Seascape with Monte Pellegrino

Signed lower right: “F. Lojacono”

Francesco Lojacono, a painter from Palermo born in 1838, is considered the leading interpreter of the Sicilian landscape between the 19th and 20th centuries. Technical mastery, formal research, rigorous adherence to natural reality and a marked sensitivity in modulating light and colour are the qualities that earned him the epithet ‘painter of the sun’ and wide acclaim on the European art scene.

Seascape with Monte Pellegrino, a large horizontal canvas, is bathed in a clear, diffused light and features one of the artist’s most beloved motifs: a placid, open coastal expanse dotted with rocky outcrops, from which the unmistakable silhouette of Monte Pellegrino, the symbol of the city of Palermo, emerges in the background. Described as “the most beautiful promontory in the world”[1] by Goethe, it has been a very popular subject in the seascapes of European painters since the days of the Grand Tour, from Hackert to Catel to Hayez, who placed it in the background of I Vespri Siciliani. With a relaxed and expert touch, Lojacono frequently depicts the spectacle of the Gulf of Palermo with Monte Pellegrino, remaining faithful to the theme without ever becoming monotonous. In fact, he always presents it in a different way, with the skilful inclusion of details such as fishermen, children on the beach or small boats sailing on the calm waters.

In this case, the view is charged with brilliant atmospheric and luminous effects, clearly visible among the green algae and rocky formations close to the beach, up to the chromatic fullness of the waves, the mist surrounding the mountain and pervading the opposite shore, and the sky streaked with clouds. The clear and confident approach with which Lojacono tackled this leitmotif from the 1880s to the early 1900s made him one of the most brilliant and elegant chroniclers of the Gulf of Palermo, having perfectly captured its constantly changing environment. This canvas, comparable to other paintings with similar subjects, should therefore be placed in this period of full artistic maturity, in which the painter relies on light and full, colourful brushstrokes to give a realistic but not rigorous description of the rocks and waters in the foreground, leading to the deep, textured blues of the sea and the distant mists rendered with rare delicacy. Lojacono enlivens the landscape by creating a perfect balance between human presence and nature and knowing how to describe its changing reality, at times in a more analytical manner, at times in a more synthetic manner, giving us a wide-ranging view of Monte Pellegrino and the port of Palermo as seen from Sant’Erasmo.

[1] J. W. Von Goethe, Italian Journey: 1786-1788, translated by Eugenio Zaniboni (1871-1926). Florence, Sansoni, 1959, p. 236.