Antoon Sminck Pitloo

(Arnheim 1790 – Naples 1837)

He began studying drawing and painting as a boy in his native Arnhem, and continued his studies first in Paris, thanks to a scholarship offered to him by Louis Bonaparte, then in Italy, in Rome, an obligatory stop on every grand tour. He then came to Naples where he became a teacher of Landscape at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts and where he founded the ‘School of Posillipo’.

The novelty ascribable to Pitloo’s painting lies in his definitive departure from the purely realistic and illustrative rendering and from traditional landscape painting, moving towards a decidedly romantic observation of the naturalistic datum, characterised by a sensitive attention to the vibrations of light and colour and the presence of vivid personal suggestions deriving from direct observation of places. Another innovation introduced by Pitloo was the use of the innovative technique of oil painting on paper mounted on canvas or cardboard.

Inspired by the beauty of the landscape and Neapolitan customs, he was able to capture and pass on to his pupils the atmospheric values of nature, asserting himself with a personal, rapid, luminous brushstroke.

Pitloo, died on 22 June 1837, at the age of 47, prematurely struck down by cholera. He was buried in Naples, in the Protestant cemetery.