Federico Barocci
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Federico Barocci (also written Barozzi)Template:Sfn (Template:Circa – 30 September 1612) was an Italian Renaissance painter and printmaker. His original name was Federico Fiori, and he was nicknamed Il Baroccio. His work was highly esteemed and influential, and foreshadows the Baroque of Rubens. He is generally considered the greatest and the most individual painter of his time in central Italy.Template:Sfn
Early life and trainingEdit
Oil on canvas, Santa Maria degli Angeli, Perugia.
He was born at Urbino, Duchy of Urbino, and received his earliest apprenticeship with his father, Ambrogio Barocci, a sculptor of some local eminence. He was then apprenticed with the painter Battista Franco Veneziano in Urbino. He accompanied his uncle, Bartolommeo Genga to Pesaro, then in 1548 to Rome, where he was worked in the pre-eminent studio of the day, that of the Mannerist painters, Taddeo and Federico Zuccari.
Mature work in Rome and UrbinoEdit
After passing four years at Rome, he returned to his native city, where his first work of art was a St. Margaret executed for the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament. He was invited back to Rome by Pope Pius IV to assist in the decoration of the Vatican Belvedere Palace at Rome, where he painted the Virgin Mary and infant, with several Saints and a ceiling in fresco, representing the Annunciation.
During this second sojourn, while completing the decorations for the Vatican, Barocci fell ill with intestinal complaints. He suspected that a salad which he had eaten had been poisoned by jealous rivals. Fearing his illness was terminal, he left Rome in 1563; four years later he was said to experience a partial remission after prayers to the Virgin.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Barocci henceforth often complained of frail health, though he remained productive for nearly four decades more. While he is described by contemporaries as personally somewhat morose and hypochondriacal, his paintings are lively and brilliant. Although he continued to have major altarpiece commissions from afar, he never returned to Rome, and was mainly patronized in his native city by Francesco Maria II della Rovere, duke of Urbino. The Ducal Palace can be seen in the background of his paintings, rendered in a forced perspective that seems a holdover from Mannerism.
While Barocci was removed from Rome, the fulcrum of artistic fame and influence, he continued to innovate in his style. At some point he may have seen colored chalk/pastel drawings by Correggio, but Barocci's remarkable pastel studies are the earliest examples of the technique to survive. In pastels and in oil sketches (another technique he pioneered) Barocci's soft, opalescent renderings evoke the ethereal. Such studies were part of a complex process Barocci used to complete his altarpieces. An organized series of steps leading up to the final product ensured its speed and success in execution. Barocci did innumerable sketches: gestural, compositional, figural studies (using models), lighting studies (using clay models), perspective studies, color studies, nature studies, etc. Today, over 2,000 drawings by him are extant. Every detail of his subsequent cartoons for canvases was worked out in this way. A good example is his famed Madonna del Popolo (Uffizi). It is a vortex of color and vitality, made possible by the great variety of people, poses, perspectives, natural details, colors, lighting and atmospheric effects. There are many surviving drawings for the Madonna del Popolo, from initial sketches to color studies of heads, to the final full size cartoon. Despite this painstaking process, Barocci's genius kept the brushstrokes passionate and liberated, and a spiritual light seems to flicker as a jewel across faces, hands, drapery, and sky.
Barocci's embrace of the Counter Reformation would shape his long and fruitful career. By 1566, he joined a lay order of Capuchins, an offshoot of Franciscans.<ref>Walter Friedlander, Burlington Magazine (1964), pp. 16–17 reviewing Harold Olsen's book.</ref> He may have been influenced by Saint Philip Neri, whose Oratorians sought to reconnect the spiritual realm with the lives of everyday people. Neri, who was somewhat ambivalent about the accumulating richness of his Santa Maria in Vallicella, commissioned two completed works from Barocci, the pre-eminent artist of these large pious altarpieces: The Visitation<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> (1583–6) and Presentation of the Virgin<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> (1593–94). Neri is said to have been moved to ecstasy by Barocci's accomplishment in the former painting, which shows the Virgin and Elizabeth greeting each other.
In Urbino, where he painted a Descent from the Cross for the cathedral of San Lorenzo at Perugia. He again visited Rome during the papacy of Gregory XIII when he painted two admirable pictures for the Chiesa Nuova, representing the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to Elisabeth and the Presentation in the Temple, and for the Chiesa della Minerva, a Last Supper.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Critical assessment and legacyEdit
The artist biographer Giovanni Bellori, the Baroque equivalent of Giorgio Vasari, considered Barocci to be among the finest painters of his time. Barocci's emotive brushwork was not lost on Peter Paul Rubens when he was in Italy. Rubens is known to have made a sketch of his dramatic Martyrdom of St Vitale, in which the martyr's undulating flesh is the eye of another whirlwind of figures, gestures, and drama. Also, Rubens' The Martyrdom of St Livinus seems to owe much to Barocci, from the putto with the pointing palm frond to the presence of dogs in the lower right corner. Among the painters and artists who worked under Barocci are Antonio Cimatori (Visacci), Ventura Mazza, Antonio Viviani (il Sordo di Urbino), Giovanni Andrea Urbani, Alessandro Vitali, and finally Felice and Vincenzo Pellegrini. Barocci also had many who followed or were strongly influenced by his style, including Nicolo Martinelli (il Trometta), Giovanni Battista Lombardelli, Domenico Malpiedi, Cesare & Basilio Maggeri, Filippo Bellini, Giovanni Laurentini (Arrigoni), Giorgio Picchi, Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi, Pietro Paolo Tamburini, Terenzio d’Urbino (il Rondolino), Giulio Cesare Begni, Benedetto Marini, Girolamo Cialdieri, Giovanni Battista Urbinelli, Alfonso Patanazzi, Gian Ortensio Bertuzzi, Cesare Franchi (il Pollino), Silla Piccinini, Benedetto Bandiera, Matteuccio Salvucci, Simeone Ciburri, Pietro Rancanelli, Onofrio Marini, Alessandro Brunelli, and Francesco Baldelli.<ref>Catalogo dei quadri che si conservano nella Pinacoteca Vannucci in Perugia, by Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, (1903) page 60.</ref>
Barocci's swirling composition and the focus on the emotional and spiritual are elements that foreshadow the Baroque of Rubens. But even in Federico's Proto-Baroque Beata Michelina can see the makings of Bernini's High Baroque masterpiece Ecstasy of St Theresa.
Partial list of worksEdit
| Painting | Date | Site | Image link | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martyrdom of St Sebastian | 1557 | Urbino Cathedral | |||
| Madonna di San Simone | 1567 | Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino | citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> | |
| Deposition | 1567–69 | Perugia Cathedral | |||
| Rest on the Flight into Egypt | c. 1573 | Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican | citation | CitationClass=web | |
| Nativity | 1597 | lang}}, Madrid | File:Federico Barocci, Nativity (Prado).jpg | ||
| The Vision of St Francis | San Francesco, Urbino | ||||
| Madonna del Popolo | 1575–79 | Uffizi, Florence | File:Federico Barocci - Madonna del Popolo - Google Art Project.jpg | ||
| Entombment | 1580-2 | Chiesa della Croce, Senigallia | |||
| Martyrdom of San Vitale | 1583 | Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan | citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> |
|
| Portrait of a Young Man | Template:Circa–85 | Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg | File:Federico Barocci, Portrait de jeune homme.jpg | ||
| Circumcision | Paris | File:Barocci-Circoncision-Louvre.jpg | |||
| Annuciation | 1592–96 | Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Assisi, Perugia | citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> | |
| Aeneas' Flight from Troy | 1598 | Galleria Borghese, Rome | File:Aeneas' Flight from Troy by Federico Barocci.jpg | ||
| St Jerome | 1598 | Galleria Borghese, Rome | citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> | |
| Portrait of Francisco II della Rovere | 1572 | Uffizi, Florence | <ref>Barocci ibiblio.org</ref> | ||
| Christ and Mary Magdalen (Noli me tangere) | 1590 | Gemaldegalerie, Munich | citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> | |
| Entombment (etching) | 1579–1582 | Getty Museum, Los Angeles | citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> | |
| Quintilia Fischeri | Template:Circa | National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. | Template:Citation needed span | ||
| Annunciation (etching) | Template:Citation needed span | ||||
| St Francis receives the stigmata (drawing) | Accademia Carrara, Bergamo | ||||
| Madonna with Sts Simon and Jude | Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino | citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> | ||
| Vocation of Saints Peter and Andrew | 1586 | Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium | Template:Citation needed span | ||
| Madonna and Child with the Infant John the Baptist and St Joseph (Madonna with the Cat) | Template:Circa | National Gallery, London | citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> | |
| Communion of the Apostles | Template:Circa~1608 | Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome | File:Federico Barocci - The Institution of the Eucharist - WGA01290.jpg |
,_Rest_on_the_Flight_to_Egypt_-museivaticani.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
- Drawings by Federico Barocci photographed by Paolo Monti
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1972) - BEIC 6331282.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1972) - BEIC 6331283.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1972) - BEIC 6331284.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1972) - BEIC 6331285.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1972) - BEIC 6331286.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1972) - BEIC 6331287.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1972) - BEIC 6331288.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1973) - BEIC 6331289.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1973) - BEIC 6331290.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1973) - BEIC 6331291.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1973) - BEIC 6331292.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1973) - BEIC 6331293.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1973) - BEIC 6331294.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1973) - BEIC 6331295.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1973) - BEIC 6331296.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1973) - BEIC 6331297.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1973) - BEIC 6331298.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Firenze, 1973) - BEIC 6331299.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico - BEIC 6347005.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico - BEIC 6359446.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico - BEIC 6359447.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico - BEIC 6359448.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico - BEIC 6359449.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico - BEIC 6359450.jpg
- Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico - BEIC 6359451.jpg
ReferencesEdit
<references/>
SourcesEdit
External linksEdit
Template:External media Template:Commons category-inline Template:EB1911 poster
- Cats in Barocci's Paintings.
- Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on and by Federico Barocci (see index).
- Lisot, Elizabeth A. (2009). Passion, Penance and Mystical Union: Early Modern Catholic Polemics in the Religious Paintings of Federico Barocci, excerpt from Univ. of Texas, Dallas, Ph.D. Dissertation. See also: Elizabeth Lisot, Ph.D.
- Template:CathEncy
- Template:Cite book
- The Creative Process Behind Federico Barocci's Drawings, on Google Arts and Culture.
- Template:Ws, engraved by Emma Smith for The Easter gift, 1832, with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon