Showing posts with label ceilings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ceilings. Show all posts

Thursday, December 12, 2019

Jean-Robert Ango in Eighteenth-Century Rome

Jean-Robert Ango
Winged Figure holding a Glass in upraised Hand
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango
Kneeling Winged Figure holding a Crown
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango
Standing Soldier in Antique Dress
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango
Seated Allegorical Figure
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

"The drawings collection at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, in New York, rich in French and Italian ornament and architecture drawings, deserves to be better known.  Among its surprises are four albums by the eighteenth-century French artist, Jean-Robert Ango, who lived and worked in Rome from 1759 to 1772.  . . .  Nothing is known about Ango's origins, his early life, his training, or how he got from France to Rome.  . . .  Pierre Rosenberg published Ango's death date of 1773, and described the artist's final days in Rome; half-paralyzed, probably from a stroke, he was reduced to begging in the streets."

"There are 151 drawings in the four albums, all executed in red chalk.  . . .  They seem to be more finished than those generally found in sketchbooks of the period.  The drawings after paintings in these albums almost never depict the complete work, such as an altarpiece, fresco, or ceiling, but rather study details.  . . .  Unlike other French artists of this period, Ango evidently did not use his drawings to prepare paintings, nor, since he never returned to France, would he have considered them necessary as his sole records of Roman art.  Perhaps he depended on the sale of such drawings as his only source of income.  . . .  No original compositions by Ango are known; his extant drawings are after other artists' works.  The sheets in the four albums all seem to be after Roman paintings and sculpture, but despite diligent search, only slightly over half of the subjects depicted could be identified.  Ango ranged fairly widely around Rome, yet classical ruins, landscapes, city views, and architecture failed to attract him.  . . .  Although Ango took meals at the French Academy, he did not have a room there, and no other address in Rome has been recorded; he probably found it expedient to draw in sheltered places during inclement weather.  St. Peter's and many other churches were his haunts."

– Phyllis Dearborn Massar, from Drawings by Jean-Robert Ango after Paintings and Sculpture in Rome, published in the journal Master Drawings (Spring, 1999)       

Jean-Robert Ango
Winged Figure on Pedestal
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango
Figure with Upraised Arms
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango after Michelangelo
Persian Sibyl from the Sistine Ceiling
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango after Michelangelo
Ignudo from Sistine Ceiling
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango after Michelangelo
Ignudo from Sistine Ceiling
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango after Michelangelo
Ignudo from Sistine Ceiling
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango after Michelangelo
Ignudo from Sistine Ceiling
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango after Michelangelo
Ignudo from Sistine Ceiling
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango after Michelangelo
Figure from The Last Judgment fresco, Sistine Chapel 
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean-Robert Ango after Michelangelo
Figures from The Last Judgment fresco, Sistine Chapel 
ca. 1759-70
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Francesco Salviati (1510-1563) - Chamber of Apollo

Francesco Salviati
Chamber of Apollo - Ceiling
(Story of Apollo and Marsyas)
ca. 1539-40
fresco, in stucco frames by Giovanni da Udine
Palazzo Grimani, Venice

Francesco Salviati
Chamber of Apollo - Ceiling
(Story of Apollo and Marsyas)
ca. 1539-40
fresco, in stucco frames by Giovanni da Udine
Palazzo Grimani, Venice

Francesco Salviati
Chamber of Apollo - Ceiling
(Story of Apollo and Marsyas)
ca. 1539-40
fresco, in stucco frames by Giovanni da Udine
Palazzo Grimani, Venice

Francesco Salviati
Chamber of Apollo - Ceiling
(Story of Apollo and Marsyas)
ca. 1539-40
fresco, in stucco frames by Giovanni da Udine
Palazzo Grimani, Venice

Francesco Salviati
Chamber of Apollo - Ceiling
(Story of Apollo and Marsyas)
ca. 1539-40
fresco, in stucco frames by Giovanni da Udine
Palazzo Grimani, Venice

Francesco Salviati
Chamber of Apollo - Ceiling
(Story of Apollo and Marsyas)
ca. 1539-40
fresco, in stucco frames by Giovanni da Udine
Palazzo Grimani, Venice

Francesco Salviati
Chamber of Apollo - Lunette
(Origins of the Grimani Family)
ca. 1539-40
fresco, in stucco frames by Giovanni da Udine
Palazzo Grimani, Venice

Francesco Salviati
Chamber of Apollo - Lunette
(Origins of the Grimani Family)
ca. 1539-40
fresco, in stucco frames by Giovanni da Udine
Palazzo Grimani, Venice

Francesco Salviati
Chamber of Apollo - Lunette
(Origins of the Grimani Family)
ca. 1539-40
fresco, in stucco frames by Giovanni da Udine
Palazzo Grimani, Venice

Francesco Salviati
Chamber of Apollo - Lunette
(Origins of the Grimani Family)
ca. 1539-40
fresco, in stucco frames by Giovanni da Udine
Palazzo Grimani, Venice

"Salviati departed from Rome late in 1538 or early in 1539 to return to Florence briefly, from which he travelled via Bologna (where he was for a while with Vasari, then working there) to Venice, remaining in Venice until 1541.  He returned to Rome by way of Verona, Mantua, and the Romagna.  In Venice his chief patrons were the Grimani, in whose palace he executed (in stucco frames by Giovanni da Udine) two small decorations all'antica.  They give evidence of an important experience, newly gained by Salviati outside Rome, of the Bolognese paintings of Parmigianino.  The kind and quality of grace that Salviati observed in Parmigianino gave his strained calligraphy new fluency, while not diminishing its complexity or power.  More important, Parmigianino's style did more than demonstrate a mode of ornament; it revealed that stylization could create high elegance.  Two Roman years that followed the North Italian trip show Salviati's process of assimilation of what he had acquired."

– S.J. Freedberg from Painting in Italy - 1500 to 1600 in the Pelican History of Art series (London, 1971)

Francesco Salviati
Head of a Woman
undated
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Francesco Salviati
Head of a Woman
undated
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Francesco Salviati
Neptune before a niche with Amphitrite
undated
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Francesco Salviati
Youth seated on the ground
undated
drawing
British Museum

Sunday, September 1, 2019

Lattanzio Gambara (ca. 1530-1574) - Study Drawings

Lattanzio Gambara
Naval Battle
(study for fresco)
ca. 1550-55
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

attributed to Lattanzio Gambara
Adoration of the Magi
ca. 1560-70
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Lattanzio Gambara
Samson destroying the Temple
ca. 1550-60
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Lattanzio Gambara
Three Kings on their way to Bethlehem
ca. 1550-60
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Lattanzio Gambara
Ceiling Design with Mars driving his Chariot
(study for fresco)
ca. 1565-69
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Lattanzio Gambara
Ceiling Design with the Virgin in Glory
(study for fresco)
ca. 1565-70
drawing
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

"Cremonese painter Giulio Campi discovered Lattanzio Gambara, a tailor's son, in 1545.  Campi took him to Cremona as his pupil and taught him the then-fashionable Lombard and Emilian Mannerist style.  Four years later Gambara returned to Brescia, where he studied under Brescia's most important painter, Girolamo Romanino, with whom he later collaborated regularly and whose daughter he married in 1556.  A prolific fresco painter and draftsman, Gambara became Brescia's leading artist after his teacher's death in 1560.  He lived in Parma from 1567 to 1573, where he worked on one of his most significant frescoes, the nave arcade and internal façade of Parma cathedral, in collaboration with Cremonese painter Bernardino Gatti.  Gambara returned to Brescia to begin frescoes for a church there.  He died soon after, due to a fall from scaffolding in the church vault.  Gambara's style combined decorative elegance with complex foreshortening and monumental qualities.  In time, he exchanged many of the energetic aspects of his Mannerism for a more classicizing orientation."

– from curator's notes at the Getty Museum

Lattanzio Gambara
Jael and Sisera
before 1574
drawing
British Museum

attributed to Lattanzio Gambara
Salome with the Head of John the Baptist
before 1574
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

attributed to Lattanzio Gambara
Design for Wall Decoration with Episodes from the Life of Christ
(study for fresco)
before 1574
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Lattanzio Gambara
Holy Family with St Roch
before 1574
drawing
British Museum

Lattanzio Gambara
Study for Ecce Homo
before 1574
drawing
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Lattanzio Gambara
Study for Ecce Homo
before 1574
drawing
Museo del Prado, Madrid

attributed to Lattanzio Gambara
Project for a Façade Decoration
before 1574
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

attributed to Lattanzio Gambara
Architectural Studies
before 1574
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

attributed to Lattanzio Gambara
Design for Pitcher in the form of a Lion
before 1574
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Friday, August 30, 2019

Brother Artists Dosso and Battista Dossi - Frescoes in Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Ceiling Roundel with Putti
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Putti playing with Letters of the Name of Bishop Bernardo Clesio
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Putti playing with Heraldic Lions from the Arms of Bishop Bernardo Clesio
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

"In 1531-32- Dosso was engaged, again with his brother, on an extensive fresco decoration for Bishop Clesio in the Castel Buonconsiglio at Trento (where Romanino of Brescia was called to work at the same time); Dosso's paintings there show an alteration from their former style that is markedly towards the style of Giulio [Romano].  In the Buonconsiglio frescoes and in the major easel works that closely succeed them the libertarian attitudes towards form and expression that had characterized so much of Dosso's art before are chastened: drawing becomes firm and sharp and contests the assertiveness of colour; surfaces take on a harder brilliance; fantasy and free invention yield to a new desire for classicist correctness."

– S.J. Freedberg from Painting in Italy - 1500 to 1600 in the Pelican History of Art series (London, 1971)

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Ceres
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Ornamental Putti
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Neptune
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Athena
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Pluto with Cerberus
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Juno
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Mercury
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Ornamental Putti
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Ornamental Putti
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Ornamental Putti
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento

Dosso and Battista Dossi
Ornamental Putti
1531-32
fresco
Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento