A Study on the Archaeological Landscape-painting of the 18th century: Focusing on the Capriccio of Giovanni Paolo Pannini
Capriccio which has emersed in Italy of the 18th century is a new genre of the landscape painting. This genre represents reality, but it is very artificial product correspondingly its concept and character. It's birth place is distributed on various regions in Italy, but the main stage was Rome. Till the middle of the 18th century Rome was the Holy city of the Grand tour, the home of the Neo-Classicism and furthermore the field where archaeology and art history began to be instituted. On such historical situation the Capriccio came out and was recognized as the best popular genre in the visual art. It was favor of the art collection with the antiquity together and reflected the consciousness of the contemporary to the ancient. This study will examine the phenomena in the newly-developed archaeology and with few representative works of Giovanni Paolo Pannini as central term consider the Capriccio and the archaeological connotation. The systematical and institutional archeology which appeared at the age of the Enlightenment, on the contrary to the critical theories at the same time against capriccio, because it was regarded by them as paradoxical and too much sensitive, utilized it as a theoretical method very actively. Some among Historians and archaeologists did it, especially Francesco Bianchini distinguished the capriccio from simple imagination and made it a capacity of the knowledge. And through it he wanted to find out the historical truth. The visual art was influenced and encouraged by such attitude of the archaeology. However it's output spreaded out in various courses. While Giovanni Battista Piranesi, the best known Capriccist of the 18th century, tried to revive the antique through the epical value and his own imagination, Pannini gave priority to the strict historical research. In the such context Panni succeed Giovanni Battista Nolli who made the great map of the city Rome. Their Capriccio profited motive and was inspired by the historians and archaeologists such as Bianchini and Muratori. The Capriccio reflects not only the academic and popular interest for the antique, but also influenced on the upcoming scientific archaeology vice versa. It caused by their reasonable Interpretation and restoration of the antique through the visual medium. Finally as archaeological landscape Pannini's Capriccio is a historical case, in that the Capriccio applied the theoretical method of the archaeology to make art. It served as a momentum for the connotation to the archaeological thought.