Capriccio with the Coliseum

The subject

In painting, the term Capriccio refers to a fanciful landscape composition in which existing or famous monuments (the Coliseum in this case) are inserted in a completely imaginary setting with no similarity to real geography. Invented entirely by the artist, these works depict idyllic landscapes and aim purely to delight the observers, rather than educating them.

 The perfect setting to let your imagination run free.

The painting

The compositional structure of this landscape consists of the typical formal elements that characterize all of Paolo Anesi’s work: the two mighty trees in the foreground serve as theatrical scenery, directing the gaze towards an idyllic countryside, enlivened with the peaceful and silent presence of several farmers who are depicted by the painter with delightful and refined realism and harmoniously inserted in a natural setting, in which the majestic silhouette of the Coliseum rises and stretches toward the outlines of the mountains in the distance.

This landscape evokes a remote world, distant in time and space from the centre of the real city of Rome, a place where Anesi lived for almost his entire life, aside from a short interlude in Florence.