Summer Evening, Landscape in Italy

This work was created in 1773, relatively late in Vernet's artistic career. The work is thought to be one part of a group of works that follow the 17th century Italian custom of creating a series of tableaux depicting the different hours of a single day. Another work created the same year entitled Morning has also been identified as the pendant to this work (present locataion unknown). The composition shows groups of figures bathing in a river in the dusk of a long summer day. The rocky cliff and trees that fill the right side of the composition and the river and bridge in the center of the image are all elements that appear again and again in Vernet's works. The townscape that forms the background of the work is not today a specifically identifiable site. Rather, it has been suggested that the scene is a compilation of several true views. Vernet was said to have actually painted outdoors from life during his stay in Italy, but as was suggested in the 18th century, he frequently reworked and reassembled favorite elements and motifs during his later years. The quiet balance of the overall composition closely resembles the Classicist landscapes of the 17th century, while the sense of solidity and mass found in several parts of the scene can also be taken as an indication of the Neo-classicism. The depiction of individual figures and natural phenomena exhibit Vernet's "naturalist" tendencies admired by Diderot. These elements form the foundation of the tradition of French landscape painting that would later influence Corot, the Barbizon school and the Impressionists. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no.55)