ELISABETTA SIRANI.
A place among the most gifted and the most illustrious women who, in any country or in any age, have devoted themselves to the fine arts, must be accorded to Elisabetta Sirani. She has been pronounced a complete artist; unrivaled by any of her sex in fertility of invention, in the power of combining parts in a noble whole, in knowledge of drawing and foreshortening, and in the minute details that contribute to the perfection of a painting. Had she lived longer, she would have equaled any painter of her time.
She was born in Bologna, about 1640, and was the daughter of a painter of no inconsiderable merit. She was enrolled among the pupils of Guido Reni, and her artistic character was formed after the model of this most gifted and most versatile master of the Bolognese school. She imbibed from him an exquisite sense of the beautiful, and a peculiar gift of reproducing it. To this she added a vigor and energy rare in a woman. She made herself acquainted early with the works of the most distinguished painters, and manifested so much talent in youth, that she became the admiration of her acquaintances, particularly as she excelled also in music; while, to the gift of genius, she added that of rare personal loveliness. Lanzi speaks of her with enthusiastic admiration. It is not often that an artist of celebrity so generally wins the affections of those who know her. This popularity perhaps added to her renown; or the tragical fate of the blooming girl may have contributed to invest her name with a halo of romantic glory. Malvasia, who tells us she was persuaded by her father to adopt the profession of a painter, calls her “the heroine among artists”—and himself “the trumpeter of her fame.” Another eulogist, in the glowing style of Picinardi, praises her unwearied industry, her moderation in eating, and simplicity in dress; and the exquisite modesty with which she was always ready for household employments. She would rise at dawn to perform those lowly domestic tasks for which her occupations during the day left her little leisure, and never permitted her passion for art to interfere with the fulfillment of homely duties. Thus she was admirable in the circle of daily life, as in her loftiest aspirations. She obtained time in this manner for her exercises in poetry and music. All praised her gracious and cheerful spirit, her prompt judgment, and deep feeling for the art she loved. Besides being a painter, she was an adept in sculpture and engraving on copper, thus meriting the praise lavished on her as “a miracle of art.”
Her devoted filial affection, her feminine grace, and the artless benignity of her manners, completed a character regarded by her friends as an ideal of perfection. Malvasia mentions the rapidity with which she worked, often throwing off sketches and executing oil pictures in the presence of strange spectators. The envious artists of her time took occasion, from the number of her paintings, to insinuate that her father gave out his own works for his daughter’s to obtain a higher price for them; but the stupid calumny soon fell to the ground, for every one had free access to the studio of Elisabetta, and one day, in the presence of the Duchess of Brunswick, the Duchess of Mirandola, Cosimo, Duke of Tuscany, and others, she drew and shaded subjects chosen by each with such promptitude that the incredulous were confounded. She had hardly received the commission of her large picture—“The Baptism of Jesus”—before she had sketched on the canvas the entire conception of that memorable incident, including many and various figures; and the work was completed with equal rapidity. She was then only twenty years of age.
Her method has been compared to that of Guido Reni, whose versatility she combined with rare force and decision, and peculiar delicacy and tenderness; the most opposite qualities being harmonized in her productions.
This fascinating artist, in the height of her fame, in the flush of early womanhood, was snatched from her friends by a cruel and mysterious doom. Her fate is involved in a darkness which has not been penetrated to this day. Some do not hesitate to aver that her sudden death was a base and cruel murder; that she was poisoned by the same hands that administered the deadly draught to Domenichino—those of Ribiera or his disciples, jealous of her rising fame. The general impression is that she was the victim of professional envy. Some averred that her death was caused by the revenge of a princely lover, whose dishonorable advances were repelled, or some great personage who was incensed at her refusal to engage in his service, or of a distinguished individual who felt aggrieved by a caricature, and secretly employed a servant to put poison in her food. Each story was believed among her contemporaries, and the record of the examination is yet extant; but it was conducted without regularity, and throws no light upon the mysterious assassination.
Great was the excitement on the 14th November, 1665, in Bologna, on the day of her funeral, when the whole population crowded, weeping, to see the once beautiful features distorted by the hateful poison. The victim of revenge or jealousy was honored with solemn and splendid funeral ceremonies in the church of St. Domenico.
Shortly after her death a work was published, in which was included a number of poetical eulogies and tributes, from the most eminent poets of the day, to the memory and virtues of the deceased. One line runs thus:
“I was a woman, yet I knew not love.”
Picinardi adds the information that the pure calm of her soul was never disturbed by the grand passion. On the other hand, Gualandi intimates that the highly gifted maiden cherished for a young artist of her acquaintance an ardent affection, but that her father would not consent to the marriage. The romantic may please themselves with the supposition that the seed of genius sown in the nature of this richly endowed girl was quickened in the glow of an unhappy passion into the gorgeous bloom that attracted the eye of the world.
Elisabetta lies at rest in the chapel of the Madonna del Rosario in the church of St. Domenico, which also incloses the dust of her great master, Guido Reni. The works enumerated as hers by Malvasia, from her own register, were one hundred and fifty pictures and portraits, some of them large and carefully finished. Her first public work was executed in 1655. Her composition was elegant and tasteful; her designing correct and firm; and the freshness and suavity of her color, especially in demi-tints, reminded one of Guido. The air of her heads was graceful and noble, and she was peculiarly successful in the expressive character of her Madonnas and Magdalens. Among her finest pictures are mentioned a Francesco di Padoua kneeling before the infant Christ, a Virgin and St. Anna contemplating the sleeping Saviour, and others, preserved in several palaces in Bologna. Her portrait of herself was taken in the act of painting her father. Another portrait of her is in the person of a saint looking up to heaven. Among her paintings on copper, which are exquisitely delicate, is a Lot with his children, now in the possession of a family in Bologna. She produced etchings of the Beheading of John the Baptist, the Death of Lucretia, and several master-pieces; all distinguished by delicacy of touch and by ease and spirit in the execution. Her painting, “Amor Divino,” represents a lovely child, nude, seated on a red cloth, holding in its left hand a laurel crown and sceptre, while with the right it points to a quiver and some books lying at its feet. Bolognini says: “It is impossible to conceive any thing more beautiful in form or more exquisite in finish than this lovely child.”
Like Guido’s, the influence of Elisabetta Sirani on the progress of art in Bologna was exhibited in the number of scholars who sought instruction from her, or studied her paintings to ground themselves in her system. So illustrious an example as she presented must naturally have contributed greatly to the encouragement and development of female talent, and many were the women whom her success, in a greater or less degree, stimulated to exertion. One of Elisabetta Sirani’s pupils was Ginevra Cantofoli of Bologna. She painted history pieces with some reputation. In a church of Bologna is a picture by her—The Last Supper. Her best was San Tommaso di Villanuovo.
Sirani’s sisters, Anna Maria and Barbara, are also mentioned among her scholars, with Lucrezia Scarafaglia, Maria Teresa Coriolani, and Veronica Fontana, who carved excellently well in wood, and executed portraits in this manner which were highly praised. Many other names of women are recorded who derived their impressions of art, directly or indirectly, from Sirani.
Teresa Muratori was the daughter of an eminent physician, and born at Bologna in 1662. At an early age she showed a genius for painting and music. She was instructed in designing by Emilio Taruffi, and afterward took lessons from Lorenzo Parmello and Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole. She painted historical pieces, and several religious ones for churches in Bologna. She died at the age of forty-six.
Orlandi speaks highly of Maria Helena Panzacchi. She was born at Bologna in 1668, was taught designing by Taruffi, and became a reputable painter of landscapes, which she embellished with figures. Her works were correct in design, and the disposition was marked by elegance and taste. Several of them are in private collections at Bologna.
Bologna boasted also of Ersilia Creti, a pupil of her father Donato, and of Maria Viani, of whose workmanship a reclining Venus, in the Dresden gallery, exquisitely done, remains to her praise.
Among others of the school of Bologna, we may mention Maria Dolce, the daughter and pupil of Carlo Dolce, so noted and so admired for the calm dignity of his productions. She copied several of her father’s pictures. The name of another painter, Agnes Dolce, may be added; but we must pass over a host, observing only that the Bolognese was throughout the seventeenth century the richest in female talent of all the schools of Italy.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
School of the Academicians after Caravaggio.—Unidealized Nature.—Rude and violent Passions delineated.—Dark and stormy Side of Humanity.—Dark Coloring and Shadows.—The gloomy and passionate expressed in Pictures appeared in the Lives of Artists.—The Dagger and Poison-cup common.—Aniella di Rosa.—The Pupil of Stanzioni.—Character of her Painting.—Romantic Love and Marriage.—The happy Home destroyed.—The hearth-stone Serpent.—Jealousy.—The pretended Proof.—Phrensy and Murder.—Other fair Neapolitans.—The Paintress of Messina.—The Schools of Bologna and Naples embrace the most prominent Italian Paintings.—Commencement of Crayon-drawing.—Tuscan Ladies of Rank cultivating Art.—The Rosalba of the Florentine School.—Art in the City of the Cæsars.—The Roman Flower-painter.—Engravers.—Medallion-cutters.—A female Architect.—A Roman Sculptress.—Women Artists of the Venetian School.—At Pavia.—The Painter’s four Daughters.—Chiara Varotari.—Shares her Brother’s Labors.—A skillful Nurse.—Her Pupils.—Other female Artists of this time.—The Schools of Northern Italy.—Their Paintresses.—Giovanna Fratellini.
In contrast to the school established as before mentioned, certain academicians had set up one grounded on principles promulgated by Michael Angelo da Caravaggio, wherein the old idealism and conventional forms of beauty were neglected, and the models furnished by the works of the early masters were entirely slighted, to make room for a simple copying of nature, whether beautiful or repulsive, full of grace or rugged and barren of all charms. This new school had been planted in Naples by Caravaggio; and beneath that glowing sky arose a number of masters who devoted themselves not only to the reproduction of unidealized nature, but the delineation of human passions in their sternest and most violent demonstrations; preferring, in fact, to depict the darkest and stormiest side of humanity. For this purpose, depth of coloring and dark shadows were employed. These masters were not wanting in talent, nor were their creations without effect and influence; but they had nothing of the pure and holy element which seems like a genuine inspiration in art. The gloomy and passionate, expressed in their pictures, too often appeared also in their characters and actions.
The relations of these Neapolitan artists with those of the Bolognese school were by no means friendly, and rivals settled their disputes as frequently with the dagger and the poison-cup as with the pencil and the palette. Such a state of things was hardly favorable to the development of woman’s talent.