STILL LIFE IN NAPLE (text page)
Still life painting occupied a position of absolute prominence in the long, rich baroque season of the Neapolitan school. Among the numerous factors which favoured its development must first of all be recalled the direct influence exercised by Caravaggio, interpreted on the Neapolitan artistic scene in an intensely naturalistic key and with moral profundity starting from decisive representatives such as Battistello Caracciolo and Jusepe de Ribera. Also important were the constant political and cultural relations with Spain (at the end of the 16th century, Toledo was considered to be the third propulsive pole at the origin of still life, together with Antwerp and the area of northern Italy,) and the presence of a vast local artistic market that was not limited to the aristocracy. In this fertile context emerged the figure of Luca Forte, who is to be considered the first great still life specialist in the Neapolitan school. Starting in the 1630s, the trend developed through well-defined personalities, such as Paolo Porpora, Giovan Battista and Giuseppe Recco, and Giovan Battista and Giuseppe Ruoppolo. These were flanked occasionally by the works of figure painters such as Salvator Rosa. A characteristic element of 17th-century Neapolitan still life was the intensity and faithfulness of the representations of flowers, fish and fruit and the exuberance with which nature was exalted. During the course of the 18th century, the moving intensity of still life with Caravaggio's remote but still always recognisable matrix was to give way progressively to more luminous and open scenarios.