Painters and Sitters in Early-Seventeenth Century Rome. Portraits of the Soul

Pages: 336 p. Illustrations:6 b/w, 146 col. Language(s):English. Publication Year:2023. Brepols. ISBN: 978-2-503-59083-7. Hardback --- SUMMARY Significant innovations in portraiture occurred during the transitional period from the end of the sixteenth-century to the early seventeenth-century in Rome. Portraits by Annibale Carracci, Valentin de Boulogne, Anthony van Dyck, Simon Vouet and Gianlorenzo Bernini display a loosening of formality and a trend towards movement. These artists produced a portrait type that was more inclusive of the viewer, more communicative, more revealing of a private face. The portraits in this study were less likely to celebrate achievements, family or social standing, titles, rank or station. Instead they portray individuals who exist apart from their professional personae. They reveal unique and characteristic traits of their subjects captured at a particular moment in time. They used subtle affetti, painting technique and colour to express mood and atmosphere and evoke the presence of the sitter. The sitters include poets, courtiers, buffoons and the artists themselves, and each composition is attentive to the thoughts, emotions and imaginative life of the individuals. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction The image breathes Rhetorical devices in portraiture The motions of the mind : painting the soul From the Renaissance to the Baroque Chapter One A portrait most rarely done full face of a learned prelate Early seicento portraiture in Rome Venice and colorito Caravaggio and Annibale: the new baroque illusionism The proximity and close association of the Monsignore and Annibale Domenichino and Agucchi Agucchi s imprese: textual expressions of identity Erminia and the Shepherds Venere Dormiente The Sleeping Venus The portrait of Giovanni Battista Agucchi Annibale Carracci as portraitist Annibale s illness Domenichino and portrait painting Del Mezzo: yearning for the middle Il Trattato della Pittura A portrait by Annibale Carracci or Domenichino? Chapter Two Painting as silent poetry: portraits of Giambattista Marino From decorum to modernità Ut pictura poesis Dicerie Sacre La Galeria Rome: with trembling feet, I leave behind myself Early Roman portraits Caravaggio s portrait: another me . . . in two divided Paris: the portrait by Frans Pourbus is very dear to me Marino s triumphant return to Rome: music always, and always poetry, morning and evening Ottavio Leoni s portraits of writers Maffeo Barberini s circle of poets portraits of the soul There are thousands of portraits of me in Rome : Simon Vouet s lost portrait The speaking portrait in Rome Virginio Cesarini: Fenice degl ingegni Portrait of a buffoon Chapter Three The upside-down world The parasite The buffoon portrait in the Renaissance: the good-natured fool The sixteenth century: the princely tables are cluttered with buffoons Gabriele Paleotti: deformity not deformedly rendered The seventeenth century: the individual in buffoon portraits Hairy Harry, Mad Peter, and Tiny Amon: court mascots and servants in an urban Arcadia Giangiovetta and the dwarf of the duke of Créqui Raffaello Menicucci: the buffoon count of Monte San Savino Celeberrimus in utroque Orbe Terrarum: the printed portraits of Raffaello Menicucci Valentin de Boulogne Il Cassero: Rocca del Conte Valentin, il Babuino and Menicucci Tristano Martinelli: from buffoon to actor Bernardino Ricci: Il Tedeschino The self portrait: the life makes the age Chapter Four Artist as virtuoso Done with the aid of a mirror Narcissus: as he drank, he chanced to spy the image of his face The reflection of the Creator Why paint self-portraits? Annibale Carracci s Self-portrait on an Easel Artemisia Gentileschi: the soul of this woman Simon Vouet: absolute absorption Gian Lorenzo Bernini: showing that which does not exist Velázquez in Rome: brushwork and the blur The expressive power of the brush Conclusion Here I am Appendix I App.…