Federico Barocci | |
|---|---|
 Self-portrait (c. 1600) | |
| Born | c. 1535[1] |
| Died | 30 September 1612 Urbino, Duchy of Urbino |
| Known for | Painting |
| Notable work | The Communion of the Apostles |
| Movement | |
Federico Barocci (also writtenBarozzi)[2] (c. 1535 – 30 September 1612) was an ItalianRenaissance painter and printmaker. His original name wasFederico Fiori, and he was nicknamedIl Baroccio. His work was highly esteemed and influential, and foreshadows the Baroque ofRubens. He is generally considered the greatest and most individual painter of his time in central Italy.[3]
He was born atUrbino,Duchy of Urbino, and received his earliest apprenticeship with his father,Ambrogio Barocci, a sculptor of some local eminence. He was then apprenticed with the painterBattista Franco Veneziano in Urbino. He accompanied his uncle,Bartolommeo Genga, to Pesaro, then in 1548 to Rome, where he worked in the pre-eminent studio of the day, that of theMannerist painters,Taddeo andFederico Zuccari.
After passing four years atRome, he returned to his native city, where his first work of art was aSt. Margaret executed for the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament. He was invited back to Rome by PopePius IV to assist in the decoration of theVatican Belvedere Palace atRome, where he painted theVirgin Mary and infant, with several Saints and a ceiling in fresco, representing theAnnunciation.
During this second sojourn, while completing the decorations for the Vatican, Barocci fell ill with intestinal complaints. He suspected that a salad which he had eaten had been poisoned by jealous rivals. Fearing his illness was terminal, he left Rome in 1563; four years later he was said to experience a partial remission after prayers to the Virgin.[4] Barocci henceforth often complained of frail health, though he remained productive for nearly four decades more. While he is described by contemporaries as personally somewhat morose and hypochondriacal, his paintings are lively and brilliant. Although he continued to have major altarpiece commissions from afar, he never returned to Rome, and was mainly patronised in his native city byFrancesco Maria II della Rovere, duke of Urbino. The Ducal Palace can be seen in the background of his paintings, rendered in a forced perspective that seems a holdover from Mannerism.
While Barocci was removed from Rome, the fulcrum of artistic fame and influence, he continued to innovate in his style. At some point, he may have seen coloured chalk/pastel drawings byCorreggio, but Barocci's remarkable pastel studies are the earliest examples of the technique to survive. In pastels and in oil sketches (another technique he pioneered), Barocci's soft, opalescent renderings evoke the ethereal. Such studies were part of a complex process Barocci used to complete his altarpieces. An organised series of steps leading up to the final product ensured its speed and success in execution. Barocci did innumerable sketches: gestural, compositional, figural studies (using models), lighting studies (using clay models),perspective studies, colour studies, nature studies, etc. Today, over 2,000 drawings by him are extant. Every detail of his subsequent cartoons for canvases was worked out in this way. A good example is his famedMadonna del Popolo (Uffizi). It is a vortex of colour and vitality, made possible by the great variety of people, poses, perspectives, natural details, colors, lighting and atmospheric effects. There are many surviving drawings for theMadonna del Popolo, from initial sketches to colour studies of heads, to the final full-size cartoon. Despite this painstaking process, Barocci's genius kept the brushstrokes passionate and liberated, and a spiritual light seems to flicker as a jewel across faces, hands, drapery, and sky.
Barocci's embrace of theCounter Reformation would shape his long and fruitful career. By 1566, he joined a lay order ofCapuchins, an offshoot ofFranciscans.[5] He may have been influenced bySaint Philip Neri, whose Oratorians sought to reconnect the spiritual realm with the lives of everyday people. Neri, who was somewhat ambivalent about the accumulating richness of hisSanta Maria in Vallicella, commissioned two completed works from Barocci, the pre-eminent artist of these large pious altarpieces:The Visitation[6] (1583–6) andPresentation of the Virgin[7] (1593–94). Neri is said to have been moved to ecstasy by Barocci's accomplishment in the former painting, which shows the Virgin and Elizabeth greeting each other.
In Urbino, where he painted aDescent from the Cross for the cathedral of San Lorenzo atPerugia. He again visitedRome during the papacy ofGregory XIII when he painted two admirable pictures for the Chiesa Nuova, representing theVisitation of the Virgin Mary to Elisabeth and the Presentation in the Temple, and for theChiesa della Minerva, aLast Supper.[8]
The artist biographerGiovanni Pietro Bellori, the Baroque equivalent ofGiorgio Vasari, considered Barocci to be among the finest painters of his time. Barocci's emotive brushwork was not lost onPeter Paul Rubens when he was in Italy. Rubens is known to have made a sketch of his dramaticMartyrdom of St Vitale, in which the martyr's undulating flesh is the eye of another whirlwind of figures, gestures, and drama. Also, Rubens'The Martyrdom of St Livinus seems to owe much to Barocci, from the putto with the pointingpalm frond to the presence of dogs in the lower right corner. Among the painters and artists who worked under Barocci areAntonio Cimatori (Visacci),Ventura Mazza,Antonio Viviani (il Sordo di Urbino),Giovanni Andrea Urbani,Alessandro Vitali, and finallyFelice andVincenzo Pellegrini. Barocci also had many who followed or were strongly influenced by his style, includingNicolo Martinelli (il Trometta),Giovanni Battista Lombardelli,Domenico Malpiedi,Cesare & Basilio Maggeri,Filippo Bellini,Giovanni Laurentini (Arrigoni),Giorgio Picchi,Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi,Pietro Paolo Tamburini,Terenzio d’Urbino (il Rondolino),Giulio Cesare Begni,Benedetto Marini,Girolamo Cialdieri,Giovanni Battista Urbinelli,Alfonso Patanazzi,Gian Ortensio Bertuzzi,Cesare Franchi (il Pollino),Silla Piccinini,Benedetto Bandiera,Matteuccio Salvucci,Simeone Ciburri,Pietro Rancanelli,Onofrio Marini,Alessandro Brunelli, andFrancesco Baldelli.[9]
Barocci's swirling composition and the focus on the emotional and spiritual are elements that foreshadow the Baroque of Rubens. But even in Federico's Proto-BaroqueBeata Michelina can see the makings ofBernini's High Baroque masterpieceEcstasy of St Theresa.
| Painting | Date | Site | Image link | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martyrdom of St Sebastian | 1557 | Urbino Cathedral | ||
| Madonna di San Simone | 1567 | Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino | [10] | |
| Deposition | 1567–69 | Perugia Cathedral | ||
| Rest on the Flight into Egypt | c. 1573 | Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican | [11]%2c_Rest_on_the_Flight_to_Egypt_-museivaticani.jpg) | |
| Nativity | 1597 | Museo del Prado, Madrid | .jpg) | |
| The Vision of St Francis | San Francesco, Urbino | |||
| Madonna del Popolo | 1575–79 | Uffizi, Florence |  | |
| Entombment | 1580-2 | Chiesa della Croce, Senigallia | ||
| Martyrdom ofSan Vitale | 1583 | Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan | [12] | |
| Portrait of a Young Man | c. 1580–85 | Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg |  | |
| Circumcision | Paris |  | ||
| Annunciation | 1592–96 | Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Assisi, Perugia | [13] | |
| Aeneas' Flight from Troy | 1598 | Galleria Borghese, Rome |  | |
| St Jerome | 1598 | Galleria Borghese, Rome | [14] | |
| Portrait of Francisco II della Rovere | 1572 | Uffizi, Florence | [15] | |
| Christ and Mary Magdalen (Noli me tangere) | 1590 | Gemaldegalerie,Munich | [16] | |
| Entombment (etching) | 1579–1582 | Getty Museum, Los Angeles | [17] | |
| Quintilia Fischeri | c. 1600 | National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. | [citation needed] | |
| Annunciation (etching) | [citation needed] | |||
| St Francis receives the stigmata (drawing) | Accademia Carrara, Bergamo | |||
| Madonna with Sts Simon and Jude | Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino | [18] | ||
| Vocation of Saints Peter and Andrew | 1586 | Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium | [citation needed] | |
| Madonna and Child with the Infant John the Baptist and St Joseph (Madonna with the Cat) | c. 1575 | National Gallery, London | [19] | |
| Communion of the Apostles | c. 1603~1608 | Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome |  |
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| External videos | |
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 Focus on: Barocci, (6:16) with four additional videos,National Gallery |
Media related toFederico Barocci at Wikimedia Commons
Hagar and Ishmael., engraved byEmma Smith for The Easter gift, 1832, with a poetical illustration byLetitia Elizabeth Landon| International | |
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