Pietro Testa
(1612 - 1650) |
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Secular Narratives, Historic Narratives Art Work
| Name: |
Pietro Testa |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Lucca |
| Nationality: |
Italian |
| Birth: |
1612 |
| Death: |
1650 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Secular Narratives, Historic Narratives |
| Medium: |
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| Method: |
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| Style: |
High Baroque |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
Draftsman
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Biography
| Though he was not a prolific painter, Pietro Testa deserves mention in a survey of baroque painters because of his eccentric and original conceptions and his importance as a draftsman and etcher. Widely acknowledged as one of the most visionary and innovative artists of his era, Testa is also celebrated as one of the century's most troubled creators, whose melancholic personality likely prompted a suicide by drowning in his thirty-sixth year. Baptized in Lucca on 18 June 1612, Pietro was born the son of Giovanni di Bartolomeo Testa, a dealer in used books. Nothing is actually known of his training in Lucca. He must have arrived in Rome in the late 1620s or so, where his earliest documented friendship was with Joachim von Sand ran, who claimed to have helped Testa after finding him sitting alone wildly drawing among the ruins of the Colosseum. Sand ran quickly employed Testa to make drawings for the Galleria Giustiniani, the famous project recording ancient sculpture for Vincenzo Giustiniani. Passeri noted that Testa studied with Domenichino* and that he made drawings for that other famous antiquarian, Cassiano dal Pozzo, whose Museo Cartaceo (Paper Museum) intended to record all the remains of antiquity then known. Baldinucci supports this account, claiming that in all Testa produced five volumes of such drawings. Most of the known surviving examples of this effort are now in the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle. After Domenichino's departure for Naples in 1631, Testa (according to Passeri) was introduced to Pietro da Cortona by Cassiano dal Pozzo. Baldinucci reports that Testa was expelled from da Cortona's studio soon thereafter, because of the pupil's insufficient respect for his master. Few actual dates or documents fill in our knowledge of Testa's career. We know that he returned briefly to Lucca in 1632 and again in 1637. Much of his patronage centered on the relatively small circle of supporters already mentioned. Vincenzo Giustiniani brought paintings and etchings, the Barberini circles occasionally employed him, and he received a small, steady income from Cassiano dal Pozzo. He could count among his friends the great Poussin, Gaspard Dughet, Sandrart, and the sculptor Duquesnoy. We know that in 1634 Testa had rented a house in the parish of Santi Vincenzo ed Anastasio and even had a servant. In 1636 he attended a meeting of the Accadcmia di San Luca during which the famous debate between Sacchi and Pietro da Cortona was held. That year Testa also supplied testimony in a lawsuit filed by Herman van Swanevelt. Relations with his patrons did not always run smoothly. In 1637 Cassiano dal Pozzo had Testa arrested and imprisoned, in the Tor di Nona, accusing him of failing to meet his obligations, likely having heard that Testa intended to return to Lucca. Testa's letter to dal Pozzo declaring that Poussin would vouch for him still survives. We know Testa gained his freedom, because in 1637 Pier Francesco Mola drew his portrait and added an inscription that he made it in Lucca, thus proving that Testa had indeed returned to his home town, probably in the hopes of gaining patronage from the Lucchese Cardinal Marcantonio Franciotti. His hopes proved futile and Testa was back in Rome in late 1637. More isolated than earlier, Testa nonetheless continued to support himself. For the church of S. Romano he painted an altarpiece of S. Domenico, between 1637 and 1638, and a few years later (ca. 1642) he painted the Presentation of the Virgin (St. Petersburg, Hermitage) for the church of S. Croce de Lucchesi in Rome. Lucchese patronage followed once more as Testa painted The Miracle of St. TThiodore for Sts. Paolino and Donati in the late 1640s. Between 1645 and 1646 Testa was at work on his most monumental surviving painting, the Vision of Sant'Angelo Carmelitano, done for the church of San Martino ai Monti in Rome. Scholars generally accept Testa's participation in Gaspard Dughet's decoration of the aisle walls of S. Martino ai Monti in Rome between 1647 and 1651. It is believed that the figures in the fresco representing Herodias' Vision of the Cross are by Testa. Many of Testa's known painted compositions are expressive and inventive variants on Poussin's work which he often translated into haunting scenes cast in deep shadows. A notable example is his Adoration of the Shepherds (ca. 1640, Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland), which is based on Poussin's version of the subject now in the National Gallery, London. A good number of his later pictures are far more independent. In his Allegory of the Massacre of the Innocents (Rome, Galleria Spada), for example, which is dated to around 1639-42, we find Testa's gifts for narrative summation and dramatic expression beautifully articulated. As a single soldier prepares to slaughter a child in the picture's foreground, the violence and the horror of the episode are magnified because of their distillation into one brutal act. Directly behind in the distance is the Flight into Egypt and above is an allegorical figure of Innocence. Each part of the narrative is isolated yet unified within the composition, and that kind of division, as well as union, within the picture remains a characteristic of Testa's style. In his quest for emotional expression, Testa sometimes produced distortions that bordered on freakish ness, for which he evidently found little sympathy among patrons. Thus, despite his skills at pictorial narration, Testa found limited support for monumental commissions. His proposals for the apse of S. Martino ai Monti were rejected and his frescoes done for S. Maria deU'Anima were replaced by Jan Miel. Biographers all recount his increased sense of rejection and melancholy. Although none actually declare that his drowning in the Tiber on 1 March 1650 was a suicide, that conclusion is often drawn. |
Samples of Work
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