Getty Museum
View of Gaiola
Creator
Pierre-Jacques VolaireFrench Artist · 1729–1799
All works by this person →Pierre-Jacques Volaire came from a well-known family of painters in Toulon; his father was the city's official painter. Called *le chevalier Volaire* (knight Volaire), his career really began in 1754, when Joseph Vernet arrived, sent by Louis XV to paint French ports. Vernet took Volaire as his assistant, and they traveled together for eight years. Volaire was strongly influenced by Vernet's sharp
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1770–1790
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Culture
- French
- Department
- Paintings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Pierre-Jacques Volaire's sensitivity to detail enriches this study of a "modern" villa built on the site of ancient Roman ruins. Volaire's scene recalls the *fête galante,* a fanciful vision of well-dressed men and women enjoying themselves in the open air popularized by Antoine Watteau earlier in the century. Volaire's fluent execution and lyricism fit his subject's romantic, light-hearted subject. The groups of figures are differentiated by subtle variations, from silhouetting the figures in the boat on the left to illuminating the fishmongers and their customers in the center. By the time he painted this picture, Volaire, who settled in Naples in 1769, had become a one-man assembly line for paintings of Mount Vesuvius in moonlight. These theatrical works exemplified the eighteenth century's fascination with the sublime: a noble and lofty feeling of awe inspired by natural phenomena.
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