Guido Reni
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Guido Reni (November 4, 1575 - August 18, 1642) was a prominent Italian painter of high-Baroque style.
Biography
He was born in Bologna into a family of musicians, and as a child of nine apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon, Albani and Domenichino also began working in Calvaert's studio. By age twenty, Reni, like the others, had joined Calvaert's rival studio, the Accademia degli Incamminati in Bologna led by Lodovico Caracci. They were to form the prolific and successful school of Bolognese painters who followed the Carraccis to Rome . Like many Bolognese painters, Reni became eclectic in style and thematic. He is also reputed to have trained with a painter by the name of Ferrantini.Work in Rome
In 1602, he travelled to Rome with Albani, and initially assisted the teams led by Annibale Carracci in fresco decorations of the Farnese Palace. By 1604-5, he received an independent Vatican commission for a Crucifixion of St. Peter Altarpiece. Then after a few year sojourn in Bologna, he returned to Rome to become one of the pre-eminent painters during the papacy of Paul V (Borghese).Reni's masterpiece is considered to be the fresco in the ceiling of the large central hall of garden palace, Casino dell'Aurora located in the grounds of the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi. The casino was a pavilion commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese[link]; the rear portion overlooks the Piazza Montecavallo and Palazzo Quirinale ([satellite photo)]. The massive fresco is framed in quadri riportati and depicts Apollo in his Chariot preceded by Dawn (Aurora) bringing light to the world.[link] The work is restrained in classicism, copying poses from Roman Sarcophagi, and showing far more simplicity and restraint than Carracci's riotous Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne in the Farnese. Reni in this painting is allying himself more with the sterner Cavaliere d'Arpino and Francesco Albani "School" of mytho-historic painting, and less with Cortona's excesses. There is little concession to perspective, and the vibrantly colored style is antithetical to the tenebrism of Carravagio's followers. Payments showed that he was paid in 247 scudi and 54 baiocchi on September 24, 1616 for completion.
He also completed frescoes in the Paoline Chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome as well as the Aldobrandini wings of the Vatican. According to rumor, the pontifical chapel of Montecavallo (Chapel of the Annuciation) was assigned to Reni to paint; but, because he felt underpaid by the ministers, the artist left for Bologna. This left Domenichino as the pre-eminent artist in Rome, although Reni's studio in Bologna became fairly prolific in producing canvases for export.
Work in outside Rome and in Bologna
In later years, he moved to Naples to complete a commission to paint the chapel of S. Gennaro. However, the painters resident in Naples--Corenzio, Caracciolo and Ribera-- were strongly resistant to the entry of competitors into their market, and conspired, according to rumor, to poison or bring him to harm. He now returned to Rome; but he finally left that city abruptly, in the pontificate of Urban VIII, in consequence of an offensive reprimand administered to him by Cardinal Spinola.
Returning to Bologna more or less permanently, Reni established a successful and prolific studio. He got a commission to decorate the cupola of the chapel of Saint Dominic in the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna. He worked at it between 1613 and 1615, resulting in the radiant fresco St Dominic's Glory, a masterpiece that can stand the comparison with the exquisite Arca di San Domenico below. He equally contributed to the decoration of the Rosary Chapel in the same church with the Resurrection.
In Ravenna, he painted the chapel in the cathedral with his admired picture of the Israelites gathering Manna.Reni, after departing Rome, painted in a disparate set of styles, true to the eclectic tastes of many of Carracci trainees. For example, his altarpiece for Samson Victorious formulates stylized poses characteristic of mannerism[link]. In contrast his Crucifixion and his Atlanta and Hipomenes[link] depict dramatic diagonal movement coupled with the effects of light and shade that betray the influence of Caravaggio. His turbulently violent Massacre of the Innocents (Pinacoteca, Bologna) is painted in a manner reminiscent of Raphael.
Of his numerous pupils, Simone Cantarini, named "Il Pesarese," counts as the most distinguished; he painted an admirable portrait, now in the Bolognese Gallery. The Uffizi Gallery holds a self-portrait. Two other noted pupils were Giacomo Semenza and Francesco Gessi. His themes are mostly Scriptural or mythological in subject. The portraits which he executed are few — those of Sixtus V, Bernardino Cardinal Spada and the so‑called Beatrice Cenci being among the most noticeable. The identity of the last-named portrait is very doubtful; it certainly cannot have been painted direct from Beatrice, who had been executed in Rome before Reni ever lived there. Many etchings are attributed to him, some from his own works, and some after other masters; they are spirited, but rather negligent.
Reni died in Bologna in 1642.
He is buried, together with Elisabetta Sirani, in the Rosary Chapel of the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna.
Partial anthology of works
- Callisto and Diana
- Crucifixion of St Peter, Vatican, Rome
- Christ Crucified, San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome
- Conception, Forlì
- Alms of St Roch, Bologna
- Massacre of the Innocents, Bologna
- Pietà, Bologna
- Lament over the Body of Christ, Chiesa dei Mendicanti, Bologna
- Ecce Homo, Gemaldegälerie, Dresden
- Saints Peter and Paul, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
- Assumption of the Virgin, Sant'Ambrogio, Genoa
- St Paul the Hermit and St Anthony in the Wilderness, Berlin
- Fortune, Capitol
- Samson Drinking from the Jawbone of an Ass
- Ariadne Capitoline Museums
- Atlanta and Hippomenes 1612 Prado, Madrid [link]
- Atlanta and Hippomenes 1622-25 Capodimonte, Naples [link]
- Madonna del Rosario, Pinacoteca, Bologna
- The Labors of Hercules, Louvre,
- Lucrezia and Cleopatra, Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome
- San Sebastiano, Pinacoteca, Bologna
- Adoration of the Magi, Certosa di San Martino, Naples
References
External links
- [Gallery], on [Artericerca]
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