Valerio Castello
(1624 - 1659) |
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Secular narratives, Historical narratives Art Work
| Name: |
Valerio Castello |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Genoa |
| Nationality: |
Italian |
| Birth: |
1624 |
| Death: |
1659 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Secular narratives, Historical narratives |
| 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
| Valerio is notable for moving Genoese painting away from the sculptural and detailed mode of the 1640s toward a more painterly, sweeping, and delicate but not sentimental style. Though he reportedly trained with his father and with others Fiasella,Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari, and Sarzana are mentioned, Valerio is described as an auto didact who struck out on his own around 1640, when he traveled to Milan. There he studied the art of Procaccini.Later, in Parma, he learned from the work of Correggio as well as Parmigianino. Valerio returned to Genoa around 1645 and quickly gained patronage. Despite his brief career he died at age thirty-four, his works are remarkably large and impressive in quality. Among his early commissions are two works in Oratorio di Giacomo della Marina in Genoa of 1646. including his early masterpiece, St. Peter Baptizing Sts. James and John, which shows his development of Titian's composition into a dynamic, movemented, and spiritually evocative image. His Sts. Lawrence, Sebastian, and Roch signed and dated 1648, S. Margherita Ligure, Church of S. Sir6 shows his absorption of Correggio, van Dyck, and Genoese painting into an impressive, dynamic style. By 1650 he had quickly developed an interest in sharply diagonal movements, crisply outlined draperies, and a rapidly painted manner that often involved numerous figures shown in sweeping action. In the 1650s Valerio also received one of his most important surviving fresco commissions, that of the Allegory of Time done for the vault of the salon in the Palazzo Balbi-Senarega, Genoa. Adapting Pietro da Cortona's energetic manner, Valerio refined his figures, heightened the sense of movement, and virtually exploded his figures across the vault. His sense of lightness and motion was even more beautifully expressed in his Allegory of Fame documented 1655 fresco done for the Palazzo Reale, and executed together with the architectural painter Andrea Sighizzi. His many easel pictures with their masses of hastily painted figures shown in rapid, almost hallucinogenic action shares something of the effect of Furini in Florence and Mazzoni in Venice. Valerio has been called the master of the modello, which van Dyck probably popularized in Genoa. A number of charming amd appealing modelli survive, notably Marriage of the Virgin Genoa, Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola, which is vaporous and nearly impressionistic in its treatment. Numerous vivid and energetically drawn sheets survive from his hand, demonstrating his vital draftsmanship. Notable collections include the Ufftzi, Louvre, and Palazzo Rosso Genoa. |
Samples of Work
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