Compton Verney created the first exhibition to explore the history of human perception of volcanoes and the remarkable artistic outpourings that they have inspired over the past five hundred years. Through paintings, photographs, prints, film, books and diaries, and from images made on the spot to the most fanciful imaginings, the show demonstrated the long-held fascination of artists for these extraordinary natural phenomena.
Works by recent and living artists such as David Clarkson and Ilana Halperin were shown together with those long-dead, tracing a route through the sequence of a volcanic eruption – from calm to the first ominous rumblings, to cataclysmic explosion, panic and death, then finally back to dormancy and extinction.
Warhol’s huge canvas Vesuvius was shown alongside work by JMW Turner and Joseph Wright of Derby, as well as works from Compton Verney’s significant permanent collection of Neapolitan art, including the spectacular Vesuvius Erupting at Night by Volaire and the delightful David Allen portrait of Sir William and Lady Hamilton in their Naples home overlooking the active volcano. This painting was shown alongside the volcano-obsessed Hamilton’s (1776-79) publication Campi Phlegraei (Fields of Fire), lavishly illustrated by Pierre Fabris whose works reveal the shocking beauty of volcanoes and revolutionised our way of seeing them.
Eye opening and spectacular, the exhibition conveys the impact of living under the presence of volcanic activity, and the drama of volcanoes as symbols of creation and destruction, as well as recording their geological forms. It is curated by the Turner scholar James Hamilton, and features works from New York, Paris, Rome, Reykjavik, Naples, Copenhagen, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Oxford and London.
I found this exhibition really interesting, and it was great to see all these different works, new and old all together in one big space. It was quite inspiring, and some of the work was really beautiful.
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