WTI Magazine #84    2016 October 17
Author : Enrico de Iulis      Translation by:

2016 marks the anniversary of the death of two artists linked to the war: in 1916, during a training exercise, the death of Umberto Boccioni, exponent of Italian Futurism; fifty years before, during the third war of independence, Ippolito Caffi died, and it is to him that is dedicated the article of this month.

Caffi was born in Belluno, but he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, where he was awarded for his ability in prospective yield, anticipating what will be one of his great skills. Following his cousin, who was also a painter, in Rome in 1832, Caffi became interested in view painting, thereby improving a technique that will take him to the highest levels of performance of the view.

After just one year Caffi opened a studio of his own, and began to travel throughout Italy to exhibit his art and to work on the several commissions received: among them the decoration of of the historic Caffè Pedrocchi in Padua. This continuous traveling, however, was not only the result of a fervent activity: Caffi had a restless, indomitable and patriotic character. So in 1848, at the beginning of the first war of independence, he enlisted and was taken prisoner, escaped and then spent ten years traveling throughout Europe never stopping painting.

When in 1860 Italy had already achieved its national unity, Caffi returned to Venice: even if the city will be annexed to the Italian state only six years after. Therefore, 1866 is an important and tragic year. It was in 1866 that, during the Battle of Lissa, the ship "Re d'Italia" was sunk. Caffi was shipped there to witness with sketches and drawings the naval maneuvers of the clash. He did not survive the sinking.

This nomadic and restless painter technically passed the point which was thought at his time as the highest ever reachable by view painting. Starting with the basics of Canaletto and Bellotto, two Venetian who Caffi studied well during his years at the academy, he developed an extreme sensitivity for a clear yield and a perspective with almost photographic results.

Caffi brought the view painting in modern times. Precisely thanks to a personality that loved challenges, he learned to paint the bright glow of the Middle East and the solid blue sky of Rome, being extremely impressed by a hot-air balloon trip over the city during the opening of his studio. He then created the fantastic nightlife so unusual for landscapes and the intermediate situations of sunrise and sunset where the painting shows the greatest variety of colors.

Caffi's wife donated all the paintings remained in his studio at the City of Venice, that normally keeps everything stored in Ca' Pesaro. On November 20 it will be possible to admire more than 150 of his paintings at Museo Correr, where, in occasion of the sesquicentennial of his death, a comprehensive exhibition with a more than exhaustive catalog will be organized. The name of Ippolito Caffi recently experienced an increasing fame on the antiques market, where it is still possible to find some of his work: his was the last contribution to view painting before the advent of photography.