Giovanni Battista Fontana (painter)
Giovanni Battista Fontana (* around 1524 in Ala near Verona , † September 25, 1587 in Innsbruck ) was an Italian artist.
biography
Fontana's exact life dates are not certain. Influences of Titian , Paolo Veronese and Parmigianino are discussed, but his training is in the dark. It is known, however, that he was already in the service of Emperor Ferdinand I in 1562 - his earliest known works come from the castle chapel of Ebersdorf - and worked for his son Ferdinand II from 1572 . From 1575 Fontana was court painter to Ferdinand II. Of the 68 engravings attributed to him, most probably go back to his brother Giulio; Giovanni Battista is likely to have provided the drafts, including the 27 sheets of the Romulus legend , which were dedicated to the Archduke. In 1573 Fontana designed frescoes in the oratory and ballroom of Innsbruck Castle . An altar painting in Seefeld dates from 1576 , and in 1580 Fontana made three more altar paintings for the castle chapel in Günzburg . A portrait of Cardinal Andreas of Austria comes from the same period. Fontana furnished the silver chapel of Innsbruck's court church with fourteen ceiling paintings depicting the Passion of Christ. The paintings in Ruhelust Castle , which burned down in 1636, have not been preserved . Perhaps Fontana's last work is an altarpiece for the church of Matrei. Before 1586 he was commissioned to decorate the wooden ceiling in the dining room of an outbuilding of Ambras Castle with an allegory of the starry sky.
A major work: The Allegory of the Starry Sky
The allegorical painting, 21 m long and 9.30 m wide, painted in oil on wood, has been in the armory of Ambras Castle since 1881. It shows a total of 48 constellations, 47 of which were known since Claudius Ptolemy , as well as the 48th Berenike 's hair, introduced by Gerhard Mercator in 1551 as Coma Berenikes .
Overall, the picture is divided into three parts: A large rectangle is between two much smaller ones. The pictorial representations of the individual constellations are grouped around a large oval that is inserted into the middle rectangle. This results in four corner fields in which allegories of the four elements water, fire, air and earth found their place. They were embodied by Neptune, Vulkan, Juno and Minerva. On each of the narrow sides of the oval there is another rectangular area on which Fontana depicted the personifications of the seven planets. On the west side you can see Sol, Luna, Mercury and Mars, on the east side Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.
The dining room ceiling of the Palazzo Farnese from 1573 is comparable to this astronomical representation , however, based on an invoice that has been preserved, it is known that a celestial globe from the client's collection served as the direct model for the painting.
Auctions
- 1825 in Nuremberg : Ten Greek World Wise Men, or Heraclitus and Democritus and their students, argue about the shape of the earth, the symbol of which lies as a ball in the foreground.
literature
- Harula Economopoulos: Fontana, Giovanni Battista. In: Fiorella Bartoccini (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 48: Filoni-Forghieri. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1997.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ DIRECTORY OF THE v.DERSCHAUISCHE Kunstkabinett zu NÜRNBERG .... Nuremberg, at the committed auctionator Schmidmer., 1825., 250 p., Directory of rare art collections., 1825., Google Books, online , p. 74, (64.)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fontana, Giovanni Battista |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1524 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ala near Verona |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 25, 1587 |
| Place of death | innsbruck |