Ruins of the Greek Theatre at Taormina

Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka was Hungary's most remarkable visionary painter, a self-taught artist who experienced what he described as a divine calling to painting. His 1904 canvas of the Greek Theatre at Taormina in Sicily depicts one of antiquity's most dramatic sites — the vast ancient theatre with Etna behind it — with the monumental scale and luminous intensity that characterize his major works. Csontváry was deeply drawn to sites of classical civilization and biblical history, and Taormina represented the meeting of Greek antiquity, Sicilian landscape, and the volcanic grandeur of Etna. The work is at the Hungarian National Gallery.

The composition is vast in spatial ambition: ancient stone theatre columns in the foreground open onto a panoramic view of the Sicilian coast and Etna beyond. Csontváry uses a brilliant, saturated palette quite unlike the restrained tones of his contemporaries, with intense blues and warm stone colours. Paint is applied with energetic directness.