My first Publication CAMUCCINI GB - Magic Land-db_compressed | Page 8

il pittore Thomas Jones, allievo di Richard Wilson e ritrovato astro
del moderno paesismo che, diportandosi e dipingendo tra Frascati
e Genzano, insieme ai sodali William Miller e Robert Home, così
rifletteva nel dicembre 1776: «Proseguimmo per Marino, dove
trovammo la fiera, e costeggiando il lago di Albano, attraverso
Castel Gandolfo e Ariccia, giungemmo a Genzano verso sera.
Questo percorso è considerato da scienziati, naturalisti, archeologi
e artisti il più piacevole e interessante del mondo; tocca infatti zone
particolarissime, luoghi segnati dai più tremendi sconvolgimenti
naturali della storia, impreziositi da opere d’arte antiche e moderne
nonché da panorami sempre diversi e meravigliosi. Non posso
fare a meno di riconoscere le emozioni nuove e straordinarie che
provai nell’attraversare per la prima volta queste terre bellissime e
pittoresche. Era come se ogni scena mi fosse già apparsa in sogno.
Sembrava un paese incantato. Avevo copiato tanti studi che il
grande Richard Wilson, il mio vecchio maestro, aveva disegnato
in quella e in altre parti d’Italia che, in modo quasi impercettibile,
il paesaggio italiano mi era diventato familiare. Mi ero insomma
innamorato di quei panorami, e credo di aver gustato piaceri ignoti
ai miei compagni». 3 Il testo originale recita «It appeared Magick
Land»: il geniale gallese aveva intuito le vaghissime singolarità di
questi luoghi e ne aveva, per il piacer nostro e le sorti dell’arte,
fissato il ricordo nel proprio Diario e immortalato i tratti in
testi pittorici che attingeranno il vertice sotto il cielo e la luce di
Nicolas-Didier Boguet, Veduta del lago di Albano dalla Galleria di Sopra,
matita, carboncino, biacca su carta cilestrina, mm 452 x 597, Roma,
Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, inv. F.N. 5710 a, D, c.84
6
previously witnessed the presence of the greatest figures in the field
of en plein air painting. Where Giovanni Battista’s temperament
is concerned, we can turn most profitably to the painter Thomas
Jones, a pupil of Richard Wilson and a rediscovered genius of
modern landscape painting who, living life to the full and
painting in the area around Frascati and Genzano in the company
of his friends William Miller and Robert Home, had this to say
in December 1776: «We then continued Our route through
Marino, where there happened to be a fair, and skirting the Lake
of Albano, passed through, Castello Gondolfo, L’arici and arrived
at Gensano in the Evening – This walk considered with respect
to its classick locality, the Awful marks of the most tremendous
Convulsions of nature in the remotest Ages, the antient and
modern Specimens of Art, and the various extensive & delightful
prospects it commands is, to the Scholar, naturalist, Antiquarian
and Artist, without doubt, the most pleasing and interesting in
the Whole World – And here I can not help observing with what
new and uncommon Sensations I was filled on my first traversing
this beautiful and picturesque Country – Every scene seemed
anticipated in some dream – It appeared Magick Land – In fact I
had copied so many Studies of that great Man, & my Old Master,
Richard Wilson, which he had made here as in Other parts of
Italy, that I insensibly became familiarized with Italian Scenes,
and enamoured of Italian forms, and, I suppose injoyed pleasures
unfelt by my Companions» 3 . The original text uses the words: «It
appeared Magick Land»: This genial Welshman had glimpsed the
uniquely dreamlike quality of the area and, for our pleasure and
for the future of art, had set down his perceptions in his Diary
and captured its features in a style of painting that was to reach
its acme under the sky and the light of Naples. We might add to
this his thoroughly northern European amazement, already jaded
by the advance of industry, on beholding a numinous world, a
mysterious combination of reality, “magic” and myth such as
that of Diana Nemorensis, the hues and the light of the air, the
unfamiliar colours of the sky whose praises Shelley and Byron
were to sing in their poetry: an earthly paradise, the world on
the sixth day of creation or the world of the Bible in the vision of
Joseph Anton Koch. A shapeless rock struck by the sun’s fiery rays
and shrouded in a tangle of vegetation, such as that portrayed by
Giovanni Battista Camuccini in plate 10, acquired the features
of a novelty in the northern European eye, a slice of nature never