Italian Landscape

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Italian Landscape

Artist Washington Allston (American, 1779-1843)

Date1814

DimensionsFrame: 51 × 79 5/8 × 3 3/4 in. (129.5 × 202.2 × 9.5 cm)
Canvas: 44 × 72 in. (111.8 × 182.9 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott

Object number

1949.113

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 29

Label TextAs a young artist in 1801, Washington Allston studied at London’s Royal Academy under American painter Benjamin West (see a painting by West nearby). He then lived for a time in Rome before returning to Boston in 1808. Allston painted Italian Landscape in England during a second stay in Europe (1811–18) as a remembrance and reverie of his time in Rome. He created an ideal, rather than real, image of the Italian countryside set in an imaginary distant past, with classically garbed peasants contemplating a rustic fountain. The ruins of temples and towers create a romantic, picturesque mood, while hinting at the ultimate futility of human endeavor. Allston’s sensibilities aligned with the Romantics (including his friends the English poets Samuel Coleridge and William Wordsworth), who gave preference to emotion, faith, and spirituality over rational intellect. They also idealized the freedom of Nature in contrast to the constraints of culture.Published ReferencesJameson, A., "Washington Allston," Atheneum, London, 1844, p. 16.

Richardson, E., Washington Allston, Chicago, 1948, pp. 111, 199, no. 85.

Gerdts, W., "Washington Allston and the German Romantic Classicists in Rome," Art Quarterly, XXXII, Summer 1969, p. 192, fig. 26.

Johns, E., "Washington Allston: The Artist as Philosopher," in The Paintings of Washington Allston, Lowe Art Museum, Miami, Fla., 1974, p. 14.

Bolton, K., "The Drawings of Washington Allston, A Catalogue Raisonné," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1977, in nos. 155, 156.

The Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, pp. 19-20, pl. 16.

Strickler, Susan E., "American paintings at the Toledo Museum of Art," Antiques, vol. 116, no. 5, Nov. 1979, p. 1112, repr. (col.) pl. III.

Wolf, Bryan Jay, Romantic Re-Vision, Chicago, 1982, p. 48, 52, repr. p. 49, and (det.) p. 53.

Vance, William L., America's Rome, New Haven, 1989, vol. 1, p. 110, fig. 40, pl. 7 (col.) after p. 196.

Eldredge, Charles Co., "Italy: images and ideas," in America: the New World in 19th Century Painting, Munich, 1999, p. 235, fig. 3, p. 236.

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 227, repr. (col.).

Exhibition HistoryLondon, Royal Academy of the Arts, 1814, no. 248 (as A Landscpe: Italian Scenery).

Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, Travelers in Arcadia: American Artists in Italy 1830-1875, 1951, no. 2, repr.

New York, Wildenstein, Landmarks in American Art 1670-1950, 1953, no. 10. repr.

Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, American Classics of the Nineteenth Century, 1957, no. 6.

Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, "A Man of Genius": The Art of Washington Allston, 1979, no. 31, repr. (col.), p. 66, p. 81, 84, 87, 88, 90, 92, 144.

Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA. 1979-1980.

New York, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, American Paintings from the Toledo Museum of Art, 1986.

Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum; Washington, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Views and Visions, 1986-1987, p. 230, 231, pl. 2, (col.).

Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, The Lure of Italy, 1992-1993, no. 11, p. 174-175, repr. (col.).