My thesis focuses on the work of German painters in Italy c.l770-1800, and addresses issues raised by their complex relationship with the 17th century Italianate landscape tradition. Jakob Philipp Hackert (1737-1807), Johann Christian Reinhart (1761-1847), and Joseph Anton Koch (1768- 1839) worked in Italy precisely because they considered themselves to be the inheritors of the 17th century landscape style of Claude, Dughet, Rosa, and Nicolas Poussin. But while the German paintings do resemble the earlier works, they also revise the 17th century programme of representing Ideal nature. They are more detailed and precise in their depiction of natural phenomena; they also represent natural events and sites not included in the traditional canon. Extrapolating from 18th century critical terminology, I have developed the term "particularity" to focus attention on this unprecedented attention to the details of nature. I argue that the late 18th century German landscapes revise the Italianate landscape tradition so that it embodies particularity, and that the impetus for this change comes from two contemporary sources: natural history -- especially the nascent sciences of geology and biology -- and art theory. My argument is divided into three sections. In the first, I establish the existence and visual characteristics of particularity first by contrasting 17th century versions of the famous cascades at Tivoli (by Claude, Dughet, and others) with depictions of the same site by late 18th century German artists, and second, by describing the new sites which were explored and depicted by Hackert, Reinhart, and Koch. In the third and final chapter of this section, I discuss in detail the relationship of landscape depiction and natural science in a specific case: the scientific landscape illustrations by Pietro Fabris for Sir William Hamilton's Campi Phlegraei: Observations on the Volcanos of the Two Sicilies (1776). The involvement of British, German and French landscape painters with discoveries in contemporary natural history is vividly exemplified by Hamilton's book. In the second section, I consider the features of German natural history and art theory c.1770-l800 which encouraged and shaped landscape painting. In two separate chapters I examine the ways in which Herder, Kant, and Goethe contributed significantly to each of these areas of thought. The relation between particular and universal, I argue, is fundamental to both natural history and art theory at this time, and the particular is emphasized in both disciplines. In the third section, I take up the implications for landscape depiction of this emphasis on particularity by focusing on specific contacts between German landscape artists and ideas from natural history and art theory.

Thesis (M.A.)--New York University. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Inaug.-Diss.--Erlangen. / "Literatur": p. 70-72.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

La Provence n’est pas une destination traditionnellement associée avec la peinture allemande. Pourtant, cette région attire les peintres déjà au siècle des Lumières. Les vestiges romains et le souvenir de Pétrarque en font une étape du Grand Tour ainsi que du Kavalierstour. Les artistes allemands, si nombreux à aller en Italie, commencent aussi à remarquer le sud de la France. Les raisons qui les poussent à entreprendre ce voyage sont variées : pour les peintres au XVIIIe siècle, comme Jakob Philipp Hackert, il s’agit d’une escale en route vers l’Italie qui donne déjà un avant-goût de la péninsule. Johann Georg von Dillis et Ludwig Richter se rendent en Provence au début du XIXe siècle dans le cadre d’un voyage princier. Puis, au milieu du siècle, Johann Wilhelm Schirmer choisit consciemment de parcourir le sud de la France et découvre alors une nature différente de celle de l’Italie. Cette étude a pour but d’établir un corpus d’œuvre, permettant à la fois de documenter la présence d’artistes allemands en Provence, mais aussi de dégager les motivations derrière le voyage, et de montrer comment leur perception de la nature provençale évolue du XVIIIe au XIXe siècle. Ce travail propose une analyse de la place de cette région dans l’histoire artistique, culturelle et littéraire et examine les sources littéraires et visuelles dont les artistes allemands avaient pu avoir connaissance. Les différents cas d’artistes étudiés montrent l’évolution du regard artistique allemand sur la Provence et illustrent la difficulté de faire entrer ce territoire dans les canons de l’époque ce qui s’exprime particulièrement dans la peinture allemande. / Provence is not a destination traditionally associated with German painting. Yet, this region has attracted painters from the eighteenth century onwards. Roman remains and the memory of Petrarch make it a stop on the Grand Tour and on the Kavalierstour. German artists, who were going to Italy in large numbers, paid increasing attention to the South of France by the end of the eighteenth century. The reasons that motivated them to undertake such a voyage were varied: for painters such as Jakob Philip Hackert, it is a station on the way to Italy that gives them a foretaste of the peninsula. Johann Georg von Dillis and Ludwig Richter go to the South of France at the beginning of the nineteenth century as part of princely travels. Then, in the middle of the century, Johann Wilhelm Schirmer makes the conscious decision of touring Provence in search of natural scenery different from Italy’s. The present study aims to establish a body of work documenting the presence of German artists in the South of France, and also to identify what motivated the journey, in order to demonstrate how their perception of Provence evolved from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. The aim is to analyze the place of this region in artistic, cultural and literary history, and to identify the visual and literary sources that German artists could rely on during their voyage. The different case studies serve to demonstrate the evolution of the Germanic artistic gaze on Provence, and to illustrate the difficult entry of this territory into the canons of the period, which is particularly notable in the context of German painting.