Luca Cambiasi
Encyclopedia
Luca Cambiasi was an Italian 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...

 and draftsman, familiarly known as Lucchetto da Genova.

Biography

Cambiasi was born at Moneglia
Moneglia
Moneglia is a comune in the Province of Genoa in the Italian region Liguria, located about 50 km southeast of Genoa. It is a tourist resort on the Riviera di Levante.-Main sights:...

, then part of the Republic of Genoa
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....

, the son of a painter named Giovanni Cambiasi.

Cambiasi was precocious, and at the age of fifteen he painted, along with his father, some subjects from Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

's Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)
Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature...

on the facade of a house in Genoa. In 1544, at the age of seventeen, he was involved in the decoration of the Palazzo Doria, now the Prefettura, perhaps working with Marcantonio Calvi, a painter of his father's generation. He aided in the vault decoration of the church of San Matteo, in collaboration with Giovanni Battista Castello
Giovanni Battista Castello
Giovanni Battista Castello was an Italian historical painter.Born in Gandino near Bergamo, he is ordinarily termed Il Bergamasco to distinguish him from the other painter with the identical name from school of Genoa. His best-known works are the paintings on the vault of the Basilica della...

. His Resurrection and Transfiguration altarpieces for San Bartolomeo degli Armeni
San Bartolomeo degli Armeni
San Bartolomeo degli Armeni is a church in the quarter of Castelletto in Genoa, northern Italy.The church was founded in 1308 by a group of Basilian monks who were fleeing the Turkish invasion of southern Armenia...

 date from c. 1560. In 1563, he painted a Resurrection for San Giovanni Battista in Montalto Ligure
Montalto Ligure
Montalto Ligure is a comune in the Province of Imperia in the Italian region Liguria, located about 100 km southwest of Genoa and about 15 km west of Imperia. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 364 and an area of 13.9 km².Montalto Ligure borders the following...

.

This was followed by frescoes for the Villa Imperiale at Genoa-Turalba (also called the Palazzo Imperiali Terralba) with a Rape of the Sabines (c. 1565) and the Palazzo Meridiana (formerly Grimaldi; also in 1565). In the Capella Lercari of the Duomo di San Lorenzo, Cambiasi frescoed a Presentation and Marriage of the Virgin
Marriage of the Virgin
The Marriage of the Virgin is the subject in Christian art depicting the marriage of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. The marriage is not mentioned in the canonical Gospels but is covered in several apocryphal sources, and later redactions, notably the 14th century compilation the Golden Legend...

in 1569, remainder of chapel by Castello.

The 1911 Britannica states that Cambiasi by his thirties began to decline in skill, though not at once in reputation, owing to the vexations brought upon him by a passion which he conceived for his sister-in-law. His wife having died, and the sister-in-law had taken charge of his house and children, he failed to procure a papal dispensation for marrying her.

In 1583 he accepted an invitation from Philip II
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....

 to complete for the Escorial a series of frescoes begun by Castello; and the 1911 encyclopedia states the principal reason for traveling to Spain was that he hoped royal influence would gain favor with the Vatican for his marriage plans, but this failed. In the Escorial he executed a Paradise on the vaulting of the church, with a multitude of figures. For this picture he received 2,000 ducats, probably the largest sum that had, up to that time, ever been given for a single work. His paintings in Spain, hew to strict religious thematic.

His son Orazio Cambiasi became a painter. Other followers from Genoa include Giovanni Andrea Ansaldo
Giovanni Andrea Ansaldo
thumb|320px|The dome of the Annunziata, Genoa.Giovanni Andrea Ansaldo was an Italian painter active mainly in Genoa.He was born in Voltri, now part of the comune' of Genoa, the son of a merchant. He trained under Orazio Cambiaso and possibly collaborated with Bernardo Strozzi...

, Simone Barabino
Simone Barabino
Simone Barabino was an Italian painter of the late-Mannerist style. Born in Val de Polcevera, near Genoa, he was mainly active in his native city, where he trained with Bernardo Castello. He feuded with his master and left for Milan. There after some works, he stopped painting...

, Giulio Benso
Giulio Benso
Giulio Benso was a Genovese painter of the early Baroque. He is known as one of the followers of the style of Luca Cambiasi....

, Battista and Bernardo Castello
Bernardo Castello
Bernardo Castello was an Italian painter of the late-Mannerist style, active mainly in Genoa and Liguria. He is mainly known as a portrait and historical painter.-Biography:...

, Giovanni Battista Paggi
Giovanni Battista Paggi
Giovanni Battista Paggi was an Italian painter of the Late-Renaissance and early-Baroque.He was born in Genoa into the well-to-do family of his father Pellegrino...

, Francesco Spezzini, and Lazzaro Tavarone
Lazzaro Tavarone
Lazzaro Tavarone was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance and Mannerist period, active mainly in his native Genoa and in Spain....

.

Style and output

Cambiasi had an ardent fancy, and was a bold designer in a Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

esque mode. His main influences are said to have been Correggio and the Late Renaissance Venetian school. His extreme facility astonished the Spanish painters. It is said that Philip II, watching one day with pleasure the off-hand zest with which Cambiasi was painting a head of a laughing child, was allowed the further surprise of seeing the laugh changed, by a touch or two upon the lips, into a weeping expression. The artist painted sometimes with a brush in each hand, and with a certainty equalling or transcending that even of Tintoretto
Tintoretto
Tintoretto , real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso...

.

Cambiasi is best represented in Genoa. In the church of San Giorgio is a canvas of the Martyrdom of San Giorgio; Santa Maria da Carignano houses a Pietà, containing his own portrait and (according to tradition) that of his beloved sister-in-law.

He painted notable nocturnes, including an Adoration of the Shepherds (1570) and the so called Madonna of the Candle (1575). The former painting appears inspired by Correggio's Nativity.

Cambiasi was a prolific draftsman. In the mid-1560s he began to draw in a simplified, geometric style that may have been inspired by similar works by Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

and other German artists.
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