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.
ANIELLA DI ROSA.
Yet we find one artist of surpassing merit, who, on account of her genius and her tragical fate, was called the Sirani of the school of Naples. This was Aniella di Rosa, niece of the painter Pacecco di Rosa, and pupil of that Massimo Stanzioni who, in common with Caravaggio, exercised a species of tyranny over the struggles of Neapolitan art, and was one of the leaders of the opposition set up against the artists from Bologna. Aniella painted in his atelier, and he directed her studies with paternal solicitude. She succeeded in giving to her pictures the grace, the soft and transparent coloring of Pacecco, and united in her heads the elegance of her uncle’s style with the correct drawing and able grouping of Stanzioni. Her master set her to color his sketches, and she succeeded so well that he often sold their joint productions as his own. When her education was sufficiently advanced, she desired that her talents should be put to a public test; and her master induced the governors of the church of the Pietà dei Turchini to give her a commission for two paintings which were to adorn the ceiling.
Aniella produced two paintings so excellent that many declared they were completed by Stanzioni. But Domenici says he has seen several of her original pictures, and that they are “most beautiful productions.” “Her master himself,” he continues, “avows in his writings that she equals the best masters of our time.” One of the pictures represented the Birth of the Virgin; the other, her Death. The figures are larger than life; and the boldness of design, the effects of light and shade, and the management of the drapery, drew praise from two eminent artists, who said she was an honor to her country, and that many artists might learn from her. She also did several heads of the Madonna in red chalk, pronounced equal in drawing to the works of the most renowned artists.
During the earliest days when Aniella frequented Stanzioni’s studio, she became acquainted with Agostino Beltramo, a high-spirited Neapolitan youth. He soon became enamored of the beautiful girl, and his frank manners and noble bearing, with the promise his early efforts gave of his becoming a good artist, were a passport to her heart. His love was accepted, and they were betrothed. Stanzioni exerted himself in their behalf, and through his good offices the consent of the parents for the marriage of the young people was obtained. A rare similarity of tastes, and their mutual labors in art, caused all to admire and many to envy the happiness of their union. The serenity of Aniella’s disposition tended to insure the peace of their daily life; and during sixteen years which they passed together both acquired no insignificant artistic fame. The husband excelled in frescoes; the lady in oil-paintings. The superb painting of San Biagio, in the church of the Sanità, in Naples, is the result of their mutual labors.