SOLIMENA, Francesco

Originally the medallion in the centre showed the features of Louis XIV. Later it was changed to Louis XV, and finally in 1770 to Catherine II.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 3 minutes):

Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Marche en Rondeau

The painting, an example of Solimena’s theatrical-decorative style, depicts the moment when King David, standing on a balcony to the left, first sees Bathsheba in the nude, surrounded by her maidservants, and, dazzled by her beauty, falls in love with her.

Solimena treated this subject several times.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 12 minutes):

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber: The Battle, suite

The phase of Solimena’s career, which can be characterized by “nobilità”, began with the work in the sacristy of San Paolo Maggiore in Naples, and reached its culmination in the sacristy of San Domenico Maggiore. The ceiling fresco in the latter depicts The Holy Trinity, Mary, and Dominican Saints Casting down the Heretics.

Henry Purcell (c. 1659-1695), the English composer and organist, composed an opera from the story of Dido and Aeneas.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 9 minutes):

Henry Purcell: Dido and Aeneas, Dido’s Farewell

This painting is a sketch of a tumultuous fresco adorning the entrance wall of the Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo in Naples.

The new church type, developed in the Baroque period, offered large format vertical picture surfaces on the inner fa�ade and on the dividing wall between the nave and the choir, which were used both for oil paintings and for frescoes. It was not as easy to see the pictures on the inner fa�ade because of the light from the windows, yet it was costumary to incorporate these surfaces into the iconographic program. The most magnificent solutions for this space were found in Naples.

The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple on the entrance wall of the Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo is perhaps the most spectacular of Solimena’s wall paintings. It was routinely copied by northern artists visiting Naples in the eighteenth century, and was widely known from engraved reproductions. The scene can be understood as a reminder to viewers, in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, that respectful behaviour was expected in sacred spaces, which explains why such scenes are so common on entrance walls in the Baroque period.

The picture shows the narrative scene on the south wall of the sacristy in San Paolo Maggiore, Naples.

The two scenes depicting falls - the Fall of Simon Magus on the south wall and the Conversion of St Paul on the north - were juxtaposed with obviously didactic intent. The most detailed account of the magician Simon, who numbered the emperor Nero among his admirers, is found in the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine.

The picture shows a detail of the frieze along the long wall of the sacristy in San Paolo Maggiore, Naples. Above the medallion portrait of the founders of the order are trios of the virtues, namely Prudentia, Fortitudo, and Temperantia (left); Pax, Justitia, and Abundantia (right).

The picture shows a detail of the frieze along the long wall of the sacristy in San Paolo Maggiore, Naples. Above the medallion portrait of the founders of the order are trios of the virtues, namely Fides, Spes, and Caritas (left); Divina Giustizia, Religio, and Sincerità (right).

San Paolo Maggiore was the first Theatine church in Naples. Members of the Theatine Order modeled themselves after the apostles. to whose lives they ascribed the virtues that formed the spiritual framework of life within the order. The Theatines were presented with their first church in Naples in 1538, the medieval San Paolo Maggiore. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they gave the structure a modern appearance and enriched it with lavish decoration.

Francesco Solimena was commissioned for the decoration of the sacristy in 1689, and he completed the painting in 1690. This was the commission with which Solimena made his breakthrough, and at precisely the right time too put him into contention as the successor to Luca Giordano.

The four bays of the vault contain three groupings of picture panels: the centre row, in which octagons alternate with lobed rectangles; the surrounding triangles filled with putti; and the caps of the vault above the windows, which are bracketed to the panels along the centre axis by cartouches. The centre panels contain female personifications of virtues, while the female figures in the caps above the windows are personifications of the eight Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount.

Thanks to their large format and their multitude of figures, the scenes on the end walls are largely responsible for the magnificent effect of the space. On the north wall the Conversion of St Paul is depicted, on the opposite south wall the Fall of Simon Magus can be seen.

The painting, part of a larger altarpiece, was commissioned by Prince Eugene of Savoya, and it was soon internationally appreciated. It served as a reference point for the Austrian Rococo painters.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 17 minutes):

Alessandro Scarlatti: La Giuditta, oratorio, Part I (excerpts)

Prince Joseph Wenzel (1696-1772) was the Reigning Prince of Liechtenstein from 1712 to 1718 and from 1748 to 1772. He secured a place in military history primarily through his efficient technical and personnel reorganisation of the Austrian artillery, which he made into the powerful instrument of the Imperial army. The baton, armour, and sword lying to one side in the portrait references to his military career.

Francesco Solimena was greatly admired by the Venetian painters of the eighteenth century, especially by Piazzetta and the young Giambattista Tiepolo, for his vigorous naturalism, marked by bold chiaroscuro contrasts and by rich, intense colours, which were the result of the influence on the Neapolitan artist by Mattia Preti.

Amongst the very finest examples of this period of Solimena’s career is the canvas Rebecca and Eleazar, painted around 1710, together with Jacob and Rachel, for the Baglioni family of Rio Marin, Venice. A light which seems to be like a sudden flash of lightning makes the figures stand out with plastic presence. The compositional arrangement is a triangle, already typically eighteenth century in the elegant balancing of the links between the figures.

This is a variant of the painting now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.

St Cajetan (Gaetano dei Conti di Tiene, 1480-1547), was an Italian Catholic priest and religious reformer, who helped found the Theatines, whose first church in Naples was San Paolo Maggiore. Members of the Theatine Order modeled themselves after the apostles. to whose lives they ascribed the virtues that formed the spiritual framework of life within the order.

In this early work by Francesco Solimena, the depiction of Saints Anne and Joachim with the Virgin Mary conveys familial affection and piety. The intimacy of the mother and child is evident as the father fondly looks on from a slight distance.

In the traditional iconography, John the Baptist is represented as a bearded ascetic, rudely dressed in a camel skin and crusted with dirt from the wilderness. Solimena, by contrast, has portrayed him as a handsome young man, clean shaven and well-muscled. The secure the identity, the painter includes the baptist’s traditional symbols of a reed cane with a cross at the top, and, in his left hand, a banderole inscribed “Ec. Ag. Dei” (Ecce Agnus Dei), “Behold the Lamb of God.” The head of a lamb is glimpsed in the shadow.

This painting is an example of Solimena’s art at the peak of his maturity in the 1720s.

This painting is one of the oil sketches originally made for the large-scale paintings of the Abbey of Monte Cassino, depicting scenes from the lives of the order’s founder, St Benedict of Nursia, and his peers. Founded around 530, the abbey was bombed on 15 February 1944. All masterpieces of Neapolitan painting, including the four pictures decorating the choir, were destroyed, along with the Baroque church and monastery.

The picture shows the narrative scene on the north wall of the sacristy in San Paolo Maggiore, Naples.

Thanks to their large format and their multitude of figures, the scenes on the end walls are largely responsible for the magnificent effect of the space. On the north wall the Conversion of St Paul is depicted, on the opposite south wall the Fall of Simon Magus can be seen. The two scenes depicting falls were juxtaposed with obviously didactic intent.

In designing the Conversion of St Paul, Solimena was obliged to compete the monumental painting of Michelangelo, which was available in the seventeenth century in many reproductions. That his work survives comparison with this imposing precedent is not a result of borrowing from Michelangelo, but of his staging the scene in a way that could hardly be more dramatic, showing the tumultuous response of Saul’s retinue to the fall and blinding of their leader.

The dynamism of the centre grouping of the composition is apparent from the four horses, which are falling, bolting, and rearing, and serve as the point of origin of all the movements in the picture. Here Solimena paraphrases one of the most famous groups of horses in modern art, the one contending for the standard in Leonardo da Vinci’s Battle of Anghiari.

This painting, illustrating the Biblical story of Tobit (Tobit 11, 11), was probably a modello. The monumentality of the classically-inspired figures recalls the tenebrismo of Mattia Preti.

This is a preparatory sketch for the paintings of the Benedictine abbey at Monte Cassino, painted between 1700 and 1702; destroyed in World War II.

In Naples in the beginning of the 18th century there flourished a whole school of decorative painters. Solimena, with his crowds of figures swirling through eddies and shades, still belonged to the line of the ‘tenebrosi’.

This painting in the Capodimonte Museum is the sketch for one of the large-scale compositions for the Senate Chamber in Genoa. The space follows the same laws of perspective as those used by Padre Pozzo in Rome.

This small painting is a preparatory study for the frescoes in Montecassino (now destroyed).

The four bays of the vault contain three groupings of picture panels: the centre row, in which octagons alternate with lobed rectangles; the surrounding triangles filled with putti; and the caps of the vault above the windows, which are bracketed to the panels along the centre axis by cartouches. The centre panels contain female personifications of virtues, while the female figures in the caps above the windows are personifications of the eight Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount.

The picture shows three bays of the vault of the sacristy in San Paolo Maggiore, Naples. The virtues in the centre panels are (from top down) Religio, Orazione, and Castità.