Carlo Saraceni
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Carlo Saraceni (Venice c. 1570-Venice, 16 June 1620) was an Italian early-Baroque painter.
Though he was born in Venice, his paintings are more Roman in style; he moved to Rome in 1598, joining the Accademia di San Luca in 1607. He never visited France, though he spoke fluent French and had French followers and a French wardrobe. His painting, however, was influenced at first by the densely forested landscape settings for human figures of the German painter (resident then in Rome) Elsheimer's small paintings on copper panels, a format Saraceni employed in six landscape panels illustrating The Flight of Icarus (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples); in Moses and the Daughters of Jethro (National Gallery, London) [1] and Mars and Venus (Museo de Arte Saõ Paulo) [2].
When Caravaggio's notorious Death of the Virgin (now at the Louvre), was rejected in 1606 by the church of Santa Maria della Scala, it was Saraceni who provided the acceptable substitute, which remains in situ. He was influenced by Caravaggio's dramatic lighting, monumental figures, naturalistic detail, and momentary action (illustration, right), so that he is numbered among the first of the "tenebrists" or "Caravaggisti". His distinctly Caravaggesque candlelit Judith and the Head of Holofernes is at the Dayton Art Institute [3]
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Saraceni's matured rapidly between 1606 and 1610. His fully mature career is confined to the decade after 1610. In 1616–17 he collaborated on the frescoes for the Sala Regia in the Palazzo Quirinale, Rome. In 1618 he received payment for two paintings in the church of S. Maria dell' Anima. Compositional details of his fresco of The Birth of the Virgin in the Chapel of the Annunciation, S. Maria Aquiro are repeated in a panel on copper at the Louvre [4]
In 1620 he returned to Venice, where he died in the same year.
[edit] Works
- Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1606 (Eremo dei Camaldoli, Frascati)
- Madonna and Child with Saint Anne painted for the Church of San Simeone Profeta, 1610 (Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome)
- Papal Authority (J. Paul Getty Museum) Chalk preparatory sketch for an allegorical fresco [5].
- Vision of Saint Francis Alte Pinakothek, Munich
- Angel and Saint Cecilia (Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome) Attributed to Saraceni [6]
- The Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia (LACMA)
- Nativity (Residenzgalerie, Salzburg)
Work by Saraceni can also be seen in the Roman church of San Lorenzo in Lucina.
[edit] References
- Web Gallery of Art: Carlo Saraceni
- Charles Dempsey, Keith Christiansen, Richard E. Spear, and Erich Scheier. 1985. The Age of Caravaggio. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
