Giuseppe De Nittis: An Italian Perspective on Parisian City- scape, 1867-1884

In 1867 Giuseppe de Nittis (1846-1884), a Neapolitan-trained artist, joined the ranks of many other Italian artists by leaving his native land and attempting to situate himself within the opulent and cosmopolitan French capital. Over the next five years he, like his compatriots, pursued the most efficacious manner in which to find acceptance within officially-acceptable Parisian artistic circles. following the trend for eighteenth-century costume paintings preferred by the artistic market, he abandoned his early naturalistic experiments and adopted the style then being practiced by the popular Meissonier and Gerome. Following the tumult of the Franco-Prussian war and the Commune which ensued, de Nittis permanently settled in the French capital. Breaking with the official artistic world to which he'd first adhered, he returned to his earlier love of naturalistic depictions and, not surprisingly, began to approach the Parisian cityscape. His oeuvre from the 1870s includes an enormous number of works devoted to both the city as well as its inhabitants. What distinguishes the Parisian views he created from those concurrently produced is their concentration on those areas of the city most affected by these years of torment and destruction now under construction as part of the grandiose effort toward the restoration of Paris' former glory. The areas the artist chose as focus, as well as the type of "Parisien" he featured, indicate de Nittis' interest in not only capturing the flavor of the bourgeois Paris which came to fore in post-Haussmannian Paris, but also becoming part of this milieu. Throughout his Parisian career de Nittis strove to gain acceptance not as a foreigner, but rather, as a true "Parisien". His efforts to assimilate within the most elite circles are indicated by the organization of Parisian soirees in his home as well as the cultivation of friendships with particularly prominent members of the Parisian avant-garde. Although such attempts achieved for him unprecedented acceptance by the French, despite his foreign status, they simultaneously resulted in his alienation from Italian confreres who felt that he had abandoned their campaign to revive the reputation of modern Italian painting.