Fishermen
Gaetano Capone, 1900-1910, oil on canvas, cm 64x41
(1845 – 1924)
A representative work of the full maturity of Gaetano Capone, the leader of the Maiori school, dating to the early years of the 20th century. In this canvas, a typical example of genre painting of the period, a keen sensitivity emerges in the depiction of common subjects: a pair of fishermen is captured at work on their boat in the Gulf of Amalfi at dusk. Much like the Mother with Child (entry 29), Courtship in Ravello (entry 47) and In a Garden in Amalfi (entry 51), Capone here does not abandon the poetics of truth, ennobling the daily dimension through an engaged observation that restores dignity to everyday labor, mediated by a luminous pictorial style and careful atmospheric rendering.
