Naples View From the Scudillo 

Curator: Immediately striking, isn't it? The light seems almost to breathe through the whole piece. Editor: Yes, a wonderfully calm pastoral scene. We're looking at a watercolor titled "Naples View From the Scudillo." Saverio della Gatta, a Neapolitan artist, captured this cityscape, rendering it in subtle detail with what seems a touch of academic style and maybe some hints towards Neoclassicism. Curator: Note how della Gatta frames the distant cityscape. The arrangement creates a balanced but not symmetrical composition. This adds to the piece's sophisticated structural underpinning, don't you think? Editor: Structure is certainly present. The path is rendered as if it's actually winding around those building structures... but what of the everyday labor it pictures? See the figure herding those bovine creatures. How long might this have taken, how dirty might it have been? And notice that lone figure with a gun! Bandit or enforcer? The materials and production conditions that sustained such landscapes... they're easily overlooked. Curator: That's quite a contrast you're drawing, but I'm more interested in the serene effect of the cool palette, and the hazy definition of Naples in the distance. It gives the scene an ethereal, almost idealized quality. Editor: The materials themselves speak to different types of labor, you know. The ground pigments for the paint and the paper. Then we see that tree; imagine the process and tools to make that paper and the materials needed to make watercolor paint? Even in capturing the tranquility of Naples, there is an underlying commentary about work that can not be overlooked. Curator: I can respect that interpretation, while continuing to see the work foremost for its arrangement and use of color as a way to invoke that peacefulness of being that defines such idealized landscape painting. Editor: Indeed. It provides insight into both the visible and less obvious aspects of life and the relationship between city and its labor. Curator: Thank you. I feel like that insight allows one to contemplate the essence of Naples itself as presented by Della Gatta and to understand better his artistic practice in capturing that essence in the painting’s landscape. Editor: Thanks. Yes. That gaze helps you remember the reality it seeks to omit or obfuscate.