Michele Pagano, Large Landscape Painting. Oil On Canvas, Naples, 18th Century

MICHELE PAGANO
(Naples, 1697 - after 1750)Landscape with FiguresSigned on the rocks, lower center, M PaganoOil on canvas, 126.4 x 205 cm
The light and airy atmosphere, the calm composition of the landscape, the delicate chromatic harmony, and the luminosity suggest an eighteenth-century style. The marked Arcadian emotion of Roman origins demonstrates the artist's familiarity with the pictorial texts of the Roman landscape movement pioneered by Gaspard Dughet. However, observing the figures and the atmospheric rendering, the artist's research points to the Neapolitan School, particularly the examples of Michele Pagano. A pupil of Raimondo De Dominici, Pagano was credited with emancipating himself from the landscape painters of the early eighteenth century, who were still stuck in the Baroque tradition. The spirit of his art is distinctly eighteenth-century, evident in the delicate lighting choices, the careful definition of the trees, and the balanced composition. The artist creates a truly Rosian picturesque, in the vein of Gaetano Martoriello, combining Arcadian rationalism with the demands of rococo decoration (Spinosa 1986), where nature is idealized within the confines of a studio, conceived or dreamed based on literary images.
References:N. Spinosa, Pittura Napoletana del Settecento, dal Barocco al Rococò, Naples 1986, pp. 96, 172-173, nos. 334-337R. Muzi, Michele Pagano, in Landscape Painting in Italy. The Eighteenth Century, edited by A. Ottani Cavina and E. Calbi, Milan 2005, pp. 268-270