Henri Harpignies

Although he is often classified as an artist of the Barbizon school, Harpignies did not retreat to the town and its forest to work. He did, however, take up the landscape as his principal subject. He was influenced substantially by the work of Jean Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), whose rendering of nature and light effects, especially in his Italian subjects, shaped Harpignies' aesthetic. He worked alongside the Dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819-1891), an elder cohort of the impressionists, who frequently employed watercolor on a large scale. Harpignies' first trip to Rome was at the outset of his career, in 1850-51; it was then that he began to use watercolor. Returning to France, he initially exhibited at the Salon in 1853 and would continue to do so regularly until 1912.
Harpignies left Paris for Italy a second time after his submissions to the annual Salon in 1863 were rejected. There his style matured, and he returned to exhibit at the Salon again, earning medals in 1866, 1868, and 1869. He was awarded the silver medal in 1878 for his view of the Colosseum (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), reflecting the continued importance of Italian subjects to his work. Jules-Antoine Castagnary charted Harpignies' progress at the Salon, and in 1868 rejoiced that “Harpignies is not only the excellent landscapist that you know, he is also one of the most renowned among our watercolorists” (Castagnary 1892, vol 1, p. 319). The artist executed this large watercolor in 1869, long after his return to Paris, at the height of his newfound success, and a year before he would enter military service during the Franco-Prussian War. It must have been based on an earlier sketch done in Rome and suggests the lasting impact of the experience on Harpignies' career. In fact, he faithfully repressed the composition in another watercolor nearly a decade later.
The panoramic view of the ruins and surrounding city unfolds over the broad horizontal of the sheet. It is taken from the grassy rise of the Palatine Hill, emerging from the woods on a path terminating in rocks and brush. At the edge of nature there is a vista of the ruined fourteenth-century Basilica of Maxentius (also known as the Basilica of Constantine) embraced by the encroaching houses and dazzling in the brilliant sunlight. The basilica was begun by Maxentius in A.D. 308 and completed by Constantine after he defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in A.D. 312. The ruins of the Roman Forum, including the basilica, with its massive arcades, were a favorite subject of artists in Rome from Giovanni Battista Piranesi to Corot. Harpignies's framed views of the Colosseum also depict the ruins from the wooded fringe of the city.