Giovan Battista Moroni

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The tailor. 1570–1575, National Gallery (London)

Giovanni Battista Moroni (* between 1521 and 1524 in Albino ; † around 1580) was an Italian Renaissance painter . Moroni mainly painted portraits. He achieved fame during his lifetime, but was particularly valued in the 19th century in England, where the National Gallery still houses the largest collection of his works outside of Italy.

resume

Moroni was probably born in Bondo near Albino near Bergamo . He must have grown up in modest circumstances. His parents sent him to Brescia to apprentice to Alessandro Bonvicino, known as il Moretto da Brescia . In 1549 he painted two rooms in Abino in Count Spini's house, one with a landscape scene in the then popular Chinese style, the other with a family coat of arms.

The orator Giovan Pietro Maffeis (1533–1603), professor of rhetoric in Genoa, 1560–1565, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna

A drawing of two figures from an altarpiece by Moretto, who died in 1554, dated from 1553, suggests that the two were still in contact at the time. From 1553/54 Moroni painted his first own pictures. These still show elements of the teacher Moretto, but already show an independent development.

A stay in Trento should be considered in connection with works from this period . Relationships between the painting school of Brescia and Trento had existed for a long time, for example Girolamo Romanino , Moretto's teacher, worked for the Archbishop of Trento. In 1573, Moroni could have attended a council in Milan at which spiritual representatives and artists met to discuss appropriate icon representation . Nothing is known of longer trips or other teachers.

Moroni's works must have come to Venice early on: “A rich mountain mask from the Albani family wanted to be painted by Titian, but the latter referred him to his compatriot Moroni with the remark that if he wanted his portrait“ al vero ”, he would he portrayed just as well or better by Moroni “This episode probably took place at the beginning of the sixties of the 16th century and, although it cannot be proven with certainty, is told by different authors.

Bernard Berenson describes Moroni in 1907 as uninteresting and unimaginative.

Moroni's life can largely only be reconstructed through his pictures, since the written sources are scanty. In addition to commissions for noble families from Bergamo, he also received commissions from monasteries and churches. These are always oil paintings and not frescoes. Many of the weaker works in his style suggest a lively teaching activity. One of his students, Giovanni Battista Moneta, signs his pictures with the same signature GBM . Many of these images are therefore assigned to Moroni (state of knowledge 1933). Moroni's last work is a painting of the Last Judgment for the church in Gorlago . Moroni died on February 5, 1578 without completing this picture. Apparently an assistant finishes the picture so badly that it was said, "in Gorlago it is better in hell than in heaven"

Moroni left a wife and two children.

The portrait in the school of Brescia

Giorgione created a new kind of portrait painting: the human being is idealized, atmospheric-melancholy in infinite harmony and beauty, such as B. in Lorenzo Lotto's man with a lion's paw or Titian's man with the gloves .

Around 1530 this was also given up by portrait painters in favor of realistic portrait accuracy. What interests the artist now is the representation of the mental and physical condition of a person, for example Lorenzo Lotto's The Liver Diseased . This type of representation is only a transition that ultimately leads the master to the representation of the people in front of a simple colored background, without the representation of fates, sufferings, as in Lotto's picture of old men. “From these works (Moretto's works) there is actually no path leading to Moroni, their spiritual essence remains foreign to him. He is the finisher of what was started by Lotto and aimed at by Romanno with somewhat inadequate means. His art grows on this ground, it is realistic, impolite, haunted and leads us into a sphere of educated bourgeoisie, which the mannerists have not yet recognized as worth portraying in this form. "

  • Giorgione: Portrait of Antonio Broccardo

  • Titian: Man with the gloves

  • Lorenzo Lotto: Man with a Lion Paw

The new size ratio

Moroni developed a new conception of the half-length portrait in his pictures. The figure is no longer intersected above the knee, but higher up by the picture frame (“the unknown poet”). He wants to achieve that the portrayed occupies as much space as possible in the picture surface.

Works (selection)

Exhibitions

  • 2004/2005: Giovan Battista Moroni. Lo sguardo sulla realtà (1560–1579) . Museo Adriano Bernareggi, Palazzo Moroni, Chiostro di San Francesco, Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, all in Bergamo
  • 2014/2015: Giovanni Battista Moroni . Royal Academy of Arts , London

literature

Web links

Commons : Giovan Battista Moroni  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Humfrey 2001.
  2. ↑ Lendorff 1933, p. 1.
  3. ↑ Berenson 1907, p. 129 .
  4. ↑ Lendorff 1933, p.
  5. ↑ Lendorff 1933, p. 15.
  6. ^ Gian Lodovico Madruzzo .
  7. ^ Gian Federico Madruzzo .
personal data
SURNAME Moroni, Giovan Battista
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moroni, Giovanni Battista; Moroni, Gianbattista
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian Renaissance painter
DATE OF BIRTH between 1521 and 1524
PLACE OF BIRTH Albino (Lombardy)
DATE OF DEATH around 1580