Alessandro Magnasco
Encyclopedia
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
active mostly in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
and Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
. He is best known for stylized, fantastic, often phantasmagoric genre or landscape
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
scenes.
Biography
Born in Genoa to a minor artist, Stefano Magnasco, he apprenticed with Valerio CastelloValerio Castello
Valerio Castello was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He was very active during his short life in Genoa.He was the youngest son of Bernardo Castello, who died when Valerio was six year old...
, and finally with Filippo Abbiati
Filippo Abbiati
Filippo Abbiati was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active in Lombardy and Turin. Born in Milan, he was a pupil of the painter Antonio Busca. Alessandro Magnasco was one of his pupils. Ticozzi claims he trained, along with Federigo Bianchi, with Carlo Francesco Nuvolone. Along with...
(1640–1715) in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. Except for 1703–09 (or 1709–11) when working in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
for the Grand Duke Cosimo III
Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Cosimo III de' Medici was the penultimate Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany. He reigned from 1670 to 1723, and was the elder son of Grand Duke Ferdinando II. Cosimo's 53-year long reign, the longest in Tuscan history, was marked by a series of ultra-reactionary laws which regulated prostitution and...
, Magnasco labored in Milan until 1735, when he returned to his native Genoa. Rudolf Wittkower
Rudolf Wittkower
Rudolf Wittkower was a German art historian.-Biography:He was born in Berlin and moved to London in 1934. He taught at the Warburg Institute, University of London from 1934 to 1956 and then at Columbia University from 1956 to 1969 where he was chairman of the Department of Art History and...
derides him as "solitary, tense, strange, mystic, ecstatic, grotesque, and out of touch with the triumphal course of the Venetian school" from 1710 onward. Nevertheless, Magnasco found contemporary patronage for his work among prominent families and collectors of his time, including the Arese and Casnedi families of Milan.
Mature style
After 1710, Magnasco excelled in producing small, hypochromatic canvases with eerie and gloomy landscapes and ruins, or crowded interiors peopled with small, often lambent and cartoonishly elongated characters. The people in Magnasco paintings were often nearly liquefacted beggars dressed in tatters, rendered in flickering, nervous brushstrokes. Some of the paintings were completed with the help of Clemente Spera and Antonio Francesco Peruzzini (see ill. (q.)). Often they deal with unusual subjects such as synagogue services, Quaker meetings, robbers' gatherings, catastrophes, and interrogations by the InquisitionInquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
. His sentiments regarding these subjects are generally unclear.
Lanzi describes him as the Cerquozzi
Michelangelo Cerquozzi
Michelangelo Cerquozzi was an Italian Baroque painter.Born and active mainly in Rome, he is best known for small canvases of genre scenes, and for being one of the Italian proponents of the Bamboccianti style practised by a Dutch painter in Rome, Pieter van Laer...
of his school; thereby placing him in the circle of the Bamboccianti
Bamboccianti
The Bamboccianti were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Most were Dutch and Flemish artists who brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherlandish art with them to Italy, and generally created small...
. He indicates that Magnasco had
figures scarcely more than a span large painted with humour and delight, but not if this was the intention of the painter. He indicates these eccentric pieces were a great favorite with the Grand Duke Giovanni Gastone Medici. Magnasco often collaborated with placing figures in the landscapes of Tavella
Carlo Antonio Tavella
Carlo Antonio Tavella was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Genoa.Tavella was born in Milan to a Genoese merchant, and died in Genoa. He was initially the pupil of the painter Giuseppe Merati, then later of a painter by the name of Johann Gruembroech or Greuenbrech,...
and the ruins of Clemente Spera in Milan. Magnasco was more esteemed by outsiders than by his own Genoese. "His bold touch, though joined to a noble conception and to correct drawing, did not attract in Genoa, because it is far removed from the finish and union of tints which these masters followed."
Origins of his style
The influences on his work are obscure. Some suspect the influence of the loose painterly style of his Venetian contemporary Sebastiano RicciSebastiano Ricci
Sebastiano Ricci was an Italian painter of the late Baroque school of Venice. About the same age as Piazzetta, and an elder contemporary of Tiepolo, he represents a late version of the vigorous and luminous Cortonesque style of grand manner fresco painting.-Early years:He was born in Belluno, son...
(1659–1734), the Genoese Domenico Piola
Domenico Piola
Domenico Piola was a Genoese painter of the Baroque period. His family studio was highly prolific.-Biography:Piola was an Italian painter, draughtsman, printmaker and designer...
(1627–1703) and Gregorio de Ferrari
Gregorio De Ferrari
Gregorio de Ferrari was an Italian Baroque painter of the Genoese school.-Biography:De Ferrari was born in Porto Maurizio. He came to Genoa to study law but instead became a painter. He apprenticed with Domenico Fiasella from 1664–69, and in this period he may have painted in the style of...
, although the most prominent of the three, Ricci, painted in a more monumental and mythic style, and these artists may in fact have been influenced by Magnasco. Magnasco was likely influenced by Milanese il Morazzone (1573–1626) in the emotional quality of his work. Some of his canvases (see ill. (q.)) recall Salvatore Rosa's romantic sea-lashed landscapes, and his affinity for paintings of brigands. The diminutive scale of Magnasco's figures relative to the landscape is comparable to Claude Lorraine's more airy depictions. While his use of figures of ragged beggars has been compared with Giuseppe Maria Crespi's genre style, Crespi's figures are larger, more distinct, and individual, and it is possible that Crespi himself may have influenced Magnasco. Others point to the influences of late Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
Italian genre painters, the Roman Bamboccianti
Bamboccianti
The Bamboccianti were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Most were Dutch and Flemish artists who brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherlandish art with them to Italy, and generally created small...
, and in his exotic scenography, the well-disseminated engravings of the Frenchman Callot
Jacques Callot
Jacques Callot was a baroque printmaker and draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine . He is an important figure in the development of the old master print...
.
Legacy of his style
Magnasco's style is strikingly original and transcends the provincial but tired BaroqueBaroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
that epitomized much of contemporary Genoese art. In late-baroque and Rococo painting, the loose brush became a tool used for all types of themes, from landscapes to historical painting to decorative frolics, while for Magnasco, it entraps reality in a gloomy cobweb. Ultimately, his work may have influenced Marco Ricci
Marco Ricci
Marco Ricci was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He was the nephew of Sebastiano Ricci. After receiving his first instruction in art from his uncle, he visited Rome, where he was for some years occupied in drawing vedute....
, Giuseppe Bazzani
Giuseppe Bazzani
Giuseppe Bazzani was an Italian painter of the Rococo.Born in Mantua to a goldsmith, Giovanni Bazzani, early on he apprenticed with the Parmesan painter Giovanni Canti . A fellow pupil was Francesco Maria Raineri. He spent most of his life in Mantua...
, Francesco Maffei
Francesco Maffei
Francesco Maffei was an Italian painter , active in the Baroque style.He probably trained in his birthplace of Vicenza with his father, and painted mostly in the towns of the Veneto...
, and the famed painters de tocco (by touch) Gianantonio and Francesco Guardi
Francesco Guardi
Francesco Lazzaro Guardi was a Venetian painter of veduta, a member of the Venetian School. He is considered to be among the last practitioners, along with his brothers, of the classic Venetian school of painting....
in Venice.
His depictions of torture in The Inquisition (or perhaps named Interrogations in a Jail) and of other lowpoints of humanity seem to impart a modern perspicacity to his social vision, recalling that expressed by Spanish Goya
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...
in his 19th century etchings. And yet, as Wittkower notes, it remains unsolved "how much quietism or criticism or farce went into the making of his pictures". It is unknown what his true sentiments about Jews and Quakers were. Were his paintings derogatory of those congregations, or do they express some intellectual fascination with what were considered exotic elements in the Italian mainstream? No clear documentary evidence exists. Magnasco, as an outsider, would have been excluded from a synagogue or Quaker service, and the non-individualized cartoons which populate those canvases can hardly be expected to garner personal sympathy. Elsewhere Magnasco painted miracles, including one canvas in which the Virgin Mary summons skeletons out of graves to fend off church-robbers. What insight one can garner about Jews or Quakers from Magnasco's paintings, like Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
's dialogue in the fog-ridden fen with the cauldron-stirring witches, is not clearly intelligible or in focus, being part-prescient and part ghoulishly confused.
Partial anthology of works
| Painting | Dates | Site | Link | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gathering of Quakers | 1695 | Uffizi Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:... , Florence |
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| Theodosius Repulsed from Church by St. Ambrose | 1700-10 | Art Institute of Chicago Chicago Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles... |
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| Christ and Samaritan Woman | 1705-10 | Getty Museum, Los Angeles | http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=712 | |
| Noli Me Tangere | 1705-10 | ibid | http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=713 | |
| The Hunting Scene | 1710 | Wadsworth Atheneum Wadsworth Atheneum The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest public art museum in the United States, with significant holdings of French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes, modernist masterpieces and contemporary works, as well as extensive holdings in early American furniture and... |
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| Muletrain and Castle | 1710 | Louvre Louvre The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement... |
http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=1743 | |
| Bacchanalian Scene | 1710s | Hermitage Museum Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,... |
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/magnasco/1bacchan.html | |
| Halt of the Brigands | 1710s | ibid | http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/magnasco/2brigand.html | |
| The Inquisition or Interrogations in a Jail | 1710-20 | Kunsthistorisches Museum Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome... |
http://www.wga.hu/art/m/magnasco/int_jail.jpg | |
| The Temptation of Saint Anthony | 1710-20 | Louvre Louvre The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement... |
http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=1741 | |
| Landscape with Shepherds | c. 1710-30 | São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo São Paulo São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among... |
http://www.masp.art.br | |
| Pulcinella singing with Family and Lute Player | 1710-35 | Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia Columbia, South Carolina Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan... |
http://www.kressfoundation.org/cgi-bin/kressorg/2templateb.cgi?17&Alessandro+Magnasco,+called+Il+Lissandrino&works&0 | |
| Three Camaldolite Monks at Prayer | 1713-14 | Rijksmuseum Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam or simply Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian art... |
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/magnasco/monks1.html | |
| Three Capuchin Friars Meditating in their Hermitage | 1713-14 | ibid | http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/magnasco/monks2.html | |
| Christ Adored by Two Nuns | c. 1715 | Accademia | http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/magnasco/c_adored.html | |
| The Sack of a City | 1719-25 | Sibiu Sibiu Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt... , Muzeul Brukenthal, Abbey of Seitenstetten |
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| Satire of Nobleman in Misery | 1719-25 | Detroit Institute of Arts Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars... |
http://www.dia.org/the_collection/overview/viewobject.asp?objectid=53142 | |
| Bacchanale | 1720-30 | The Getty Center in Los Angeles | http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=739 | |
| Triumph of Venus | 1720-30 | ibid | http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=740 | |
| Interior with Monks | 1725 | Norton Simon Museum Norton Simon Museum The Norton Simon Museum is an Art Museum located in Pasadena, California, United States. It was previously known by the names: the Pasadena Art Institute and the Pasadena Art Museum.-Overview:... |
http://www.nortonsimon.org/collections/browse_title.php?id=F.1973.34.1.P | |
| Gamblers, Soldiers and Vagabonds | 1720-30 | Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Staatsgalerie Stuttgart The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart is an art gallery and art museum in Stuttgart, Germany, opened in 1843. In 1984 the opening of the Neue Staatsgalerie designed by James Stirling transformed the once provincial gallery into one of Europe's leading museums.-Alte Staatsgalerie:Originally, the classicist... |
http://www.staatsgalerie.de/digitalerkatalog/ | |
| Supper of Pulcinella & Colombina | 1725-30 | North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh... |
http://www.kressfoundation.org/cgi-bin/kressorg/2templateb.cgi?17&Alessandro+Magnasco&works&3 | |
| The Synagogue | 1725-30 | Cleveland Museum of Art Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art is an art museum situated in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 43,000... |
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| Consecration of a Franciscan Friar | c. 1730 | El Paso Museum of Art El Paso Museum of Art Founded in 1959, The El Paso Museum of Art is located in downtown El Paso, Texas. First accredited in 1972, it is the only accredited art museum within a 250 mile radius and serves approximately 100,000 visitors per year. A new building was completed in 1998... , El Paso El Paso, Texas El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States... |
http://www.kressfoundation.org/cgi-bin/kressorg/2templateb.cgi?17&Alessandro+Magnasco&works&5 | |
| Burial of a Franciscan Friar | c. 1730 | El Paso Museum of Art El Paso Museum of Art Founded in 1959, The El Paso Museum of Art is located in downtown El Paso, Texas. First accredited in 1972, it is the only accredited art museum within a 250 mile radius and serves approximately 100,000 visitors per year. A new building was completed in 1998... , El Paso El Paso, Texas El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States... |
http://www.kressfoundation.org/cgi-bin/kressorg/2templateb.cgi?17&Alessandro+Magnasco&works&5 | |
| Sacrilegious Robbery | 1731 | intended for church of Siziano Siziano Siziano is a comune in the Province of Pavia in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 15 km south of Milan and about 15 km north of Pavia.... , now in Quadreria Arcivescovile, Milan |
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/magnasco/robbery.html | |
| Exorcism of the Waves | after 1735 | Rochester, New York | http://magart.rochester.edu/Obj5066$2122 | |
| The Observant Friars in the Refectory | 1736-37 | Museo Civico, Bassano del Grappa | http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/magnasco/refector.html | |
| Figures Before a Stormy Sea | ca. 1740 | Honolulu Academy of Arts Honolulu Academy of Arts The Honolulu Academy of Arts is an art museum in Honolulu in the state of Hawaii. Since its founding in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke and opening April 8, 1927, its collections have grown to over 40,000 works of art.-Description:... |
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| The Entrance to a Hospital | Muzeul des Arta, Bucharest | |||
| Landscape with Camaldolese friars | Museo Giannetino Luxora, Genoa | http://www.museoluxoro.it/frameset.html?http://www.museoluxoro.it/collezioni.asp | ||
| The Marriage Banquet | Louvre Louvre The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement... |
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| Praying Monks | Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent | http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/magnasco/prayingm.html | ||
| Reception in a Garden | Palazzo Bianco, Genoa | |||
| Seashore | Hermitage Museum Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,... |
http://www.wga.hu/html/m/magnasco/seashore.html | ||
| Supper at Emmaus | Convent S. Francesco in Albaro, Genoa | |||
| The Tame Magpie | Metropolitan Museum | http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_Of_Art/viewOnezoom.asp?dep=11&zoomFlag=0&viewmode=1&item=1984%2E191 | ||
| Two Hermits in Forest | Louvre Louvre The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement... |
http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=1744 | ||
| Untitled | http://www.museopalazzobianco.it/frameset.htm?http://www.museopalazzobianco.it/tiposala.asp?paramsala=20&piano=2 | |||
