MICHELE PAGANO (Naples, 1697 - after 1750) Landscape with figures Signed on the rocks bottom centre M Pagano Oil on canvas, 126.4X205 cm The clear and airy atmosphere, the paused articulation of the landscape, the delicate chromatic harmony and luminosity suggest an 18th-century taste. The marked Arcadian emotionality of the Roman matrix testifies to how the author was familiar with the pictorial texts of the Capitoline landscape painting inaugurated by Gaspard Dughet. However, looking at the figures and the atmospheric rendering, the search turns towards the Neapolitan School, particularly the examples of Michele Pagano. A pupil of Raimondo De Dominici, Pagano had the merit of emancipating himself from the landscape painters of the early 18th century, who were still languishing in the Baroque tradition. The spirit of his art is concretely 18th century, perceptible in the delicate luministic choices, the careful definition of the trees and a balanced composition. The artist creates a true Rosian picturesque in the wake of Gaetano Martoriello, creating solutions between the rationalism of Arcadia and the demands of rocaille decoration (Spinosa 1986), where nature is idealised in the closed setting of an atelier, conceived or dreamt on the basis of literary images. Reference bibliography: N. Spinosa, Pittura Napoletana del Settecento, dal Barocco al Rococò, Naples 1986, p. 96, 172-173, nos. 334-337 R. Muzi, Michele Pagano, in La pittura di Paesaggio in Italia. Il Settecento, edited by A. Ottani Cavina and E. Calbi, Milan 2005, pp. 268-270