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Pitloo: the Castel dell'Ovo
That changed when Anton Sminck Pitloo
(1790-1837), a Dutch painter, moved to Naples, became a lecturer at the
Art Academy in Naples and opened a
studio in the Chiaia section of town. He gathered around him a number
of others painters to found what is now called the “Posillipo
School”—that is, landscape painting done en plein air (outdoors) in natural
lighting, works with a more spontaneous, lively and lighter approach,
and one that used light and colors in ways that anticipated
Impressionism later in the century.
Gigante: Amalfi
The foremost of the Posillipo school is
conceded to be one of Pitloo’s students, Giacinto Gigante (1806-1876).
His early experience was with the Neapolitan Royal Topographic Office,
the office that turned out maps. That interest stayed with him
throughout his life; he worked on the engravings for the well-known Viaggio pittorico nel regno delle due
Sicilie [Paintings of a Trip in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies]
published in the early 1830s. He also became somewhat the court painter
for members of the Russian aristocracy during their visits to Naples in
the 1840s. Gigante did exhibit briefly in Paris but generally did not
travel much. Most of his works are of the areas in or near Naples. A
substantial amount of Gigante’s work is in the collections of the
museums at Capodimonte and San Martino. There are occasional
exhibitions on the Posillipo School, the most recent one in 2006 at the
Villa Pignatelli. other artists/paintings: |
After 1815 and the
end of the Napoleonic Wars, there grew up in Naples a school of
painting much different from that at the Bourbon court of the late
1700s.
That art was typified, say, by the works of Jakob P. Hackert
(1737-1807), the German who became court painter of 
The name