Tommaso Ruiz (attivo a Napoli verso la metà del secolo XVIII)

in first canvas, inside frame in wood and gilded tablet of Neapolitan manufacture of the XIX century

bibliographical comparison: N. Spinosa, All'Ombra del Vesuvio, from 1400 to 1800, Naples 2003, p.285

In this painting Tommaso Ruiz, abandoning the idea of the wide-ranging panoramic view, focuses his attention on Vesuvius, inserting in the field of vision, dutifully and necessarily, only the offshoots of the hill of Pizzofalcone and the Castel dell'Ovo. But the urban elements - at the top the compact size of the Gran Quartiere, consisting of the barracks built by the Viceroy Aragon and the ancient residence of the Carafa of Sanseverino, below the dome of the church of Crocelle narrow between the buildings built along the Chiatamone -, although brought back with an absolute attention to forms and perspective, only serve as scenic elements for the real protagonist of the representation: the erupting volcano, beautiful and fascinating, with the majestic plume of fire and smoke that dominates it, but also 'exterminator', with its destructive lava flows, identified by the fumaroles that indicate the way. And in the sea vessels and fishing boats intent on their daily activities, testimony of a dangerous coexistence, albeit forced, serenely accepted.

Biographical information about Tommaso Ruiz is scarce - we do not even know the geographical area of his origin - and therefore we must turn directly to his works to reconstruct at least his artistic history. In 1710 Ruiz is certainly in Naples, as evidenced by a signed and dated Vista della Riviera di Chiaia da Posillipo, a private collection. But in the same years in the city also works Gaspar van Wittel, the greatest European exponent of the view painting. Evidently the market is small, the client, almost exclusively vicereale, poor; and Ruiz leaves Naples. Between 1710 and the end of the 1930s.Between 1710 and the end of the thirties we find him active in depicting panoramas of cities around central and southern Italy and Malta, accompanied by an intense production of small landscape whims. But when Naples, thanks to the development of the program of government of Charles of Bourbon, becomes an essential stage of the Grand Tour of Italy, Ruiz, at the end of the thirties, returns and settles permanently in the capital of the Kingdom, producing, in addition to representations of festivals and 'cuccagne', panoramic views of the city, taken from the east, from the west and the sea, and its surroundings, especially the Phlegraean Fields and Vesuvius.