beside the easel

Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, 1746 Born in the small town of Gaeta near Naples on January 8, 1680, Sebastiano Conca was a late Baroque Italian artist. Conca has a style that is more Mannerist than Baroque, and considering he painted well into the Rococo period he nonetheless maintains his Manneristic-Baroque method only with more color, showing a clear Venetian influence in his work. Interestingly, during this period Naples was flourishing as a city producing its own Baroque Masters, including Francesco Solimena who taught Conca. Later Conca himself opened his own school, the Accademia del Nudo which attracted a large following from artists all over Italy and Europe, one of the most famous being Pompeo Batoni, whose birthday is also later this month. This would lead to Conca teaching at the famous Accademia di San Luca in Rome for two separate terms, although his name today is not well known as his work was eclipsed by others. Nonetheless Conca is interesting for his compo...

Perseus Confronting Phineus with the Head of Medusa, ca.1710 One of my favourite Italian Baroque painters, Sebastiano Ricci was born on August 1, 1659 in Belluno , north of Venice. He represents everything that Venetian painters are known for, namely colour and great compositions yet he is also a storyteller, breathing life into mythology and religion with fervent sensuality. At times his figures seem Mannerist, and yet in others his figures are powerful, beautifully lit characters in an opera or play. His women seem to glow, and his men ranged from nobility to violent fighters, surrounding all of them in natural landscapes or architectural capriccios, and his colors seem to dance effortlessly with his compositions. Ricci is a painter's painter. Above we see a famous scene from Greek mythology that Ricci depicts with captivating drama. Note how the figures surrounding Perseus in one-point perspective from his helmet. I love how Ricci contrasts the warm flesh tones of Perseus...

The Annunciation, ca.1540 This Venetian Master, relatively uncommon from the Renaissance, was born in July 5, 1500 in Treviso. Having studied under Titian, his style seems to fuse the Renaissance with Venetian color and heavy Mannerist influence. We often hear plenty about Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, and even Tiepolo, but Bordone is the kind of artist you find out about only in art history classes or, better yet, in a museum. And his style is definitely worth discovering. The deep earth tones and dramatic light of Titian are immediately evident, but what really makes Bordone unique is his composition and anatomy, more specifically, how he used them together to make paintings with a definite style that deserves attention. Where Titian became more loose in his later years, and Tintoretto painted fast and furious, and Veronese big and colorful, Bordone paints with specific attention to detail and skin tones in a way that is more pure somehow. He may have lacked the psychological in...

L'Alabardiere, 1529-1530 Jacopo Carrucci (known as Jacopo da Pontormo or Pontormo) is one of those painters who fully embraced Mannerism in a way that makes him quite likeable in spite of himself. He is not easy to define though. His style ranges from bright colors to a dark, sombre Baroque-like palette; his drawings are exciting to study, full of energy and, like many artists, more accurate than his paintings. As a portraitist, Pontormo is in a category unique to the Florentines, both real and unreal at the same time due to his Mannerism; being the teacher of Bronzino we see strong similarities. In the above example, we see an Alabardiere (Halbardier) or guard with the distinctive two-handled pole spear but Pontormo focuses on the young man himself, proud and confident, yet with an innocent face. Pontormo bathes him in warm window light against a dark wall of some sort, again to heighten the textures and colours of the guard. In typical Mannerist fashion, his physique is im...