Massimo Stanzione

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Massimo Stanzione: Assumption of Mary , 1635, North Carolina Museum of Art

Massimo Stanzione (also Stanzioni ; * around 1586–1595, probably in Orta di Atella (near Naples ); † around 1656 in Naples) was an Italian baroque painter and fresco artist . He was one of the leading artists of the Neapolitan school and is also called the Neapolitan Guido Reni , alluding to the elegance of his style.

Life

Massimo Stanzione's place and date of birth are not documented. According to tradition by the Neapolitan art writer De Dominici , he was born around 1585 in Orta d'Atella near Naples. Since Stanzione is recorded for the first time in 1615, it could also have been born in the early 1590s. He is said to have called himself a student of Fabrizio Santafede : "... before I saw the beautiful things by Guido Reni ".

The Girl with the Rooster , 1635, Fine Arts Museums , San Francisco

It is sometimes assumed that he began as a portraitist , at least the first surviving documents about Stanzione refer to some portraits he painted in 1615 for two clients. On January 20, 1616, he received payment for a picture of St. Charles and Francis of Assisi , on which he also portrayed the founder Claudio Fiorillo (not preserved).

The famous poet Giambattista Basile dedicated the longest ode in his Madrigali et Ode collection to Stanzione as early as 1617 and mentions four (not preserved or identified) paintings from the mythological theme: a Hector and Achilles , a Gigantomachia , Hero and Leander , as well as Venus and Cupid . Stanzione received his first two public commissions from Basile's hometown Giugliano , from the Brotherhood of San Vito (1615) and from the Church of Santissima Annunziata , for which he created an offering of the Virgin Mary in the temple (1618 at the latest). This painting is the artist's first (not well) preserved work.

From October 1617 to April 1618, Stanzione stayed in Rome to paint a Madonna in Glory and Life of St. Andrew for the Discalced Carmelites in the Chapel of the Blessed (and shortly afterwards canonized) Andrea Corsini in Santa Maria della Scala (not received or identified). In Rome he came into contact with the latest art movements, such as the classical works of Annibale Carracci and his students, as well as with the Tenebrists who succeeded Caravaggio , in particular with Simon Vouet and Jusepe de Ribera . The latter soon became his “rival” in Naples, with whom he influenced the art scene.

Sacrifice of Moses , approx. 1628–30, Museo di Capodimonte , Naples

In the 1620s, Massimo Stanzione and his art enjoyed such high esteem that he was awarded knights three times. First, Pope Gregory XV awarded him . on May 14, 1621 the Order of the Golden Spur (" Speron d'oro ") and appointed him Count Palatine (" conte palatino "). On July 2, 1627 appointed him Urban VIII. To Christ Knight ( cavaliere dell'Ordine di Gesù Cristo ); Stanzione was also one of the Knights of St. George ( cavaliere di S. Giorgio ). Not least because of these papal honors, it is assumed that he stayed in Rome several times in the 1620s and was able to study different art styles. From then on, he drew his paintings with the signature “ EQUES MAXIMUS ” (Latin word play that can mean both “Knight Massimo” and “greatest knight”).

Massimo Stanzione's further artistic development was influenced by his friendship with Artemisia Gentileschi after she moved to Naples. The two artists also seem to have worked together several times.

Probably on the recommendation of a Carthusian monk who lived in Rome and, in a letter dated June 1, 1630, praised Stanzione's "truly excellent work" (" lavori veramente eccellenti ") and "his brilliant reputation" (" illuminata fama "), the painter received numerous Commissions for one of the most important artistic projects in early baroque Naples: the decoration of the Certosa di San Martino . Between 1630 and 1637 he decorated the chapel of St. Bruno with frescoes and oil paintings and in 1638 painted a Pietà for the entrance side of the church in 1638 , which, according to De Dominici, arose in a kind of competition with Jusepe de Ribera, who shortly before had the same theme for the Carthusian monks had depicted. Stanzione created further paintings for the choir and the sacristy of the church, for the chapel of John the Baptist (from 1640) and the chapel of St. Hugo (before 1644), as well as the frescoes with stories from the Old Testament and from the life of Christ in the so-called passetto (passage) to the sacristy (before 1644).

Sacrifice of Bacchus (or Bacchanal ), ca.1636 , Prado , Madrid

In addition, Stanzione received orders from King Philip IV of Spain, who wrote four scenes from the life of John the Elder for the chapel of the Buen Retiro Palace . Baptist (1633-35) ordered, and a Bacchus victims (or Bacchanalia ), located in 1666 in the Alcazar of Madrid was; all of these pictures can be seen today in the Prado in Madrid.

From the end of the 1630s, Stanzione worked on numerous other important commissions in Naples, including the cycle of frescoes on the life of the Virgin Mary in the choir by Gesù Nuovo (1639–40), the ceiling frescoes in the nave of Santa Maria Regina Coeli (1639–47) and in Cappellone of St. Giacomo della Marca in Santa Maria la Nova (1644–46). From 1642 to 1644, with the participation of the workshop, he created ceiling frescoes about the life of Saints Peter and Paul in the nave of San Paolo Maggiore , which are only partially preserved.

There are also significant altarpieces for the cathedral of Pozzuoli (1635-37), and for the Neapolitan church of Santa Maria delle Anime Purgatorio ad Arco (1638-1642), San Pietro a Maiella , San Diego all'Ospedaletto , as well as the Madonna of the Rosary in the Cappella Caro-Cacace in San Lorenzo Maggiore (1642-1651). For the sacristy of the Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro (in the cathedral of Naples ) he painted the painting San Gennaro heals a possessed woman (1641–46) as a replacement for an unfinished picture of Domenichino, who died prematurely . Other masterpieces of these years are the Adoration of the Shepherds for the Chiesa del Divino Amore (around 1645) and the Coronation of the Virgin for San Giovanni Battista delle Monache, both of which are now in the Museo di Capodimonte .

Susanna and the elderly , Städel , Frankfurt a. M.

In a letter of November 14, 1651 to the art collector Antonio Ruffo in Messina , Stanzione admitted that he was reluctant to paint pictures of “profane history and naked women” (“ istoria profana e di donne ignude ”). Nonetheless, paintings such as his suicide of Lucrezia or his depictions of Cleopatra (among others in the Hermitage , St. Petersburg) are counted by art historians among the most modern and impressive of the Neapolitan painting of the Seicento .

Not many examples of Stanzione's famous portraits have survived. One of his best-known paintings is the Girl with the Rooster ( Fine Arts Museum , San Francisco), a signed portrait of a woman in traditional costume, which is estimated to have been made around 1635. Also worth mentioning is the portrait of Jerome Bankes , a wealthy Englishman who had himself painted by Stanzione around 1650 on his trip to Italy ( Kingston Lacy House , Dorset ).

Massimo Stanzione most likely died during the great plague epidemic of 1656, which also killed several other Neapolitan painters. His unfinished visit to the Cappella Merlino in Gesù Nuovo had to be completed by Santillo Sannino.

Appreciation

Madonna with the Souls in the Purgatory , 1638–42, Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco , Naples

Massimo Stanzione was, together with Jusepe de Ribera, one of the most important and influential painters in Naples and attracted numerous students and imitators. Growing up in the Neapolitan tradition and with the early Caravaggists Battistello Carracciolo , Carlo Sellitto and Filippo Vitale , he received a variety of stimuli through his stays in Rome and later in Naples from the elegantly restrained Tenebrism of Simon Vouet and from the classicists from the Carracci school , especially from Guido Reni and Lanfranco . His acquaintance with Artemisia Gentileschi also had an influence on Stanzione's artistic development. He was particularly impressed by her way of adding color to the paintings, but he did not adopt her style.

From these sometimes controversial ideals, Massimo Stanzione created his own colorful, realistic and at the same time aesthetically elegant style, which follows both the Tenebrism in the successor of Caravaggio and the classicism of Reni in a moderate form. He combined Caravaggio's dramatically illuminated scenes with the classical and lyrical painting of the Bolognese painters. In contrast to the often dark, monotonous and crass style of the Tenebrists, Massimo Stanzione's painting appears friendly, warm and life-affirming; even the coolness of the classicists is alien to him. He succeeded in balancing these currents on the one hand with the lovely grace of his rather three-dimensionally modeled figures (especially women), on the other hand - and especially in larger works - through a balanced color scheme , in which, within an often dark ambience and in addition to muted colors, he and blue tones combined with yellow or golden yellow to create a harmonious and elegant overall effect. He could have copied this combination of bright colors in a dark environment from Barocci's works in Rome and modified it in a baroque sense.

In the last two decades of his career he came closer to the ideals of Reni and Domenichino , ultimately of Raphael .

Picture gallery

Works (selection)

Madonna and Child
  • Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the temple , Santissima Annunziata, Giugliano (before 1618, poorly preserved)
  • Salomé with the head Johannes d. Baptist , private collection, Rome
  • Martyrdom of St. Agatha , Museo di Capodimonte , Naples
  • Pietà , Palazzo Barberini , Rome
  • Adoration of the Magi , Private Collection, Philadelphia
  • Martyrdom of St. Lawrence , David Owsley Museum of Art , Muncie, Indiana
  • Sacrifice of Moses , Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
  • Susanna and the Elderly , Städelsches Kunstinstitut , Frankfurt a. M.
  • Assumption of Mary , North Carolina Museum of Art , Raleigh
  • Various works in the Certosa di San Martino :
    • Adoration of the Shepherds , in the Chapter House , 1626
    • Decoration in oil and fresco in the chapel of St. Bruno (1630–1637) and in the chapel of John the Baptist (from approx. 1640, unfinished)
    • Pietà , at the entrance to the church, 1638
    • Christ at Passover , in the church choir , 1639
    • Christ leaves the house of the Kaifas , in the sacristy (together with the quadrature painter Viviano Codazzi), before 1644
    • Stories from the Old Testament and from the life of Christ , frescoes in the Passetto (passage) to the sacristy, before 1644
    • Madonna and Child with St. Ugo and Antelmo , Chapel of St. Hugo, before September 1644
  • Four scenes from the life of Johannes d. Baptist , (originally for the chapel of the Buen Retiro Palace) Prado , Madrid, 1633–35
  • Lucrezia's suicide , private collection, Rome , c. 1635
  • Cleopatra , Hermitage , St. Petersburg
  • Cleopatra , Palazzo Durazzo-Pallavicini, Genoa
  • Bacchanal , (originally for the Palacio del Buen Retiro) Prado, Madrid, ca.1636
  • the girl with the rooster , Fine Arts Museum , San Francisco
  • Guitar player , once in the Della Vecchia Collection, Naples
  • Portrait of the Jesuit missionary Álvaro Semedo , Galleria Benucci, Rome , around 1640
  • Portrait of four gentlemen (from the magistrate of Naples?), Private collection, Florence
  • Cycle of the Virgin Mary , frescoes in the presbytery by Gesù Nuovo , Naples, 1639–40
  • Death of St. Joseph , Cappella Sabia in San Diego all'Ospedaletto , Naples, before March 1640
  • Madonna with the Souls of the Purgatory , main altar of Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco , Naples, 1638–1642
  • Life of St. Peter and Paul , San Paolo Maggiore , Naples, 1642–1644 (with workshop, poorly preserved)
  • Three scenes from the life of Mary , ceiling painting in Santa Maria Regina Coeli , Naples, 1639–1647
  • Three scenes from the life of St. Diego d'Alcalá , frescoes in the Cappellone of St. Giacomo della Marca in Santa Maria la Nova , Naples, 1644–46
  • Sermon of San Patroba to the people of Pozzuoli , Pozzuoli Cathedral
  • St. Petrus Coelestinus rejects the papal tiara , San Pietro a Maiella , Naples, beginning of d. 1640s
  • San Gennaro heals a possessed , sacristy of the Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro, Cathedral of Naples , 1641–46
  • Adoration of the Shepherds , (originally for the Chiesa del Divino Amore) Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, around 1645
  • Coronation of the Virgin Mary , (originally in the left transept of San Giovanni Battista delle Monache) in the depot of the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, approx. 1639–1649
  • Rosary Madonna with Saints , Cappella Cacace-de Caro in San Lorenzo Maggiore , Naples, 1642–1651
  • Maria Immacolata , Chiesa di Gesù e Maria di Costantinopoli, L'Aquila (after 1643)
  • Effigy of Jerome Bankes , Kingston Lacy House, Dorset , about 1650
  • Equestrian portrait of Don Iñigo Vélez de Guevara y Tassis, Count of Oñate , Instituto Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid , 1650s
  • Equestrian portrait of Beltrán Vélez de Guevara, Marquis of Campo Real , Museo de la Real Maestranza de Caballería, Ronda , 1650s
  • Investiture of St. Aspreno by St. Petrus , (originally in San Pietro ad Aram , Naples) Palazzo Reale , Naples, 1654 (with workshop)
  • Annunciation , Chiesa dell'Ave Gratia Plena, Marcianise , dated 1655 (with workshop)
  • Visitation , Cappella Merlino in Gesù Nuovo , Naples (completed by Santillo Sannino)
  • Holy Trinity with the Virgin Mary and St. Roch , Sacristy of San Pietro in Vinculis , Naples (ruined)

Honors

literature

  • Stanzione, Massimo , in: Lexikon der Kunst , Vol. 11, Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen, 1994, p. 134
  • Gianluca Forgione: Stanzione, Massimo , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 94, 2019, online on Treccani (Italian; viewed May 29, 2020)
  • Mary D. Garrard : Artemisia Gentileschi . Rizzoli International, New York 1993, ISBN 0-8478-1652-4 .
  • NE Lahti: The language of Art from A to Z. Writ in plain English . New edition York Books, Terrebonne, Or. 1993, ISBN 0-9620147-3-7 . (former title: Plain talk about art )
  • Erika D. Langmuir, Norbert Lynton: The Yale dictionary of Art and Artists. Yale UP, New Haven, Ct. 2000, ISBN 0-300-06458-6 .
  • Edward Lucie-Smith (Ed.): The Thames and Hudson dictionary of art terms . New edition Thames & Hudson, London 2004, ISBN 0-500-20365-2 .
    • Dumont's dictionary of artists. From antiquity to the present. New edition Dumont, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-7701-4015-X .
  • Nicola Spinosa: Ribera. L'opera completa . 2nd Edition. Editorial Electa, Naples 2006, ISBN 88-510-0288-6 .

Web links

Commons : Massimo Stanzione  - collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Stanzione, Massimo , short biography on the Prado website (Spanish; viewed June 1, 2020)
  • Massimo Stanzione , short biography online at Arte.it (Italian; seen May 29, 2020)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa Gianluca Forgione: Stanzione, Massimo , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 94, 2019, online on Treccani (Italian; seen May 29, 2020)
  2. ↑ a b Stanzione, Massimo , in: Lexikon der Kunst , Vol. 11, Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen, 1994, p. 134
  3. ↑ a b c d e Stanzione, Massimo , short biography on the Prado website (Spanish; viewed June 1, 2020)
  4. ↑ Bernardo De Dominici: "Vita di Fabrizio Santafede Pittore, ed insigne Antiquario", in: Vite de 'pittori, scultori e architetti napolitani, vol. I & II , Ricciardi, 1745, pp. 223–236, here: pp. 235–236 online as an ebook , last accessed on November 16, 2018
  5. ↑ a b Massimo Stanzione , short biography online at Arte.it (Italian; viewed May 29, 2020)
personal data
SURNAME Stanzione, Massimo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stanzioni
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian baroque painter
DATE OF BIRTH around 1586
DATE OF DEATH around 1656