 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli The Entombment ca. 1638 oil on canvas Holburne Museum, Bath |
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Half-length Figure-study ca, 1637-40 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
 |
| attributed to Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Head of a Woman ca. 1635-60 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Return from the Flight into Egypt ca. 1635-40 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
"A pupil of Pietro da Cortona's in Rome, Giovanni Francesco Romanelli made his debut in the chapel of Palazzo Barberini where he painted without assistance the frescoes of The Adoration of the Shepherds and The Resurrection. His subsequent work remained heavily indebted to Cortona, although it was increasingly permeated by a classicist approach much in vogue following Andrea Sacchi's example. When still very young Romanelli was elected Principal of the Accademia di San Luca, an achievement undoubtedly assisted by the protection of a patron as powerful as Cardinal Francesco Barberini and by the esteem in which he was held by Bernini. Thanks to Barberini, Romanelli was constantly employed in supplying cartoons for the tapestry workshop founded by the Cardinal in 1644. The high point of Romanelli's career was in 1646 when he was called to Paris by Cardinal Barberini, who had moved there following the death of his uncle Pope Urban VIII. Romanelli's blend of the art of Cortona and classicism would prove extremely influential in French painting."
– from curator's notes at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli St John and St Peter at the empty Tomb ca. 1640 oil on silvered copper Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli St John and St Peter at the empty Tomb before 1641 oil on silvered copper Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Venus pouring Balm on the Wound of Aeneas before 1650 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Boreas abducting Oreithyia before 1662 oil on canvas Galleria Spada, Rome |
"In contrast to the later followers of Cortona, Romanelli took less interest in the complicated richness of dynamic relationships in the art of his master than in the clear and simple grandeur of his resolution as the main factors of a composition. Romanelli's particular manner is immediately recognizable in the static-geometric control of all the components of his frescoes and oil paintings; in these there is no striving for an impression of action, or of painterly concentration, but rather that of a state of cohesiveness, indeed of solemn formality. His use of neutral, bright coloration reinforces the quality of consistent planarity. The stasis and classicizing coldness of his art unmistakably bespeaks an ideal that is opposed to the trend in Roman development, but has affinities with the aspirations of contemporary French painters. Themes from mythology and classical history are more compatible than religious subjects to this point of view; religious subjects are often cloaked in the dress of classical antiquity and treated entirely in the manner of paintings of ancient history. (In this respect Romanelli was probably indebted to Poussin in addition to Cortona). Romanelli's formal language is schematic to the point of monotony, corresponding to the reported tradition of the effortlessness with which he executed his works. Passeri reports that the artist disdained the direct observation of nature as he worked, preferring to draw upon his own very pronounced formal perceptions. Thus the formal slickness as well as the striking uniformity of all his works may be explained by the particularity of his disposition and his method of working."
– Hermann Voss, from Baroque Painting in Rome (1925), revised and translated by Thomas Pelzel (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1997)
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Draped Female Figure before 1662 drawing Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation) |
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Five Music-making Figures before 1662 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Six Music-making Figures before 1662 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Time in Clouds with Scythe and Three Female Figures before 1662 drawing British Museum |
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Samson slaying Philistine before 1662 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Bacchus before 1662 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli St Cecilia before 1662 oil on canvas Ulster Museum, Belfast |