Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino

Ten years after his final journey to Rome, Turner envisioned the Eternal City through a veil of memory: Baroque churches and ancient monuments around the Roman Forum dissolve in iridescent light, moon rising at the left and sun setting behind the Capitoline, while the city’s inhabitants go about their daily business. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839 beside its pendant *Ancient Rome; Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus*, the picture drew on Byron’s *Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage* — “The moon is up, and yet it is not night.” The nacreous palette and shimmering light exemplify Turner at his most accomplished. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.