Jean-Pierre Houël was born in Rouen where his prosperous parents were able to send him to the local École des beaux-arts overseen by the painter and art historian, Jean-Baptiste Descamps. A specialist in Flemish art, Descamps was able to pass on his knowledge to the young Houël. Almost inevitably, Jean-Pierre gravitated towards Paris and the artistic atelier of Jacques-Philippe Le Bas. It was under the tutelage of Le Bas that he learnt the skill of landscape painting and engraving, something that would come to the fore when he turned his focus to Italy and Sicily in particular.
For the time being, he was rubbing shoulders with the likes of Diderot and the polymath, Jean Baptiste Le Rond d’Alembert, a leading light of the Age of Enlightenment who counted Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics and Philosophy among his many disciplines. In this atmosphere, amongst the Encyclopédistes promoting secular thought, Houël’s horizons greatly expanded. The ideals of classical Europe were never far from discussion which led the Frenchman from Rouen to a study of the vedute painters of Italy and their depictions of ancient ruins, including the works of men like Giovanni Paolo Panini from Piacenza.
These views are the 18th century equivalent of postcards or posters bought by the travelling aristocracy for their country piles in the distant north. Even the great Canaletto was criticised for his pandering to the tourist and his mechanical style, developed through so much repetition. None of this dissuaded Houël from pursuing his Italian dream. After twisting a few arms and bending the ear of more than one well-connected acquaintance, Jean-Pierre got the longed-for sinecure, a place at the French Academy in Rome. He was far from sedentary, despite the many attractions Rome had to offer, he couldn’t wait to explore the peninsula and islands.
Initial visits took the Frenchman to Turin, Palma and Naples, but it was Sicily that called to his sense of the classical, dramatic and raw. He first visited the island in 1770 where he made studies of the landscape. The sights of Sicily remained firmly embedded in his psyche, even when he returned to Paris in 1774. His vedute were much in demand and he won a commission to paint Italian scenes for a new hotel in rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. With some cash behind him, he was able to depart for Sicily once more. Between 1776 and 1779, Houël travelled the island in depth, covering ground from Marsala in the west to Siracusa in the east and a good many points in between. His perambulations also took in the Aeolian islands of Lipari and Vulcano plus an excursion to Malta. Houël was rapidly becoming the French artist best acquainted with all things Sicilian.
Eventually, the money started to run out, which meant that Jean-Pierre had to part with some of his preliminary sketches. He had no need to sell them to minor lords or local barons; when he put items up for sale in Paris, they were snapped up by no less than Catherine II of Russia and Louis XVI. The first of these two purchasers accounts for the reason why some of his Sicilian works can be found in the Hermitage in St Petersburg. Jean-Pierre Houël would be half-remembered as just another very accomplished landscape artist of the 18th century if it weren’t for one thing: instead of consigning his works to various collections to hang amongst the Canalettos and Paninis, he decided to publish them in four volumes under the catch-all title of Voyage pittoresque des isles de Sicile, de Malta et de Lipari. This grand undertaking explains why he needed the money from his sales to Catherine the Great and others.
The Voyage pittoresque became one of the great works to spring from the 18th century fashion for the Grand Tour. He liberally sprinkled his explanatory text with erudite observations gleaned from first-hand knowledge and in-depth reading. His explanations are geographical, ethnographic and cultural. There are sections on everything from the formation of the Straits of Messina to observations regarding the shell-fishing that he watched from the shore. In one plate, he depicts, under the subtitle ‘Culture et pêche de Coquilles bivalves’, two men using nets on poles to drag the shallows for the said shells.
Although Houël was very much a product of his day, in the sense that he loved the classical world he saw so close to the surface in Sicily, he was far from single-mindedly obsessed with only that aspect of the island. His engravings, taken from his paintings in the field, provide a fascinating insight into eighteenth century Sicilian life. Catania’s elephant obelisk is shown surrounded by the hurly-burly of the city. Men on horseback ride before peasants, merchants and artisans. This is immediately followed by an intricate plan pointing out the ancient and modern highlights of the city in the manner of a proto-Baedeker.
Jean seems particularly drawn to ways of storing and diverting water. More than one chapter contains a crumbing means of storage or an aqueduct, ancient or modern – perhaps not surprising given the island’s climate and need for potable water. One of Houël most evocative scenes also concerns water, but not the fresh variety. It illustrates the tuna catch known in Sicily by the Spanish name of mattanza (slaughter). Jean’s engraving is still recognisable today, although the practice is very much a dying custom. Boats have pulled together forming a rough and ready circle. Men on each boat are hauling in a net shared between all the vessels. As the net shortens, fishermen reach downwards to kill the tuna and manhandle them into the boats. Behind the crews, the decks fill up with slaughtered fish. Due to the monochrome nature of the prints, we’re unable to notice that the sea would have been turning red. In all other ways, however, the Frenchman gives us a vivid portrayal of the visceral nature of the event. We even have the interesting vignette of a lady with a parasol and men in tricorne hats watching the spectacle from a platform suspended over the hold of one of the boats, whilst their employees battle with the tuna.
Some of the images and text reveal the extent to which Sicily has developed in the ensuing years. Mount Etna is almost devoid of construction around its base. In Catania itself, anybody who has visited the city’s Roman amphitheatre will know that it’s now surrounded by housing and one can come across it almost by accident. Houël’s depiction shows rock strewn hillsides butting down to the top rows of seating. A few humble dwellings overlook the right-hand sweep of the bowl but there is little to indicate today’s enclosure. One of the most stunning changes can be seen in his representation of the Villa Palagonia in Bagheria. Under the subtitle ‘Vue du Casin du Prince de Palagonia’, Jean gives us a solitary portrait of the infamous Villa of the Monsters. The entrance gate, topped with Gravina’s gargoyles stands proudly aloof from any surrounding buildings. The villa walls, also encumbered with their chimerical statues, stretch away to the main house which is ringed with further adornment. Houël must have stood and sketched from the middle of what is now a busy road, yet his view is completely open. Nothing but Mediterranean scrub impinges on his artistic perspective, giving the villa an even more surreal aspect than it has today. This is what Goethe and Brydone must have seen when they wrote their accounts of Sicily’s most famous eccentric aristocrat.
It could be argued that his architectural representations of antiquity are the least interesting thing about Jean’s volumes. The aerial depictions of Taormina’s theatre and the cross-sectional plans are rigid, purposeful, but ultimately soulless; they fulfil his brief but give nothing of the flavour he must have witnessed. Better is the classic view from the hillside, which shows the extent to which the stepped seating was yet to be uncovered or reconstructed, and the views he gives us from angles little seen in modern times because of development. With waves of tourists, in part initially attracted by Houël’s designs, Taormina has changed radically, its slopes witness to all manner of eyrie-like construction.
The Frenchman’s text and illustrations are snap-shots in time, none more so than in Messina, where he gives us the Palace of the Viceroy. This may seem a natural subject for such a publication, but he chose the site because it had been partially destroyed by what he calls a ‘tremblement de terre’ – one of the many earthquakes that have plagued the city by the straits. A ship looks on from a wild sea as rubble falls from the Baroque façade of the grand palace. Windows look into roofless rooms and plaster gathers at the foot of walls. Armies of men haul sacks along the dockside in an effort to clear a passage. Black clouds form overhead, baleful portents of future damage.
Jean-Pierre Houël’s marvellous four volume edition was soon translated into German, which led to a wider dispersal throughout Europe and an increase in the popularity of Sicily amongst the leisured classes. The aristocracy of Germany’s many statelets looked to Sicily’s combination of classical learning and Mediterranean climate when they eyed a Grand Tour destination. Houël together with the Scotsman, Patrick Brydone, did much to attract Europe-wide attention to the island. When Goethe subsequently called Sicily the key to understanding Italy as a whole, Northern Europe was smitten.
For those who don’t read French, there is an Italian edition, Viaggio in Sicilia, under the care of none other than Giovanni Macchia, Leonardo Sciascia and Georges Vallet.
Andrew and Suzanne are the authors of Sicily: A Literary Guide for Travellers. The Times Literary Supplement had this to say about their book: ‘Sicily is full of such delicious anecdotes: it is not only a literary signpost for travellers in an ancient island, but a cultural guide for anyone who finds themselves in the infuriating thrall of its contradictory and compelling extremes… Sicily is bound to become battered and dog-eared, blotched with caponata and wine stains’.
They are also authors of His Master’s Reflection, a travel biography in the footsteps of Lord Byron’s doctor and Andalucia: A Literary Guide for Travellers, which was also reviewed by the Times Literary Supplement: ‘a thoughtful, thoroughly researched and remarkably well-balanced scholarly guide to the literary history of one of Spain’s most eulogized regions.’ Andrew is the translator of Borges in Sicily by Alejandro Luque, a travelogue in search of the photographic locations used by Ferdinando Scianna when he took images of the Argentinean writer, Jorge Luis Borges, during his island tour.
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