The Cascade; an Alpine Landscape with Soldiers and Fishermen

(Claude-Joseph Vernet)

This important example of Vernet’s late style was unknown to the literature and unrecorded in his account books, almost certainly having been in the same family since the 18th century. An entirely original conception with the large rock thrusting forward into the center, it heralds the romanticism of the next century with its dominating mountains surrounded at their peaks by swirling mist. A similar cascade appears in reverse in one of the large panels commissioned a year earlier by the Prince of the Asturias and the viaduct on the left appears in some of the earlier pictures inspired by the Roman Campagna.

Vernet’s interest in Alpine subjects was almost certainly provoked by the Swiss artist Caspar Wolff (1735-98) who had been in Paris during 1770 and 1771. Vernet visited Switzerland himself in 1778 but Wolff ‘s influence is already apparent in the large Stormy landscape commissioned by the Earl of Shelburne in 1774 and now in the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Conisbee (op. cit.) records that Vernet purchased five gouaches by Wolff in 1780 and our picture shows to a greater extent the Swiss artist’s influence in the stark realism of the mountain view, representing a further development in his style from the Dallas painting. The thick priming has enabled the artist to achieve a higher finish than in his earlier works and thus give greater clarity of detail to the figures of fishermen, women and soldiers grouped in the foreground. These, instead of being in awe of the splendid setting, are apparently indifferent to their surroundings and while two figures are seemingly engaged in a vulgar sexual encounter the soldiers are probably preparing to steal the unfortunate peasants’ catch. Although the canvas has been recently lined the picture is in perfect state, a tribute to Vernet’s technical skills.

LITERATURE: Joseph Vernet by Florence Ingersoll-Smouse, 2 vols, Paris, 1926. Claude-Joseph Vernet 1714-1789, Philip Conisbee, Exh. Cat., London, (GLC), Kenwood, 1976.