Giorgio Ghisi

Allegory of life (so-called dream of Raphael ), copper engraving by Giorgio Ghisi, 1562

Giorgio Ghisi (called Giorgio Mantovano , * 1520 in Mantua , † December 15, 1582 ibid) was an Italian engraver and Thousand .

His work, about 70 mostly large-format copper engravings, is characterized by a very developed technique that he uses for mannerist design.

Giorgio Ghisi's training is suspected to be in the environment of Giulio Romano and his work for the Palazzo del Te in Mantua, especially Giovanni Battista Scultori , who may have taught him the graphic techniques. Ghisi's earliest copperplate engravings (first dated 1543) were made soon after 1540. 1546–49 worked in Rome on engravings based on models by painters there ( Francesco Salviati , Perino del Vaga and Michelangelo ). In 1550 he went to Antwerp , where Hieronymus Cock , whom he had met in Rome, printed four important sheets that had a lasting impact on Roman Mannerism in the Flemish art scene: The School of Athens according to Raphael (1550), The Last Supper according to Lambert Lombard (1551), the Disputa after Raphael (1552) and the Nativity after Agnolo Bronzino (1554). Conversely, Ghisi is inspired by Dutch graphics, which is particularly evident in his landscape elements. He also becomes a member of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke .

In 1555/56 and between 1558 and 1559 Ghisi was in Paris and Fontainebleau , where other Italian artists worked for the king under the direction of Francesco Primaticcio . Under their influence, his iconography is allegorically enriched and more complex, e.g. B. in the allegory of life , the so-called dream of Raphael (1562). Between 1562 and 1564 he returned to Mantua, where he reproduced the Last Judgment according to Michelangelo in ten memoranda . The time and place of origin of the Sybil and Prophets , also based on Michelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel , is controversial. He must have been in Paris in 1573 and in Rome again in 1574/75 ( Man of Sorrows and depictions of Mary ). After 1576 he stayed at the Gonzaga court in Mantua, where he published his last dated copperplate engraving in 1578.

In the Antwerp period there were inlaid works on damascus shields, the decoration of a sword blade is dated 1570.

literature

• Suzanne Boorsch u. a. (Ed.): The engravings of Giorgio Ghisi . Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York 1985, ISBN 0-87099-396-8 (exhibition catalog).
• Saur General Artist Lexicon, Vol. 53, Saur: Munich and Leipzig 2007, pp. 83–86.

Commons : Giorgio Ghisi  - Collection of images, videos and audio files