| Nativity | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Federico Barocci |
| Year | 1597 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 134 cm× 105 cm(53 in× 41 in) |
| Location | Museo del Prado, Madrid |
The Nativity is an oil on canvas painting by Italian painter Federico Barocci, created in 1597. It depicts the episode of the Nativity of Jesus. It is held in the Museo del Prado, in Madrid. [1]
The painting was commissioned and executed in 1597 for Francesco Maria II Della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. Some years later he was asked for the artist, probably with the purpose of a commission, by the ambassador Bernardo Maschi on behalf of the Spanish queen Margaret of Austria. Knowing about the artist's slowness but still wanting to please the queen, the duke decided to donate the work in his possession, which therefore went to Spain, in 1605. Queen Margaret appreciated the gift, defining the canvas as "very cheerful and devout". Barocci had made a copy in a slightly larger format, c. 1599, and presumably kept it in his study in the Archbishop's Palace. He said it was one of his most precious belongings. The original painting ended up in the Prado and the replica is now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, in Milan. [2] [3] [4]
In a stable with a donkey and an ox as company, depicted partially at the right, the newborn Jesus is seen lying on straw in a manger. There is a divine light which radiates from the Son of Man Himself. The light particularly illuminates his mother, the Virgin Mary, who welcomes it with gratitude and tenderly holds out her arms. Joseph is seen more in the background and in the shadows, while he turns his head towards two shepherds, who appear at the door; Joseph points them to the child. The signs of the zodiac are engraved on a metal ring below Jesus and Mary. These symbols seem to indicate the cosmological importance of the event witnessed.
The atmosphere of the scene is intimate and familiar. Barocci uses warm pastel tones and, like in other paintings, typically pays great attention to the depiction of the hands. Its diagonally structured composition is unusual for the subject. [5] [6]
Baroque painting is the painting associated with the Baroque cultural movement. The movement is often identified with Absolutism, the Counter Reformation and Catholic Revival, but the existence of important Baroque art and architecture in non-absolutist and Protestant states throughout Western Europe underscores its widespread popularity.
Antonio Allegri da Correggio, usually known as just Correggio was an Italian Renaissance painter who was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the sixteenth century. In his use of dynamic composition, illusionistic perspective and dramatic foreshortening, Correggio prefigured the Baroque art of the seventeenth century and the Rococo art of the eighteenth century. He is considered a master of chiaroscuro.
Annibale Carracci was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Along with his brother and cousin, Annibale was one of the progenitors, if not founders of a leading strand of the Baroque style, borrowing from styles from both north and south of their native city, and aspiring for a return to classical monumentality, but adding a more vital dynamism. Painters working under Annibale at the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese would be highly influential in Roman painting for decades.
The Museo del Prado, officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It houses collections of European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th century, based on the former Spanish royal collection, and the single best collection of Spanish art. Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture in 1819, it also contains important collections of other types of works. The numerous works by Francisco Goya, the single most extensively represented artist, as well as by Hieronymus Bosch, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, and Diego Velázquez, are some of the highlights of the collection. Velázquez and his keen eye and sensibility were also responsible for bringing much of the museum's fine collection of Italian masters to Spain, now one of the largest outside of Italy.
Federico Barocci was an Italian Renaissance painter and printmaker. His original name was Federico Fiori, and he was nicknamed Il Baroccio. His work was highly esteemed and influential, and foreshadows the Baroque of Rubens. He is generally considered the greatest and the most individual painter of his time in central Italy.
Francesco Albani or Albano was an Italian Baroque painter of Albanian origin who was active in Bologna, Rome, Viterbo (1609–1610), Mantua (1621–1622) and Florence (1633).
Corrado Giaquinto was an Italian Rococo painter.
Bartolomeo Suardi was an Italian painter and architect, mainly active in his native Milan.
Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary, also known as Lo Spasimo or Il Spasimo di Sicilia, is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael, of c. 1514–16, now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. It is an important work for the development of his style.
Pedro Berruguete was a Spanish painter whose art is regarded as a transitional style between Gothic and Renaissance art. Berruguete most famously created paintings of the first few years of the Inquisition and of religious imagery for Castilian retablos. He is considered by some as the first Renaissance painter in Spain.
Francesco Trevisani was an Italian painter, active in the period called either early Rococo or late Baroque (barochetto).
Christ Crucified is a 1632 painting by Diego Velázquez depicting the Crucifixion of Jesus. The work, painted in oil on canvas, measures 249 × 170 cm and is owned by the Museo del Prado.
Vincenzo Campi was a 16th-century Italian painter working in Cremona during the Late Renaissance. Campi is best known as one of the first northern Italian artists to work in the Flemish style of realist genre painting.
The Entombment is a 1559 oil-on-canvas painting by the Venetian painter Titian, commissioned by Philip II of Spain. It depicts the burial of Jesus in a stone sarcophagus, which is decorated with depictions of Cain and Abel and the binding of Isaac. The painting measures 137 cm × 175 cm and is now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Titian made several other paintings depicting the same subject, including a similar version of 1572 given as a gift to Antonio Pérez and now also in the Prado, and an earlier version of c.1520 made for the Duke of Mantua and now in the Louvre.
The Communion of the Apostles, or Institution of the Eucharist is a painting of the Last Supper by Federico Barocci located at Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. It was commissioned for the family chapel of Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini and completed between 1603 and 1608.
San Francesco is a Gothic-style, Roman Catholic, Franciscan church in Cagli, province of Pesaro e Urbino, region of Marche, Italy.
The Doña María de Aragón Altarpiece was an altarpiece painted between 1596 and 1599 by El Greco for the chapel of the Colegio de la Encarnación in Madrid. The college was secularised during Goya's lifetime and the altarpiece was dismantled. There has been much speculation over which paintings belonged to the work. The consensus view is that it consisted of six large canvases and a seventh, now lost. Five of those six canvases are now in the Prado and the sixth is in the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest.
Christ Among the Doctors is a painting in oils on canvas by Paolo Veronese, now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Its dating has been the subject of debate – the date 1548 appears on a book held by a figure seated on the stairs in the foreground, but in 1976 Diana Gisolfi Pechukas posited 1565 as the earliest possible date for the painting's production.
Rest on the Flight into Egypt is an oil on canvas painting by Italian painter Federico Barocci, created c. 1573. It is held in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.
