Sunday, May 1, 2022

Gaetano Gandolfi (1734-1802) - Late Baroque in Bologna

Gaetano Gandolfi
Three Female Heads
ca. 1785
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Gaetano Gandolfi
Joshua in Clouds
1779
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Gaetano Gandolfi
Noah in Clouds
ca. 1780
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Gaetano Gandolfi
Holy Family
ca. 1775
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Gaetano Gandolfi
Holy Family
ca. 1775
oil on canvas
private collection

Gaetano Gandolfi
Holy Family with St Augustine
1761
oil on canvas
private collection

Gaetano Gandolfi
Liberation of St Peter
ca. 1770
oil on canvas
Yale University Art Gallery

Gaetano Gandolfi
Christ supported by Two Angels
ca. 1780
oil on copper
private collection

Gaetano Gandolfi
Venus obtaining Arms for Aeneas at Vulcan's Forge
1775
oil on canvas
Detroit Institute of Arts

Gaetano Gandolfi
Alexander presenting Campaspe to Apelles
1793
oil on canvas
private collection

Gaetano Gandolfi
Head of a Bishop
(character head)
ca. 1770
oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Gaetano Gandolfi
Head of a Boy
(character head)
ca. 1770-80
oil on panel
Detroit Institute of Arts

Gaetano Gandolfi
Figure Study
ca. 1780
oil on paper
Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle,
County Durham

Gaetano Gandolfi
Académie
ca. 1755-60
drawing
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Gaetano Gandolfi
Académie
ca. 1755-60
drawing
Museo del Prado, Madrid

"While Ubaldo Gandolfi was a competent and sometimes exceptional painter, he was not an innovator.  In contrast, his brother Gaetano developed a unique style within the broad trends of European art of the period.  Gaetano himself emphasized the importance of his year in Venice in 1760, and the impact on his subsequent work is obvious.  Eschewing the pasty brush strokes of his brother for the liquid glazes of the Venetians, he produced paintings of luscious color and movement.  Sebastiano Ricci and the Tiepolo have been evoked as significant influences on his style.  . . .  But Gaetano never renounced his training: compositional clarity and dramatic theatrical settings are Bolognese traits stemming from the Carracci and, a closer model, Donato Creti.  Some of Gaetano's best drawings of the 1750s and 1760s depend heavily on the examples of the Carracci and Guercino, as well as Canuti." 

– excerpted from Diane De Grazia's review of Bella Pittura: the Art of the Gandolfi (exhibition catalogue by Mimi Cazort), published in the Summer 1995 issue of Master Drawings