DOI Heft:
No. 215 (February, 1911)
DOI Artikel:Margaux, Adrian: A painter of Naples: Edoardo Dalbono
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20972#0062
Edoardo Dalbouo
Oak Trees of Vincennes, and four years later he
took patt in a municipal competition with a work
entitled The Excommunication of Manfred. It
was warmly commended by the judges, who lacked
the courage, however, to make an award to the
thirteen-year-old artist.
The placid, sunlit sea of the Bay of Naples is a
more or less important feature in many of Dalbono's
pictures. In one of them, The Song of the Sea, he has
done honour to the musical gift with which nature
has endowed his compatriots. The Neapolitans—
and especially those who live nearest to the sea-
are always very musical and poetic by nature.
Their songs are nearly always of their own crea-
tion, the compositions in point of musical taste
often being admirable. The women have nearly
always voices that are soft and well modulated,
and their musical ears very fine, with the result
that the occupations of their daily life, to say
nothing of the fete-days, are usually accompanied
by song. In The Song of the Sea Dalbono depicts
a joyous party afloat on the fete of La Madonna
de Piedgrotte, an occasion on which nothing but
the best music relating to the highest themes will
be sung.
To some of these pictures the artist has given a
touch of the mythological, but even this mythological
spirit has been inspired by the country itself. As
Dalbono says, in a place such as Naples, where
the souvenirs of times almost prehistoric abound,
the spirit of mythology has an influence which it
is difficult for those who live amidst more
entirely modern surroundings to understand fully.
One of the earliest works of this description
which he executed is The Legend of the Syrens,
which, after being exhibited in several Italian cities,
was purchased by a private collector, who eventu-
ally presented the work to the Academy of Fine
Arts at Naples. Dalbono was doubtless attracted
to this old classic theme because of its essential,
though often forgotten, connection with the origin
of Naples. The three syrens were placed by
Homer on the south-west coast of Italy, and,
according to the legend, when they drowned them-
selves because their spell had been broken by
Ulysses, Parthenone's body was recovered by the
Cumani, who built a tomb for her on the
seashore and dedicated the spot to a town which
bore her name until it was changed to Neapolis.
Dalbono's picture represents an Etruscan ship
with a carved and gilded figure-head, and
others that have been following it, stranded
on the rocks of Capri. The voyagers are about
to save themselves when they are entranced by the
voices of the syrens, who calmly await their prey.
In Dalbono's view the legend may be regarded as
having arisen from the enchanting beauty of the
scenery and the delightful softness of the air in
the neighbourhood of Naples and Sorrento.
In tone and colouring Dalbono is an apostle of
Claude and Turner, and to these masters he makes
the fullest acknowledgment. A. M.
"the song of the sea" by edoardo dalbono
40
Oak Trees of Vincennes, and four years later he
took patt in a municipal competition with a work
entitled The Excommunication of Manfred. It
was warmly commended by the judges, who lacked
the courage, however, to make an award to the
thirteen-year-old artist.
The placid, sunlit sea of the Bay of Naples is a
more or less important feature in many of Dalbono's
pictures. In one of them, The Song of the Sea, he has
done honour to the musical gift with which nature
has endowed his compatriots. The Neapolitans—
and especially those who live nearest to the sea-
are always very musical and poetic by nature.
Their songs are nearly always of their own crea-
tion, the compositions in point of musical taste
often being admirable. The women have nearly
always voices that are soft and well modulated,
and their musical ears very fine, with the result
that the occupations of their daily life, to say
nothing of the fete-days, are usually accompanied
by song. In The Song of the Sea Dalbono depicts
a joyous party afloat on the fete of La Madonna
de Piedgrotte, an occasion on which nothing but
the best music relating to the highest themes will
be sung.
To some of these pictures the artist has given a
touch of the mythological, but even this mythological
spirit has been inspired by the country itself. As
Dalbono says, in a place such as Naples, where
the souvenirs of times almost prehistoric abound,
the spirit of mythology has an influence which it
is difficult for those who live amidst more
entirely modern surroundings to understand fully.
One of the earliest works of this description
which he executed is The Legend of the Syrens,
which, after being exhibited in several Italian cities,
was purchased by a private collector, who eventu-
ally presented the work to the Academy of Fine
Arts at Naples. Dalbono was doubtless attracted
to this old classic theme because of its essential,
though often forgotten, connection with the origin
of Naples. The three syrens were placed by
Homer on the south-west coast of Italy, and,
according to the legend, when they drowned them-
selves because their spell had been broken by
Ulysses, Parthenone's body was recovered by the
Cumani, who built a tomb for her on the
seashore and dedicated the spot to a town which
bore her name until it was changed to Neapolis.
Dalbono's picture represents an Etruscan ship
with a carved and gilded figure-head, and
others that have been following it, stranded
on the rocks of Capri. The voyagers are about
to save themselves when they are entranced by the
voices of the syrens, who calmly await their prey.
In Dalbono's view the legend may be regarded as
having arisen from the enchanting beauty of the
scenery and the delightful softness of the air in
the neighbourhood of Naples and Sorrento.
In tone and colouring Dalbono is an apostle of
Claude and Turner, and to these masters he makes
the fullest acknowledgment. A. M.
"the song of the sea" by edoardo dalbono
40