Giovanni Battista Gaulli
Encyclopedia
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...
verging onto that of the Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
. He is best known for his grand, Gianlorenzo Bernini-influenced illusionistic vault fresco in the church of the Gesù
Church of the Gesu
The Church of the Gesù is the mother church of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic religious order also known as the Jesuits. Officially named , its facade is "the first truly baroque façade", introducing the baroque style into architecture ,. The church served as model for innumerable Jesuit...
in Rome
Biography and development of style
Gaulli was born in GenoaGenoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, where his parents died from the plague of 1657. He initially apprenticed with Luciano Borzone
Luciano Borzone
Luciano Borzone was an Italian painter of the Baroque period , active mainly in his natal city of Genoa....
. In mid-17th century, Gaulli's Genoa was a cosmopolitan Italian artistic center open to both commercial and artistic enterprises from north European countries, including countries with non-Catholic populations such as England and the Dutch provinces. Painters such as Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck
Anthony van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next...
stayed in Genoa for a few years. Gaulli's earliest influences would have come from an eclectic mix of these foreign painters and other local artists including Valerio Castello
Valerio Castello
Valerio Castello was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He was very active during his short life in Genoa.He was the youngest son of Bernardo Castello, who died when Valerio was six year old...
, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione was an Italian Baroque artist, painter, printmaker and draftsman, of the Genoese school. He is best known now for his elaborate engravings, and as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monotyping. He was known as Il Grechetto in Italy and in France as Le...
, and Bernardo Strozzi
Bernardo Strozzi
Bernardo Strozzi was a prominent and prolific Italian Baroque painter born and active mainly in Genoa, and also active in Venice.-Biography:Strozzi was born in Genoa. He was probably not related to the other Strozzi family....
, whose warm palette Gaulli adopted. In the 1660s, he experimented with the cooler palette and linear style of Bolognese classicism.
He soon, however, moved to Rome. In 1662, he was accepted into the Roman artists' guild, 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...
(Academy of Saint Luke), where he was to later hold several offices. The next year, he received his first public commission for an altarpiece, in the church of San Rocco, Rome. He received many private commissions for mythological and religious works.
From 1669, however, after a visit to Parma, 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...
's frescoed dome-ceiling in the cathedral of Parma, Gaulli's painting took on a more painterly (less linear) aspect, and the composition, organized di sotto in su ("from below looking up"), would influence his later masterpiece. At his height, Gaulli was one of Rome's most esteemed portrait painters. Gaulli is not well known for any other medium but paint, though many drawings in many media have survived. All are studies for paintings.
Gaulli died in Rome, shortly after March 26, 1709, probably April 2.
Frescoes for the Church of the Gesù
By the first half of the 17th century, the extensive interior decoration had been completed for the two generally contemporaneous "mother" churches, (Sant'AndreaSant'Andrea della Valle
Sant'Andrea della Valle is a basilica church in Rome, Italy, in the rione of Sant'Eustachio. The basilica is the general seat for the religious order of the Theatines.-Overview:...
and the Chiesa Nuova), of two major counter-reformation orders, the Theatines
Theatines
The Theatines or the Congregation of Clerks Regular of the Divine Providence are a male religious order of the Catholic Church, with the post-nominal initials "C.R."-Foundation:...
and Oratorians. This was not true for the two large Jesuit churches in Rome, which, while rich in marble and stone, remained artistically barren by the mid-17th century. This void would have been particularly evident for Il Gesù with its cavernous blank plaster nave ceiling. Funding and inertia stalled its decoration.
In 1661, the election of a new General of the Jesuit order, Gian Paolo Oliva, advanced the decoration. A new inductee into the order, the French Jacques Courtois
Jacques Courtois
Jacques Courtois was a French painter.-Biography:He was born at Saint-Hippolyte, near Besançon. His father was a painter, and with him Jacques remained studying up to the age of fifteen...
(also known as Giacomo Borgognone) had become a respected painter and was the main candidate for its decoration. Oliva and the leader of the main patron family, the Duke of Parma, Ranuccio II Farnese
Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma
Ranuccio II Farnese was the sixth Duke of Parma and Piacenza from 1646 until his death nearly 50 years later.-Birth and Succession:...
whose uncle Cardinal Alessandro Farnese had endowed the construction of the church, began negotiating whether Borgognone should decorate the vault. Oliva wanted his fellow Jesuit for the commission, yet other prominent names such as 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...
, Ferri
Ciro Ferri
Ciro Ferri was an Italian Baroque sculptor and painter, the chief pupil and successor of Pietro da Cortona.He was born in Rome, where he began working under Cortona and with a team of artists in the extensive fresco decorations of the Quirinal Palace...
, and Giacinto Brandi
Giacinto Brandi
Giacinto Brandi was an Italian painter of the Baroque era, active mainly in Rome and Naples.Born in Poli, in the Lazio, he was trained in Rome in the studio of Alessandro Algardi, a noted sculptor, who noted that Brandi was more suited to painting. He joined the studio of Giovanni Giacomo Sementi...
were suggested. Ultimately, with Bernini's persuasive support and likely strong guidance thereafter, Oliva awarded the prestigious commission to the mere 22 year old Gaulli. This choice may have been somewhat controversial, since Gaulli's naked figures recently frescoed in the pendentives for Sant'Agnese in Agone
Sant'Agnese in Agone
Sant'Agnese in Agone is a seventeenth century Baroque church in Rome, Italy. It faces onto the Piazza Navona, one of the main urban spaces in the historic centre of the city and the site where the Early Christian Saint Agnes was martyred in the ancient Stadium of Domitian.The rebuilding of the...
had offended some eyes, and, as had happened to Michelangelo's Sistine chapel altar frescoes, had required repainting to impose painted clothes.
Gaulli decorated the entire dome including lantern and pendentives, central vault, window recesses, and transepts' ceilings. The original contract stipulated the dome was to be completed in two years, and the remainder by the end of ten years. If it met the approval of a panel, Gaulli was to be paid 14,000 scudi plus expenses. Gaulli's main vault fresco was unveiled on Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...
, 1679. After this, he continued frescoing of the vaults of the tribune and other areas in the church until 1685.
Gaulli's program for the nave was likely heavily overseen by Oliva and Bernini; though it is not clear how much all three contributed and whether they all shared the same philosophy. During this time, Bernini supposedly espoused some quietist teachings of the Spanish priest Miguel de Molinos
Miguel de Molinos
Miguel de Molinos , Spanish divine, the chief apostle of the religious revival known as Quietism, was born about 1628 near Muniesa ....
, who was later condemned as heretical in no small part due to Jesuit efforts. Molinos proposed that God was accessible internally through an individual experience, while the Jesuits saw the church and clergy as an essential intermediary for access to Christ's salvation. Thus Oliva would have likely asked Gaulli to memorialize the role of frequently-martyred Jesuits as the apostolic shock troops
Shock troops
Shock troops or assault troops are formations created to lead an attack. "Shock troop" is a loose translation of the German word Stoßtrupp...
in heretical and pagan societies, leading the charge of the papal Counter-Reformation
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...
. Ultimately, just as Bernini approved of the intermixing fresco and plaster in this new plastic conception, Gaulli blends these ideas in a fashion ultimately acceptable to his patron.
Gaulli's nave masterpiece, the "Triumph of the Sacred Name of Jesus" (also known as the Worship, Adoration, or Triumph of the Holy Name of Jesus), is an allegory of the work of the Jesuits that envelops worshippers (or observers) below into the whirlwind of devotion. Swirling figures in the dark distal (entry) border of the composition frame base the open sky, ever rising upward toward a celestial vision of infinite depth. The light from Jesus' name - IHS - and symbol of the Jesuit order is gathered by patrons and saints above the clouds; while in the darkness below, a fusillade of brilliance scatters heretics, as if smitten by blasts of the Last Judgment
Last Judgment
The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, or The Day of the Lord in Christian theology, is the final and eternal judgment by God of every nation. The concept is found in all the Canonical gospels, particularly the Gospel of Matthew. It will purportedly take place after the...
. The great theatrical effect here inspired and developed under his mentor, prompted critics to label Gaulli a "Bernini in paint" or a "mouthpiece of Bernini's ideas".
Gaulli's frescoes were a tour-de-force in illusionary painting, depicting the church's roof opens up above the viewer (and that the panorama is viewed in true perspective di sotto in su, similar to 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...
's Assumption of the Virgin in the ceiling of the Parma Cathedral or to Cortona
Pietro 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...
's grand allegory at 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:...
. Gaulli's ceiling is a masterpiece of quadratura (architectural illusionism) combining stuccoed and painted figures and architecture. Bernini's pupil Antonio Raggi
Antonio Raggi
Antonio Raggi , also called Antonio Lombardo, was a sculptor of the Roman Baroque, originating from Ticino.-Biography:He was born in Vico Morcote on the Lake Lugano. His mentor in Rome for nearly three decades was Gianlorenzo Bernini...
provided the stucco figures, and from the nave floor, it is difficult to distinguish painted from stucco angels. The figural composition spill over the frame's edges which only heightens the illusion of the faithful rising miraculously toward the light above.
Later work and legacy
A series of such ceilings were painted in the naves of Roman churches during the last three decades of the 17th century, including Andrea PozzoAndrea Pozzo
Andrea Pozzo was an Italian Jesuit Brother, Baroque painter and architect, decorator, stage designer, and art theoretician. He was best known for his grandiose frescoes using illusionistic technique called quadratura, in which architecture and fancy are intermixed...
's massive allegory at the other Roman Jesuit church, S. Ignazio, as well as Domenico Maria Canuti
Domenico Maria Canuti
Domenico Maria Canuti was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Bologna and Rome.Born in Bologna, Canuti first trained in that city under Guido Reni, then with Guercino. He painted many ceiling and wall frescoes...
's and Enrico Haffner
Enrico Haffner
Enrico Haffner was an Italian painter of quadratura during the Baroque period, active mainly in Bologna in the late 16th and early 17th centuries....
's Apotheosis at Santissimi Domenico e Sisto. In the 18th century, Tiepolo
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo , also known as Gianbattista or Giambattista Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice...
and others continued quadratura in the grand manner. But as the High Baroque movement evolved into the more playful Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
, the popularity of this style dwindled. In his later works, Gaulli too moved in this direction. Thus, in contrast to the grandeur of his composition at Il Gesù, we see Gaulli gradually adopting less intense colours, and more delicate compositions after 1685—all hallmarks of the Rococo.
Gaulli accumulated a large number of pupils. He is described as easy to mount a rage; but ready to recover, where reason was satisfied... generous, liberal of mind, and charitable, specially towards the poor.
List of works
- The worship of the Holy Name of Jesus/Adoration of the Name of Jesus/Triumph in the Name of Jesus (Il Gesù, Rome) (1674–79)
- Four Cardinal Virtues (Sant' Agnese, Rome)
- Self-portrait (UffiziUffiziThe Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...
) - Portraits of seven consecutive popes:
- Pope Alexander VIIPope Alexander VIIPope Alexander VII , born Fabio Chigi, was Pope from 7 April 1655, until his death.- Early life :Born in Siena, a member of the illustrious banking family of Chigi and a great-nephew of Pope Paul V , he was privately tutored and eventually received doctorates of philosophy, law, and theology from...
- Pope Clement IXPope Clement IXPope Clement IX , born Giulio Rospigliosi, was Pope from 1667 to 1669.-Early life:Born Giulio Rospigliosi to a noble family of Pistoia, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, he was a pupil of the Jesuits. After receiving his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Pisa, he taught theology there...
- Pope Clement XPope Clement XPope Clement X , born Emilio Bonaventura Altieri, was Pope from 29 April 1670 to 22 July 1676.-Early life:Emilio Altieri was born in Rome, the son of Lorenzo Altieri and Victoria Delphini, a Venetian lady...
- Pope Innocent XIPope Innocent XIBlessed Pope Innocent XI , born Benedetto Odescalchi, was Pope from 1676 to 1689.-Early life:Benedetto Odescalchi was born at Como in 1611 , the son of a Como nobleman, Livio Odescalchi, and Paola Castelli Giovanelli from Gandino...
- Pope Alexander VIIIPope Alexander VIIIPope Alexander VIII , born Pietro Vito Ottoboni, was Pope from 1689 to 1691.-Early life:Pietro Ottoboni was born of a noble Venetian family, and was the son of Marco Ottoboni, chancellor of the Republic of Venice...
- Pope Innocent XIIPope Innocent XIIPope Innocent XII , born Antonio Pignatelli, was Pope from 1691 to 1700.-Biography:He was born in Spinazzola to one of the most aristocratic families of the Kingdom of Naples, which included many Viceroys, and ministers to the crown, and was educated at the Jesuit college in Rome.In his twentieth...
- Pope Clement XIPope Clement XIPope Clement XI , born Giovanni Francesco Albani, was Pope from 1700 until his death in 1721.-Early life:...
- Pope Alexander VII
See also
- High Baroque
- Gianlorenzo Bernini
- Martino AltomonteMartino AltomonteMartino Altomonte, born Johann Martin Hohenberg was an Italian Baroque painter of Austrian descent who mainly worked in Poland and Austria.-Life and work:...
, one of Gaulli's pupils