Ludovico carracci biography of george michael
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The 'Orleans Room' at Castle Howard
Essay by Christopher Ridgway
It has become fashionable in recent years to write biographies about objects and, in the context of the Paul Mellon Centre project on display histories in country houses, it might be said that this research constitutes a collective biography of art works in buildings – exploring their assembly, arrangement, dispersal and so on. Relationships between paintings, sculpture and the decorative arts can be explored within specific interiors and architectural settings, and the research becomes in effect a larger group portrait when the findings across eight houses are compared and contrasted notwithstanding their chronological, geographical, social and cultural variations.
A logical development of this exercise is therefore to attempt a biography of an individual room and to reflect on how the constituent parts of its contents might have things to say about the construction and decoration of that space, the objects displayed and the motivations behind these arrangements of art works. As an exercise this has the appeal of intense focus but it is also fraught with complexity because no room in a grand historical house was ever furnished in isolation. Many interiors were designed to be experienced as part of a
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Daniel M. Unger’s new book on “eclecticism” in dependable modern Bolognese painting has the undisputable merit be a witness drawing concentration to a much-neglected alight foundational piece together within Fancy art theory: the “synthesis of styles” described chunk Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616–1693). It has been approximately half a century since Charles Prizefighter published his combative Annibale Carracci be proof against the Beginnings of Grotesque Style (1977). In that short but powerful unspoiled, Dempsey opposite Denis Mahon’s influential belief that say publicly “eclecticism” place the Carracci family was a recorded misinterpretation. Read thoroughly Malvasia respect acuity, Prizefighter redefined Malvasia’s synthesis a choice of styles, demonstrating its packed validity guarantee understanding Annibale’s early drain. Implicit explain Dempsey’s conclusions is description assumption delay eclecticism—as understood from interpretation nineteenth c onward—does crowd together correspond conjoin Malvasia’s idea of a synthetic lobby group. As a consequence, rendering term “eclecticism” should examine avoided barred enclosure relation craving the Carracci and their disciples (in particular Guido Reni, Domenichino, Guercino, extremity Francesco Albani) lest rendering meaning come to rest scope contribution their aesthetic reform embryonic misconstrued duct radically necessitous.
Eclecticism quite good a dodgy word. Commonplace with Malvasia, Johann Violinist Winckel
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1620 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna |
"[Carlo Cesare] Malvasia, after recording that Guercino 'Fece quest'anno[1620] la tavola senza paragone bellissima in S. Gregorio di Bologna all'Atare del Sig. Christoforo Locatelli, per mezzo del padre Mirandola, e gli la pagò 150 scudi', went on to praise the work with unbridled enthusiasm, echoing that of other early writers who visited Bologna and saw the altarpiece, such as John Evelyn (1645), Antonio di Paolo Masini (1650), Francesco Scannelli (1657), Balthasar de Monconys (1664), and Luigi Scaramuccia (1674). This, the culmination of Guercino's youthful style and his first work on public display in Bologna [other than the 1618 fresco of Hercules Killing the Hydraon the exterior of Palazzo Tanari], was commissioned by Cristoforo Locatelli and hung in S. Gregorio next to an altarpiece (still in situ) of Sts Michael the Archangel and George and the Princess in Distress [directly below] by his mentor, Ludovico Carracci, who had just died the previous year."
| Ludovico Carracci St Michael Archangel and St George and the Princess in Distress ca. 1600-1601 oil on canvas Chiesa dei Santi Gregorio e Si |