The Carrera Mountains, Sunrise, c.1890. Oil on panel, 87/8 x 193/4 inches (22.5 x 50.0 cm). Private Collection. Photo courtesy of Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries. Click on image to enlarge it.
Richmond visited Italy in the winter of 1865-6 intending to study Renaissance painting and architecture, but he soon became struck by the beauty of the Italian landscape. He wrote of the Campagna and its different moods: “The glad, gay morning; the solemn, shadowless midday, white with the full glory of light - silver and glistening, silent and drowsy, when the body is inactive and seeks shade from the perpendicular rays, throbbing in the pale blue - a time when the gods sleep and the shepherds speak low lest they should be wakened, when even the birds are silent” (Newall 19-20). This appreciation of the landscape of the Campagna cemented the friendship between Richmond and Costa. Richmond wrote of his respect for his teacher: ”This I should like to say – if what I have painted in landscape has any merit, it is largely due to the early influence of Giovanni Costa” (Agresti 132).
The Carrera Mountains, Sunrise is a classic Etruscan landscape painted in the early morning while fog still envelopes the distant landscape. The details of the foreground are hazy in this misty atmosphere. Hills and mountains stretch across the entire composition in the background.
Bibliography
Agresti, Olivia Rossetti. Giovanni Costa, his life, work, and times. London: Gay, 1907.
Newall, Christopher. The Etruscans: Painters of the Italian Landscape 1850-1900. Stoke on Trent City Museum and Art Gallery, 1989.
Last modified 19 December 2022