Florence in Spring, c.1898. Oil on canvas; 503/8 x 825/8 inches (128 x 210 cm). Collection of The Box, Plymouth City Council, accession no. PLYMG.LO.14.
Florence in Spring was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1898, no. 922. F. G. Stephens, the critic of The Athenaeum was impressed by the style and grandeur of this painting “Mr. Corbett has displayed all his fine sense of style in depicting Florence (922) in rainy, lowering weather, when gleams of light are flying over the grassy meadows. The purple hills have the grandeur which has often impressed us in his pictures and those of his model, Signor Costa” (573).
The painting depicts a view from Bellosguardo hill towards Florence in the distance, which is dominated by the Duomo, the Cathedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, in the centre. Trees, including flowering trees with their pink-white flowers, dominate the green foreground. Corbet has chosen to portray a dreary overcast day in Florence, the clouds suggesting a rainstorm in the distance. Both Florence and the hills are painted in an almost monochromatic purple-blue colour adding to the sombre atmosphere. The year previously in 1897 Corbet had painted Spring at Bellosguardo, a quite different composition painted in the sunshine with flowers and flowering trees in the foreground. The background in this work was of open countryside, although still with an expanse of hills in the far distance.
Bibliography
Stephens, Frederic George. “The Royal Academy.” The Athenaeum No. 3679 (April 30, 1898): 571-74.
[Click on the image to enlarge it.]Links to related material
- Distant View of the Carrera Mountains by Edith Corbet
- Giovanni Costa
- Victorian Landscape Painting in Context
Created 19 December 2022