5.08 Mauclair 1928
Camille Mauclair, Naples l’éclatante. Capri, Amalfi, Sorrente, Paestum, Pompei, Herculanum. Aquarelles de Pierre Vignal, Grenoble 1928
E-NAP 12-5280 raro VI
Adopting the captivating title Naples l’éclatante, the book presents an overview of Naples and the beauty of its coast and islands, with a romantic and aestheticising literary approach. It is the work of Camille Faust, known as Mauclair, a French Romantic and Decadent writer and essayist, author of works on literature, music, the figurative arts, and international tourist destinations such as Florence, Normandy, Spain, Morocco and Naples. The history of the city (from its origins to modern times) is followed by a description of popular life, the old town centre, squares, palaces and churches, works of art and museum collections. The itinerary could not, of course, help but include an extensive chapter on Vesuvius and Pompeii, followed by Cumae and Paestum, and finally the islands of the Gulf. The most interesting feature of the work probably lies in the choice of images, which play on the dual register of photographs and watercolours. The text is accompanied by photographs taken by the Istituto Nazionale LUCE, the Fratelli Alinari, and Henry Bertault; these images are of urban spaces, monuments, works of art and ‘Neapolitan life’ in the streets, according to the canons and topoi typical of the transition between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Fourteen plates outside the text reproduce watercolours by the French painter Pierre Vignal, dedicated to the excavations of Pompeii, landscapes and sunny views of the Amalfi Coast and the islands in the Gulf. [ES]
