 |
| Johan Zoffany Charles Towneley in his Sculpture Gallery, London 1782 oil on canvas Art Gallery and Museum, Burnley |
"Many are disappointed at the nullity of art. Many try to pump life or space into the confusion that surrounds art. An incurable optimism like a mad dog rushes into the vacuum that the art suggests. A dread of voids and blanks brings on a horrible anticipation. Everybody wonders what art is, because there never seems to be any around. Many feel coldly repulsed by concrete unrealities, and demand some kind of proof or at least a few facts. Facts seem to ease the disappointment. But quickly those facts are exhausted and fall to the bottom of the mind. This mental relapse is incessant and tends to make our aesthetic view stale. Nothing is more faded than aesthetics. As a result, painting, sculpture and architecture are finished, but the art habit continues."
– from An Aesthetics of Disappointment, an essay by Robert Smithson, 1966
 |
| Jan van der Heyden Corner of a Study 1711 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemsiza, Madrid |
 |
| Giovanni Battista Pittoni Sacrifice of Polyxena 1730s oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
 |
| Andrea Locatelli Landscape with Nymphs and Satyrs 1720s oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
 |
| Giuseppe Zocchi Arno River at Santa Trinità Bridge, Florence ca. 1741 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
 |
| Canaletto Riva degli Schiavone, Venice 1724-30 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
 |
| Claude-Joseph Vernet Coastal view with rainbow 1749 oil on canvas private collection |
"Direct your gaze at another sea, and you'll see serenity and the full complement of its charms; tranquil, smooth, smiling waters stretching into the distance, their transparency diminishing and their surface gloss increasing all imperceptibly as the eye moves out from the shore to the point at which the horizon meets the sky; the ships are immobile, sailors and passengers alike indulge in whatever diversions might outwit their impatience. If it's morning, what hazy vapors rise! How they refresh and revivify the objects of nature! It it's evening, how profoundly the mountain peaks sleep! How nuanced are the colors of the sky! How wonderfully the clouds move and advance, casting the hues with which they're colored into the water! Go into the countryside, direct your gaze towards the sky, note carefully the phenomena of that single instant, and you'll swear a patch of the great luminous canvas lit by the sun has been cut away and transferred to the artist's easel; or close your hand, make a tube of it through which you can see only a small segment of the large canvas, and you'll swear it's a picture by Vernet that's been taken from his easel and moved into the heavens. While of all our painters he's the most prolific, he's the one that makes me work the least."
– from the Salon of 1765 by Denis Diderot, translated by John Goodman
 |
| Pierre-Jacques Volaire Eruption of Vesuvius by Moonlight 1771 oil on canvas private collection |
 |
| Apollonio Domenichini Piazza del Pantheon, Rome ca. 1750 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
 |
| Giuseppe Cades Meeting of Gautier, Count of Antwerp and his daughter, Violante ca. 1787 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Donato Creti Perseus and Andromeda 1710s oil on canvas private collection |
 |
| Jean François de Troy Jason and Medea in the Temple of Jupiter ca. 1745 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
 |
| Giacomo Ceruti Group of Beggars ca. 1737 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bronemisza, Madrid |
 |
| Piat Joseph Sauvage Bacchanalia of Children ca. 1790 oil on canvas Louvre |