Anton Sminck van Pitloo, 'View of the Aventine Hill from the Palatine', about 1811-15

Anton Sminck van Pitloo was a Dutch artist. He studied in Paris under the landscape artists Joseph-Xavier Bidauld and Jean-Victor Bertin. Both Bidauld and Bertin had travelled in Italy and championed sketching outside. Bidauld had been in Italy at the same time as the most influential proponent of from-life sketching, Pierre de Valenciennes, and Bertin had been a pupil of Valenciennes in Paris. These three were among a growing number of artists from across Europe who travelled to Italy. They wished to see Renaissance paintings and classical sculpture at first hand and to experience the effects of the Mediterranean light. Inspired by the practices of artists such as Claude and Poussin, many of these artists started to paint in oils out of doors. They aimed to capture the effects of the changeable colours and light of the Italian countryside. Through direct observation, they could later recreate these in their more finished oil paintings. Valenciennes published his views on this approach in a chapter in his Élémens de perspective pratique (1799), and encouraged future generations of artists to sketch in the open air. Unsurprisingly, with two such teachers, Pitloo travelled to Rome, having gained a scholarship in 1811 from Louis Bonaparte, the King of Holland.

This is a scene in Rome looking from the Palatine Hill across the Circus Maximus towards the basilica of Santi Bonifacio e Alessio on the Aventine Hill. The church is visible to the right of the painting. Its Romanesque campanile is clearly seen against the sky. The Tiber is below it. This was not a common subject for landscape artists. Many preferred to depict the view of Rome from the Aventine Hill, rather than the hill itself.

Pitloo contrasted the deep blue of the bright sky and the cool lushness of the foliage-covered rocks on the left of the picture. The eye is drawn across the page by the path that comes down the hill from the left and curves gently around to the right. The division of the painting, between nature and the shaded rocks and the sun-drenched manmade church, is enhanced by the ruined wall close to the centre. Pushing upwards out of the green bushes, the remnant of a once larger structure is now almost completely covered but, like a tree trunk, continues to reach towards the light.