Skip to main content

Carlo Cignani

Carlo Cignani Pastor y pastora 1670 Hermitage
Shepherd and Shepherdess, ca.1670


Yesterday marked the birthday of another great Carlo, who was born in 1628, a few years after Carlo Maratta. Cignani studied under Francesco Albani, who in turn learned from the Carracci's and became a great teacher himself, influencing not only Cignani but others including Andrea Sacchi and Francesco Vaccaro. The commonality between all these artists were the use of chiaroscuro and color together with inventive composition, avoiding the overly dark and often dreary tenebrism that Caravaggio and his realism brought. Personally, I enjoy both styles, having seen plenty of both on my trip to Rome in 2010...and there is plenty to learn from each artist.

In the above example, Cignani creates a pyramidal composition that is lyrical and musical— the eye flows around this piece in circular motions despite the complex details and textures depicted here. The body language and positioning of the two children is natural and frames the goat. Curiously, the twisting Mannerist-like torso of the baby sitting on the urn shows a formidable knowledge of anatomy, as babies don't hold poses for artists...Cignani builds upon and goes beyond Da Vinci to a very physical baby who appears to playfully wrestle with his sibling. Cignani romanticizes pastoral life here, something quite rare for a Baroque painting, but all the elements are Classical, especially the woman who seems like a Raphael, swathed in white and blue.




Praying Magdalene, ca.1670


Cignani's draftsmanship and ability to convey emotion is very clear in this drawing. Using mostly line and accented shadows with some stumping Cignani creates a moving study, probably drawn in a relatively short time as this would have been an awkward pose for a model to hold for any length of time. Cignani's technique of stumping and hatching is characteristic of all his drawings and it adds a life-like semblance of bone and skin that would be missing of only one of these techniques were used.




A reclining male nude, his head resting on his right arm

Click here for zoomable version

This magnificent drawing again shows all the techniques mentioned above. As it is not part of any study for a painting it appears to have been a life-drawing study, but what is curious about this piece is that the figure is holding a lock of a woman's hair in his right hand, as if mourning her loss. Everything you could want to know about drawing the figure is evident in here: stump and hatching, lost and found edges, accented darks and lights, and accurate anatomy with emotion.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bouguereau

Nymphs and Satyr, 1873 If there is one artist today that hardly needs an introduction, it would be William-Adolphe Bouguereau , supreme giant of 19th century Academic art. Born on November 30, 1825 in La Rochelle on the southwest of France, his talent would define the era he lived in only to fall into obscurity for decades after his death in 1905 until as recent as the early 1980's, shockingly. Today he has the distinction of being lionized by the Art Renewal Center as one of the greatest artists of all time while at the other end of the spectrum vilified by modernists as artificially perfect and sentimental. In fact it is quite rare to see such polarization over an artist of a calibre like Bouguereau, whose bravura is difficult to equal yet at the same time thematically his work admittedly tends toward women and children, a subject matter that sold well and he had endless patience for. Over the vast array of his oeuvre, some 820 paintings, I have tried to find some of his v...
3 comments
Read more

Isaac Levitan, Russian Poet of Nature

Before the Storm, 1890 Born August 30, 1860, Isaac Ilyich Levitan was a Russian landscape painter. Born in Congress Poland to a Jewish family, Levitan would study art in Moscow where he would become friends with Anton Chekov and his brother, Nikolay who was also an artist. Levitan's work has a unique mood that is very distinct from the Impressionism of France and the Classicism of Russia...sometimes compared to Monet but still different. Levitan has a rare presence with astute attention to detail and a fascination with light at different times of day. At times highly accurate, while in his more personal work deeply Impressionistic and imbued with rich tone and color. There is something about Levitan that lingers in your mind long after seeing his work...in a way that is individual and personal, not attached to a specific genre or movement, but to the world around him. In Before the Storm , Levitan captures a moment so stunning it seems to defy words...of sunlight piercing ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chiaroscuro Landscapes with a Forgotten Dutch Master

Italian landscape, ca. 1645 Born around 1615 in Utrecht, Netherlands, Jan Dirksz Both was a painter and etcher whose dramatic landscapes influenced Dutch painting deeply. Both spent time in Rome and Venice where he discovered several Masters, including the vibrant landscapes of Claude Lorrain. Where Lorrain used Classicism heavily in his paintings, with Roman architecture and figures, Both concentrated more on the luminous effects of light and elevated trees to a noble kind of natural architecture. Both also created atmosphere and mood with perspective in a way that not only depicts a view, but invites us to share a beautiful moment of fleeting sunlight. In Italian landscape above, Both leaves much of the foreground in shadow, something most landscape painters would never do. Note how the light is coming from the far left, beyond the frame of the painting. Look at how it falls across the rustic path—Both creates a sliver of light where his figures stand, on horseback, pos...
Post a Comment
Read more