Friday, April 5, 2019

Francesco Trevisani (1656-1746) - Venice and Rome - I

Francesco Trevisani
Madonna and Child
ca. 1708-1710
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Francesco Trevisani
Madonna and Child
ca. 1700
oil on canvas
National Trust, Stourhead, Wiltshire

Francesco Trevisani
Infant Christ Sleeping
1706
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

"Born in 1656 in Capodistria, Trevisani became a pupil of Antonio Zanchi in Venice, but after moving to Rome he was far more decisively influenced by the major masters of that local school.  After the gradual decline of the tradition of Carlo Maratti, Trevisani became the leading representative of the  Roman school.  In keeping with the general trend of the period, he established the direction, in respect to both concept and technical handling, toward the charming and the elegant, the courtly and the nonchalant.  Although he also engaged in altar painting in the grand style, his true field lay in small easel painting and cabinet pictures.  In such paintings – in the pleasant, gentle colors and the unusually intense chiaroscuro contrasts, facilely rendered by means of a soft, almost cottony modeling of form – Trevisani seemed to provide a welcome counterweight to the increasingly static conventions of the followers of Maratti.  He was of course not able to provide a significant impetus to monumental painting, since by dint of his Venetian nature he was not inclined in that direction.  It is revealing that he made virtually no attempts at fresco painting.  Trevisani's chief activities were centered in Rome and the Papal States.  The numerous copies after his work, especially of his Holy Families, his Madonnas, and his penitent Magdalenes, attest to the extraordinary popularity of his art.  Even today one cannot remain immune to the genial charm of many of his works, even though their porcelain smoothness and their stereotyped formal language hold little appeal for modern taste; the ease, moreover, with which he was able to adapt himself to the most various stylistic trends makes his artistic integrity suspect.  He died in Rome in 1746, after a very long career."

– Hermann Voss, from Baroque Painting in Rome (1925), revised and translated by Thomas Pelzel (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1997)

Francesco Trevisani
Dead Christ supported by Angels
ca. 1710
oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Francesco Trevisani
Dead Christ supported by Angels
ca. 1720
oil on canvas
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

follower of Francesco Trevisani
Dead Christ supported by Angels (copy)
ca. 1720
oil on panel (grisaille)
Philadelphia Museum of Art

attributed to Francesco Trevisani
Dead Christ supported by Angels
before 1746
pigment on ivory (cabinet miniature)
private collection

Francesco Trevisani
Angels bearing the Cross
ca. 1705
fresco
Chiesa di San Silvestro in Capite, Rome

Francesco Trevisani
Angels bearing the Cross
ca. 1705
fresco (detail)
Chiesa di San Silvestro in Capite, Rome

"S. Silvestro in Capite:  painted decoration in the Cappella della Passione, with altarpiece (The Crucifixion); lateral paintings (The Scourging of Christ and Christ Carrying the Cross, both quite brutal)  . . .  Painted in fresco: the four pendentives, figures of putti with the instruments of the Passion; on the flat surface of the cupola is an angel bearing the Cross.  This was Trevisani's first major commission for church paintings in Rome, executed about 1705." 

– Hermann Voss, from Baroque Painting in Rome (1925), revised and translated by Thomas Pelzel (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1997)

follower of Francesco Trevisani
Scourging of Christ (copy)
after 1705
oil on canvas
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

Francesco Trevisani
Study for Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John the Evangelist
ca. 1705
drawing
British Museum

Francesco Trevisani
Agony in the Garden
1740
oil on copper
Glasgow Museums

Francesco Trevisani
Christ before Caiaphas
ca. 1705-1710
oil on copper
Princeton University Art Museum

Francesco Trevisani
Pietà
ca. 1720
oil on copper
Los Angeles County Museum of Art