PIERRE - JACQUES VOLAIRE
Toulon 1729 - in Italy After 1793
Volaire joined Claude Vernet's studio when the master arrived in Toulon, to paint views of the port for his masterful series, The Ports of France (Paris, Louvre and Musée de la Marine). The son, brother and uncle of artists, though artists of lesser talent, Volaire worked under Vernet for eight years; he so absorbed Vernet’s style and techniques that the young painter’s early works are often virtually indistinguishable from those of the master. Unfortunately, this injured Volaire's subsequent reputation. He has often been characterized merely as a imitator of Vernet.
It was not until Volaire journeyed to Rome in 1764, where he painted dramatic views of the eternal city and its environs, and Naples, whence he moved in 1769, that Volaire began to develop a distinctive style. During the twenty years he called Naples home, the splendid views of the erupting Vesuvius provided inspiration for Volaire, and the artist in turn inspired landscape painters from across Europe. The French painter Charles LaCroix de Marseille, the English artist Joseph Wright of Derby, the Austrian Michael Wutky, and the German Philipp Hackert, all looked to Volaire as a source. Indeed, Wright of Derby's views of extravagant and violent explosions (numbering thirty in all), with white lava shooting skywards, may never have been witnessed firsthand by the artist, who, in his few months spent in Naples, never saw anything more dramatic than lava pouring at snail’s pace down the mountain slopes. Wright of Derby’s pictures of raging flames and molten rocks almost certainly borrowed directly from Volaire, who had been an eye witness to all Vesuvius’s major eruptions since his arrival.
