Sebastiano Ricci

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Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno, July 1659 - Venice, 15 May 1734) was a prominent Venet painter of the late Baroque Italian . A contemporary of Piazetta, and an elder contemporary of Tiepolo; he is one of the precursors of a vigorously lumnious Cortonesque style of grand manner fresco painting.

Early years

He was born in Belluno on August 1, 1659, son of Livio and Andreana. In 1671, he apprenticed to Federico Cerebri of Venice (c1625 - c1699). Others claim Ricci’s first master was Sebastiano Mazzoni (1611-1678). In 1678, a youthful indiscretion, led to an unwanted pregnancy, ane ultimately a greater scandal in which Ricci was accused of attempting to poison a young woman to avoid marriage. Imprisoned, he gained release after intervention of a nobleman, probably a Pisani family member. Surprisingly, he wedded the pregnant mother in 1691, though as detailed below, this was a stormy union.

After his arrest, he moved to Bologna, where he domiciled near the Parish of San Michele del Mercato. His painting style there was apparently influenced by Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole. On September 28, 1682 he is contracted by the "Fraternity of Saint John of Florence" to paint a Decapitation of John the Baptist for their Oratory. On December 9, 1685, the Count of San Segundo near Parma, commissioned for the decoration of the Oratory of the Madonna of the Seraglio, which he completes in collaboration of Ferdinand Bibiena by October 1687, receiving a compensation of 4,482 Lira. In 1686, the Duke Ranuccio II Farnese of Parma commissions a “Pieta” for a new Capuchin convent. From 1687 to 1688, the apartments of the Parmese Duchess in Piacenza are decorated by Ricci with canvases recalling the life of the Farnese pope: Paul III.

Ricci in Turin, then return to Venice

Apparently in 1688, Ricci abandons his wife and daughter, and escapes from Bologna to Turin with Magdalen, the daughter of the painter Giovanni Francisco Peruzzini. He is again imprisoned, and nearly executed, but for the intercession of the Duke of Parma. The duke employs him and assigns him salary of 25 crowns and lodging in the Farnese palace in Rome. In 1692, he is commissioned to copy the “Coronation of Charlemagne by Raphael” in Vatican City, on behalf of Louis XIV, only finished in 1694. The death in December, 1694, of Ranunccio Farnese, his protector, forces Ricci to abandon Rome for Milan, where he completed by November of 1695 frescoes in the Ossuary Chapel of the Church of San Bernardino dei Morti. In June 22, 1697, the Count Giacomo Durini hires him to paint in the Cathedral of Monza.

In 1698, he returns to Venetian republic for a decade. By August 24, 1700, he frescoes the chapel of the Santissimo Sacramento in the church of San Giustina of Padua. In 1701, the Venetian geographer Vincenzo Coronelli Maria commissions a canvas of the Ascension to insert in the ceiling of sacristy of the Basilica of the SS Apostoli in Rome. In 1702, he frescoes the ceiling of the Blue Hall in the Schönbrunn Palace, with the “Allegory of the Principal Virtues” and the “Love of Virtue”, that illustrates the education and dedication of future emperor Joseph I. In Vienna, Frederick August II, the elector Saxony, requests an “Ascension” canvas, in part to convince others of the sincerity of his conversion to Catholicism, which allowed him to become King of Poland. In 1704 he executes in Venice a canvas of “San Procolo” (Saint Proculus) for the Dome of Bergamo and the Crucifixion for the Florentine church of S. Francisco de' Macci.

Florentine fresco masterpieces

In the summer 1706, he travels to Florence, where he completes a large decorative fresco series on allegorical and mythological themes [1] for the now-called Marucelli-Fenzi palace (now housing departments of University of Florence). Ricci, along with the quadraturista Giuseppe Tonelli, is then commissioned by the Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici to decorate rooms in the Pitti Palace, where he paints the "Venus takes Leave from Adonis". The heavenly depictions are airier and brighter than prior Florentine fresco series. These works gained him fame and requests to travel abroad and shows the rising influence of Venetian painting into other regions of Italy. He was to influence the Florentine Rococo fresco painter Giovanni Domenico Ferretti.

In 1708 he returns to Venice, completing a "Madonna with the Child" for San Giorgio Maggiore. In 1711, now painting alongside his grandson, the also well-known Marco Ricci, he paints two canvases: "Esther to Assuero" and "Moses saved from the Nile", for the Taverna Palace.

Travels to London and Paris

He then travels to London with his grandson, Marco Ricci, where Lord Burlington pays 770 pounds for eight canvases of mythological subjects: "Cupid in front of Jove", "Encounter of Bacchus and Ariadne", “Diana and the Nymphs”, "Bacchus and Ariadne", "Venus and Cupid", "Diane and Endymion", and a "Cupid and Flora". He also frescoed now lost works for Count of Portland.

By the end of 1716, with his grandson, he leaves England for Paris, where he meets Watteau and perhaps Fragonard, and submits his “Triumph of the Wisdom over Ignorance” in order to gain admission to the Royal French Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which was granted May 18, 1718. He returns wealthy to Venice in 1718, and buys comfortable lodgings in the Old Procuratory of St. Mark. That same year, the Riccis decorate the villa of Bishop Giovanni Francisco Bembo in Belvedere, near Belluno.

Last years

From 1724-29, Ricci works intensely for the Royal House of Savoy: In 1724 he paints the “Rejection of Agar” and the “Silenus adores the Idols”, in the 1725 “Madonna in Gloria”, in 1726, he completes in Turin the “Susanna presented to Daniel” and “Moses causes water to gush from the rock”; He is admitted in October 1727 to the Clementine Academy of Venice.

Sebastiano Ricci's style developed a following among other venetian artists, influencing Francesco Polazzo, Gaspare Diziani, Francesco Migliori, Gaetano Zompini, and Francesco Fontebasso (1709-1769) (Wittkower p481).

Critical Assessments

"Ricci, leaning at first on the example of splendid art of the Veronese, made a new ideal prevail, one of clear and rich coloristic beauty: in this he paved the way for Tiepolo. The painting of figures of the Roccoco to Venice remains incomprehensible in its evolution without Ricci... Tiepolo germinated the work started by Ricci to such a richness and splendor that it leaves Ricci in the shadows... although Sebastiano is recognized in the combative role of forerunner "(Derschau).

"He is the master of a resurrected-fifteenth century style, whose painterly features are enriched with nervous express and, typically 17th century" (Rudolph Wittkower). Wittkower in his Anthology, contrasts the facile luminous style of Ricci with the darker, more emotional intense painting of Giovanni Battista Piazetta. In addition, Ricci was like Tiepolo, an international artist; Piazetta was local.

"We perceives in him that synthesis of the baroque decorativeness and individualized and substantial painting, that we will see later again in Tiepolo. On one side the influence of Cortona, directed and indirect, and on the other the observant painting of the hermit Magnasco; more intense, substantial and freed academic impulses, the airy, shining influences become, to the open air, magical coves, as well as gloomy corners. A new synthesis that opened wide new painting horizons, even if the scene is not that of a ballet, it is felt like bing in the wonders of the color, in more vibrating, acute, agile accents "(Moschini).

"At the start of the Baroque..Venetians remained isolated from the outside…from the great ideas of the baroque painting… The Ricci are the first traveling Venetian painters... and succeed to inaugurate the so-called roccoco rooms of Pitti and Marucelli palaces."(Roberto Longhi).

Ricci "brought back in the Venetian tradition a wealth of chromatic expression resolved in a new vibrating brilliance brightness…by means of the intelligent interpretation of the Veronese chromatics and of the brushstrokes of a Magnasco-like touch, from the 16th century impediments, he takes unfashionable positions against "tenebrous styles", is against the new Piazzetta - Federico Bencovich. He supplied a valid painterly idiom for .. Tiepolo to use after his defection from the Piazzettism "(Pallucchini).

"Venice, still more than Naples, collects the Ricci inheritance of the prodigioso trade of Luca Giordano... Sebastiano throws again it, widens he then, refines it for the school of Sebastiano Mazzoni "(Argan)

Works

• Vescovo, Innsbruck, Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum
• Mercy, (1686, New Church of the Capuchins, Parma)
• Frescoes, (1687, Saint Segundo, Parma, Sacristy of the Fallen, in collaboration with Ferdinand Bibiena)*1687-1688,Farnese Palace (Civic Pinacoteca of Piacenza)
  • History of Paul III
  • Apotheosis of Paul III
• Guardian Angel, (1694, Chiesa del Carmine, Pavia)
• Frescoes, 1695, Milan, Church of Saint Bernardino
• Frescoes, Basilica, 1697, , Monza, Dome
• Communion of Saint Maria Egiziaca, (1698, Archconfraternity of the SS of the Dome, Milan)
• Saint Gregory the Great intercede with Madonna, (1700, Church of Santa Giustina, Padua)
• Frescoes, (1700, Church of Santa Giustina, Padua)
• Ascension, (1701, Basilica of the SS Apostles, Rome)
• Allegory of the principle Virtues, (1702, Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna)
• Assumption of Virgin, (1702, Gemaeldegalerie, Dresden)[2]
• Christ crucified with Virgin, John the Evangelist and Carlo Borromeo, (1704, Uffizi, Florence)
• Procolo, Peasant Detention, (1704, Bergamo, Dome)
• Frescoes, (1706-1707, Palace Marucelli and Pitti, Florence)
• Madonna with the Child, (1708, Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice)[3]
• Presentation of family of Darius to Alexander, (ca 1709, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh)
• The Continence of Scipione, (ca 1709, Museum of Art of North Carolina, Raleigh)
• Liberation of Saint Peter, (1710, Trescore Balneario, Bergamo, church of Saint Peter)(San Stae)[4]
• Christ delivery the keys to Saint Peter, 1710, Trescore Balneario, Bergamo, church of Saint Peter
• The Call of Saint Peter, 1710, Trescore Balneario, Bergamo, church of Saint Peter, Bergamo)
• Assumption, (1710, Clusone, Basilica of Saint Maria, Bergamo)
• Esther before Ahasuerus, (1711, Palace Taverna, Rome)
• Moses saved from the waters, (1711)
• Sacred Family with Elizabeth and John, (1712, Royal Collections, London)
• 1712 - 1714, London, Burlington House
  • Cupid in front of Jove
  • Encounter of Bacchus and Ariadne
  • Triumph of Galatea
• 1712-14, Chiswick House, London
  • Bacchus and Ariadne(National Gallery)[5]
  • Venus and Cupid
  • Diana and Endymion
  • Cupid and Flora
  • Diana and Nymphs
• Triumph of the Wisdom on the Ignorance, (1718, Louvre, Paris)
• Head of Woman, (1718, fresco fragment, Civic Museum, Belluno)
• Bathsheba in her Bath, (1724, Szépmuveszeti Muzeum, Budapest)
• Gallery Sabauda, Turin
  • Repudiation of Agar, 1724
  • Solomon adores the idoli, 1724
  • Madonna in Gloria with archangel Gabriel and San Eusebio, Sebastiano and Rocco, 1725
  • Susanna in front of Daniel, 1726
  • Moses make to gush the water from rock, 1726
  • Magdalen applies ointment to the feet of Christ, 1728
• Saint Gaetano heals the Sick, (1727, Brera, Milan)
• Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, (1727 church of Saint Barefoot Jerome, Vicenza)
• Royal Palace, Turin
  • Agar in the desert, 1727,
  • Jacob blesses the sons of Joseph, 1727,
  • Moses saved from waters, 1727,
  • Rebecca and Eliazer at the Well, 1727,
• Christ and the Centurions, (1729, Capodimonte, Naples)
• Christ in Cannae, (1729, Capodimonte, Naples)
• Communion and martyrdom of Saint Lucia, 1730, 430 x 240, Parma, church of San Lucia and Immaculate Conception, 1730, , Vitale Venice,
• Madonna in Glory with Child and Angel Guardian, (1730, School of the Guardian Angel, Venice)
• Prayer in the Garden, (1730, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)[6]
• Self-portrait, (1731, Uffizi, Florence)
• Pope Gregory the Great intercedes with Virgin 1731, 295 x 238, Bergamo, church of Sant' Alexander of the Cross
• Pope Gregorio the Great intercedes for souls in Purgatory, (1733, church of Saint Gervais, Paris)
• Pope Pio V, Saints Thomas Aquinus, and Peter Martyr, (1733, Chiesa del Gesuati, Venice)
• Saint Francisco from resuscitates the child Paola, 1733, Church of Saint Rocco, Venice)
• Saint Helen discovers the True Cross, (1733, church of Saint Rocco, Venice)
• Baldassarre, (1733, Quirinal Palace, Rome)
• Ester before Ahasuerus, (1733, Quirinal Palace, Rome)
• Assumption, (1734,Karlkirche, Vienna)

References

• Free translation from Italian Wikipedia entry
• Wittkower, Rudolf (1993). “19”, Pelican History of ArtArt and Architecture Italy, 1600-1750, 1980, Penguin Books Ltd, 480-82.