Giuseppe Crespi
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
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...
painter of the Bolognese School
Bolognese School (painting)
The Bolognese School or the School of Bologna of painting flourished in Bologna, the capital of Emilia Romagna, between the 16th and 17th centuries in Italy, and rivalled Florence and Rome as the center of painting. Its most important representatives include the Carracci family, including Ludovico...
. His eclectic output includes religious paintings and portraits, but he is now most famous for his genre paintings.
Biography
Crespi was born in BolognaBologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
to Girolamo Crespi and Isabella Cospi. His mother was a distant relation of the noble Cospi family, which had ties to the Florentine House of Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
. He was nicknamed "the Spanish One" (Lo Spagnuolo) because of his habit of wearing tight clothes characteristic of Spanish fashion of the time.
By age 12 years, he apprenticed with Angelo Michele Toni (1640–1708). From the age of 15–18 years, he worked under the Bolognese Domenico Maria Canuti
Domenico Maria Canuti
Domenico Maria Canuti was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Bologna and Rome.Born in Bologna, Canuti first trained in that city under Guido Reni, then with Guercino. He painted many ceiling and wall frescoes...
. The Roman painter Carlo Maratti, on a visit to Bologna, is said to have invited Crespi to work in Rome, but Crespi declined. Maratti's friend, the Bolognese Carlo Cignani
Carlo Cignani
Carlo Cignani was an Italian painter of the Bolognese and of the Forlivese school, active in the Baroque period....
invited Crespi in 1681-1682 to join an Accademia del Nudo for the purpose of studying drawing, and he remained in that studio until 1686, when Cignani relocated to Forlì
Forlì
Forlì is a comune and city in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. The city is situated along the Via Emilia, to the right of the Montone river, and is an important agricultural centre...
and his studio was taken over by Canuti's most prominent pupil, Giovanni Antonio Burrini
Giovanni Antonio Burrini
Giovanni Antonio Burrini was a Bolognese painter of Late-Baroque or Rococo style. After an apprenticeship with Domenico Maria Canuti, he went to work under Lorenzo Pasinelli with fellow student, Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole. He became an early friend and often close collaborator with Giuseppe Maria...
. From this time hence, Crespi worked independently of other artists.
His main biographer, Giampietro Zanotti
Giampietro Zanotti
Giampietro Zanotti was an Italian painter and art historian of the late-Baroque or Rococo period.He studied painting in Bologna with Lorenzo Pasinelli. In the first decade of the 18th century, he became one of the founding members of the artists' academy in Bologna , known as the Accademia...
, said of Crespi: (He) "never again wanted for money, and he would make the stories and caprices that came into his imagination. Very often also he painted common things, representing the lowest occupations, and people who, born poor, must sustain themselves in serving the requirements of wealthy citizens". Thus it was for Crespi himself, as he began a career servicing wealthy patrons with artwork. He is said to have had a camera optica in his house for painting. By the 1690s he had completed various altarpieces, including a Temptation of Saint Anthony commissioned by Count Carlo Cesare Malvasia, now in San Niccolò degli Albari.
He journeyed to Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, but surprisingly, never to Rome. Bearing his large religious canvas of Massacre of the Innocents
Massacre of the Innocents
The Massacre of the Innocents is an episode of infanticide by the King of Judea, Herod the Great. According to the Gospel of Matthew Herod orders the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth...
and a note from Count Vincenzo Rannuzi Cospi as an introduction, Crespi fled in the middle of the night to 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....
in 1708, and gained the patronage of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I de' Medici. He had been forced to flee Bologna with the canvas, which while intended for the Duke, had been fancied by a local priest, Don Carlo Silva for himself. The events surrounding this episode became the source of much litigation, in which Crespi, at least for the next five years, found the Duke a firm protector.
An eclectic artist, Crespi was a portrait painter and a brilliant caricaturist, and was also known for his etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
s after Rembrandt and Salvator Rosa
Salvator Rosa
Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter, poet and printmaker, active in Naples, Rome and Florence. As a painter, he is best known as an "unorthodox and extravagant" and a "perpetual rebel" proto-Romantic.-Early life:...
. He could be said to have painted a number of masterpieces in different styles. He painted few frescoes, in part because he refused to paint for quadraturists, though in all likelihood, his style would not have matched the requirements of a medium then often used for grandiloquent scenography. He was not universally appreciated, Lanzi quotes Mengs as lamenting that the Bolognese school should close with the capricious Crespi. Lanzi himself describes Crespi as allowing his turn for novelty at length to lead his fine genius astray. He found Crespi included caricature in even scriptural or heroic subjects, he cramped his figures, he fell in to mannerism, and painted with few colors and few brushstrokes,employed indeed with judgement but too superficial and without strength of body.
One celebrated series of canvases, the Seven Sacraments, was painted around 1712, and now hangs in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
. It was originally completed for Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in Rome, and upon his death passed to the Elector of Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
. These imposing works are painted with a loose brushstroke, but still maintain a sober piety. Making no use of hieratic symbols such as saints and putti, they utilize commonplace folk to illustrate sacramental activity.
True to his eclecticism
Eclecticism
Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.It can sometimes seem inelegant or...
is the naturalistic Saint John Nepomunk confessing the Queen of Swabia, made late in life. In this painting, much is said by partially shielded faces. His Resurrection of Christ is a dramatic arrangement in dynamic perspectives, somewhat influenced by Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci was an Italian Baroque painter.-Early career:Annibale Carracci was born in Bologna, and in all likelihood first apprenticed within his family...
's altarpiece of the same subject.
While many came to work in the studio Crespi established after Cignani's departure, few became notable. Antonio Gionima
Antonio Gionima
Antonio Gionima was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque period.Born in Padua, where his father Simone Gionima and grandfather had been artists, he was first educated by his father, then by Aureliano Milani, and then by Giuseppe Maria Crespi. He died young, leaving works highly prized at...
was moderately successful. Others included Giovanni Francesco Braccioli
Giovanni Francesco Braccioli
Giovanni Francesco Braccioli was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, mainly active in Ferrara.Born in Ferrara, he first trained with Giacomo Parolini, and then with Giuseppe Maria Crespi in Bologna. He painted mainly religious altarpieces in Ferrara. On his return to Ferrara he painted for...
, Giacomo Pavia
Giacomo Pavia
Giacomo Pavia was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in his native Bologna. He was a pupil of the painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi-References:...
, Giovanni Morini, Pier Guariente, and Cristoforo Terzi
Cristoforo Terzi
Cristoforo Terzi was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque period. He was born and died in Bologna. He was a pupil of Giuseppe Maria Crespi. He painted a San Petronio kneeling before the Virgin for the church of San Giacomo Maggiore....
. He may also have influenced Giovanni Domenico Ferretti
Giovanni Domenico Ferretti
Giovanni Domenico Ferretti , also called Giandomenico d'Imola was an Italian Rococo style painter from Florence. According to the contemporary Giovanni Camillo Sagrestani, Ferretti was a pupil of the Bolognese painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi...
. While the Venetian Giovanni Battista Piazzetta
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta was an Italian rococo painter of religious subjects and genre scenes.-Biography:...
claimed to have studied under Crespi, the documentation for this is nonexistent.
Two of Crespi's sons, Antonio (1712–1781) and Luigi (1708–1779) became painters. According to their account, Crespi may have used a camera obscura
Camera obscura
The camera obscura is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side...
to aid in depiction of outdoor scenes in his later years. After his wife's death, he became reclusive, rarely leaving the house except to go to daily mass.
Crespi and the genre style
Crespi is best known today as one of the main proponents of baroque genre painting in Italy. Italians, until the 17th century, had paid little attention to such themes, concentrating mainly on grander images from religion, mythology, and history, as well as portraiture of the mighty. In this they differed from Northern Europeans, specifically Dutch painters, who had a strong tradition in the depiction of everyday activities. There were exceptions: the Bolognese Baroque titan of fresco, Annibale Carracci, had painted pastoral landscapes, and depictions of homely tradespeople such as butchers. Before him, Bartolomeo Passerotti http://www.wga.hu/html/p/passerot/butcher.html and the Cremonese Vincenzo CampiVincenzo Campi
Vincenzo Campi was an Italian painter of the Renaissance from Cremona.His style merges Lombard with Mannerist styles, however, unlike his siblings, he is known for a series of canvases, mostly painted after 1570s , displaying genre scenes and local produce. Many set at a food store front of some...
http://www.wga.hu/html/c/campi/vincenzo/2kitchen.html had dallied in genre subjects. In this tradition, Crespi also followed the precedents set forth by 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...
, mainly Dutch genre painters active in Rome. Subsequently this tradition would also be upheld by Piazzetta, Pietro Longhi
Pietro Longhi
Pietro Longhi was a Venetian painter of contemporary scenes of life.-Biography:Pietro Longhi was born in Venice in the parish of Saint Maria, first child of the silversmith Alessandro Falca and his wife, Antonia. He adopted the Longhi last name when he began to paint...
, Giacomo Ceruti
Giacomo Ceruti
Giacomo Antonio Melchiorre Ceruti was an Italian late Baroque painter, active in Northern Italy in Milan, Brescia, and Venice. He acquired the nickname Pitocchetto for his many paintings of peasants dressed in rags.He was born in Milan, but worked primarily in Brescia...
and Giandomenico Tiepolo to name a few.
He painted many kitchen scenes http://www.wga.hu/html/c/crespi/giuseppe/scullery.html and other domestic subjects. The painting of The Flea (1709–10) depicts a young woman readying for sleep and supposedly grooming for a nagging pest on her person. The environs are squalid—nearby are a vase with a few flowers and a cheap bead necklace dangling on the wall—but she is sheltered in a tender womb of light. She is not a Botticellian beauty, but a mortal, her lapdog asleep on the bed-sheets.
In another genre scene, Crespi captures the anger of a woman at a man publicly urinating on wall, with a picaresque cat also objecting to the man's indiscretion.
Partial anthology of works
- The Marriage at Cana, Art Institute of Chicago
- Holy Family (1688), Parish Church of BergantinoBergantinoBergantino is a comune in the Province of Rovigo in the Italian region Veneto, located about 90 km southwest of Venice and about 40 km west of Rovigo....
- Madonna del Carmine
- Temptation of St. Anthony (1690), San Niccolò degli Albari, Bologna
- Aeneas, The Sibyl and Charon, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
- Hecuba blinding Polynestor, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, BrusselsBrusselsBrussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
- Tarquin and Lucretia, National Gallery, Washington D.C.
- The Triumph of Hercules, The Four Seasons, The Three Fates, Neptune and Diana, frescoes of Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande, Bologna
- The Finding of Moses & David and Abigail, Museo di Palazzo VeneziaPalazzo VeneziaThe Palazzo di Venezia is a palazzo in central Rome, Italy, just north of the Capitoline Hill. The original structure of this great architectural complex consisted of a modest medieval house intended as the residence of the cardinals appointed to the Church of San Marco...
, Rome - Love triumphant' or L'Ingegno, Musée des Beaux-Arts de StrasbourgMusée des Beaux-Arts de StrasbourgThe Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg is the old masters paintings collection of the city of Strasbourg, located in the Alsace region of France. The museum is housed in the first and second floors of the baroque Palais Rohan since 1898...
- Chiron Teaches Achilles, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria
- The Ecstasy of Saint Margaret of Cortona (1701), Duomo, Bologna
- Massacre of the Innocents (1706), Uffizi, Florence, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, and National Gallery, Dublin
- The Fair at Poggio a Caiano (1709), Uffizi
- The Nurture of Jupiter (1729), Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth
- Singer at Spinet with an Admirer (1730s), Uffizi
- Village Fair with dentist (1715–20), Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan http://www.wga.hu/html/c/crespi/giuseppe/fairvill.html
- Series of The Seven Sacraments (1712), Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
- Baptism
- Confirmation
- Marriage
- Confession
- Communion
- Extreme Unction
- Ordination
- Meeting between James Stuart and the Prince Albani, Národní Galerie, PraguePraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
- Annunciation with Saints (1722), Cathedral of SarzanaSarzanaSarzana is a town and comune in the Province of La Spezia, of Liguria, Italy, 15 km east of Spezia, on the railway to Pisa, at the point where the railway to Parma diverges to the north...
- The Crucifixion (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan)
- The Assumption of the Virgin (1730), Archivio Arcivescovile, LuccaLuccaLucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...
- Two altarpieces for the church of the Gesù, FerraraFerraraFerrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...
(1728–1729) - Four altarpieces for the parish church of San Paolo d’Argon, BergamoBergamoBergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...
(1728–1729) - Martyrdom of Saint John the Evangelist
- Joshua Stopping the Sun (1737), Colleoni Chapel, Bergamo
- Martyrdom of Saint Peter of Arbuès (1737), Collegio di Spagna, Bologna
- Self-portrait, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna
- The Family of Zanobio Troni, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna
- The Lute Player, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- The Hunter, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna)
- The Messenger, Staatliche Kunsthalle, KarlsruheKarlsruheThe City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
- Courtyard Scene, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna
- Searching for Fleas,(Louvre); variants (Uffizi), Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa, and Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
- The Woman Washing Dishes, Galleria degli Uffizi
- A Peasant Family with Boys Playing, London
- Peasants Playing Musical Instruments, London
- Peasants with Donkeys, London
- Importunate Lovers, Hermitage
- Peasant Flirtation, London
- Menghina from the Garden meets Cacasenno
- Music Library Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna
- Cupids at Play, El Paso Museum of ArtEl Paso Museum of ArtFounded 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...
- Saint John Nepomuk Hears Confession from the Queen of Bohemia, Turin, Galleria Sabauda
"Man With Helmet",Nelson-Atkins Art Museum Kansas City,Missouri