Pasinelli, and in particular Cignani, cause a Change in the Style of Bolognese Painting. The Clementine Academy and its Members.
The commencement of the final epoch of the Bolognese School may be dated some years previous to 1700; when Lorenzo Pasinelli and Carlo Cignani had already produced a striking alteration in painting. The disciples of the Caracci, who had imitated Lodovico, and those who had produced new manners, had all disappeared; while the pupils who still continued attached to their taste were very few; consisting of Guercino's Gennari, of Gio. Viani, formerly pupil to Torre, and some other less distinguished names. Pasinelli himself ceased to exist, on the opening of the new century, leaving the entire credit of the preceptorship in the hands of Cignani. This, too, was shortly increased by the formation of a public academy of the fine arts in the city, to which he was appointed president during life. These details are to be met with in the excellent "History of the Clementine Academy" composed by Giampietro Zanotti. Here we are made acquainted with the principles and progress of that celebrated society, which, in the year 1708, received from Pope Clement XI. its sanction and its name, from the Senate its rooms, and its organization from Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsili; besides effectual support both from him and other nobles; and here also we are presented with the lives of the academicians up to the year 1739. To Zanotti's History, as well as to others of an older date, much useful supplement was added by the Canon Crespi; and upon these two recent works, with a due degree of caution, I propose to rest the authority of my succeeding narrative.
In tracing the origin of the new taste, it will be requisite to go back to 1670, or near that period; when Pasinelli and Cignani, after their return from Rome, commenced teaching and operating, each in their respective method. Lorenzo pursued the design of Raffaello, combined with the fascination of Paul Veronese; while Carlo delighted in the grace of Coreggio, united to Annibal's learning; and both had executed at Rome studies agreeable to their genius. It is reported, that one day they happened to enter upon a long discussion of the relative merits of Raffaello and Coreggio. Would that they had been joined by some new Borghini, as a third party, who might have put the discourse into the form of a dialogue, and have preserved it for posterity! In course of time, Cignani came into higher repute than Pasinelli, though this excited no kind of jealousy; they had both of them wisdom enough to be satisfied each with his own share of genius, and to commend his competitor; thus abstaining from that indulgence of rivalry which gives, even to the most celebrated artists and writers, an air of meanness. Thus, when the Clementine academy was instituted, the pupils of both masters readily united in serving that new assembly; voluntarily submitting to the direction of Cignani, placed by the pontifical diploma at their head. Thenceforward the style of Cignani came into vogue; though others sprung from it, composed of two or more manners, which may yet be called national. Each has in it something of the Caraccesque, owing to the young artists having commenced their career by designing from the works of the three brothers. A few of these painters exhibit even too much of their manner, and that of the best among other artists; we find figures taken partially from different ancient masters, and worked up into one composition; as we see sometimes done in poetry, with the lines of one or more writers. About this period the study of the beau-ideal received some accession, by means of the casts with which the academy was supplied. The style of coloring is far from careless; though in the principles then adopted, there was a certain method pursued by different artists, from which their shadows have grown deeper, and assumed a rusty colour; and towards the middle of the same epoch, false and capricious colours came into use, and long continued to find patrons. Nor was this error confined solely to the Bolognese School. Balestra, in one of his letters, dated 1733, inserted in the Pictoric Collection, (vol. ii.) laments the decline of "all the Italian schools," from their having fallen into mistaken methods. Possessing himself in Verona three scholars, capable of great performances, namely, Pecchio, who became a fine landscape painter, Rotari, and Cignaroli, he seems to have had his fears even for them. In particular, speaking of the last, he says, "I fear lest he, too, should suffer himself to be borne away by the prevailing stream, and become enamoured of certain ideal manners, and of a rapid touch; consequently careless of good practice and of rules." Respecting these alterations, however, it is not yet time to treat.
To come down, at present, to the two heads of the school; Pasinelli, who first ceased to live, will first come under our consideration. He received his education in the art from Cantarini; subsequently from Torre, whose school he too early left, owing to which, most probably, he never attained to perfect correctness of design. In this, nevertheless, he surpassed Paul Veronese, who formed his great prototype. He did not imitate him, according to the sectarists; he borrowed from him that effective and majestic composition; but the ideas of the faces, and the distribution of the colours he acquired elsewhere. He was naturally too inclined to create surprise by the display of copious, rich, and spirited compositions; such as his two pictures at the Certosa, of Christ's Entrance into Jerusalem, and his Return into Limbo; and such too is his History of Coriolanus, in the Casa Ranuzzi, a piece found repeated in many collections. No one can behold these paintings without granting to Pasinelli a true painter's fire, great novelty of idea, and a certain elevated character, never the boast of middling artists. With these gifts, however, he is sometimes too extravagant in his attitudes, and in his Paolesque imitation of spectacles, and strange novel draperies, which he is thought to have carried to an extreme, as in his Preaching of John the Baptist, in which his rival, Taruffi, found, instead of the desert[TN10] of Judea, the piazza of St. Mark, in Venice. He knew, withal, to restrain his fire according to the genius of his themes, as we may see in that Holy Family in possession of the Scalzi; a work partaking of Albani. He painted more for private persons than for the public; uniform in the spirit, varied in the colours of his pictures. Some of these private pictures boast, at once, a softness of hand, and a peculiarly vivid and gay light, that might be taken for those of the Venetians or Lombards; in particular, a few of his Venuses, which are supposed to be portraits of one of his three wives. In a few of his other specimens he displays very little relief, whole colours, a tint almost like that of the Bolognese artists preceding the Caracci; and these I should either attribute to his early youth, or his closing days.
One of the four leading artists of his age was the Cav. Carlo Cignani, as elsewhere stated, a genius more profound than prompt; a hand eager to engage in labours, but most difficult, and ever dissatisfied in their completion. His picture of Joseph's Flight into Egypt, belonging to the Counts Bighini, of Imola, cost him six months' labour; and many similar instances are recorded. Nevertheless, he always appears complete, never hard or laborious; and his facility is esteemed one of his rarest gifts. Cignani's inventions are often referable to Albani, who was his master. He produced, for a monastery of Piacenza, a picture of the Conception of the Virgin, who, robed in a white garment, is seen bruising the serpent's head; and arrayed in a garment of rich purple, her infant son at her feet, who, with an air at once of dignity and grace, places his foot upon that of his mother;—what a language does this speak, how truly sublime! There is much, too, of a novel and poetic cast, in his Birth of the Virgin, at the cathedral of Urbino; a picture that at Rome was censured even for its novelty. Cignani was likewise a good composer, and so disposed his figures, by the example of the Caracci, as to give his pictures an air of larger dimensions than they really have. His four Scriptural Histories, in four ovals, each sustained by two cherubs, among the most perfectly beautiful in Bologna, are truly attractive ornaments of S. Michele in Bosco; nor are two others less so, of the public hall, where he represented Francis I., in the act of healing the lepers; and Paul III. seen entering into Bologna. Less majestic, perhaps, but more beautiful, is one of his paintings, in the palace of the ducal garden at Parma. Agostino Caracci had there decorated the ceiling of a chamber; there Cignani exhibited, on the walls, various fables, illustrative of the power of Love; in which, if he surpassed not that great master, he, in the opinion of many, at least equalled him. In design he invariably emulated Coreggio; but, in his outlines, in his beauteous and noble countenances, and in his grand, ample folds, he preserved something original, and distinct from the Lombards; while he is less studious than they respecting the use of foreshortening. He aimed at a strong layer of colours, which were clear and animated like Coreggio's, to which he added, also, a sweetness derived from Guido. He was especially careful in his chiaroscuro, and gave a great degree of roundness to all his objects; which, though in certain subjects it may appear overwrought, and more ample than in nature, is nevertheless pleasing.
His historical pieces are rare; but not so a number of others, containing one or two half-length figures, and still less his Madonnas. One of the most beautiful is in the Albani palace, painted for Clement XI., with the Holy Child; and another, representing her grief, belongs to the Princes Corsini, extremely graceful, as is also the Angel seen consoling her. It would be difficult to decide whether he excelled most in oils or in fresco, which last is the kind of painting in which great artists have ever distinguished themselves. He spent the closing years of a long life at Forli, where he established his family, and left the proudest monument of his genius in that grand cupola, perhaps the most remarkable of all the pictoric productions belonging to the eighteenth century. The subject is the Assumption of our Lady, the same as in the cathedral at Parma; and here, too, as there, it exhibits such a real paradise, that the more we contemplate it, the more it delights us. Near twenty years were devoted to its production, from time to time; the artist, occasionally, during that period, visiting Ravenna, to consult the cupola by Guido, from whom he took his fine figure of St. Michael, and some other ideas. It is reported that the scaffolds were, against his wish, removed, as he appeared to be never satisfied with retouching and bringing the work to his usual degree of finish.
From these two masters I now proceed to their disciples, and shall annex, also, a few others, who sprung from other schools. Pasinelli had the good fortune to inherit, from Canuti, an excellent master, a number of fine scholars, on the latter quitting Bologna. One of these was Gio. Antonio Burrini, who, while he retained his first master's manner, became attached, also, to the composition of Paolo, so much to the taste of Pasinelli. Indeed, he himself appeared naturally inclined to it, by the richness of his imagination, and his surprising eagerness and industry in his works. He devoted much time to Paolo Veronese, at Venice, often imitating him in those pictures which are referred to his first style. Distinguished among these is an Epiphany, painted for the noble Ratta family, which yields to very few pieces in their collection. He subsequently executed a martyrdom of S. Vittoria for the cathedral of Mirandola, in competition with Gio. Gioseffo dal Sole; who on beholding it so greatly superior to his own picture, was bitterly mortified. He was reassured, however, by Pasinelli, their common master, who predicted he would become a better artist than Burrini, whose own facility of genius would at length betray him into a mere practical line. And this prediction was very exactly fulfilled, though he continued upwards of fifteen years to paint with tolerable care, both for the Prince of Carignano at Turin, and at Novellara. He in particular appeared to advantage as a fresco painter at Bologna, being by some termed the Pier da Cortona, or the Giordano of his school. His fresco histories in the Casa Albergati are well deserving notice, as are those in the Alamandini and the Bigami families, with others produced in early youth. Impelled at length by the cares of an increasing family to look for greater profits, he gave way by degrees to his facility of hand, and formed a second style, which, owing to the indolence of human nature, obtained more disciples than his first.
Gio. Gioseffo dal Sole, on the contrary, burned to become each day more perfect, and raised himself to one of the first posts among the artists of his age. He had constant commissions from noblemen, both native and foreign, and received invitations also from the courts of Poland and of England. For some time he preserved a style conforming to Pasinelli's; and in order to improve it from the same sources he frequently returned to Venice, though he never attained to that degree of beauty, in his more elegant subjects, that formed the boast of his master. In many particulars, however, he displays exquisite grace; as in the hair and plumes of the angels, and equally in the accessaries, such as the veils, bracelets, crowns, and armour. He seems to have been inclined also more than Pasinelli to treat powerful themes; more observant of costume, more methodical in composition, and more informed in point of architecture and landscape. In these indeed he is almost unique; and the most beautiful specimens, perhaps, are to be seen at the Casa Zappi in Imola, representing Evening, Night, and Morning, all very pleasingly distributed, and with sober tints, such as the subject required. His other works display, in most instances, the most lovely play of vivid fluctuating light, more especially in his holy pieces and celestial visions, as we see in the St. Peter of Alcantara, at S. Angiolo in Milan. Moreover, he was more exact and polished than Pasinelli; not that he was by any means deficient in celerity in conducting his works, but esteemed it unworthy of an upright character to confer upon them less perfection than he was capable of bestowing. Being employed at Verona for the noble family of Giusti, where he left several mythological pieces and scriptural histories, truly beautiful, he completed one of Bacchus and Ariadne, which artists pronounced excellent, within a week. Yet he cancelled almost the whole, to remodel it according to his own wish, declaring that it was enough to have shewn his rapidity of hand to satisfy others, but that it became his duty, by additional accuracy, to satisfy also himself. Hence his fresco at S. Biagio in Bologna, which is his greatest work, cost him an infinite deal of labour in its completion; and in conducting his altar-pieces, few and valuable, as well as in his private pictures, which are very numerous, he called for high remuneration, persevering in his determination to paint only with care. In this artist, as many others, two manners are observable, of which the second partakes of Guido Reni's. It is on record, that he became attached to it late in life, and was less successful in it. It appears to me that a large portion of his pictures nearly approach the taste of Guido, and that the surname of the modern Guido, conferred upon him by so many, has not been granted as matter of favour, nor at the expense of little time.
No artist of these times could boast more disciples than Giangioseffo dal Sole, if we except Solimene, who was held by him in high esteem. In order to study his paintings, executed for the Counts Bonaccorsi, Dal Sole went to Macerata, where he conducted a few works for the church of the Vergini, and for the house of the said nobles. I am uncertain if he derived from this visit that style of colouring, more attractive than natural, such as we find it in some of his smaller pictures, and in some Bolognese artists who succeeded him. From his school sprung Felice Torelli of Verona, and Lucia Casalini, his wife, of a Bolognese family. Torelli came to it already instructed in the art, acquired in his native place from Sante Prunato, whose taste he, in a great measure, preserved. He became a painter of strong character, fine chiaroscuro, and of no common merit in canvass paintings for altars. These are found at Rome, Turin, Milan, and other cities of Italy. That of S. Vincenzio is most conspicuous, in the act of freeing a female possessed, at the Domenicans of Faenza; a picture finely varied in the heads, in the draperies, and the attitudes. Lucia likewise painted for some churches, as nearly as she could in her consort's style; but her chief merit lay in portrait, such as to obtain for her admission of her own in the royal gallery at Florence. Another artist of her sex, initiated in the art of design by Sirani, and in colouring by Taruffi and Pasinelli, received her last instructions from Gioseffo dal Sole. Her name was Teresa Muratori Scannabecchi, who was in the habit of painting a good deal by herself, and with great credit. Assisted by her master, she executed a picture of St. Benedict in the act of preserving the life of a child; a very graceful production and of good effect, exhibited in a chapel of S. Stefano.
Francesco Monti, another pupil of the same school, was endowed by nature with an enthusiasm for ample and copious subjects, to which he applied himself without much previous culture, either from imitation or from art. He executed for the Counts Ranuzzi, who patronised him, a picture of the Rape of the Sabines; and for the court of Turin the Triumph of Mardocheo; works abounding with figures, and highly extolled; besides many other oil paintings for different collections and churches. But his surpassing merit is to be sought for in his frescos, and more particularly at Brescia, in which city he fixed his residence. He also conducted many pieces for the adjacent places, applauded for his fertile genius and his masterly style of colouring. A number of churches and noble houses, such as the Martinengo, the Avogadro, the Barussi, were also decorated by him on a very extended scale of painting. Some portraits, too, executed by his daughter Eleonora, who received constant commissions from the same nobility, are held in high esteem.