Guido Cagnacci

Guido Cagnacci (born January 19, 1601 in Santarcangelo di Romagna , Rimini ; † 1663 in Vienna ; actually Guido Canlassi ) was an Italian Baroque painter and as such a representative of the Bolognese school , who used his stage name "Cagnacci" ( German : "Mutt") ) due to his unsightly face.

Life

Cagnacci's family came from the Italian municipality of Urbania . His father Matteo had learned the profession of furrier in accordance with family tradition and worked as a preacher in Santarcangelo di Romagna . Cagnacci's mother Livia was the daughter of Carlo Serra, a preacher from Rimini . Cagnacci grew up with his sisters Lucia and Virginia in Santarcangelo di Romagna and created his first paintings there. His father sent him to Bologna around 1616 , where he completed a four-year art course. His teachers included Guido Reni , Giovanni Francesco Barbieri and Lodovico Carracci .

After his training, Cagnacci made two trips to Rome , where he familiarized himself with the works and style of Caravaggio . Back in his home region, he received commissions in Rimini and Forlì . In 1628, when he was busy with sacred images for the Church of San Giovanni Battista in Rimini, he began an affair with Teodora Stivi, a widowed and wealthy countess. Since commoners and nobles were not allowed to marry each other, Cagnacci and the countess tried to run away. However, their escape was thwarted and Cagnacci was banished from the city. As a result, his previous clients, members of the clergy and the nobility, turned away from him. After spending several years in Bologna, he lived in Venice from 1650 , where he founded an art school and made friends with the painter Pietro Liberi . Under his real name Canlassi, he was best known in Venice for his erotic works. In 1658 Cagnacci was appointed court painter to Vienna by Leopold I , where he died five years later and was buried in the Augustinian Church.

style

In Santarcangelo di Romagna, Rimini and Forlì, Cagnacci had mainly devoted himself to chaste sacred works, but from 1650 in Venice and Vienna he preferred to paint women like Lucretia , Cleopatra and Maria Magdalena in sensual, half-naked poses. He mostly contrasted the erotic with motives of repentance, misfortune and death. In his painting style he combined Caravaggio's naturalism and Reni's classicism. Soft modeling and a decorative imagery are also attested to.

reception

During his lifetime, Cagnacci gained fame in Italy and Vienna, but received little attention from contemporary art critics. After his death he was quickly forgotten. Even in the more recent past, in the shadow of Caravaggio and Reni, he has tended to be one of Italy's second-rate Baroque painters. Surprisingly, in 2007 one of his pictures of Lucretia was bought by an Italian bidder for 1.15 million euros at the Dorotheum in Vienna at an estimated value of 80,000 euros. In 2008, an exhibition with more than a hundred exhibits was dedicated to Cagnacci at the San Domenico Museum in Forlì.

Works (selection)

image	title	year	Size / material	Exhibition / collection / owner
	Assumption of St. Mary Magdalene	around 1640	192.5 × 138.5 cm, oil on canvas	Florence , Palazzo Pitti , Galleria Palatina
	Glory of Saint Mercuriale	around 1642–1643	411 × 230 cm, oil on canvas	Forlì , Pinacoteca Comunale
	David with the head of Goliath	around 1645-1650	108.3 × 86.4 cm, oil on canvas	Los Angeles , Getty Museum
	Allegory on human life	around 1650	110 × 86.5 cm, oil on canvas	Ferrara , Collection of the Fondazione Cavallini-Sgarbi
	Emperor Leopold I (1640–1705) in coronation armor	around 1658	190 × 120 cm, oil on canvas	Vienna , Kunsthistorisches Museum , Picture Gallery
	Penitent Magdalena	after 1659	44 × 53 cm, oil on copper	Vienna , Kunsthistorisches Museum , Picture Gallery
	St. Jerome	after 1659	160 × 110.5 cm, oil on canvas	Vienna , Kunsthistorisches Museum , Picture Gallery
	Cleopatra's suicide	after 1659	124 × 93.5 cm, oil on canvas	Vienna , Kunsthistorisches Museum , Picture Gallery
	Cleopatra's suicide	around 1660	120 × 158 cm, oil on canvas	Milan , Pinacoteca di Brera
	Martha rebukes her sister Maria	after 1660	229.2 × 266.1 cm, oil on canvas	Pasadena , Norton Simon Museum
	Cleopatra's suicide	1661-1662	153 × 169 cm, oil on canvas	Vienna , Kunsthistorisches Museum , Picture Gallery
	Mary Magdalene	1663	86 × 72 cm, oil on canvas	Rome , Palazzo Barberini , Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica
	Lucrezia		114.5 × 112 cm, oil on canvas	Italy , private property
	Susanna and the elders		144.5 × 173 cm, oil on canvas	Saint Petersburg , Hermitage
	Cleopatra		75.3 × 62.3 cm, oil on canvas	London , Dulwich Picture Gallery

literature

• Sandra Vasco: Cagnacci, Guido. In: Alberto Maria Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Volume 16. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1973, pp. 296-298 ( treccani.it ( Memento of January 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) [ Memento in the Internet Archive , accessed on February 26, 2019]).
• Guido Cagnacci. In: Marco Bussagli, Gloria Fossi, Mattia Reiche: Italian Art. From the Origins to the Present Day. Giunti Editore, Firenze 2004, ISBN 88-09-03726-X , p. 368.

Web links

Commons : Guido Cagnacci  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Guido Cagnacci. In: Google Arts & Culture
• Guido Cagnacci. In: artcyclopedia.com (English; museums with Cagnacci's works)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Johannes Sander: Guido Cagnacci in Forlì. In: kunstmarkt.com, accessed on February 26, 2019.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Guido Cagnacci. Protagonista del Seicento tra Caravaggio e Reni. In: italica.rai.it. Rai Internazionale online, April 13, 2013, archived from the original on April 13, 2013 ; accessed on February 26, 2019 (Italian).