Page 49 - Luca Giordano - Liberation of St Peter

to be overwhelmed. Giordano’s life coincided with a
moment when traditional regional schools of painting
were challenged by new ideas and the art of confrontation
of all the different schools became the main theme of many
sessions at the French Académie des Beaux-Arts (founded
in 1648) throughout the second half of the century.
One hypothesis, never previously pursued, is that of
the influence of local tradition.The great Neapolitan poet
Giambattista Marino45 had himself been a master of pastiche
and had manipulated sources. Marino even expressed the
belief, which Giordano would have appreciated, that
Neapolitans are able to ‘steal’ in a particularly gracious
manner. Marino was associated with theoretical contro-
versy regarding imitation in the visual arts, and plagiarism
in literature, arguing for and against his way of appropri-
ating the work of other authors. It is acknowledged that
Marinismo dominated a style of preaching throughout
the seventeenth century, as we noted above.Another poet,
a Sicilian transplanted to Naples, Giuseppe Artale,46 was
slightly older than Giordano, and one of his closest friends. and all fell within his dominant style.
He was a follower of Marino (De Dominici calls him ‘The
Second Marino’)47 and the author of poems collected in
L’Alloro Fruttuoso. Artale was the inspiration for some
important works by Giordano.
This is not, however, the whole story, as we must sep-
arate the work of Giordano’s youth from that of his ma-
turity. When he was young, Giordano appeared unable,
or unwilling, to make up his mind which of the main
trends of the time would be the most suitable for him.
He was attracted to all of them and this created the myth
that he was a Protean who can paint in any style. The
climax of this almost eclectic attitude came around 1664
when he created, in a very painterly style, Neapolitan
t
altarpieces full of excitement and pathos as well as Youth
Protected by Minerva (Städelsche Institut, Frankfurt) in a
light, cool, Rubenesque vein. Simultaneously, in Venice,
he created pictures with contrasting compositions in a
Riberesque style with pitch-black backgrounds. This
openness to stylised changeability appears related to his
constant recourse to the many different sources of inspir-
ation and their manipulation.
In time, however, his work became more decisive.After
Venice (1664), even if some alternation between dark and
light works persisted, the differing trends came together
in what might be termed a variant of baroque classicism.
He remained prone to bouts of ‘acutezza’, and in his
mythological paintings of the 1670s and 1680s he quoted
selectively from Michelangelo’s figures.48 But after the
1680s, influenced increasingly by Bernini and Baciccio,
Giordano attained a style that absorbed him completely.
In Spain in the 1690s, he painted some neo-Raphaelesque
works, but excursions into other art forms became rarer
GIUSEPPE SCAVIZZI
45. Giambattista Marino 1569-1629. He is considered the founder of
the school of Marinism, later called Secentismo, characterised by its
use of extravagant and excessive conceits.
46. Giuseppe Artale 1628-1679. Adventurer, swordsman and Knight
of Malta he was known as ll cavaliere sanguinario. His most
important work was Pasife, ovvero L’impossibile fatto possibile (1661).
47. See on this, besides the two studies by M. Loh quoted above, E.
Cropper, The Domenichino Affair. Imitation and Theft in Seventeenth
Century Rome,Yale UP 2005.
48. Loh, ‘New and Improved,’ quoted above, pp. 483ff.
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