Fig.

1 Rome Capriccio Study, 2009, Stephanie Jazmines

Capriccio and Poetical Realism

Poetry does not fly above and surmount the earth in order to escape it and hover over it.
Poetry is what first brings man onto earth, making him belong to it, and thus brings him into
dwelling
Martin Heidegger

Fig.2 Rome Capriccio, 2008, watercolour by Stephanie Jazmines

The

Capriccio is a pictorial invention

creating an imaginary or analogue reality by
combining existing buildings or places with
imaginary ones, shifting or re-organizing their
locations and their groupings into uniquely
suggestive visions. In fact what characterizes
the Capriccio is: truth, reality and realism. It
enhances a formidable potential of life and
livability in beautifully composed, complex

and memorable environments, places,

landscapes and buildings which only exist in
the realm of desire. Unlike many fantastic and
modernist art and painting it generally
respects perspectival space and Euclidian
geometries, realistic light, shade and shadow,
proportions and figural realism complemented
and intensified with elements of mythology
and poetic fiction.

Fig.3 Al-Esch Piazza Capriccio, by Lucien Steil (1978)

It is the way of poets to shut their eyes to actuality. Instead of acting, they dream. What they
make is merely made. Making is in Greek, POIESIS.
Martin Heidegger

The

Capriccio offers convincingly and

overwhelmingly a great capacity of reality and
identity, an immense and powerful charge of
magical realism and poetry. It remains
however credible and plausible, and often

not only desirable but also perfectly tangible

and buildable! Unlike many fancy modernist,
deconstructivist
and
parametricist
designs, it is conceivable and buildable not
because it can be done within the Hubris of

modern technology, but because it unfolds

itself naturally both in the realm of poetry and
of making. It transcends the industry of
robotic and computerized intelligence, its lack
of feeling and passion, its abstraction and its
stereotypes. It is an emulation of human
intelligence and vision, knowledge and crafts,

sensitivity and intuition. Idle speculations,

historicist classifications and fancy ideologies
on the built form and their contemporary
semantics are of little interest in this context.
What is interesting however is architecture as
a historic culture and the archetypes of human
settlements and monuments.

Roma Interotta, by Leon Krier

It

generously shares poetic delight and as

much as imagination and vision. Itssurreal
and surrealistic connotations often
encompass the real rather than undermining
it. The Real constitutes in fact
its
dedicated support of the Ideal. The Ideal
is not an abstraction or an impossible fantasy
but an integral dimension of human existence
and civilization. The inspirational lessons of
metaphysical paintings of De Chirico,
contemporary paintings and concepts of
Aldo Rossis Analague City and the
exhibition Roma Interrottaetc. as well Colin
Rowes Collage City all enhance the fertile
intellectual-poetical and artistic potential of

the Capriccio. A thorough research would

probably also illustrate the impact
of
literature, particularly
Latin American
literature of Garcia Marquez, Jorge Luis
Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Mario Vargas
Llosa, Jorge Amado, etc. and the influence
of literary and artistic theories and techniques
of Surrealism, Realism, Zen and Symbolism
on the modern Capriccio.
The iconicCapriccio by Canaletto with an
impressive Venetian fiction combining
three buildings from Palladio: Palazzo
Chiericati (built in Vicenza), the Basilica
(built in Vicenza) and a competition entry for
the Rialto bridge (unbuilt) creates the

convincing illusion of an authentic and

original Venetian place with imported
Classical buildings coherently installed into a
verisimilar and metaphysical Venetian
setting. The suggestive power and intrinsic
reality of its Genius Loci is so perfect and

accurate that one wished to visit this place as

both its fullness of reality and its intensity of
life seems to be an irrefutable evidence of
existence!

Fig.5 Capriccio Palladiano, by Canaletto,(Bridgemanart Library)

...The geographical transposition of the monuments within the painting constitutes a city that
we recognise, even though it is a place of purely architectural references. This example enabled
me to demonstrate how a logical-formal operation could be translated into a design method and
then into a hypothesis for a theory of architectural design in which the elements were
preestablished and formally defined, but where the significance that sprung forth at the end of the
operation was the authentic, unforeseen, and original meaning of the work.
Aldo Rossi
The Architecture of the City, Opposition Books, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and
London, England (1982

Unlike

what the Capriccio might

misleadingly suggest or allude to, it is not

capricious as one might be tempted to

think. It follows precise rules of pictorial

realism, of composition and figural accuracy.

It respects coherence of narrative and as well
as consistency of meaning though allowing
various degrees of reading and a complex
palette of interpretations. It is a playful,
didactic and moral re-creation of an analogue

reality and not a deconstruction of the real. It

does not challenge reality and realism but it
questions the mechanism of a linear reading
of the real, of life and of art.

Fig.6 S. Francis, Simple Man, by Giotto,..Bridgemanart Library

The Poet being an imitator, like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of
three objects- things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as
they ought to be, {.......}
Aristotle, The Poetics (translation by SH Butcher, Dover Publications, New York 4th. Edition 1951)

Fig,7 Lisbon World Fair, Luxembourg Pavilion, 1990, by Mulhern & Steil (with Rick van Kerkhove)

Excerpt from:
The Architectural Capriccio, Memory, Fantasy and Invention
Ashgate Publishing Ltd.