Matthias Stomer
(1600 - 1650) |
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Secular Narratives, Historic Narratives, Mythological Narratives Art Work
| Name: |
Matthias Stomer |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Amersfoort |
| Nationality: |
Dutch |
| Birth: |
1600 |
| Death: |
1650 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Secular Narratives, Historic Narratives, Mythological Narratives |
| Medium: |
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| Method: |
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| Style: |
Dutch golden age, Caravaggism |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| One of the last Dutch followers of Caravaggio, Matthias Stomer continued to follow Caravaggism long after it had gone out of fashion in most circles. Despite his eclecticism, Stomer deserves recognition for the consistent high quality of his surviving work. Despite the absence of documents, it is thought that Stomer trained in Utrecht with Gerrit van Honthorst after the latter's return from Rome in 1620. Thereafter Stomer himself went to Rome, where he was documented between 1630 and 1632 living in the parish of San Nicola in Arcione on the Strada delFOlmo. From around 1633 to 1639 Stomer is thought to have worked in Naples. Eighteenth-century sources (de Domenici and Celano) state that Stomer painted pictures for the Neapolitan church of the Capuchins of San Efremo Nuovo, and it is assumed that he supplied altarpieces for other regional churches. Stomer is known to have been in Sicily by 1641 and likely established himself there, while also working in Palermo and nearby Messina. A fairly substantial body of surviving work traces Stomer's thirty-year career. Consisting largely of biblical subjects with a particular emphasis on the life of Christ, his oeuvre also includes some mythologies, genre subjects, and histories - all essentially rooted in the work of the Utrecht Caravaggisti, particularly Honthorst and, to a lesser extent, Dirck van Baburen. His chronology is difficult to establish, since only one dated picture, 5/. Isidore Agricola (dated 1641, formerly Caccamo, near Palermo, Chiesa degli Agostiniani, and now stolen), is known. Still, it has been shown that Stomer gradually shifted from the northern clarity of his earlier style (strongly affected by Honthorst and to some extent Baburen) toward a Neapolitan realism in the work done after his arrival in Sicily. His style is fairly easy to recognize - it features standard types, many of them rustics with characteristically leathery features, gathered around a central light source which starkly illuminates them against a dramatically dark background. That format and the figure types were equally adaptable to Old Testament subjects (Sarah Brings Hagar before Abraham, Berlin, Bodemuseum), New Testament scenes (The Adoration of the Magi, Vaduz, Liechtensteinische Kunstsammlung), and histories (Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna, Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales). All but forgotten after his death, Stomer was rediscovered in the twentieth century thanks largely to the efforts of Benedict Nicolson. |
Samples of Work
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