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View of the Villa Falconieri Gardens in Frascati, B87
Ole Woldbye
Ole Woldbye

  • Production Date

    1810

  • Type of Work / Object

    Painting

Explanation

  • Chauvin aims at the greatest possible harmony in his paintings. He was born in Paris and became a pupil of the landscape painter P.-H. Valenciennes, who by virtue of his book “Éléments de perspective pratique” was of great importance to the development of European landscape painting. As the title suggests, Valenciennes in his book stresses the importance of perspective, and Chauvin’s three paintings in Thorvaldsen’s collection with motifs from the area around Rome adhere to the most stringent rules of linear perspective. The actual natural shapes – trees and bushes – appear to have been cut in accordance with lines pointing towards the pictures’ perspective vanishing point. With virtuoso skill, the painter has placed this point precisely where the jets from the fountain reach their highest point. Chauvin arrived in Rome in 1804 and lived there to his death in 1832. His classicist landscapes, with their beautiful light, their mellow atmosphere and elevated mood became very popular in his day. The painter C.W. Eckersberg was one of Chauvin’s most important Danish admirers. In a letter from Rome to his painter friend J.P. Møller, Eckersberg wrote of Chauvin: “His use of colour, his distant backgrounds, in brief everything, reflect such perfection as I have never seen before.”

Motif / Theme