On the River Tiber, near Acquacetosa. c.1858-70. Watercolour on paper; 10 x 17½ inches (25.4 X 44.4 cm). Collection of Victoria and Albert Museum, accession no. 1798-1888. Click on image to enlarge it.
J. C. Richmond, writing Moore’s obituary in The Art Journal in 1880, remarked about his Italian landscapes:
The year 1858 began with a journey to Rome, and there, under the influence of the Roman Campagna, he executed a series of watercolour drawings remarkable not only for their poetic conception, but for their breadth and dignified simplicity of treatment…It is not easy to estimate, or to illustrate by words, the charm these works possess. Great realism they certainly do not contain; glitter of sunshine, catching effects of light and shade, were not present in them. The unrefined and uncultivated critic found little to prompt big words and sensational epithets in Moore’s modest poems. While no fidelity to fact was wanting, while truth and consistency of effect were insisted on, we fail to be ever offended in any way by prosaic or uncultivated rendering of nature. Indeed, so delicate and so refined was Moore’s perception of colour, and his affection being mainly set upon nature in her most modest form, it can hardly be wondered that but a small public had the privilege of deriving pleasure from his landscape work. [348]
On the River Tiber, near Acquacetosa is an excellent example of Moore’s Etruscan watercolours with its broad horizontal format, muted colours, and ridge of purple-blue mountains along the horizon. The large mountain to the far left in Mount Soracte. The Tiber River is portrayed making its winding course through the plains. A man and his dog sit on the banks of the river in the right foreground. The Campagna was not heavily populated because its inhabitants could be ravaged by malaria. This particular view of the river and its environs was popular with artists from all over Europe in the 19th century including Corot and Leighton.
Bibliography
Richmond, J. C. “Obituary John Collingham Moore.” The Art Journal New Series XIX (1880): 348.
Last modified 18 December 2022