- Gian Pietro Bellori
Gian Pietro Bellori (also known as Giovanni Pietro Bellori or Giovan Pietro Bellori, 1613 - 1696) was a prominent biographer of the Italian
Baroque artists of the seventeenth century. As an art historian, he was the Baroque equivalent ofGiorgio Vasari .Biography
Likely nephew of the
antiquarian collector and writerFrancesco Angeloni , he lived in Angeloni's home in Rome. He apparently took art lessons fromDomenichino . As a young man, he became a member of theAccademia di San Luca , but studied and wrote about classical and contemporary art. In 1664 he delivered an influential speech to the Accademia on the "Ideal in Art". In 1672 he published this as a preface to his biographies of recent and contemporary artists, titled: "Le vite de’ pittori, scultori et architetti moderni" ("The lives of the modern painters, sculptors, and architects").In his view, the
Renaissance ideal had been rescued from the tangled post-Raphael andMichelangelo styles by the robust classicism of those following the Carracci's style. Bellori advocatedidealism over realism or naturalism. This famously led to Bellori's reverence of the painting ofAnnibale Carracci and sanguine repudiation ofCaravaggio . His writing of the 'Idea' is draws influence fromGiovanni Battista Agucchi , Vasari,Leon Battista Alberti ,Aristotle and others. His heroes were Domenichino andNicolas Poussin , his friend.Alessandro Algardi gained more praise thanBernini (who is not mentioned in Bellori's Lives). He respectedAndrea Sacchi , and his pupilCarlo Maratta , but shunnedPietro da Cortona .Vasari's definition of "
disegno " (which was at that time seen as the most important element to a painting or sculpture's artistic value) is tied up in the concept of 'prudence', and forms the basis of subsequent value judgements in art by the likes of Bellori. An artist's work could essentially be seen as a series of choices, and the wisdom of these choices was owed to the character, or 'prudence' of the artist. Bellori and Agucchi, afterAristotle , equated the practice ofidealism with prudent choice, and naturalism with poor prudence.He had been curator of antiquities for
Pope Clement X . In 1671, he was appointed secretary of theAccademia di San Luca , then librarian and antiquarian to theQueen Christina of Sweden . he died in 1690 in Rome.Bellori's "Lives of the Artists" also discusses the brothers Annibale and
Agostino Carracci ,Domenico Fontana ,Federico Barocci , Rubens,Anthony van Dyck ,Francois Duquesnoy and Lanfranco. His preference for the Bolognese artists Bellori's planned sequel was never completed, except for the entries forGuido Reni , Sacchi and Maratta.References
*The Complete printed works of Bellori, including his antiquarian works, which account for most of his production, are available online at: http://biblio.cribecu.sns.it/bellori/index.html
*See Frontispiece of Catalogue of Carracci's
Palazzo Farnese drawings titled: "Annibale Carracci Introduces Painting to Apollo and Minerva"Pietro Aquila (1640–1692/1700), after a drawing by Carlo Maratti published in "Galeriae Farnesianae Icones" by Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi. [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/carr/hod_51.501.2593.htm]*cite book | first= Francis|last= Haskell| year=1993| title= Patrons and Painters: Art and Society in Baroque Italy| chapter= Chapter 6 | editor= | others=1980 | pages= p 158-161 | publisher= Yale University Press| id= | url= | authorlink=
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