Gioacchino Martorana

Gioacchino Martorana (born August 19, 1736 in Palermo , † November 27, 1779 ibid) was an Italian painter of classicism and rococo in Rome and Sicily .

Life

He received his first lessons from his father, the fresco painter Pietro Martorana . Around 1752 he went to Rome to see Giuseppe Vasi , who was probably a student of Gioacchino's father. Through Vasis mediation he came into the workshop of the classicist painters Sebastiano Conca and Marco Benefial , whose daughter Caterina he married. Panel paintings that he created for Santa Dorotea are proven to be the only artistic activity in Rome .

In the early sixties he was active again in Sicily, where in 1764 he received his first notable commission from the court president Giuseppe Asmundo to decorate the rooms of his palace in Palermo with frescoes . The result of this work made Gioacchino Martorana a celebrated artist in Palermo and one of the most popular decorative painters of the nobility, such as the Principe di Comitini , Michele Gravina y Cruillas, who had his palace decorated by him in 1770 .

Initially based on the Roman classicism of Carlo Maratta and Sebastiano Conca , he switched to a painting style that combines the sensual and elegant French Rococo with the robustness of Sicilian art.

Works

Frescoes for palaces and churches

• Palazzo Natoli (Palermo): Decorative frescoes, a. a. an Assunta and the Adoration of Vincent Ferrer (after 1765)
• Palazzo Asmundi (Palermo): ceiling frescoes with the virtues of justice for several rooms (1764)
• Palazzo Celestri di S. Croce or Palazzo di S. Elia (Palermo): fresco decoration
• Santa Ninfa dei Crociferi , choir (Palermo): ceiling fresco Triumph of the Cross (around 1768)
• Palazzo Comitini (Palermo), Sala Martorana : Allegorical ceiling fresco (1770)
• Palazzo Guggino (Palermo): Fresco of an allegory of conjugal love
• Palazzo Branciforte di Bufera (Palermo): fresco decoration with pseudo-architecture
• Palazzo Bordonaro (Palermo): fresco allegory of conjugal love

Panel paintings

• Chiesa Madre di San Giovanni Battista ( Bisacquino ): Panel painting Immacolata
• Santuario di San Angelo ( Licata ): Altar painting Descent from the Cross and Pietà (1778)
• Santa Maria di Monte Oliveto (Palermo): panel painting Four Martyrs (1765)
• Chiesa dei Tre Re (Palermo): Panel Adoration of the Magi
• Santa Ninfa dei Crociferi, choir (Palermo): four panel paintings of the Church Fathers , wall painting Ninfa , surrounded by Saints Agathe, Rosalia and Olivia, pays homage to the Trinity , the Virgin Mary and Joseph (1768)
• Chiesa dell'Annunziata ( Caronia ): panel painting Annunziata
• Chiesa di Sant'Isidoro ( Caccamo ): panel painting Saint Augustine in ecstasy
• Museo Diffuso ( Corleone ): panel painting Maria Magdalena
• Biblioteca Comunale (Palermo): Portrait of the architect Venanzio Marvuglia (around 1770)
• Palazzo dei Normanni (Palermo): panel painting Viceroy Giovanni Fogliani and his wife (around 1770)

literature

• Alessandro Giuliana Alajmo: Architetti regi in Sicilia. La Chiesa di Santa Ninfa detta dei crociferi in Palermo, sede della Parrocchia di S. Croce. Con documenti inediti. Scuola grafica Don Orione, Palermo 1964.
• Fedele di San Biagio : Dialoghi familiari sopra pittura. Valenza, Palermo 1781, p. 241.
• Mariny Guttilla:  Martorana, Gioacchino. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 71:  Marsilli – Massimino da Salerno. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2008.
• Diana Malignaggi (ed.): La pitture del Settecento a Palermo. Attività divulgativa e didattica 1978. Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici e Storici, Palermo 1978.
• Martorana, Gioacchino . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 24 : Mandere – Möhl . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1930, p. 185 .
• Angela Mazzé: Memoria di Gioacchino Martorana. A cura di Roberto Petricolo. Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici e Storici, Palermo 1979.