Andrea Sacchi
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
of High Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
Classicism, active in Rome. A generation of artists who shared his style of art include the painters Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...
and Giovanni Battista Passeri
Giovanni Battista Passeri
Giovanni Battista Passeri was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He was a pupil of the painter Domenichino, while they worked together at Frascati...
, the sculptors Alessandro Algardi
Alessandro Algardi
Alessandro Algardi was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome, where for the latter decades of his life, he was the major rival of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.-Early years:...
and François Duquesnoy
François Duquesnoy
François Duquesnoy was a Baroque sculptor in Rome. His more idealized representations are often contrasted with the emotional character of Bernini's works, while his style shows greater affinity to Algardi's sculptures....
, and the contemporary biographer Giovanni Bellori.
Early training
Sacchi was born in NettunoNettuno
Nettuno is a town and comune of the province of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy, 60 kilometers south of Rome. It is named in honour of the Roman god Neptune...
, near Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. His father, Benedetto, was an undistinguished painter; Andrea initially entered the studio of Francesco Albani
Francesco Albani
Francesco Albani or Albano was an Italian Baroque painter.-Early years in Bologna:Born 1578 in Bologna, his father was a silk merchant who intended to instruct his son in the same trade; but by age twelve, Albani became an apprentice under the competent mannerist painter Denis Calvaert, where he...
and became his last major pupil.
In 1621, he moved to Rome where he spent the rest of his life. Much of his early career was helped by the regular patronage by Cardinal Antonio Barberini
Antonio Barberini
Antonio Barberini was an Italian Catholic cardinal, Archbishop of Reims, military leader, patron of the arts and a prominent member of the House of Barberini. As one of the cardinal-nephews of Pope Urban VIII and a supporter of France, he played a significant role at a number of the papal...
, who commissioned art for the Capuchin church in Rome and the Palazzo Barberini
Palazzo Barberini
Palazzo Barberini is a palace in Rome, facing the piazza of the same name in Rione Trevi and is home to the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica.-History:...
.
Mature style
A contemporary rival of Pietro da CortonaPietro da Cortona
Pietro da Cortona, by the name of Pietro Berrettini, born Pietro Berrettini da Cortona, was the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time and also one of the key architects in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture. He was also an important decorator...
, Sacchi studied the paintings of Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
and the influence of Raphael is apparent in a number of his works, particularly with reference to the use of few figures and their expressions. He reputedly travelled to Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
and Parma
Parma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
and studied the works of Correggio
Antonio da Correggio
Antonio Allegri da Correggio , usually known as Correggio, was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th century...
.
Two of his major works on canvas are altarpieces now displayed in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, the painting gallery in the Vatican (see Main works below).
Controversy with Pietro da Cortona
As a young man, Sacchi had worked under CortonaPietro da Cortona
Pietro da Cortona, by the name of Pietro Berrettini, born Pietro Berrettini da Cortona, was the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time and also one of the key architects in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture. He was also an important decorator...
at the Villa Sacchetti at Castelfusano
Villa Sacchetti at Castelfusano
The Villa Sacchetti at Castelfusano is near Ostia, the port of ancient Rome. It was built between 1624-8 for the Sacchetti family, close associates of Pope Urban VIII, and was the first architectural work of Pietro da Cortona who became the foremost painter of his day and a leading architect in the...
(1627-1629). But in a set of public debates at the Accademia di San Luca
Accademia di San Luca
The Accademia di San Luca, was founded in 1577 as an association of artists in Rome, under the directorship of Federico Zuccari, with the purpose of elevating the work of "artists", which included painters, sculptors and architects, above that of mere craftsmen. Other founders included Girolamo...
, the guild for artists in Rome, he strongly criticized Cortona's exuberance. The debate is significant because it indicates how two of the leading proponents of the prevailing styles in painting, now called 'Classical' and 'Baroque', discussed the differences between their work.
In particular, Sacchi advocated that since a unique, individual expression, gesture and movement needed to be assigned to each figure in a composition, so a painting should only have a few figures. In a crowded composition, the figures would be deprived of individuality, and thus cloud the particular meaning of the piece. In some ways this was a reaction against the zealous excess of crowds in paintings by artists such as Zuccari
Taddeo Zuccari
Taddeo Zuccari was an Italian painter, one of the most popular members of the Roman mannerist school.-Biography:...
in the previous generation, and by Cortona among his contemporaries. Simplicity and unity were essential to Sacchi who, drawing an analogy to poetry, likened painting to tragedy. In his counter-argument, Cortona made the case that large paintings with lots of figures were like an epic which could develop multiple sub-themes. But for Sacchi, the encrustation of a painting with excess decorative details, including melees of crowds, would represent something akin to 'wall-paper' art rather than focused narrative. Among the partisans of Sacchi's argument for simplicity and focus were his friends, the sculptor Algardi
Alessandro Algardi
Alessandro Algardi was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome, where for the latter decades of his life, he was the major rival of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.-Early years:...
and painter Poussin
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...
. The controversy was however less pitched than some might suggest.
Sacchi and Albani, among others, shared dissatisfaction with the artistic depiction of low or genre
Genre painting
Genre works, also called genre scenes or genre views, are pictorial representations in any of various media that represent scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or...
subjects and themes, such as those preferred by the Bamboccianti
Bamboccianti
The Bamboccianti were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Most were Dutch and Flemish artists who brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherlandish art with them to Italy, and generally created small...
and even the Caravaggisti
Caravaggisti
The Caravaggisti were stylistic followers of the 16th century Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. His influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from Mannerism was profound. Caravaggio never established a workshop as most other painters did, and thus had no...
. They felt that high art should focus on exalted themes- biblical, mythological, or from classical ancient history.
Sacchi, who worked almost always in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, left few pictures visible in private galleries. He had a flourishing school: Carlo Maratta
Carlo Maratta
Carlo Maratta or Maratti was an Italian painter, active mostly in Rome, and known principally for his classicizing paintings executed in a Late Baroque Classical manner. Although he is part of the classical tradition stemming from Raphael, he was not exempt from the influence of Baroque painting...
was a younger collaborator or pupil. In Maratta's large studio, Sacchi's preference for a grand manner style would find pre-eminence among Roman circles for decades to follow. But many others worked under him or his influence including Luigi Garzi
Luigi Garzi
Luigi Garzi was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. Born in Pistoia, and died in Rome, where he was one of the main pupils of Andrea Sacchi. He is also often referred to as Ludovico Garzi. In 1680 Garzi was appointed Regent of the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon, the papal honor...
, Francesco Lauri
Francesco Lauri
Francesco Lauri was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Rome.He was the oldest son of a Flemish painter of landscapes and pupil of Paul Bril, Bathazar Lauwers , who emigrated from Antwerp to Milan, then Rome. Francesco's younger brother Fillipo Lauri was also a painter and...
, Andrea Camassei
Andrea Camassei
Andrea Camassei was an Italian Baroque painter and engraver, who was mainly active in Rome under the patronage of the Barberini.He was born in Bevagna. He was active in painting in the Palazzo Barberini as well as in Antonio Barberini's favored church, Santa Maria della Concezione, where he...
and Giacinto Gimignani
Giacinto Gimignani
Giacinto Gimignani was an Italian painter, active mainly in Rome, during the Baroque period.Gimignani was born in Pistoia, where his father, Alessio was also a painter and former pupil of Jacopo Ligozzi...
. Sacchi's own illegitimate son Giuseppe
Giuseppe Sacchi
Giuseppe Sacchi was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.The son of the famous Andrea Sacchi, Giuseppe painted both historical canvases and portraits. He became a friar minor and died young.-References:...
, died young after high hopes for his future.
Sacchi died at Nettuno
Nettuno
Nettuno is a town and comune of the province of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy, 60 kilometers south of Rome. It is named in honour of the Roman god Neptune...
in 1661.
Divine Wisdom at the Palazzo Barberini
This frescoFresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
work by Sacchi in the Palazzo Barberini
Palazzo Barberini
Palazzo Barberini is a palace in Rome, facing the piazza of the same name in Rione Trevi and is home to the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica.-History:...
is considered his masterpiece. It depicts Divine Wisdom(1629-33), http://www.nd.edu/~artslide/europeanart/htmls/euro13.htm. The work was inspired by Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
's Parnasus in the Raphael's Rooms in the Vatican Palace.
According to the American art historian Joseph Connors:
St Gregory and the Miracle of the Corporal
Also known as the Miracle of St Gregory the Great, this painting was executed in 1625-57. It is now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.The canvas portrays the legend that the Empress Constantia had begged Pope Gregory I
Pope Gregory I
Pope Gregory I , better known in English as Gregory the Great, was pope from 3 September 590 until his death...
to give her relics of the body of Saints Peter and Paul, but the pope, not daring to disturb the remains of these saints, sent her a fragment of the linen which had enveloped the remains of Saint John the Evangelist. Constantia rejected this gift from the pope as insufficient. Then Gregory, to prove the power of relics to work miracles (and justify their worth), placed the cloth on the altar, and, after praying, pierced it with a knife, and blood flowed from it as from a living body. A mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
of this painting was made in 1771http://www.stpetersbasilica.org/Altars/GregoryGreat/GregoryGreat.htm in St. Peter's Basilica
St. Peter's Basilica
The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter , officially known in Italian as ' and commonly known as Saint Peter's Basilica, is a Late Renaissance church located within the Vatican City. Saint Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world...
. This painting echoes some dogmatic positions that were favored by Counter Reformation Catholicism: the role of the pope as the final interpreter of sanctity, the miracle status of relics, and finally the validity of the eucharist as the body of Christ.
St. Romuald relating his Vision to Five Monks of his Order
Completed in 1631, this painting in the Pinacoteca Vaticana recalls an episode in the life of the early Benedictine monkMonk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
, Saint Romuald, of the Camaldolese
Camaldolese
The Camaldolese monks and nuns are part of the Benedictine family of monastic communities which follow the way of life outlined in the Rule of St. Benedict, written in the 6th century...
Order, who is said to have dreamt that members of his Order wearing white ascended into heaven (as seen in background). The serenity and gravity of the monks, arrayed as in philosophic discourse, is characteristic of Sacchi.
Other works
Other leading examples of Sacchi's work are- The Death of St. Anna, in San Carlo ai CatinariSan Carlo ai CatinariSan Carlo ai Catinari, also called Santi Biagio e Carlo ai Catinari is an early-Baroque style church in Rome, Italy....
, RomeRomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half... - St. Andrew, in the Quirinal PalaceQuirinal PalaceThe Quirinal Palace is a historical building in Rome, Italy, the current official residence of the President of the Italian Republic. It is located on the Quirinal Hill, the tallest of the seven hills of Rome...
- St. Joseph, at Caponile Case.
Other altarpieces by Sacchi are in Perugia
Perugia
Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....
, Foligno
Foligno
Foligno is an ancient town of Italy in the province of Perugia in east central Umbria, on the Topino river where it leaves the Apennines and enters the wide plain of the Clitunno river system...
and Camerino
Camerino
Camerino is a small town of 7.135 inhabitants in the Marches , in the province of Macerata, Italy. It is located in the Apennines bordering Umbria, between the valleys of the rivers Potenza and Chienti, about 40 miles from Ancona....
.