Alessandro Magnasco (February 4, 1667 – March 12, 1749), also known as il Lissandrino, was an Italian late- Baroque painter active mostly in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

and

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of t ...

. He is best known for stylized, fantastic, often phantasmagoric

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other ...

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

scenes. Magnasco's distinctive style is characterized by fragmented forms rendered with swift brushstrokes and darting flashes of light.

Life

Born in Genoa to a minor artist, Stefano Magnasco, he apprenticed with Valerio Castello, and finally with Filippo Abbiati (1640–1715) in Milan. Except for 1703–09 (or 1709–11)Wittkower 1993, p. 478 when working in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

for the

Grand Duke Cosimo III Cosimo III de' Medici (14 August 1642 – 31 October 1723) was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1670 until his death in 1723, the sixth and penultimate from the House of Medici. He reigned from 1670 to 1723, and was the elder son of Grand Duke Ferdina ...

, Magnasco labored in Milan until 1735, when he returned to his native Genoa. Magnasco often collaborated with placing figures in the landscapes of Tavella and the ruins of

Clemente Spera Clemente Spera (Novara (?), c. 1661 – Milan, 1742) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period principally active in Milan. He was a specialist architectural painter who created Capriccio (art), ''capricci'', i.e. architectural fantasies, pl ...

in Milan.

Mature style

Alessandro Magnasco - Joseph interpreting dreams

After 1710, Magnasco excelled in producing small, hypochromatic canvases with eerie and gloomy landscapes and ruins, or crowded interiors peopled with small, often lambent and cartoonishly elongated characters. The people in his paintings were often nearly liquefacted beggars dressed in tatters, rendered in flickering, nervous brushstrokes. Often they deal with unusual subjects such as synagogue services, Quaker meetings, robbers' gatherings, catastrophes, and interrogations by the Inquisition. His sentiments regarding these subjects are generally unclear. A century later he would be described as a "romantic painter: who painted with candid touches, and ingenious expressiveness, little figures in Gothic churches; or in solitude, hermits and monks; or scoundrels assembled in town squares; soldiers in barracks". The art historian and critic Luigi Lanzi described him as the '' Cerquozzi'' of his school; thereby signaling him into the circle of followers of the Bamboccianti. He indicates that Magnasco had "figures scarcely more than a span large ... painted with humor and delight", but not as if this effect had been the intention of the painter. Lanzi says these eccentric pieces were favored by the

Grand Duke Giovanni Gastone Medici Gian Gastone de' Medici (born Giovanni Battista Gastone; 24 May 1671 – 9 July 1737) was the seventh and last Medicean Grand Duke of Tuscany. He was the second son of Grand Duke Cosimo III and Marguerite Louise d'Orléans. His sister, Electre ...

of Florence. Magnasco also found contemporary patronage for his work among prominent families and collectors of Milan, for example the Arese and Casnedi families. This series of patrons underscores the fact that Magnasco was more esteemed by outsiders than by his fellow Genoese; as Lanzi noted, "his bold touch, though joined to a noble conception and to correct drawing, did not attract in Genoa, because it is far removed from the finish and union of tints which (Genoese) masters followed."Lanzi, p. 287. In the twentieth century,

Rudolf Wittkower Rudolf Wittkower (22 June 1901 – 11 October 1971) was a British art historian specializing in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, who spent much of his career in London, but was educated in Germany, and later moved to the Unit ...

derided him as "solitary, tense, strange, mystic, ecstatic, grotesque, and out of touch with the triumphal course of the Venetian school" from 1710 onward.

Origins of his style

Magnasco, Alessandro - Hermit in the Desert - Google Art Project

The influences on his work are obscure. Some suspect the influence of the loose painterly style of his Venetian contemporary

Sebastiano Ricci Sebastiano Ricci (1 August 165915 May 1734) was an Italian painter of the late Baroque school of Venice. About the same age as Piazzetta, and an elder contemporary of Tiepolo, he represents a late version of the vigorous and luminous Corton ...

(1659–1734), the Genoese Domenico Piola (1627–1703) and Gregorio de Ferrari, although the most prominent of the three, Ricci, painted in a more monumental and mythic style, and these artists may in fact have been influenced by Magnasco. Magnasco was likely influenced by Milanese '' il Morazzone'' (1573–1626) in the emotional quality of his work. Some of his canvases (see ill. (q.)) recall Salvator Rosa's romantic sea-lashed landscapes, and his affinity for paintings of brigands. The diminutive scale of Magnasco's figures relative to the landscape is comparable to Claude Lorraine's more airy depictions. While his use of figures of ragged beggars has been compared with Giuseppe Maria Crespi's genre style, Crespi's figures are larger, more distinct, and individual, and it is possible that Crespi himself may have influenced Magnasco. Others point to the influences of late Baroque Italian genre painters, the Roman Bamboccianti, and in his exotic scenography, the well-disseminated engravings of the Frenchman Callot.

Legacy

Magnasco's work may have influenced

Marco Ricci Marco Ricci (6 June 1676 – 21 January 1730) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. Early years He was born at Belluno and received his first instruction in art from his uncle, Sebastiano Ricci, likely in Milan in 1694–6.Giacometti, Mar ...

, Giuseppe Bazzani,

Francesco Maffei Francesco Maffei (1605 – 2 July 1660) was an Italian painter, active in the Baroque style. Biography He probably trained in his birthplace of Vicenza with his father, and painted mostly in the towns of the Veneto (Venetian mainland). He di ...

, and the famed painters ''de tocco'' (by touch) Gianantonio and

Francesco Guardi Francesco Lazzaro Guardi (; 5 October 1712 – 1 January 1793) was an Italian painter, nobleman, and a member of the Venetian School. He is considered to be among the last practitioners, along with his brothers, of the classic Venetian school of ...

in Venice. His depictions of torture in ''The Inquisition'' (or perhaps named ''Interrogations in a Jail'') are an atypical subject for Italian baroque paintings, as were his depictions of the religious ceremonies of Jews and Quakers. Yet it remains unsolved, according to Wittkower, "how much

quietism Quietism may refer to: * Quietism (Christian philosophy), a 17th-century Christian philosophy condemned as heresy by the Roman Catholic Church * Quietism (philosophy), the view that the proper role of philosophy is a broadly therapeutic or remedia ...

or criticism or farce went into the making of his pictures".Wittkower, 1993, p. 478

Selected works

File:'The Tame Magpie', oil on canvas painting by Alessandro Magnasco, c. 1707-8, Metropolitan Museum of Art.JPG, ''The Tame Magpie'' (1707–08)

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 100 ...

File:Alessandro Magnasco - Interrogations in Jail - WGA13849.jpg, ''Interrogations in Jail'' (c. 1710) Kunsthistorisches Museum File:Alessandro Magnasco and Clemente Spera - Banditti at Rest.jpg, ''Banditti at Rest'' (with Clemente Spera) (c. 1710) Hermitage Museum File:Alessandro Magnasco - Garden Party in Albaro - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Garden Party in Albaro''

Strada Nuova Museums The Musei di Strada Nuova in the Italian city of Genoa comprise three museums which together form a single complex, housed in the Palazzo Rosso, the Palazzo Bianco and the Palazzo Tursi, all of which are located along the Via Garibaldi (formerly ...

Genoa File:Alessandro Magnasco - Gypsy Wedding Banquet - WGA13848.jpg, ''Gypsy Wedding Banquet'' (1730–35)

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

File:Alessandro Magnasco - Dissipation and Ignorance destroy the Arts and Sciences.jpg, ''Dissipation and Ignorance destroy the Arts and Sciences'' (1735–1740) private collection File:A. Magnasco-Musée des Bx-Arts Strasbourg-Nonnes (2).jpg, ''Nuns'' Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg File:Alessandro Magnasco dit il Lissandrino - Funérailles juives, 1720 - Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme.jpg, ''Jewish Funeral'', oil on canvas, 87 x 117 cm,

Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme The Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme or mahJ (English: "Museum of Jewish Art and History") is the largest French museum of Jewish art and history. It is located in the Hôtel de Saint-Aignan in the Marais district in Paris. The museum con ...

File:Christ at the Sea of Galilee.jpg, ''Christ at the Sea of Galilee'' (c. 1740)

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

Washington DC File:Exorcism-of-the-waves.jpg, ''The Exorcism of the Waves'' (c. 1735),

Memorial Art Gallery The Memorial Art Gallery is the civic art museum of Rochester, New York. Founded in 1913, it is part of the University of Rochester and occupies the southern half of the University's former Prince Street campus. It is the focal point of fine arts ...

Rochester NY File:Alessandro Magnasco - Christ Served by the Angels - WGA13847.jpg, ''Christ attended by the Angels''. C. 1705. Prado Museum. Madrid. Magnasco and Peruzzini. File:Alessandro Magnasco - The Painter’s Workshop or Il pittor pitocco.jpg, ''The painter's workshop''. c. 1720.

Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (RABASF; ), located on the Calle de Alcalá in the heart of Madrid, currently functions as a museum and gallery. A public law corporation, it is integrated together with other Spanish royal acad ...

. Madrid.

Notes

References

*Raffaello Soprani, Carlo Giuseppe Ratti (a cura di), ''Vite de Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Genovesi''; In questa seconda Edizione rivedute, accresciute ed arricchite di note da Carlo Giuseppe Ratti Tomo Primo, Stamperia Casamara, dalle Cinque Lampadi, con licenza de superiori, Genova, 1769. Pagine 155-164 *Herman Voss, ''A Re-discovered Picture by Alessandro Magnasco'', in ''The Burlington Magazine'', LXXI, pp. 171–177. London 1937 *''A Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Alessandro Magnasco'', exhibition catalogue, Durlacher Bros, New York *''Golden Gate International Exhibition'', California Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, 1940 *Maria Pospisil, ''Magnasco''. Firenze 1944 * Benno Geiger, ''Magnasco''. Bergamo 1949 *Antonio Morassi, ''Mostra del Magnasco'', exhibition catalogue, Bergamo 1949 *Renato Roli, ''Alessandro Magnasco'', Milano 1964 *V.Magnoni, ''Alessandro Magnasco'', Roma 1965 *''Alessandro Magnasco'', exhibition catalogue, Louisville-Ann Arbor, 1967 *Fausta Franchini Guelfi, ''Alessandro Magnasco''. Genova 1977 * *Fausta Franchini Guelfi, ''Alessandro Magnasco''. Soncino (Cr) 1991 * *L.Muti - D. De Sarno Prignano, ''Magnasco''. Faenza 1994 *''Alessandro Magnasco 1667-1749''. Exhibition catalogue. Milano 1996 *C. Geddo, ''Alessandro Magnasco: una fortuna critica senza confini'', ibidem, pp. 39–50 *Jane Turner (a cura di), ''The Dictionary of Art''. 20, pp. 95–96. New York, Grove, 1996.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Magnasco, Alessandro 1667 births 1749 deaths 17th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 18th-century Italian painters Painters from Genoa Italian vedutisti Rococo painters Italian Baroque painters 18th-century Italian male artists