Viviano Codazzi

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Arches in ruins and Hecuba's vengeance over Polymestor Viviano Codazzi and Filippo Lauri - Arches in ruins and Hecuba's vengeance over Polymestor.jpg
Arches in ruins and Hecuba’s vengeance over Polymestor

Viviano Codazzi (c. 1604 – 5 November 1670) was an Italian architectural painter who was active during the Baroque period. He is known for his architectural paintings, capricci, compositions with ruins, and some vedute . He worked in Naples and Rome. He is known in older sources as Viviano Codagora or il Codagora.

Architectural painting painting genre

Architectural painting is a form of genre painting where the predominant focus lies on architecture, both outdoors views and interiors. While architecture was present in many of the earliest paintings and illuminations, it was mainly used as background or to provide rhythm to a painting. In the Renaissance, architecture was used to emphasize the perspective and create a sense of depth, like in Masaccio's Holy Trinity from the 1420s.

Baroque cultural movement, starting around 1600

The Baroque is a highly ornate and often extravagant style of architecture, music, painting, sculpture and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th until the mid-18th century. It followed the Renaissance style and preceded the Rococo and Neoclassical styles. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well. The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep colour, grandeur and surprise to achieve a sense of awe. The style began at the start of the 17th century in Rome, then spread rapidly to France, northern Italy, Spain and Portugal, then to Austria and southern Germany. By the 1730s, it had evolved into an even more flamboyant style, called rocaille or Rococo, which appeared in France and central Europe until the mid to late 18th century.

Capriccio (art) architectural fantasy in painting

In painting, a capriccio means an architectural fantasy, placing together buildings, archaeological ruins and other architectural elements in fictional and often fantastical combinations, and may include staffage (figures). It falls under the more general term of landscape painting. The term is also used for other artworks with an element of fantasy.

Contents

Life

Viviano Codazzi was born in Valsassina near Bergamo around 1604. [1] His family relocated to Rome by 1605.

Bergamo Comune in Lombardy, Italy

Bergamo is a city in the alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately 40 km (25 mi) northeast of Milan, and about 30 km (19 mi) from Switzerland, the alpine lakes Como and Iseo and 70 km (43 mi) from Garda and Maggiore. The Bergamo Alps begin immediately north of the city.

View of the Arch of Titus with horsemen at rest, figures by Jan Miel Jan Miel and Viviano Codazzi - View of the Arch of Titus with horsemen at rest.JPG
View of the Arch of Titus with horsemen at rest, figures by Jan Miel

Viviano most likely trained in Rome. He had moved by 1633 to Naples where he worked on commissions at the Certosa di San Martino resulting from his connections with his fellow Bergamasque Cosimo Fanzago. A major commission in Naples was a series of four large canvases representing ancient Roman scenes (including one depicting gladiatorial combats in the Colosseum) for the Buen Retiro in Madrid, with figures by Domenico Gargiulo. Codazzi was a painter of architecture and the figures in his compositions were always painted in by specialist figure painters. In Naples his principal collaborator for the figures was Gargiulo. The artist married on 3 May 1636 Candida Miranda, from Naples. The couple had seven children of whom Niccolò and Antonio became painters. [2]

Certosa di San Martino former Carthusian monastery in Naples, Italy, now a museum

The Certosa di San Martino is a former monastery complex, now a museum, in Naples, southern Italy. Along with Castel Sant'Elmo that stands beside it, this is the most visible landmark of the city, perched atop the Vomero hill that commands the gulf. A Carthusian monastery, it was finished and inaugurated under the rule of Queen Joan I in 1368. It was dedicated to St. Martin of Tours. During the first half of the 16th century it was expanded. Later, in 1623, it was further expanded and became, under the direction of architect Cosimo Fanzago, essentially the structure one sees today.

Cosimo Fanzago Italian architect and sculptor

Cosimo Fanzago was an Italian architect and sculptor, generally considered the greatest such artist of the Baroque period in Naples, Italy.

Domenico Gargiulo Neapolitan painter

Domenico Gargiulo called Micco Spadaro was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, mainly active in Naples and known for his landscapes, genre scenes, and history paintings.

After relocating to Rome following the revolt of Masaniello in 1647, he collaborated with painters from the circle of mainly Dutch and Flemish painters active in Rome who were known as the Bamboccianti . His most frequent collaborators were Michelangelo Cerquozzi and Jan Miel. He further collaborated with Filippo Lauri, Adriaen van der Cabel and Vicente Giner during the 1660s. Artemisia Gentileschi relied on Viviano Codazzi to paint in the architectural backgrounds in a number of her paintings. An example of such collaboration is the Bathsheba in the Columbus Museum of Art. [3]

Masaniello

Masaniello was an Italian fisherman who became leader of the revolt against the rule of Habsburg Spain in Naples in 1647.

Netherlands Constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Europe

The Netherlands is a country located mainly in Northwestern Europe. The European portion of the Netherlands consists of twelve separate provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Together with three island territories in the Caribbean Sea—Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba— it forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The official language is Dutch, but a secondary official language in the province of Friesland is West Frisian.

Bamboccianti followers of Pieter van Laer and other Bentvueghels in Rome

The Bamboccianti were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Most were Dutch and Flemish artists who brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherlandish art with them to Italy, and generally created small cabinet paintings or etchings of the everyday life of the lower classes in Rome and its countryside.

Codazzi had several close followers, including Ascanio Luciano and Andrea di Michele in Naples, his son Niccolò Codazzi (1642–1693), Vicente Giner ( a native of Spain), and Domenico Roberti. In Northern Europe, artists such as Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg, Jacobus Ferdinandus Saey, Jacob Balthasar Peeters, Antoon Gheringh and Jan Baptist van der Straeten were also influenced or inspired by his work. [4]

Niccolò Codazzi Italian painter

Niccolò Codazzi was an Italian painter of architectural paintings, capricci and vedute. He also created decorative elements in fresco's as a painter of 'quadratture'. A son of the prominent architectural painter Viviano Codazzi, he trained with his father and was active in Rome, Paris and Genoa.

Vicente Giner spanish baroque painter

Vicente Giner was a Spanish canon and painter of architectural paintings, capricci and vedute, who was active in Rome. He was a frequent collaborator of the prominent architectural painter Viviano Codazzi in Rome.

Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg painter

Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg or Willem Schubart van Ehrenberg (also: Wilhem Schubert von Ehrenberg or Wilhem Schubert van Ehrenberg was a Flemish painter mainly active in Antwerp who specialized in architectural paintings including of real and imaginary church interiors, Renaissance palaces and picture galleries.

Viviano's son, Nicolo (Naples, 1642 - Genoa, 1693) was a painter of architectural paintings and capricci like his father. [5] Another son called Antonio was also a painter but his work is not well known. [2]

Despite his intense artistic activity Viviano Codazzi was registered as poor in 1657. He resided in Rome except for brief absences (around 1653 and possibly between 1659 and 1666) until his death in Rome on 5 November 1670. [2]

Work

The Nativity in an ancient ruin Viviano Codazzi - The Nativity in an ancient ruin.jpg
The Nativity in an ancient ruin

Most of Codazzi's paintings are medium-sized paintings of architecture, either ruins, ideal architecture, or capricci, in a landscape setting. The type of decorative architectural paintings that Salucci created represent a form that became popular in mid-17th century Rome. [6] Art historians interpret the growing popularity of the architectural piece in 17th century Italy as the result of a shift of patronage from 'committente' to 'acquirente', that is, from painting on commission to painting on the open market. Architectural canvases were particularly welcome within the typical 17th-century decorative ensemble, where walls were completely covered with paintings of various types and sizes. The architectural piece lent variety to such ensembles by introducing the strong verticals and horizontals of its subject matter. [7]

The roots of this type of vedute can be found in 16th-century painting, and in particular in the architectural settings that were painted as the framework of large-scale frescoes and ceiling decorations known as 'quadratture'. These architectural elements gained prominence in 17th-century painting to become stand-alone subjects of easel paintings.

St. Peters Basilica St-peter's-viviano-codazzi-prado-1630.jpg
St. Peters Basilica

A number of artists practiced this genre. Alessandro Salucci was an important contemporary practitioner of the genre whose work was influenced by Viviano Codazzi. [6] Codazzi's vedute where generally more realistic than those of Salucci who showed somewhat greater creativity and liberty by rearranging Roman monuments to serve the purpose of his compositions. [8] Codazzi also did not adhere strictly to the dictations of topography and archaeology. His works show a search for architectural arrangements that evoke aesthetic harmony. Codazzi was acclaimed in his time as close to the ancient architect Vitruvius among 17th-century painters of architectural views. This recognition by his contemporaries was indicative of his mastery of linear perspective and understanding of antique taste. [9]

Codazzi's depiction of St. Peters Basilica dated 1636 is more a veduta, i.e. a topographical view, than a capriccio. [10] It was painted in Naples and shows the old entrance to the Vatican palace, which was destroyed when Bernini's Scala Regia and colonnade were constructed, as well as clock towers (campanili) based on an engraving of a never-executed design by Martino Ferabosco.

One of his best known paintings is a depiction of the Revolt of Masaniello in the Piazza del Mercato in Naples in which the figures were painted by Cerquozzi. The work was made in 1648 on a commission by Cardinal Bernardino Spada and is now in the Galleria Spada in Rome.

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References

Courtyard of an inn with classical ruins, figures by Domenico Gargiulo Viviano Codazzi - Courtyard of an Inn with Classical Ruins - Walters 371851.jpg
Courtyard of an inn with classical ruins, figures by Domenico Gargiulo
  1. ↑ Ludovica Trezzani. "Codazzi, Viviano." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 25 Apr. 2016
  2. 1 2 3 Giuseppe Scavizzi, CODAZZI, Viviano, in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 26 (1982)
  3. ↑ Keith Christiansen, Judith Walker Mann, Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, Museo di Palazzo Venezia (Rome, Italy), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), St. Louis Art Museum, 2001, p. 416
  4. ↑ Viviano Codazzi at the Netherlands Institute for Art History (in Dutch)
  5. ↑ Le vie degli artisti : residenze e botteghe nella Roma barocca dai registri di Sant'Andrea delle Fratte, 1650–1699, by Laura Bartoni, Roma : Edizioni Nuova cultura, (2012), page 416.
  6. 1 2 Alessandro Salucci (Florence 1590–1655/60 Rome) and Jan Miel (Beveren-Waes 1599–1664 Turin), An architectural capriccio with an ionic portico, a fountain, a two story loggia, a Gothic palace and figures on a quay at Christie's
  7. ↑ David R. Marshall, The Roman Baths Theme from Viviano Codazzi to G. P. Panini: Transmission and Transformation, in" Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 12, No. 23 (1991), pp. 129-159
  8. ↑ Importante architettura di Alessandro Salucci (Firenze 1590-Roma dopo il 1650) at Antiquares (in Italian)
  9. ↑ Viviano Codazzi (Bergamo 1604–1670 Rome) and Filippo Lauri (Rome 1623–1694), Arches in ruins and Hecuba’s vengeance over Polymesto at Dorotheum
  10. ↑ St Peters Basilica in the Prado Museum , Madrid

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