View of Tivoli

Tivoli, situated in the foothills of the Apennines east of Rome, had drawn painters and poets since antiquity on the strength of its cascading waterfalls, ancient ruins, and the spectacular Villa d'Este gardens. Van Wittel visited the town repeatedly from the 1680s onward, filling sketchbooks with topographical studies that he converted into finished paintings over subsequent years. His 1700 canvas at the Walters Art Museum shows Tivoli from a viewpoint that brings together the waterfalls of the Aniene river, the ancient round Temple of Vesta on its rocky promontory, and the spread of the medieval and Renaissance town above. The site had been painted by Claude Lorrain and would later attract Corot and Turner, but Van Wittel's approach differs sharply: where Claude used Tivoli as raw material for ideal pastoral compositions, Van Wittel insisted on topographic accuracy, recording the actual configuration of rocks, water, and buildings with the eye of a surveyor. The painting belongs to an international taste for Italian landscape that the Grand Tour had made commercially powerful, and Tivoli views were among the most sought after souvenirs for northern collectors.

Van Wittel organises the composition around the dramatic drop of the Aniene waterfalls, which he renders with freely handled white impasto against darker water below. The ancient temple on the right edge is painted in careful ochre tones to suggest weathered travertine stone. Foliage is handled in broad massed shapes, avoiding the fussy botanical detail found in some contemporaries, which allows the geological drama of the site to dominate.