BONITO, Giuseppe - b. 1707 Castellamare di Stabia, d. 1789 Napoli - WGA

BONITO, Giuseppe

(b. 1707 Castellamare di Stabia, d. 1789 Napoli)

Italian painter. A student of Francesco Solimena, Bonito became one of the most influential artists of the Neapolitan school in the 18th century. Throughout his career, but most notably during the latter part of the century when Rome was the arbiter of Neo-classicism, his style remained firmly within the rich painterly traditions of Naples. His earliest works, for example the Archangel Raphael and Tobias (1730; Santa Maria Maggiore, Naples), show an assimilation of elements derived from late Baroque artists working in Naples and a hesitant affinity to the tenebrism of Solimena. In other pictures of sacred subjects from c. 1730 onwards, however, he developed a personal neo-Baroque style characterized by sweeping movement, bold chiaroscuro and a saturated palette reminiscent of both Solimena and Luca Giordano. Paintings in this style, such as St Vincent Ferrer (1737; San Domenico, Barletta), St Lazarus (early 1740s; San Ciro, Portici) and Charity (1742; Palazzo Monte di Pietà, Naples), show that Bonito’s maturity was also characterized by delicacy and grace.

"Il Femminiello"

This painting is a rare, 18th-century depiction of a femminiello (cross dressed male), capturing a glimpse of a fascinating subculture that is entrenched in Neapolitan history. These men were usually the youngest child of impoverished families, and would be brought up as a femminiello and dressed as women from a young age. They were met with good humour rather than derision and were accepted almost as a third sex. In Naples, still today, the tradition of the femminiello remains strong.

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Immaculate Conception

Bonito painted the same subject for a chapel in the Palazzo Reale, Caserta, where it remains today. The Caserta canvas is the latest recorded painting of the artist’s career, completed in 1789.

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Portrait of a Gentleman

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Portrait of the Composer Niccolò Jommelli

Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774) was a celebrated and much travelled composer from Naples. He was active in many Italian cities and went as far as Vienna and later Stuttgart where he was Kapellmeister to Duke Karl Eugen of W�rttemberg (1728-1793). In the present portrait he is represented half- length, in a blue coat and satin waistcoat.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 13 minutes):

Luigi Boccherini: Symphony in D minor (The House of the Devil

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The Repose of the Huntsmen

The subjects of Bonito’s genre paintings afford us a unique insight into the reality of everyday events in Neapolitan life. This type of Rococo capriccio enjoyed immense success in Naples.

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