Saturday, February 6, 2016

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (fifteenth part)

Room XVIII - From Mannerism to Nature

Vault: Spectacular “The chariot of the sun” 1693 by Giuseppe Chiari (1654/1727) for the wedding of Urbano Barberini and Felice Ventimiglia Pignatelli
“He participates intimately in the early Roman Rococo, of which however he cannot be counted among the protagonists; on the other hand, his action, later extended by Agostino Masucci, spans a bridge between Carlo Maratta and Anton Raphael Mengs, who, for his frescoes, followed on the style of Chiari considered a 'classic' in such decorative genre” (Giancarlo Sestieri)
“Butcher” and “Fishmonger” by Bartolomeo Passerotti (1529/92)
“In the Butcher, the scene is rendered with brutal accuracy, emphasizing the strong characters' features behind whom is painted a bird, a symbol and signature of Bartolomeo Passerotti. In the Fishmonger the fish world is presented in all its varieties with descriptive detail and with humor as with the sparrow-signature threatened by a hungry cat. On the left an old commoner hears the words of the veiled woman holding a fish-ball. The presence of this curious animal, an element required in the eclectic late-sixteenth-century collections, refers to the passion of Bartolomeo Passerotti for scientific museums of curiosities” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)
“Madonna and Child, St. Joseph and St. Catherine of Alexandria” by the Flemish Denis Calvaert (1540/1619) who lived in Rome and in Bologna, where in 1572 founded a school of painting in which transited giants such as Guido Reni, Domenichino or Francesco Albani
The subjects of his paintings were mostly religious and his style, rich of various influences, was very eclectic
“Family Portrait” by Jacopo da Ponte aka Jacopo Bassano (about 1510/92)
This is probably the artist's family represented realistically and vividly
Room XIX - Landscapes and Figures

Formerly winter garden of the Princess Anna Colonna
Above the doors “Sacrifice of Juno” to evoke the female fertility and “Ceculo founder of Praeneste incited with a lightning bolt by Vulcan” to celebrate the rule of the Barberini family in Palestrina by Pietro Berrettini aka Pietro da Cortona (1597/1669) and assistants
“View of Villa Sacchetti in Castelfusano” about 1632/1639 by Pietro da Cortona
“Et in Arcadia Ego” about 1620 by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri aka Guercino (1591/1666)
Two feuds belonging to the Mattei family: “Castel S. Pietro” and “Giove” 1601 by Paul Brill (1554/1626)
“They are part of a series of five paintings commissioned by the Marquis Mattei in 1601 to document the possessions of the family. They have a perspective from the bottom up that is just typical of the Flemish art that Brill would help to spread in Rome. The views are captured at different times of the day: in the manor of Giove the dawn light illuminates the start of daily activities, in the other hues of the sunset invite to return from work” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)
Two “Bacchanalian of putti” about 1626 and “Landscape with Hagar and the Angel” about 1660 by the great French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594/1665)

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