalfi", 1856
Joseph Selleny, dieser aus Wien stammende Abenteurer in Sachen Kunst – er umrundete als Mitglied einer transatlantischen Expedition zwischen 1857 bis 1859 mit der Fregatte Novara die Erde und hielt die Eindrücke dieser Reise in damals noch unbekannte Welten in zahlreichen Aquarellen und Skizzen fest – dieser unermüdliche Zeichner hatte zuvor das Land besucht, in dem die Zitronen blühen. Nach seinem Studium an der Wiener Akademie bei Franz Steinfeld und Thomas Ender ermöglichte ihm der Rompreis der Akademie, den er 1847 erhalten hatte, 1854 endlich eine Studienreise nach Rom und Neapel, die ihn auch nach Amalfi führte. Dort ist es Carl Blechen gewesen, dessen 1829 entstandene, pittoreske Ansichten des Mühlentals bis heute unsere Vorstellung von diesem Ort prägen (Abb. unten). Auch der Berliner Architekt Karl Friedrich Schinkel hatte es 1824 bereits eindrücklich beschrieben: "Von der Kirche gingen wir wieder auf den Platz herunter u verfolgten die Hauptstraße, welche gegen die Schlucht hinaufführt. Diese nimt bald den sonderbarsten Character an; sie schließt sich man geht durch Bögen und Gewölbe über denen Wege von einer Seite des Tales zur gegenüberliegenden führen, dann steigt man durch Treppen weiter. An den Seiten treten oft Felsen heraus, darinnen sieht man mehre grün bewachsene Hölen in welchen grosse Wassertröge ausgehauen sind und klares Gebirgswasser stürzt dahinein, an welchen die Weiber der Stadt immer zahlreich waschen. Mühlenwerke und dazugehörige Wasserleitungen alles wie in der Schweiz mit dem üppigsten Kraut bewachsen hängen unter dem Felsen der sich höhlenartig wölbt oder drängen sich in die Winkel hinein. Der Weg steigt stufenartig neben mit Mauern eingefaßten Flußbetten an, in denen oft Wasserfälle schon rauschen. Die Flußbetten sind oft mit breit gezogenen Weinlauben bedeckt u allerlei schöne Sitze und Gärtchen daneben angebracht; so geht es fort so daß man nicht zu sich kommt vor der Menge mahlerischer Punkte. Am letzten Winkel scheint das Thal mit einem grossen viele Stockwerke hohen Fabrikgebäude geschlossen zu seyn worinn Papir gemacht wird, aber es wendet sich u führt zu sehr mahlerischen Eisenhämmern, die wir wegen der Kürze der Zeit nicht mehr erreichen konnten." Selleny indes zeichnete, was Schinkel verwehrt blieb zu sehen: Eine erste Ansicht des bereits 1803 stillgelegten Eisenhammers entstand am 13. Mai 1854, bevor Selleny im Oktober 1856 noch einmal nach Amalfi zurückkehrte, als unser Aquarell entstand. Es zeigt den Blick in das enge Tal mit den von Büschen und Bäumen gesäumten Ufern eines Bachs, über den sich eine Brücke spannt; dahinter türmt sich das Gebirge allseitig auf, die verlassene Fabrik gleichsam umschließend – Sellenys Aquarell blieb zwar unvollendet, doch illustriert es in seiner sprühenden Farbigkeit, die noch den Einfluss seines Lehrers Ender erkennen lässt, anschaulich die Eindrücke, die Schinkel geschildert hat. (Text: Peter Prange). Copyright: © 2023 H. W. Fichter Kunsthandel
Breaking News! From July 2024, the Amalfi Coast will have its own airport, with connections to/from some of the major European cities
Airport name: "Amalfi Coast - Salerno" https://www.easyjet.com/en
Charles A. Wilimovsky, Amalfi Coast, circa 1913
Charles Anthony Wilimovsky was an influential painter and printmaker from the early part of the 20th century. Wilimovsky took classes at the Art Institute of Chicago and was a student of J.C. Johansen and William M. Chase. In 1912 he was awarded the John Quincy Adams Prize for studies abroad, where he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian and in Florence, Italy.
Image and text: © 2024 Missouri Remembers
December 18, 2023
Thanks to our guests for this important achievement.
The "wine singer" Hans Barth wrote a poem commenting on an early 20th-century German illustration dedicated to a water-carrying girl from Amalfi.
Molto prima che i "percorsi del gusto" diventassero una delle attrazioni del nostro Paese, le osterie italiane erano state descritte in una guida tedesca del 1900. Intitolata Est! Est! Est! Italienischer Schenkenführer, offriva una selezione dei luoghi in cui un viaggiatore straniero potesse bere vino e birra, insieme con vivaci descrizioni dei frequentatori abituali e delle belle ostesse che mescevano il vino.
L'autore era lo scrittore e giornalista Hans Barth. Nato a Stoccarda da genitori tedeschi che dirigevano una scuola a Smirne, Barth trascorse la sua infanzia in Turchia. Appassionato di studi classici, conseguì a Zurigo un dottorato in filologia romanza, da cui trasse il titolo accademico con cui amava firmare le sue opere.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, dalla Capanna dello zio Tom agli aranceti di Sorrento
In 1859, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, spent a few months in Campania, visiting Naples, Paestum and Amalfi among other places. On a stormy night in Salerno she was inspired to write the novel Agnes of Sorrento, which is still mentioned by the international press as a book symbolizing the city in which it is set.
Nel segno di Francesco. Santi, regnanti e viandanti fra Amalfi e Ravello (sec. XIII - XIX)
In these days, in Amalfi and Ravello there is a series of cultural events dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, who, according to tradition, came to pray at the relics of St. Andrew in the Amalfi Cathedral. The legend is mentioned in the famous English tourist guide edited by John Murray (1853). The entry of the Amalfi Coast in the Murray Handbooks helped launch the region into the international travel circuit.
Amalfi
Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where amid her mulberry-trees
Sits Amalfi in the heat,
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas.
In the middle of the town,
From its fountains in the hills,
Tumbling through the narrow gorge,
The Canneto rushes down,
Turns the great wheels of the mills,
Lifts the hammers of the forge.
'T is a stairway, not a street,
That ascends the deep ravine,
Where the torrent leaps between
Rocky walls that almost meet.
Toiling up from stair to stair
Peasant girls their burdens bear;
Sunburnt daughters of the soil,
Stately figures tall and straight,
What inexorable fate
Dooms them to this life of toil?
Lord of vineyards and of lands,
Far above the convent stands.
On its terraced walk aloof
Leans a monk with folded hands,
Placid, satisfied, serene,
Looking down upon the scene
Over wall and red-tiled roof;
Wondering unto what good end
All this toil and traffic tend,
And why all men cannot be
Free from care and free from pain,
And the sordid love of gain,
And as indolent as he.
Where are now the freighted barks
From the marts of east and west?
Where the knights in iron sarks
Journeying to the Holy Land,
Glove of steel upon the hand,
Cross of crimson on the breast?
Where the pomp of camp and court?
Where the pilgrims with their prayers?
Where the merchants with their wares,
And their gallant brigantines
Sailing safely into port
Chased by corsair Algerines?
Vanished like a fleet of cloud,
Like a passing trumpet-blast,
Are those splendors of the past,
And the commerce and the crowd!
Fathoms deep beneath the seas
Lie the ancient wharves and quays,
Swallowed by the engulfing waves;
Silent streets and vacant halls,
Ruined roofs and towers and walls;
Hidden from all mortal eyes
Deep the sunken city lies:
Even cities have their graves!
This is an enchanted land!
Round the headlands far away
Sweeps the blue Salernian bay
With its sickle of white sand:
Further still and furthermost
On the dim discovered coast
Paestum with its ruins lies,
And its roses all in bloom
Seem to tinge the fatal skies
Of that lonely land of doom.
On his terrace, high in air,
Nothing doth the good monk care
For such worldly themes as these,
From the garden just below
Little puffs of perfume blow,
And a sound is in his ears
Of the murmur of the bees
In the shining chestnut trees;
Nothing else he heeds or hears.
All the landscape seems to swoon
In the happy afternoon;
Slowly o'er his senses creep
The encroaching waves of sleep,
And he sinks as sank the town,
Unresisting, fathoms down,
Into caverns cool and deep!
Walled about with drifts of snow,
Hearing the fierce north-wind blow,
Seeing all the landscape white,
And the river cased in ice,
Comes this memory of delight,
Comes this vision unto me
Of a long-lost Paradise
In the land beyond the sea.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. 1876-79. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes
Albert Flamm, The islands of 'li Galli', Positano
Albert Flamm Colonia 1823 - Dusseldorf 1906 The islands of 'li Galli', at Positano, from mount Comune.
Esposto alla Mostra The South as viewed from the North. 19th century Central European painters glance at Southern Italy, 28 giugno - 5 luglio 2013
Fonte: https://bnb-artconsulting.wixsite.com/bnb-artconsulting
Maurits Cornelis Escher, Atrani, Amalfi Coast, 1931
"Nella primavera del 1922 Escher visitò l'Italia in compagnia di alcuni suoi amici. Rimasto stregato dalla bellezza di quel paese, il grafico vi ritornò nell'autunno dello stesso anno, imbarcandosi su una nave da carico diretta a Cadice e, poi, a Genova. [...] Mosso da una crescente irrequietudine, Escher nella primavera del 1923 si trasferì presso la costiera amalfitana, in Sud Italia, spronato dai suggestivi racconti di un'anziana signora danese che pure risiedeva presso la pensione Alessandri. Escher rimase letteralmente folgorato dalla suadente plasticità della luce del Mezzogiorno e, soprattutto, dalla commistione di elementi romani, greci e saraceni presente nelle architetture di Ravello, Atrani e Amalfi, tutte città campane che lasciarono un'impronta profonda nella sua fantasia: un'orografia così mossa e animata, così «teatrale» come quella amalfitana, d'altronde, non avrebbe potuto sortire diverso effetto su un olandese assuefatto a orizzonti lineari e modesti. Quello amalfitano fu per Escher un soggiorno proficuo non solo dal punto di vista artistico, ma anche sotto il profilo amoroso: il 31 marzo 1923, infatti, il pittore incontrò all'Hotel Toro di Ravello Jetta Umiker, il futuro amore dell sua vita. Era costei la figlia di un facoltoso banchiere svizzero che, dopo aver consolidato la sua fama dirigendo un'importante filiale di Mosca, fu costretto a fuggire dalla Russia in seguito alla tumultuosa rivoluzione del 1917. La Umiker, per di più, si interessava di pittura e di disegno: com'è ovvio immaginare la scintilla amorosa non tardò a scoccare e pertanto i due si sposarono il 12 giugno 1924 a Viareggio."
Fonte: wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurits_Cornelis_Escher Immagine: wikimedia creative common
"Herr Geheimer Rath von Klenze is known not only as one of the first of living architects-famous, but even as a practical artist in the field of painting so excellent that one can only regret to see him by the main office of this his favorite art so much deducted." (Julius Max Schottky, 1833, quoted in Love/Hufnagl, s. u., p. 52). Leo von Klenze "most important duties" were done in his profession as the preferred architect of the Bavarian king Ludwig I to. After his accession to the throne in 1825, Klenze had, through his position of Trust to the king, and through his position at the head of the construction administration for a decade full impact on the construction industry in Munich and Bavaria. By him for the king designed the building for the city of Munich is characterised until today: for example, the Königsbau of the residence, the system of the Ludwigstraße and the königsplatz, the Alte Pinakothek. As a painter Leo von Klenze was self-taught. In the case of Carl Wilhelm von Heideck, and later with Carl Rottmann he learned the technique of Oil painting. His profession as an architect is reflected in his paintings clearly again: The interest in buildings, in carefully composed landscapes embedded, tightly shaped the city and the views of the Buildings betrayed. Until recently, the merits of Klenzes are highlighted in the architecture literature, his work was first compiled in 1964 by Oswald Hederer, 1979 by Norbert Lieb and Florian Hufnagl edited raisonné of the paintings and drawings appeared. The Oeuvre Klenzes as a painter is limited to 79 positions. His panel paintings, the artist created mainly for affiliates and familiar personalities, many of them are still in private ownership. Not a few of his paintings remained until well into the 20th century. Century in the possession of the own family, so also the present view of Atrani. Already in 1817, Leo von Klenze had begun a private collection of paintings to create. The main part of the same was acquired in 1841/42 by king Ludwig I, the Neue Pinakothek. Klenzes attention to main as a collector was the works of his contemporaries: One of the first paintings he acquired, was a descendant of Joseph rebel, whose "port was the view of Portici la Gran Abella" in 1818 at him. Rebel had, incidentally, made in the same year, a view of Atrani. 1819 Joseph Mallord William Turner dealt with the representation of Atrani - a popular photo motif for the Italy traveller artists of the first half of the 19th century. Century. Leo von Klenze preparatory drawing for the paintings dated from the 12. May 1830 and is in the holdings of the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich. From April to June 1830, travelled to Leo von Klenze, together with the sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch, Italy. In Rome they met Bertel Thorvaldsen, then they travelled on to Naples, Pompeii, Paestum and Amalfi. While the topographic Situation on this site resulting drawing is accurately represented, decides Klenze in the execution of the painting four years later, for a Variation, especially with regard to the landscape foreground and gives the paintings additional "picturesque" weight. Literature: report on the inventory and the Work of the art Association in Munich, for the year 1834. Munich, 1835, P. 40, No. 118. - Feuchtmayr, Inge (Red.), Leo von Klenze as a painter and draughtsman. Exhibition catalogue of the Bavarian Academy of Fine arts, Munich, 21. October 1977 - 29. In January, 1978. Munich, 1977, p. 89, catalogue no G 41: the present painting with the above-mentioned signature. - Lieb, Norbert / Hufnagl, Florian, Leo von Klenze paintings and drawings. München 1979, p. 98, catalogue raisonné no. 34 (the painting) and p. 174, catalogue raisonné no. 138 (the drawing). - Ricciardi, Massimo, La costa d'amalfi nella pittura dell'ottocento. Salerno, 1998, p. 72 figure 88. Provenance: Hippolyt von Klenze (1814-1888), son of the artist. - Irene Atheneis von Klenze, verh. Countess Courten (1850-1916). - Family-owned Courten until 1960. - 1960 donation of the painting to the Bavarian state painting collections (Inv.No. 13077). - 1968 return of the painting at the request of the giver. - Private Possession, Switzerland. - South German Private Collection. Exhibition: Kunstverein, Munich, 1834
Source: © Very Important Lot
en-L'oro di Amalfi
Le terrazze rappresentano l'insieme perfetto di natura e arte umana. Create attraverso il lavoro faticoso di generazioni, esse servono anche alla stabilizzazione del terreno che è minacciato in continuazione da frane e smottamenti. [...] Una peculiarità dell'agricoltura locale è rappresentata dagli agrumeti, che fino a fine aprile sono coperti con...
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Image source: Wikimedia Creative Commons
en-Amalfi nei versi di Gabriele D'Annunzio
"Ma quei d'Amalfi, cui la lunga spada era misura, a patria più lontana andavano; che già, s'avean contrada e forno e bagno e fondaco e fontana per tutto, e Mauro Còmite dal Greco mattava il Doge al libro di dogana." Gabriele D'Annunzio, "La canzone del Sacramento", 1912
en-Pietro Scoppetta, Paesaggio di Amalfi
Pietro Scoppetta (Amalfi, 1863 - Naples, 1920) was an Italian painter, painting in an Impressionist style using both oil and pastels. He moved in 1891 to Naples to study painting at the Istituto of Fine Arts under cavaliere Giacomo di Chirico, then moved to Paris (1897-1903), London, and Rome for a number of years. In Naples, he frequented the...
Landscape of the cliffs at Amalfi. Signature on mounting paper. 15x21cm., ink. With photograph of same
Carlo Brancaccio, Atrani, 1898
From: In and around Amalfi. Walking tours towards the best of a World Heritage Site", by Olimpia Gargano
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