ArcHistoR Architettura Storia Restauro: Architecture History Restoration (Jul 2019)
Corigliano and Cosenza in the Views of Claude-Louis Châtelet and Louis-Charles Desprez. From the Artist’s Time to Current Times
Abstract
Among the images depicting Calabria collected in the third volume of the Voyage Pittoresque (published in 1783), ten are dedicated to the Valle of Crati, in the Sibari Piana. They constitute the most prominent corpus of representations referring to a defined area. The comparison between the eight engravings drawn by Claude-Louis Châtelet and Louis-Jean Desprez highlight the different backgrounds of the two artists and the different ways of representing the landscape: faithfully by the second but more independenlyt by the former, who was influenced by the pre-Romantic aesthetics of the picturesque. The images of Châtelet and Desprez represent the first systematic iconographic comparison of this Northern part of Calabria and as such they were interpreted by Saint-Non in the written work Voyage, which, in turn, is the result of an editorial adaptation of the Diary of Denon (published only in 1785-1786) without any reference. This essay uses both text s as comparative guides for analyses and understanding of the persistence or transformation of natural landscapes and architectur.
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