Carlo Crivelli
Encyclopedia
Carlo Crivelli was an Italian
Renaissance
painter of conservative Late Gothic decorative sensibility, who spent his early years in the Veneto
, where he absorbed influences from the Vivarini
, Squarcione
and Mantegna
. By 1458 he left the Veneto and was never to return; he spent most of the remainder of his career in the March of Ancona
, where he developed a distinctive personal style that makes a contrast to his Venetian contemporary Giovanni Bellini
.
to a family of painters, and received his artistic formation there and in Padua
. After a century's work in Italian archives, the details of Crivelli's career are still sparse: He is said to have studied under Jacobello del Fiore
, who was painting as late as 1436; at that time Crivelli was probably only a boy. He also studied at the school of Vivarini
in Venice, then left Venice, initially, it is generally believed, for Padua
, where he is believed to have worked in the workshop of Francesco Squarcione
and then for Zadar
in Dalmatia (now part of Croatia, but then a Venetian territory) in 1459, following legal trouble after he was sentenced to prison for six months for having an affair with a married woman, Tarsia Cortese, the wife of a sailor.
, and 1493 on The Dead Christ between St John, the Virgin and Mary Magdalene (Brera Gallery, Milan).
Though the artist advertised his Venetian origin in his constant signatures varying upon Carolus Crivellus Venetos ("Carlo Crivelli of Venice"), Crivelli seems to have worked chiefly in the March of Ancona
, and especially in and near Ascoli Piceno
; there are only two pictures remaining in Venice, in the church of San Sebastiano.
He painted in tempera
only, despite the increasing popularity of oil painting
during his life-time, and on panels, though some of his paintings have been transferred to canvas. His predilection for decoratively punched gilded backgrounds is one of the marks of the conservative taste, in part imposed by his patrons. Of his early polyptych
s, only one, the altarpiece from Ascoli Piceno, survives complete in its original frame; all the others have been disassembled and their panels and predella
scenes are divided among the world's museums.
An amorphous band of contemporaries and followers, termed Crivelleschi, show to varying degrees aspects of his style.
Unlike the naturalistic trends arising from Florence at the same time, Crivelli's style still echoes the courtly International Gothic
sensibility. The urban settings are jewel-like, and full of elaborate allegorical detail.
He favored verdant landscape backgrounds, and his works can be identified by his characteristic use of fruits and flowers as decorative motifs, often depicted in pendant festoons, which are a hallmark of the Paduan studio of Francesco Squarcione, where Crivelli may have worked. The National Gallery, London
is well supplied with examples of Crivelli; the Annunciation with St Emidius, possibly his most famous painting, and the Beato Ferretti (of the same family as Pope Pius IX
) in religious ecstasy, may be specified. Another of his principal pictures is in San Francesco di Matelica; in Berlin is a Madonna and Saints (1491); in the Vatican Gallery a Dead Christ, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg
is an Adoration of the Shepherds and in the Brera of Milan the Madonna of the Candle. There are also examples of his work in several major American galleries.
Despite his Venetian birth, his paintings have a linear Umbrian quality. Crivelli is a painter of marked individuality; unlike Giovanni Bellini
, his contemporary, his works are not "soft", but clear and definite in contour, with astounding attention to detail. His use of "trompe l'oeil
," often compared to painters of the Northern Renaissance
such as Rogier van der Weyden, includes raised objects, such as tears and "jewels" modelled in gesso on the panel. Commissioned by the Franciscans and Dominicans
of Ascoli, Crivelli's work is exclusively religious in nature. His paintings consist largely of Madonna and Child images, Pietà
, and the by-then-old-fashioned altarpiece known as the polyptych
. Often filled with images of suffering, such as gaping wounds in Christ's hands and side and the mouths of mourners twisted in agony, Crivelli's work appropriately fulfills the spiritual needs of his patrons. These ultra-realistic, sometimes disturbing qualities have often led critics to label Crivelli's paintings "grotesque", much like his fellow Northern Italian painter, Cosimo Tura
.
Few artists seem to have worked with more uniformity of purpose, or more forthright command of his materials; this singlemindedness was recognised by the number of prestigious commissions he was awarded. It is possible that Carlo was of the same family as the painter Donato Crivelli (who was working in 1459, and was also a scholar of Jacobello); Vittorio Crivelli
, with whom he occasionally collaborated, was his younger brother. Pietro Alemanno
, a painter who had travelled to the March of Ancona from Germany/Austria, was his pupil/collaborator.
) around 1495. His work fell out of favour following his death and he is not mentioned in Vasari's Lives of the Artists (which is notably Florence-centric). He had something of a revival, especially in the UK, during the time of the pre-Raphaelite painters, several of whom, including Edward Burne-Jones
were admirers of Crivelli. Admiration for his work declined with the decline of the pre-Raphaelites during the Modernist period, but recent writings on his work and a rehanging of his work in the National Gallery, London
, are again bringing him more attention.
The Madonna with child and saints can be seen in the town of Monte San Martino in Marche. In addition, the otherwise unremarkable church of San Giacomo Maggiore
in the small hill town of Massignano
in Marche boasts a Madonna and child by Crivelli.
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...
Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
painter of conservative Late Gothic decorative sensibility, who spent his early years in the Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
, where he absorbed influences from the Vivarini
Vivarini
Vivarini is the surname of a family of painters from Murano , who produced a great quantity of work in Venice and its neighborhood in the 15th century, leading on to that phase of the school which is represented by Carpaccio and the Bellinis....
, Squarcione
Francesco Squarcione
Francesco Squarcione was an Italian artist from Padua. His pupils included Andrea Mantegna , Cosimo Tura and Carlo Crivelli...
and Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...
. By 1458 he left the Veneto and was never to return; he spent most of the remainder of his career in the March of Ancona
March of Ancona
The March of Ancona or marca Anconitana was a frontier march centred on the city of Ancona and, then, Macerata in the Middle Ages...
, where he developed a distinctive personal style that makes a contrast to his Venetian contemporary Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...
.
Early life
Crivelli was born around 1430–35 in VeniceVenice
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...
to a family of painters, and received his artistic formation there and in Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
. After a century's work in Italian archives, the details of Crivelli's career are still sparse: He is said to have studied under Jacobello del Fiore
Jacobello del Fiore
Jacobello del Fiore was an Italian painter of the 15th century active mainly in Venice. He was the son and pupil of the painter Francesco del Fiore. One of his pupils was Carlo Crivelli....
, who was painting as late as 1436; at that time Crivelli was probably only a boy. He also studied at the school of Vivarini
Vivarini
Vivarini is the surname of a family of painters from Murano , who produced a great quantity of work in Venice and its neighborhood in the 15th century, leading on to that phase of the school which is represented by Carpaccio and the Bellinis....
in Venice, then left Venice, initially, it is generally believed, for Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
, where he is believed to have worked in the workshop of Francesco Squarcione
Francesco Squarcione
Francesco Squarcione was an Italian artist from Padua. His pupils included Andrea Mantegna , Cosimo Tura and Carlo Crivelli...
and then for Zadar
Zadar
Zadar is a city in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It is the centre of Zadar county and the wider northern Dalmatian region. Population of the city is 75,082 citizens...
in Dalmatia (now part of Croatia, but then a Venetian territory) in 1459, following legal trouble after he was sentenced to prison for six months for having an affair with a married woman, Tarsia Cortese, the wife of a sailor.
Career
The only dates that can with certainty be given about his life as a painter are his first appearance, already a master of his own shop, in 1457, in a matter of adultery for which he was imprisoned for six months; and the earliest and the latest years signed on his pictures, 1468 on an altarpiece in the church of San Silvestro at Massa Fermana, near FermoFermo
Fermo is a town and comune of the Marche, Italy, in the Province of Fermo.Fermo is located on a hill, the Sabulo with a fine view, on a branch from Porto San Giorgio on the Adriatic coast railway....
, and 1493 on The Dead Christ between St John, the Virgin and Mary Magdalene (Brera Gallery, Milan).
Though the artist advertised his Venetian origin in his constant signatures varying upon Carolus Crivellus Venetos ("Carlo Crivelli of Venice"), Crivelli seems to have worked chiefly in the March of Ancona
March of Ancona
The March of Ancona or marca Anconitana was a frontier march centred on the city of Ancona and, then, Macerata in the Middle Ages...
, and especially in and near Ascoli Piceno
Ascoli Piceno
Ascoli Piceno is a town and comune in the Marche region of Italy, capital of the province of the same name. Its population is c. 51,400.-Geography:...
; there are only two pictures remaining in Venice, in the church of San Sebastiano.
He painted in tempera
Tempera
Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...
only, despite the increasing popularity of oil painting
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
during his life-time, and on panels, though some of his paintings have been transferred to canvas. His predilection for decoratively punched gilded backgrounds is one of the marks of the conservative taste, in part imposed by his patrons. Of his early polyptych
Polyptych
A polyptych generally refers to a painting which is divided into sections, or panels. The terminology that follows is in relevance to the number of panels integrated into a particular piece of work: "diptych" describes a two-part work of art; "triptych" describes a three-part work; "tetraptych"...
s, only one, the altarpiece from Ascoli Piceno, survives complete in its original frame; all the others have been disassembled and their panels and predella
Predella
A predella is the platform or step on which an altar stands . In painting, the predella is the painting or sculpture along the frame at the bottom of an altarpiece...
scenes are divided among the world's museums.
An amorphous band of contemporaries and followers, termed Crivelleschi, show to varying degrees aspects of his style.
Work
International Gothic
International Gothic is a phase of Gothic art which developed in Burgundy, Bohemia, France and northern Italy in the late 14th century and early 15th century...
sensibility. The urban settings are jewel-like, and full of elaborate allegorical detail.
He favored verdant landscape backgrounds, and his works can be identified by his characteristic use of fruits and flowers as decorative motifs, often depicted in pendant festoons, which are a hallmark of the Paduan studio of Francesco Squarcione, where Crivelli may have worked. The National Gallery, London
National Gallery, London
The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...
is well supplied with examples of Crivelli; the Annunciation with St Emidius, possibly his most famous painting, and the Beato Ferretti (of the same family as Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX
Blessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...
) in religious ecstasy, may be specified. Another of his principal pictures is in San Francesco di Matelica; in Berlin is a Madonna and Saints (1491); in the Vatican Gallery a Dead Christ, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg
The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg is the old masters paintings collection of the city of Strasbourg, located in the Alsace region of France. The museum is housed in the first and second floors of the baroque Palais Rohan since 1898...
is an Adoration of the Shepherds and in the Brera of Milan the Madonna of the Candle. There are also examples of his work in several major American galleries.
Despite his Venetian birth, his paintings have a linear Umbrian quality. Crivelli is a painter of marked individuality; unlike Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...
, his contemporary, his works are not "soft", but clear and definite in contour, with astounding attention to detail. His use of "trompe l'oeil
Trompe l'oeil
Trompe-l'œil, which can also be spelled without the hyphen in English as trompe l'oeil, is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions.-History in painting:Although the phrase has its origin in...
," often compared to painters of the Northern Renaissance
Northern Renaissance
The Northern Renaissance is the term used to describe the Renaissance in northern Europe, or more broadly in Europe outside Italy. Before 1450 Italian Renaissance humanism had little influence outside Italy. From the late 15th century the ideas spread around Europe...
such as Rogier van der Weyden, includes raised objects, such as tears and "jewels" modelled in gesso on the panel. Commissioned by the Franciscans and Dominicans
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
of Ascoli, Crivelli's work is exclusively religious in nature. His paintings consist largely of Madonna and Child images, Pietà
Pietà
The Pietà is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus, most often found in sculpture. As such, it is a particular form of the Lamentation of Christ, a scene from the Passion of Christ found in cycles of the Life of Christ...
, and the by-then-old-fashioned altarpiece known as the polyptych
Polyptych
A polyptych generally refers to a painting which is divided into sections, or panels. The terminology that follows is in relevance to the number of panels integrated into a particular piece of work: "diptych" describes a two-part work of art; "triptych" describes a three-part work; "tetraptych"...
. Often filled with images of suffering, such as gaping wounds in Christ's hands and side and the mouths of mourners twisted in agony, Crivelli's work appropriately fulfills the spiritual needs of his patrons. These ultra-realistic, sometimes disturbing qualities have often led critics to label Crivelli's paintings "grotesque", much like his fellow Northern Italian painter, Cosimo Tura
Cosimo Tura
Cosimo Tura , also known as Il Cosmè or Cosmè Tura, was an Italian early-Renaissance painter and considered one of the founders of the School of Ferrara....
.
Few artists seem to have worked with more uniformity of purpose, or more forthright command of his materials; this singlemindedness was recognised by the number of prestigious commissions he was awarded. It is possible that Carlo was of the same family as the painter Donato Crivelli (who was working in 1459, and was also a scholar of Jacobello); Vittorio Crivelli
Vittorio Crivelli
Vittorio Crivelli was an Italian painter, brother of Carlo Crivelli. Born ca. 1440 in Venice, dead in Venice 1501 or 1502. His works are similar in style to his brother's, but less accomplished....
, with whom he occasionally collaborated, was his younger brother. Pietro Alemanno
Pietro Alemanno
Pietro Alemanno was an Italian-Austrian painter of the Renaissance period.He was born in Göttweig and died in Ascoli Piceno. He trained with Carlo Crivelli. He painted an altarpiece of Virgin and Child between SS. Michael, Biaise, Jerome, and Nicholas for the church of Santa Maria della Carita...
, a painter who had travelled to the March of Ancona from Germany/Austria, was his pupil/collaborator.
Death and legacy
Carlo Crivelli died in the Marche (probably Ascoli PicenoAscoli Piceno
Ascoli Piceno is a town and comune in the Marche region of Italy, capital of the province of the same name. Its population is c. 51,400.-Geography:...
) around 1495. His work fell out of favour following his death and he is not mentioned in Vasari's Lives of the Artists (which is notably Florence-centric). He had something of a revival, especially in the UK, during the time of the pre-Raphaelite painters, several of whom, including Edward Burne-Jones
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company...
were admirers of Crivelli. Admiration for his work declined with the decline of the pre-Raphaelites during the Modernist period, but recent writings on his work and a rehanging of his work in the National Gallery, London
National Gallery, London
The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...
, are again bringing him more attention.
The Madonna with child and saints can be seen in the town of Monte San Martino in Marche. In addition, the otherwise unremarkable church of San Giacomo Maggiore
San Giacomo Maggiore
San Giacomo Maggiore is a church in Bologna, central Italy. It was founded by the Augustinian Order in 1267 and houses, among the rest, the Bentivoglio Chapel, featuring numerous Renaissance artworks.-History:...
in the small hill town of Massignano
Massignano
Massignano is a comune in the Province of Ascoli Piceno in the Italian region Marche, located about 70 km southeast of Ancona and about 30 km northeast of Ascoli Piceno...
in Marche boasts a Madonna and child by Crivelli.
Sources
- Encyclopedia of Artists, volume 2, edited by William H.T. Vaughan, ISBN 0-19-521572-9, 2000
- Italian Art, edited by Gloria Fossi, ISBN 88-09-01771-4, 2000