Guido Cagnacci was an Italian

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 of the late-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...

 period, belonging to the Forlì painting school

Forlì painting school

The Forlivese school of art was a group of Italian Renaissance painters and artists, a lot of them born in Forlì or near Forlì, between the 14th and the 18th centuries...

 and to the Bolognese School

Bolognese School (painting)

The Bolognese School or the School of Bologna of painting flourished in Bologna, the capital of Emilia Romagna, between the 16th and 17th centuries in Italy, and rivalled Florence and Rome as the center of painting. Its most important representatives include the Carracci family, including Ludovico...

.

Born in Santarcangelo di Romagna

Santarcangelo di Romagna

Santarcangelo di Romagna is a town and comune in the province of Rimini, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, on the Via Emilia. As of 2009, it had a population of some 21,300. It is crossed by two rivers, the Uso and the Marecchia.- Santarcangelo Festival :...

 near Rimini

Rimini

Rimini is a medium-sized city of 142,579 inhabitants in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It is located on the Adriatic Sea, on the coast between the rivers Marecchia and Ausa...

, he died in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 in 1663. He worked in Rimini from 1627 to 1642. After that, he was in Forlì

Forlì

Forlì is a comune and city in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. The city is situated along the Via Emilia, to the right of the Montone river, and is an important agricultural centre...

, where absorbed the lesson of the Melozzo's painting.

Prior to that he had been in Rome, in contact with Guercino, Guido Reni

Guido Reni

Guido Reni was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style.-Biography:Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni and Ginevra de’ Pozzi. As a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after, he was joined in that...

 and Simon Vouet

Simon Vouet

Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France.-Life:...

. He may have had an apprenticeship with the elderly Ludovico Carracci

Ludovico Carracci

Ludovico Carracci was an Italian, early-Baroque painter, etcher, and printmaker born in Bologna....

. His initial output includes many devotional subjects. But moving to Venice under the name of Guico Baldo Canlassi da Bologna, he renewed a friendship with Nicolas Regnier

Nicolas Régnier

Nicolas Régnier , alternatively Niccolò Renieri in Italian, was a Flemish painter and art collector, active in Italy during the Baroque period....

, and dedicated himself to private salon paintings, often depicting sensuous naked women from thigh upwards, including Lucretia, Cleopatra, and Mary Magdalene. This allies him to a strand of courtly painting, epitomized in Florence by Francesco Furini

Francesco Furini

Francesco Furini was an Italian Baroque painter of Florence.His early training was by Matteo Rosselli , though Furini is also described as influenced by Domenico Passignano and Giovanni Biliverti . He befriended Giovanni da San Giovanni...

, Simone Pignoni

Simone Pignoni

Simone Pignoni was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.He apprenticed with Fabrizio Boschi, then with the more academic and puritanical Domenico Passignano, and finally with Francesco Furini. He is best known for painting in a style reminiscent of the morbidly sensual Furini. Reflective of...

 and others. In 1650, he moved 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...

. In 1658, he traveled to Vienna, where he remained under patronage of the emperor Leopold I.

His life was at times tempestuous, as characterized by his failed elopement (1628) with an aristocratic widow. Some contemporaries remark him as eccentric, unreliable and of doubtful morality. He is said to have enjoyed the company of cross-dressing models.

Cagnacci's work was, in one view, "entirely unappreciated by his contemporaries," but reassessed by modern critics; his painting is "warm with the heightened tones of grazing light, rich in the play of shadows and colors."

Selected works

• Procession of the Holy Sacrament (Salucedio)
• Christ with Saints Joseph and Eligius (1635)
• Madonna with saints Andre Corsini Teresa and Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi
  Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi
  Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi may refer to:*Santa María Magdalena de Pazzi *Church of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi in Florence*Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery in San Juan, Puerto Rico...
  
  (1640, Sant'Arcangelo
  Sant'Arcangelo
  Sant'Arcangelo is a town and comune in the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata....
  
  )
• Frescoes in Cappella della Madonna del Fuoco (Duomo, Forlì
  Forlì
  Forlì is a comune and city in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. The city is situated along the Via Emilia, to the right of the Montone river, and is an important agricultural centre...
  
  )
• Allegory of spheral Astrology (Pinacoteca civica
  Pinacoteca Civica di Forlì
  The Pinacoteca Civica of Forlì, one of the civic museums of Forlì and currently based in the Musei di San Domenico, is an Italian art gallery. Artists whose work the gallery exhibits include:* Livio Agresti* Beato Angelico...
  
  , Forlì)
• Glory of Saints Valerian and Mercurial (Faenza
  Faenza
  Faenza is an Italian city and comune, in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated 50 km southeast of Bologna.Faenza is noted for its manufacture of majolica ware glazed earthenware pottery, known from the name of the town as "faience"....
  
  )
• Leopold I portrait (Vienna)
• Calling of Saint Matthew (Museo della Città - Rimini)
• Allegorical Naked Figure (private)
• Death of Cleopatra (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie, Vienna)
• Death of Lucretia http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/mahg/musee/presse/cleopatre/cleopatre6.html
• Scolding of Mary Magdalene (Norton Simon Museum)

External links