Domenico Zampieri
(1581 - 1641) |
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Secular subjects, Fresco commissions Art Work
| Name: |
Domenico Zampieri |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Bologna |
| Nationality: |
Italian |
| Birth: |
1581 |
| Death: |
1641 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Secular subjects, Fresco commissions |
| Medium: |
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| Method: |
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| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painter
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Biography
| The chief proponent of the Raphaelesque, classicizing ideals of the Carracci Academy, Domenichino unabashedly quoted from these venerable sources, giving many of their themes such as landscape a new, modern inflection without departing from the forms and derivations that endowed them with such significance to his audience. Conversant in theory, music, philosophy, and architecture, Domenichino quickly became a favorite among Roman intellectuals in part because his mature images operated on numerous levels, alluding to poetry, music, philosophy, as well as visual traditions. Slightly younger than Reni* and Atbani,* Domenichino, like them, trained with Denys Calvaert before transferring to the Carracci Academy around 1595. Ludovico Carracci* was his principal instructor, but Annibale Carracci* was his chief source of subjects, compositions, and methods. Domenichino arrived in Rome in 1602, where he joined Badalocchio* and Lanfranco* in assisting Annibale Carracci on the Farnese Gallery. He is credited with the Girl with Unicorn and Narcissus. Between 1603 and 1604, Domenichino also frescoed the garden loggia. That project placed Domenichino in the midst of the intellectual and artistic circles in which he would find success. The Agucchi brothers soon took an interest in him; Cardinal Scipio Borghese kept an eye on him while Guido Reni, among others, employed him. Guido Reni "subcontracted" him to execute the Flagellation of St. Andrew, which Cardinal Scipio Borghese had ordered between 1608 and 1609 for the oratory chapel of San Gregorio Magno. The Flagellation was such a success that other commissions soon followed. Albani supported Domenichino's role in the decoration of the Odescalchi villa at Bassano di Sutri (1609). Annibale supported Domenichino over Lanfranco for the commission to paint the Legends of St. Nilus (dated 1608-10, Lazio, near Rome) in the chapel dedicated to the saint in the Abbey of Grossoferrata. Domenichino's fresco cycle of the Life of St. Cecilia (dated 1612-15, Rome, Polet Chapel, S. Luigi dei Francesi) really established him. Consciously quoting from Raphael's Stanze to lend credence, authority, and narrative clarity to his work, Domenichino enlivened the scene with his sharp eye for natural detail. A textbook of classical mural decoration in opposition to Caravaggio's* dramatic canvases nearby, the project affirmed Domenichino's position as a major proponent of intellectual, and artistic ideals as well as a gifted fresco painter who would remain in demand. Domenichino's first Roman altarpiece, The Last Communion of St Jerome (signed and dated 1614, done for Girolamo della Carita and now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City) established a similar visual and intellectual pedigree. An homage to Agostino Carracci's 1592 version of the subject, Domenichino's example reversed Agostino's composition, reduced the figures' scale, and evoked a greater sense of pathos through many natural details which make the picture more accessible. When Reni returned to Bologna in 1614, Domenichino's prominence in Rome increased. Giambattista Agucchi's Trattato sulla Pittura published in 1610 was based on Domenichino's concepts of ideal beauty and through Agucchi (secretary to the Aldobrandini) he undoubtedly gained the commission to paint a series of Ovidian landscapes for the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati between 1616 and 1618. Balanced and harmonious (yet not artificial), they depend on but transcend Annibale's landscapes and are an important document in the development of this essential theme. Scipione Borghese's interest turned to avarice regarding Cardinal Aldobrandini's easel picture, the Hunt of Diana (dated 1616-17, Rome, Galleria Borghese). Its wonderful mingling of artistic, intellectual and sensual concerns was clearly beyond the Borghese's power to resist. Refusing to break his contract with Aldobrandini, Domenichino was imprisoned until he relented. Perhaps deciding to escape from the pressure, Domenichino returned to Bologna between 1617 and 1621, working in nearby Fano to decorate the Nolfi chapel in the cathedral there and producing a number of important altarpieces in Bologna. One of his most memorable and striking works from this period is the Death of St. Peter Martyr (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale), commissioned by G. Filippo Spada for the Dominican convent of Brisighella. In this scene of arrested motion and terrified action, Domenichino's approach to narrative is increasingly daring. It takes Titian's model and Guido Reni's idea of single, dynamic figures and explodes them onto the canvas, indicating just how limiting the rubric "classicist" can be when discussing Domenichino's work. To these years are grouped the half- or three-quarter length portrayals of saints and sibyls that are, to modern tastes, among his most beautiful accomplishments. Deliberate quotations from Raphael, these conflations of antique, Renaissance, and baroque ideals of beauty are inspired. An example is St. Cecilia with an Angel (dated 1620, Paris, Louvre). When Alessandro Ludovisi was elected Gregory XV (1621-23), Domenichino was invited back to Rome as papal architect, and continued his career as painter as well. His wonderful portrait of his friend Giambattista Agucchi Reading a Letter (York, City Art Gallery) is dated shortly after his return. His vast fresco cycle of the Life of St. Andrew (1622- 27) and the spandrel decorations of the Four Evangelists (1622-25) for S. Andrea della Valle are his best large-scale paintings. Considered the finest spandrel decorations in Rome, Domenichino's majestically heroic yet gracefully decorative figures reflect his study of Raphael, Annibale Carracci, and Correggio in achieving this brilliant solution to a difficult problem. Though Domenichino's paintings for this church are celebrated, it was Lanfranco who won the competition for the cupola. The exact succession of commissions is problematic. Waterhouse contends that the spandrel decorations come after the cupola. Other scholars claim that Domenichino was adopting Lanfranco's livelier and more animated approach. Many contend that by 1620 Lanfranco and Pietro da Cortona* were ascendant over him. In 1625 Domenichino received his only commission from St. Peter*s: the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (dated 1625-30) for the altarpiece in the second chapel on the right. Toward the end of the 1620s he completed several other commissions in Rome, including St. John the Evangelist for Vincenzo Guistiniani. During these years he had charge of the Carracci studio drawings, which must have been a valuable resource for him. When the deputati of the Capella del Tesoro of the Cathedral of Naples invited Domenichino there in 1630, he accepted and settled in Naples the following year to complete the decoration of the shrine or treasury of San Gennaro. Involving vast expanses of frescoes and six altarpieces, the project aroused great resentment among local artists. He was apparently so uncomfortable with the conditions of his employment that he left for Rome in 1634. Domenichino's wife, Mirabila, was held virtual hostage by the Viceroy of Naples to assure his return in 1635. Despite the competing demands for easel pictures by patrons such as the Viceroy, Domenichino was able to complete many of the works commissioned from him, including altarpieces (among them one of the largest ever painted on copper), many of which are in poor condition or lost. However, an altarpiece, Assumption with St. Nicholas of Bari (signed and dated 1637, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), and a Head of St. John the Baptist on a Salver (dated ca. 1630s, Madrid, Real Academia de Belles Artes de San Fernando) reflect some of the work dating from Domenichino's Neapolitan period. Domenichino died prematurely in Naples, and the San Gennaro project was left uncompleted; his wife claimed that he had been poisoned. Domenichino's thorough preparatory method is demonstrated by the many drawings which still survive (the greatest deposit is at Windsor Castle). Besides his many other talents, Domenichino must be remembered as a great portrait artist, though only about nine portraits survive. His full-length portrait of a young man, sometimes called a self-portrait (dated 1603, Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum), shows his daringly original interpretation of Veronese and Moroni and anticipates the monumental single figures of Velazquez* and Manet. ADDITIONAL WORKS: Bassano di Sutri, Palazzo Giustiniani (now Odescalchi), Myth of Diana (1609). Beziers, Musee des Beaux-Arts Hotel Fabregal, Portrait of Pope Gregory XV. Bologna, PN, Martyrdom ofS. Agnese; Silvia and the Satyr, Madonna of the Rosary. Cambridge, FM, Landscape with St. John Baptizing (1630s). Chantilly, MC, The Stoning of St. Stephen. Florence, GU, Self-portrait. Fort Worth, KAM, Landscape with Sacrifice of Isaac (1602). Glasgow, GAGM, Landscape with St. Jerome. Grenoble, MPS, God Reproaching Adam and Eve. Hartford, WA, St. John Baptizing in a Landscape. Kassel, SKK, Landscape (1620-25). London, NG, detached frescoes from Frascati, Villa Aldobrandini (1616-18): Apollo and Neptune Advising Laomedon on the Building of Troy; Apollo Killing the Cyclops; Apollo Pursuing Daphne; Apollo Slaying Coronis; Flaying of Marsyus; Judgement of Midas; Mercury Stealing the Herds of Admetus Guarded by Apollo; Transformation of Cyparissus; Landscape with Tobias Laying Hold of the Fish (cabinet); Vision of St. Jerome (his earliest surviving documented picture). Malibu, JPGM, Road to Calvary (copper). Montpellier, MF, Cardinal Jean de Bonsy. Munich, AP, St. Matthew and the Angel. Milan, PB, Madonna with Sts. John and Petrovio. Naples, Capella del Tesoro Cathedral, decorations including: Eruption of Vesuvius (1633); 5. Gennaro Protects Naples from the Saracens (1637). Paris, ML, Landscape with Hercules and Cacus (ca. 1621); Rinaldo and Armido; Flight into Egypt; Hermione with the Shepherds; St. Paul Lifted into the Sky by Angels; Timoclea before Alexander. Raleigh, NCMA, Madonna of Loreto and Three Saints. Riom, Musee Francisque Mandet, Landscape with the Rest on the Flight into Egypt. Rome, GB, Sibyl. GDP, The Ford. MC, Sybil (1620-25) (oil on copper). Palazzo Costaguti (ceiling), Chariot of Apollo (begun 1615). Palazzo Mattei di Giove (ceilings with Old Testament scenes), Issac Blessing Jacob and Jacob and Rachel (1615). S. Cardo ai Sancatanari, four pendentives: Cardina Virtues (1628-30). S. Maria delle Concezione, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata. S. Maria della Vittoria Madonna and Child with St. Francis (1629-30). S. Maria in Trasteveri, ceiling: Assumption (1628-30). S. Onofrio al Gianicolo, three scenes from the life of St. Jerome (commissioned by Cardinal Girolamo Agucchi). Schleissheim, NSS, Susannah and the Bath. Toul, Musee du Toulois, St. Anthony of Padua (or St. Francis of Assisi). Versailles, MNCV, King David Playing the Harp. Wiesbaden, MW, Holy Family with an Angel and St. John the Baptist. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baglione 1642; Baldinucci 1624; Bellori 1672; Borea 1959; Borea 1965; Borea and Cellini 1961; Cera 1982; Lanzi 1789; Malvasia 1678; National Gallery of Art 1986; Passeri 1772; Pope-Hennessy 1948; Posner 1965; Salerno 1963; Schleier, "Domenichino, Lanfranco," 1968; Serra 1909; Spear, Domenichino, 1982; Spear, "Domenichino at Fano," 1982; Turner 1983; Waterhouse 1962. |
Samples of Work
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