| A brilliant and influential follower of Caravaggio, Orazio Borgianni is particularly important for his Spanish connections, having worked there twice. Credited with fomenting the Venetian style in Spain during his first visit, on his second visit Borgianni introduced Spanish artists to Caravaggism. Born in Rome to a Tuscan carpenter, Orazio was likely trained by his stepbrother, the architect and sculptor Giulio Lasso. Independent by 1593 when his first dated work is known, Borgianni then traveled to Spain where Baglione says he married. Little is known of his activity between 1598 and 1603, but we know he was back in Rome by 1604. By the beginning of 1605 he was back in Madrid and helped establish the artists' academy there. In October 1607 he is listed as a member of the Roman Academia di San Luca, indicating that he was once more in Rome where he remained until his premature death in 1616. Evidently his Spanish connections remained strong since his most important Spanish commission (the cycle of paintings illustrating the Life of the Virgin (Valladolid, Convent of the Virgin), installed in 1613) were painted after Borgianni had returned to Italy. Based on Borgianni's study of the Venetians, particularly Tintoretto, they also show his absorption of the styles of Bassani, Correggio, El Greco, the Carracci* and Rubens. It was precisely Borgianni's retention of Venetian traditions that endowed his Caravaggesque phase (which began after he settled in Rome) with such striking individuality. A skilled (if at times overdramatic) narrator, Borgianni heeded Caravaggio's basic lessons but always injected his own personality. In Death of St. John the Evangelist (Dresden, Gemaldegalerie), for example, he underscored the scene's pathos by showing the aging old saint helped to his deathbed by the apostles, an unprecedented and original conception. In David and Goliath (Madrid, Real Academia de San Fernando) Borgianni exaggerated the violence by showing the viewer a still living giant sprawled out and being decapitated. His naturalism was more summery, his paint application more lush, and his colors generally more luminous than Caravaggio's. A marvelous example of his vivid creative imagination is Holy Family (Rome, Galleria Nazionale). Here links with Lanfranco, Saraceni and the Carracci are evident. Baglione reported in 1642 that Orazio was one of Caravaggio's worst enemies, but it is obvious that he was one of the first artists to understand Caravaggio's work and to transcend it. |
