Monday, July 4, 2016

CORSINI PALACE - CORSINI GALLERY (third part)

Room II - First Gallery
“Known in the eighteenth century as 'Second Antechamber', the First Gallery was added, along with the Antechamber, to the apartment of Neri Maria Corsini during the extension work carried out in the years 1750/53 by the architect Ferdinando Fuga” (Official Website the Corsini Gallery - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)
The decorations of the room 1736/38 are by Ginesio del Barba (1691/1762)
Small bronze statues “Baptism of Jesus” and “Fauns on a goat with parrots” by Alessandro Algardi (1598/1654) and “Lion Biting a Bull” copy by Antonio Susini (1580/1624) from an ancient original statue
Impressive and visually disturbing “Agony of Prometheus Bound to the Rocks”, “Marina with lighthouse” and six other paintings by Salvator Rosa (1615/73)
“A man of brilliant talents but eternal rebel, ruthless in his criticism of society, obsessed with a pre-Romantic egotistical concept of genius, he used to take offense when praised as a painter of landscapes, seascapes and battles. But it is on the successes in this field more than on the large historical compositions that his posthumous fame is resting. The 1700s saw in the landscapes of Salvator Rosa and Claude Lorrain, the quintessence of the contrast between the sublime and the beautiful. In the words of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Claude leads us to the tranquility of the scenes of Arcadia and fairyland, while the style of Rosa has the power to inspire feelings of grandeur and sublimity” (Rudolf Wittkower)
“Landscape with St. John the Baptist” and “Landscape with Horse Riders” XVII century, by an unknown Dutch painter
“Pietà (Mercy)” by Francesco Cozza (1605/82)
“Cozza, a figure painter, favors narrative moments, by subordinating the landscape to the arrangement of characters, expressing consequently a very individual style in the landscape painting of the seventeenth century” (Ludovica Trezzani)
“Hare” by Hans Hoffman (d. 1592)
“Jacob's Ladder” by Donato Creti (1671/1749)
“Together with the senior Marco Antonio Franceschini, Creti was the last significant exponent of the doctrine of classical-idealism in Bolognese painting. He was deeply engaged in what we might call the metaphysics of ideal form, i.e. the search for the perfect shape in nature. For him the important thing was to make the invention of the individual figure and outline its concept perfectly. He was clearly a fanatical perfectionist” (David Miller - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)
“Finding of Moses” by Luigi Garzi (1638/1721) a pupil of Andrea Sacchi later influenced by Carlo Maratta
“Hunters on horses” by the Dutch artist Philips Wouwerman (1619/68)
“Wouwerman's oeuvre consists mainly of small cabinet pieces with horses, such as battle and hunting scenes, army camps, smithies and interiors of stables. He also painted sensitively executed silvery-grey landscapes, genre pieces and a few original representations of religious and mythological scenes. Wouwerman was also exceptionally prolific. Although he only lived to the age of 48, more than a thousand paintings bear his name. Even when one bears in mind that a number of these paintings should actually be attributed to his brothers Pieter and Jan, Philips left an extraordinarily large oeuvre” (from the web site www.wouwerman.org)
“Tamar and Judah” by Giovanni Lanfranco (1582/1647)
“Architectonical Perspective” by Viviano Codazzi (1604/70)
“Shepherds and Flock by Some Ruins” by the Dutch Cornelis Van Poelenburgh (about 1586/1667)
“Cornelis van Poelenburgh was a founder of Dutch Italianate landscape painting. He studied under the Utrecht Mannerist Abraham Bloemaert, but his years in Rome, from 1617 to 1625, were more decisive for his development. An early member of the schildersbent, the club for Rome's Netherlandish painters, he was nicknamed “Satyr.” In Rome, a friend noted that Poelenburgh “exerted himself to the utmost to paint his figures in the manner of Raphael.” Poelenburgh also copied German artist Adam Elsheimer's Italianate landscapes, which were usually painted on copper. (…) After returning from Italy, he became one of Utrecht's leading artists, honored as Peter Paul Rubens's guide during his 1627 visit to the city. At the king's invitation, Poelenburgh worked in England from 1638 to 1641. (…) Poelenburgh painted some history paintings, but his fame rests on the enamel-smooth landscapes, often depicting romantic ruins and statuary fragments, that he created after 1620. He was among the first artists to render Italian sunlight and atmosphere convincingly. His highly detailed figures were so admired that he was hired to paint them in other artists' works” (The J. Paul Getty Museum Web Site – www.getty.edu)
“Holy Family with S. Anna” by Pietro de’ Pietri (1655/1716)
“Holy Family” by Simone Cantarini (1612/48)
“Triumph of Ovid” by Nicolas Poussin (1594/1665)
“History was for Poussin of the highest value, the ideal to which he gave vision. He faced historical, biblical and mythological subjects, from which his spiritual inclinations, which led to the denial of the purposes of the most striking Baroque style, appear abundantly clear” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)
“Head of agonizing man” by an unknown artist probably a pupil of Guercino
“Winter Landscape” and “Landscape with Pond” by the Flemish artist Lucas Van Uden (1595/1672-73)
“Portrait of Pope Urban VIII Barberini (1623/44)” about 1636 by Guidobaldo Abbatini (1600/56)
“He can combine with remarkable balance, the 'friendliness' of Matteo, highlighted by a colorist opulence influenced by Pietro da Cortona, but still supported by considerable technical qualities, with the description of a physical decline that shines through, without drama, backlit. There is no doubt on Abbatini's ability, as evidenced by how he can detect the golden embroidery stole, or how casually he describes the lace and the folds of the clothes and he is able to forge with a few touches, the heavy tissue that garnish the seat of the chair. Surely these were the qualities that Bernini appreciated in the Umbrian painter and that led him often to use his cooperation” (Sivigliano Alloisi)
“The departure of Jacob” by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione aka Grechetto (about 1611/65)
“Battle”, “Blindman’s Buff”, “The watering hole” and “St. John the Baptist Preaching” by the so-called bambocciante Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602/60)
“Portrait of a Man” by Federico Fiori aka Barocci (1535/1612)
“For a long time this painting was considered a self-portrait also by contemporary historiography, until Olsen has expressed doubts about its authenticity. Indeed, both inventory information and comparisons with the identified self-portraits of the painter don't help to clarify the issue. (...) The beautiful head alive and alert is in front of us with no conventionalities, with an immediacy that goes beyond the conventional pose. It is framed by a white collar, soft and smooth, which helps to give life to the face free and gentle of the character. Even in the portrait, Barocci anticipates the demands of the truth of many artists of the seventeenth century” (Sivigliano Alloisi)
“Winter Landscape” and “Woodland Landscape” by the Flemish Franz de Momper (1595/1673)
Spectacular “Denial of St. Peter” by the so called Master of the Judgment of Solomon (XVII century) or maybe by Jusepe de Ribera aka Spagnoletto (1591/1652)
“Hunt of Wild Beasts” XVII century, copy from an original by Rubens
“Landscape with peasants” and “Landscape with figures” by the Roman Andrea Locatelli (1693/1741)
“Sposalizio mistico di S. Caterina” di Carlo Maratta (1625/1713)
“St. Peter weeping” by Francesco Solimena (1657/1747)
“The ransom” by the Flemish Christoffel Jacobsz Van Der Lamen (about 1606/about 1652)

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