BAROCCI, Federico Fiori

Federico Barrocci’s Aeneas’ Flight from Troy with Anchises, his son Ascanius and his wife Creusa is the second version painted in 1598 of a picture executed ten years earlier for Emperor Rudolf II of Austria. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere presented Cardinal Scipione with this second version, which entered the Borghese collection before 1613. It was this painting that inspired Cardinal Scipione to commission a large marble group on the same subject from Gian Lorenzo Bernini (also in the Borghese Gallery). The myth of Aeneas, ancestor of Romulus and Remus, referred to the birth of Rome and thus confirmed the Borghese family’s high status in the city.

Barrocci’s many drawings of nature led him to achieve a spontaneity and naturalness in movement, colour and airy effects, and a silvery luminosity that was to influence the 17th-century masters, particularly Rubens. Never before had flames been painted so close to, with an energy suggesting even the crackle of the fire, from which Ascanius seems to be protecting himself by covering his ears. But the human delicacy of Barrocci’s anti-heroic and anti-rhetorical figures was not to be really appreciated in Rome, because it could not compete with the classical antique statuary.

Barocci’s altarpieces reveal his precise and rapid response to the instructions issued by the Council of Trent on religious art. The Mannerists may have had a refined intellectual quality but they were too often abstruse. Mannerism was now definitely swept aside. In its place came simple images with an obvious flow of them, free of mysteries or complications. Sacred episodes were set in the context of everyday reality. This can be seen from the way Barocci includes the Ducal Palace at Urbino in the background of this altarpiece in the Coli-Pontani Chapel of S. Maria degli Angeli in Perugia, and fills the picture with descriptive detail, including the sleeping cat in the foreground. The figures’ sweetness of expression is a direct reference to Correggio.

Barocci painted this Annunciation for the chapel of his patron, Francesco Maria II della Rovere, duke of Urbino, in the Basilica of Loreto between the years 1582 and 1584. In 1797 the altarpiece was seized by French troops and transferred to Paris, where it remained until 1815. Probably because of damage caused on its journey to Paris, the panel was first placed on a cloth base, but since this proved too light in weight, it became necessary to transfer it onto a stronger canvas.

Many copies of the painting are known to exist, they were produced by re-utilization of the same preparatory drawing, either by Barocci himself or by his workshop.

This double portrait depicts a nobleman proffering an oak branch full of acorns to a young woman. The bearded male figure, dressed in a severe black costume, stands behind the woman pointing to the oak branch. The picture’s format suggests the celebration of a conjugal relationship. The oak and acorns, an emblem long associated with the Della Rovere family of Urbino, indicate that at least one of the two sitters was a member of that family. However, the sitters and the event being commemorated have proven to be difficult to identify.

In the mid-sixteenth century Barocci was the first of the Italian artists to work frequently with pastels. This pastel is preparatory for the head of a Madonna in a larger painting.

This painting represents the Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph and the Infant Baptist. The title refers to the cat (gatto) seen at lower left.

Barocci was profoundly influenced by the works of Correggio, as seen in his celebrated Madonna del Popolo. Barocci emphasizes the dramatic instant of the Virgin’s intercession for her people before a loving Christ..The scene is caught up in a bewitching fusion of everyday experience with otherworldly rapture.

This drawing is a study for the figure of a servant in the Last Supper which Barocci painted between 1592 and 1599 in the cathedral of Urbino.

The painting represents a portrait of an unidentified gentleman, bust length, wearing a black jerkin and white ruff. The physiognomy is well understood and the gradation of colour, shifting gently in pastel-like tones, is entirely typical of the artist.

The sitter of the portrait is not identified. The style of the painting suggests that it was painted around 1600.

Her heart-shaped face accentuated by her coiffure, this young woman’s expression is more intriguing than her peaches-and-cream complexion might imply. Her coloration is typical of Barocci in these years, to the point that she strongly resembles both a soldier and an angel in other works.

Even in his smaller canvasses which were painted for private chapels or collectors, Barocci abandoned the often cold calligraphy of the Mannerists. Instead, he favoured delicate images, rosy colours, soft light, and landscape settings. This did not mean that Barocci was not also a refined painter. Indeed, in a painting like this the way that the gestures and looks of the characters link to each other shows that he studied his compositions carefully. But what he did not do was to show off cleverness for its own sake. The way that he accurately describes a number of details (the fruits, the metal objects, or the items in the bottom left corner) foreshadows the imminent developments that would give rise to the new (for Italy) genre of still-lifes. This is yet another confirmation of Barocci’s key role in a time of transition.

The poignant naturalism of the aging painter’s rheumy eyes calls attention to his skill, and also to the heightened emotion of the Baroque age, which Barocci fostered in his altarpieces and other religious subjects.

The way Barocci composed his flesh tints can be perceived as his individual hand. As a rule, he based them on a preparatory modelling of grey hues. In his self-portrait, he combined the grey and bluish-grey half-tones with single accents of vivid vermilion. His rendering of flesh tints distinguishes him from practically all his Italian contemporaries, and particularly influenced Rubens.

The present work is probably a replica of the self-portrait at the Uffizi, Florence.

In this painting, recent restoration has revealed a lion, sleeping like a large cat in the background; it had been hidden under thick layers of paint that had darkened with age.

This drawing is one of the nine known studies for the figure of the shepherd in the lower left of the Circumcision.

The Virgin Mary, surrounded by the three kings, is sitting with Jesus on her lap. The kings have just arrived: in the foreground we can see a horse being held by the reins, and one of the kings with his crown in his hand. Barocci used white and pale yellow to create effects of light in this lively sketch. The drawing must have been a preliminary study for a painting (which is not known to have survived). The artist’s efforts to achieve an ideal composition are very apparent.

This altarpiece was executed following a series of preliminary drawings for the church of the Brotherhood of the Name of Jesus at Pesaro.

This painting was commissioned by Clement VIII in 1603 but was finished only three years after his death in 1605. Clement exercised a great deal of control over the artist in order to be certain that he depicted the subject exactly to his wishes.

Aspects of what was to be known as the Baroque style can be seen in Barocci’s Nativity.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Giuseppe Aldrovandini: Sonata in D Major for two trumpets, strings and basso continuo

This is one of the four known etchings by Barocci, which probably was owned by Rembrandt.

This altarpiece was executed for the church of San Francesco in Urbino. In a humble interior set before a rural landscape wrapped in mist, the celestial apparition is imbued with the tender and intimate mood so typical of Barocci. The divine figures painted in bright colours shine out from the grey of the background as does the vermilion drapery. In the lower right corner the two donors of the altarpiece are depicted.