- Battistello Caracciolo
Giovanni Battista Caracciolo (also called Battistello; 1578 – 1635), was an Italian artist and important Neapolitan follower of
Caravaggio .Caracciolo was born in
Naples . His initial training was withFrancesco Imparato . Caravaggio arrived there in late 1606 after killing a man in a brawl inRome . His stay in the city lasted only about eight months, with another brief visit in 1609/1610, yet his impact on artistic life there was profound. Battistello, only a few years younger than Caravaggio, was among the first there to adopt the startling new style with its sombre palette, dramatictenebrism , and sculptural figures in a shallow picture plane defined by light rather than by perspective. Among the NeapolitanCaravaggisti wereGiuseppe Ribera ,Carlo Sellitto ,Artemisia Gentileschi , and Caracciolo's pupil,Mattia Preti , then early in his career.Among the earliest works showing the influence of Caravaggio was the "Liberation of St Peter" (1608-09), painted for the same church (Chiesa del Monte della Misericordia) and a couple of years after the master's " The Seven Acts of Mercy" [The "Liberation..." is now in the
Museo di Capodimonte in Naples] . His painting became more polished after a trip to Rome in 1614, by which time he had become the leader of the new Neapolitan school, dividing his time between religious subjects (altarpieces and, unusually for a Caravaggist, frescos) and paintings for private patrons.After 1618 he visited
Genoa , Rome andFlorence . In Rome he came under the influence of the revivedClassicism of theCarracci cousins and the Emilian school, and began working towards a synthesis of their style with his owntenebrism - his "Cupid", [http://www.whitfieldfineart.com/?cat=24] with its bravura handling of the red cloth, shows the influence of the Carracci synthesis. Back in Naples, he translated this into grandiose, wide-ranging scenes frescos including his masterpiece "The Washing of the Feet" of 1622, painted for theCertosa di San Martino . He also painted further works inSanta Maria La Nova and San Diego all Ospedaletto.References
*cite book | first= Rudolf|last= Wittkower| title= Art and Architecture Italy, 1600-1750| year=1980 | pages= pp. 356-358 | publisher= Penguin Books| id= | url= | authorlink=Rudolf Wittkower
*cite book| first=Michael| last=Bryan| year=1886| title="Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical" (Volume I: A-K)| editor = Robert Edmund Graves| pages= page 230| publisher=George Bell and Sons|location=York St. #4, Covent Garden, London; Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18, 2007 |id= |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=4GYCAAAAYAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=DICTIONARY+AACHEN+AALST&as_brr=1| authorlink=Footnotes
Other projects
External links
* [http://www.wga.hu/bio/c/caraccio/biograph.html| Web gallery of Art]
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