Carlo Saraceni (1579 – 16 June 1620) was anItalian early-Baroque painter, whose reputation as a "first-class painter of the second rank" was improved with the publication of a modern monograph in 1968.[1]
Though he was born and died inVenice, his paintings are distinctly Roman in style; he moved toRome in 1598, joining theAccademia di San Luca in 1607. He never visitedFrance, though he spoke fluent French and had French followers and a French wardrobe. His painting, however, was influenced at first by the densely forested, luxuriantly enveloping landscape settings for human figures ofAdam Elsheimer, a German painter resident in Rome; "there are few landscapes by Saraceni which have not been attributed to Elsheimer," Malcolm Waddingham observed,[2] and Anna Ottani Cavina has suggested the influences may have travelled both ways.[3] and Elsheimer's smallcabinet paintings on copper offered a format that Saraceni employed in six landscape panels illustratingThe Flight ofIcarus;[4] inMoses and the Daughters of Jethro,[5] andMars and Venus.[6]
When Caravaggio's notoriousDeath of the Virgin[7] was rejected in 1606 as an altarpiece suitable for a chapel ofSanta Maria della Scala, it was Saraceni who provided the acceptable substitute, which remainsin situ, the only securely dated painting of his first decade in Rome. He was influenced byCaravaggio's dramatic lighting, monumental figures, naturalistic detail, and momentary action, so that he is numbered among the first of the "tenebrists" or "Caravaggisti". Examples of this style can be seen in the candlelitJudith with the Head of Holofernes.
Saraceni's style matured rapidly between 1606 and 1610, and the next decade gave way to his fully mature works, synthesizing Caravaggio and the Venetians. In 1616–17 he collaborated on the frescoes for theSala Regia of thePalazzo del Quirinale.[8] In 1618 he received payment for two paintings in the church ofSanta Maria dell'Anima. The compositional details of his fresco ofThe Birth of the Virgin in the Chapel of the Annunciation of the church ofSanta Maria in Aquiro are repeated in a panel on copper at theLouvre.[9]
In 1620 he returned to Venice, where he died in the same year.
^"un ottimo comprimario" in Francesco Arcangeli's words, quoted byR. Ward Bissell in reviewing Anna Ottani Cavina,Carlo Saraceni (Milan) 1968, inThe Art Bulletin53.2 (June 1971:248-250) p 248.
^Malcolm Waddingham, "A Landscape Masterpiece by Saraceni"The Burlington Magazine114 No. 828 (March 1972:157, 159)
^Anna Ottani Cavina carefully distinguished Saraceni's landscape manner from Elsheimer's inCarlo Saraceni (Milan) 1968.
^Mars and Venus is found in Museo de Arte Saõ Paulo)"Archived copy". Archived fromthe original on 2006-06-10. Retrieved2006-02-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link).
^Giuliano Briganti,Il Palazzo del Quirinale (Rome 1962:37; among his collaborators there was the VenetianMarcantonio Bassetti, whose preparatory drawings are frequently confused with Sartaceni's (Stephen Polcari, "A Newly-Found Drawing by Saraceni"The Burlington Magazine121 No. 914 (May 1979:307, 312).
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