DOI chapter:
Chapter X: Paestum
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.59000#0387
Naples
Maiori is not so poor as Amalfi, and the people are
not so incurably idle. The macaroni trade, which was
once almost entirely Amalfian, seems to have drifted
hither in a small measure. Instead of having rows
of fishing-boats and nets, the shore is often seen com-
pletely spread over with sheets of the fine “ spaghetti,”
too fragile to bear hanging out to dry. It looks as
though the gray sands had turned to deeper gold in
the hot sun.
After Maiori is passed the road winds up the
mountain, curving ever in and out till another tower,
the great tower of Cetara, comes in sight. This
stands over a little fishing town, poor, but too
primitive to know the misery of larger towns. Its
inhabitants are still unspoiled by travellers, and are
as industrious as the failing fishing trade allows. It
is to artists that this place is dear,—who have for
ages painted enthusiastically its humble beach and
eccentric tower,—and among the oldest paintings of
the south by foreign painters are found pictures of
Cetara. It is a curious fact that places remind one
of pictures far more often than pictures remind one
of places. “ Nature,” as Whistler quaintly said, “ is
creeping up.” The whole scene is typical of the
days of Claude Lorraine, the days when Nature was
painted from the purely fantastic rather than from
the realistic point of view. For there is something
wildly imaginative in the whole construction of this
densely-crowded shore loaded with wave-washed boats,
with complicated houses piled against the rocks, and
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Maiori is not so poor as Amalfi, and the people are
not so incurably idle. The macaroni trade, which was
once almost entirely Amalfian, seems to have drifted
hither in a small measure. Instead of having rows
of fishing-boats and nets, the shore is often seen com-
pletely spread over with sheets of the fine “ spaghetti,”
too fragile to bear hanging out to dry. It looks as
though the gray sands had turned to deeper gold in
the hot sun.
After Maiori is passed the road winds up the
mountain, curving ever in and out till another tower,
the great tower of Cetara, comes in sight. This
stands over a little fishing town, poor, but too
primitive to know the misery of larger towns. Its
inhabitants are still unspoiled by travellers, and are
as industrious as the failing fishing trade allows. It
is to artists that this place is dear,—who have for
ages painted enthusiastically its humble beach and
eccentric tower,—and among the oldest paintings of
the south by foreign painters are found pictures of
Cetara. It is a curious fact that places remind one
of pictures far more often than pictures remind one
of places. “ Nature,” as Whistler quaintly said, “ is
creeping up.” The whole scene is typical of the
days of Claude Lorraine, the days when Nature was
painted from the purely fantastic rather than from
the realistic point of view. For there is something
wildly imaginative in the whole construction of this
densely-crowded shore loaded with wave-washed boats,
with complicated houses piled against the rocks, and
182