Antonio da Correggio

Antonio Allegri called Correggio (Correggio, c 1489 - Correggio, March 5, 1534) was an Italian painter

Starting from the culture of the fifteenth century and by the great masters of the time, such as Leonardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Mantegna, he inaugurated a new way of conceiving painting and elaborated his own original artistic pathway, placing it among the greats of the sixteenth century

In virtue of the expressive sweetness of his characters and for his extensive prospective use, both in sacred and in sacred paintings, he imposed himself on the Padana land as the most modern and bold bearer of the ideals of the Renaissance. In fact, the explosion of Venetian color And Roman mannerism, contrasted to a fluid, luminous, strong emotional style In the effort to obtain the utmost expression of lightness and grace, Correggio was a forerunner of illusionistic painting Introduced light and color to counteract the forms and develop new Effects of chiaroscuro, creating the illusion of plasticity with sometimes hard and bold overlays

The luminosity and the compositional structure at the diagonal also allowed him to acquire a significant spatial depth in his paintings, characteristic of the latter, typical of his style. The majestic altarpiece of the 1920s is a spectacular conception, with gestures concatenated, expressions Smiling, intriguing characters, suffocating colors

The light, declining in a soft and delicate chiaroscuro, made one of the points of no return of painting, capable of influencing artistic movements such as the baroque of Giovanni Lanfranco and Baciccio and the neoclassicism of Anton Raphael Mengs

It was presumably born in Correggio, a town from which he took the nickname, Pellegrino Allegri and Bernardina Piazzoli degli Ormani, towards 1489. His father's family originated in Florence: his grandfather Domenico was exiled in 1433 for his opposition to Cosimo Old, and settled in Emilia Correggio at that time it was one of the small independent feudals that stretched out Emilia, managed by the counts of Correggio, of ancient nobility repeatedly related to the Farnese of the nearby Parma

Of all the great protagonists of his time, Correggio is the least-documented artist and there are many legends, I have said over the centuries, on his biography. However, remains the testimony of Giorgio Vasari, the first biographer of the painter about his death, Which would take place after an exhausting journey by foot from Parma, under the weight of a huge bag of small coins by a potter, for a total of 60 shields A legend that does not rely on the analysis of facts and sources, but that makes Perfection the uncertainties and difficulties of a full and complete reconstruction of the artist's life

There is less information about his formation. Allegri may have been initially a pupil of some local painters: his uncle Lorenzo, his cousin Quirino Allegri and the correcting artist Antonio Bartolotti. Then he was a pupil of Francesco Bianchi Ferrari in Modena, the sculptor Antonio Begarelli and by 1506 he was in Mantua, where perhaps he had just come to know about Elder Mantegna: on a direct alunta, the first mention was made in 1559 by the Spanish traveler Pablo de Céspedes, who visited Parma but did not As if he had first hand information A document from 1512 saw the artist creditor of Francesco Mantegna, the eldest of Andrea and heir of his shop. In any case, Mantova Correggio was able to admire the works of the master being fascinated mainly by the illusionistic effects of the House of Bride Appointed to decorate the funeral chapel of the artist, who died in 1506, in the basilica of Sant'Andrea, created a faux arbor In which the interests of the illusory expansion of space, already developed in its mature masterpieces

Young Correggio also welcomed the Leonardian chiaroscuro suggestions and Raffaello acquired the taste for monumental forms, combined with the sense of placid contemplation of Umbrian and Florentine painters. He also participated, in the sign of a great cultural opening, of the Venetian experience (Top From Conegliano, Giorgione, Titian), the Ferrarese (Costa, Dossi), Francesco Francia, Melozzo da Forlì and his views "from underneath", and of the Nordic artists (Dürer and Altdorfer). He also met Michelangelo Anselmi, the novelties of the Beccafumi Such a wealth of inspiration gave him an autonomous trait based on the search for a narrative fluidity, where the blurred Leonardesco was combined with a rich color, softly laid, and a perfect domination of prospective illusion, learned from Mantegna

At this time, a series of "small-format" style exercises are given, that is, a series of small squares where he practiced on themes and ways of other masters (especially Mantegna and Leonardo), experimenting with his advances in the " Art with a certain unprejudiced freedom These works, including Judith and his handmaid with Oloferne's head or Madonna and Child between two musician angels, were thus to be born as private objects, then given to a circle of lovers very close to the painter

The first works of Correggio, between 1510 and 1514, are characterized by a certain hardness in the figures derived from the example of Mantegna Esse they stand one by one, with folds of folds often multiplied rigidly, with a prevalence of brown colors And deep, typical of the Lombard tradition, enlivened by glittering and shimmering notes, with remarkable atmospheric sensations in landscapes

Testimony of this youth phase are two masterpieces: the Nativity of Brera and the Madonna of St. Francis, already in the church of San Francesco in Correggio and today in Dresden, commissioned in 1514 The scholars agree to date around the end of the first decade of the sixteenth century His journey to Rome, which was essential to learn directly from the ancient models and the extraordinary novelties of Raphael and Michelangelo. At this time, the fresco on the back wall of the Refectory in the monastery of San Benedetto Polirone, although not all historians Of art agree on the assignment

The lost lump of Our Lady of Albinea and Resting in Egypt with Saint Francis Ideally closed the First Period of His Career At that time the artist was still in the native town, a center for nothing secondary in the cultural life of the time, where the court of Veronica Gambara, a friend of poets like Aretino, Ariosto, Sweet, Bembo and herself very fine poetess, had assured the small county a prestige that went far beyond the local boundaries

The second period of life of Correggio was concentrated in Parma, where he has been active since 1520 with the execution of an enigmatic work of high stylistic refinement: the "Portrait of a Lady" (variously identified in Veronica Gambara or in all likelihood In Geneva Rangoni, wife of Aloisio Gonzaga and marquis of Castel Goffredo) signed with the Latinization of his name: Anton (ius) Laet (us)

In Parma, in the same year, she was in her first major painting business with the decoration of the "Badessa Chamber" in the Monastery of Sao Paulo, commissioned by the bride, namely, Giovanna Piacenza. No document of this work came to fruition But stylistic considerations combined with documentation related to the commissioner of the work induce us to think of an execution around 1519. We do not know how Correggio came into contact with the badge but, since the monastery of Saint Paul was Benedictine, It is possible that the relationships the artist had had with the Benedictines of St. Benedict Po (Mantua)

Correggio's knowledge of the recent achievements of the Roman Renaissance is not supported by sources, but some of the reasons for the House suggest a well-developed knowledge of Raffaello and works such as the Signature Room and the Psyche Loggia (the latter still In work) In Rome maybe the artist also saw the lost chapel of the Belvedere di Mantegna (about 1480, lost but described by Chattard in the 18th century), a possible source of further inspiration. A visit to Milan was also often recalled by scholars to explain the Affinity of young Correggio with Leonardo; Moreover, the Lombard capital was not so far from Parma and even a painter of lesser importance than Correggio, such as Alessandro Araldi, had been asked by Cecilia Bergonzi, the emperor of the monastery before Giovanna da Piacenza, to go to see the "Cenaculo "Wins A reminder of this fundamental work seems to conceal itself in some marginalities such as" cups, mugs and other pottery "carefully described in the effects that light has amused to create on metal surfaces in a manner not unlike what Leonardo had ostentatious on the tablecloth Of fiendra leonardesca

The decoration had to be shipped and already completed in 1520. For Correggio it was the first fresco masterpiece and marked the start of a fortunate decade in which its greatest masterpieces were concentrated in Parma The Chamber itself marked a new milestone in the " Pictorial illusionism and was admired and cited by painters, though only for a short span. The base is almost square (about 7 × 6.95 m), the room is covered with a late-lasting umbrella made in 1514 by Edoari from Herba, and originally featured tapestries on the walls

The vault wants to mimic an open pergola on the sky, thus transforming the interior environment into an illusory garden. The ribs of the vault divide each clam into four zones, corresponding to a wall. At the center of the vault is the emblem of the almond, in golden stucco, Around which the artist conceived a system of artistically knotted pink bands, to which they are linked to plant festoons, one per sector. The background is a fake pergola that remembers and develops the themes of the Mantegna's Room of the Mantegna and the Axis Room By Leonardo Ciascun festoon ends in an oval opening where, in the background of a clear sky, there are groups of puttini Bottom down, along the walls, there are lunettes that simulate niches containing statues, realized with an extraordinary effect trompe l ' Oeil studying the real lighting of the room Finally the bottom band simulates peduncles with rays, to which are hanged linen cloths, supporting various objects (dishes, va Yes, jugs, pewter), another piece of virtuosity On the fireplace hood, Correggio painted the goddess Diana on a horseshoe horse

The success of the Badessa Chamber opened new important commissions in Correggio, first of all the decoration of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma, just finished reconstructing in Renaissance forms

The artist, who worked there from 1520 to 1524, decorated the apse and dome Today the decoration of the dome remains with the vision of Saint John, the drum, the plumes and the frieze, while the coronation of the Virgin, Already in the cap of the apse, there is only a fragment in the National Gallery of Parma

In the extraordinary dome he used the broken, that is, it simulates an open sky with the monumental figures of the apostles making the crown, following the perimeter of the dome, to the Christ suspended mid-air The elimination of every architectural element and the strong and violent color tone They enhance the suggestion of the scene Unlike the 15th century tradition, the decoration appears free from architectural scores and organized to be viewed from two distinct points of view: what the Benedictine brothers had gathered in the chorus (the only ones to whom it was given to see Figure of St. John), and that of the faithful in the nave In this, the work imposes itself as one of the most original and successful illusionistic experiments of the painting of the sixteenth century

The ability to handle the figures in sight, what was then considered to be one of the most arduous difficulties of art and which Correggio had already investigated in the owls of the House of St. Paul, found in the architecture of the clouds of San Giovanni's frescoes His first accomplished expression

Following the success of San Giovanni, Correggio began receiving ever more prestigious commissions. Among the first, in 1524, there had to be the partial decoration of the Chapel of the Bono in the same church, commissioned by Placido del Bono that required two canvases for the Poarets Sideways: the Fall on the Dead Christ and the Martyrdom of the Four Saints, both today at the National Gallery of Parma

These were highly experimental works with diagonal views that were perfected with a lateral view of the canvases. They developed strongly the research devoted to the representation of the "motions of the soul", that is, those human expressions that generate a pathos linked to the events experienced by the Characters It was no coincidence that, although far removed from the other great masters in Italy, they did the school for the Emilian classics of the seventeenth century (Carracci, Reni), which with these innovations laid the foundation for Baroque painting

In 1522 he signed the contract for the decoration of the choir and dome of the cathedral of Parma, started to paint only in about 1524, after the end of the works in San Giovanni In the dome is painted the scene of the Assumption of the Virgin, in which a multitude of Angels arranged in the form of ascending vortex accompany the rise of Our Lady on a cloudy sky Here the figures lose their individuality, becoming an integral part of a grand choral scene, exalted by the use of light, light and flowing tones that create a continuous harmonic To the point of time

Correggio conceived his decoration by entrusting, as already in St. John the Evangelist, to illusionism free from geometric scores, far beyond the possible example offered by Mantegna or Melozzo da Forlì, who by fifteenth artists placed their characters within A rigorous geometric scheme Correggio organized instead the space painted around a vortex of bodies in flight that creates a spiral as never before seen, which, on the contrary, nullifies architecture, visually removing the angles and destroying the physicality of the wall structure: In fact, in fact, in fact, as characters seem to be painted on plaster, for an excellent balance they seem to hover in the air

The drum is occupied by an illusory parapet, perforated by true oculi, along which a series of angels and apostles are in balance. A cloud spiral twists in the crescendo of feelings and light, with the episode of the cloud On which Mary is standing, dressed in red and blue and thrust by angels, wings and lips, toward her celestial glorification. In the middle, a blazing blast of golden light perfects the prodigious divine apparition of Jesus who opened the heavens and meets the mother , Just as it happened in the frescoes of the dome of St. John the Evangelist. The spiral composition, perfected by all the prospective approaches both of the scale of the figures and of blur in the light for the farthest subjects, guides the eye of the spectator in depth And accentuates the ascending motion of the figures Below are the four Parma protectors in the plumes

The source of light represents the Empire, the seat of Heavenly Paradise and God's dwelling. This heaven can also be assimilated to the heart of Christ and the Virgin Mary. The arrangement of the clouds emphasizes the ascending movement of the Virgin. The spiral movement symbolizes the journey of 'Soul after death

Typically, Correggio avoided representing iconographic detail, such as the individual attributes that would allow to identify the figures of each apostle or saint or, even more radical, the grave from which the Virgin was taken to heaven. This omission, as it is It was in fact intended to involve the concrete space of the underlying church in the dome's view, allowing the faithful to imagine the presence of the tomb in the space where the altar was located and thus to perceive the continuity between the earth and the real world And the divine world illusually fake by painting

Alongside work as frescoes, in the 1920s, Correggio worked on painting a series of important altar-posts for Modena (Madonna of San Sebastiano and Madonna of San Giorgio), for Reggio Emilia (Madonna di San Girolamo Day and Adoration of the Shepherds called the Night), for Parma (Madonna della Scodella) and Correggio (Trittico dell'Umanità)

These are works of great elegance, characterized by a growing softness of the patterned, chromatic finesse and dynamic effect obtained thanks to the concatenation of gestures and glances. In these connections the painter succeeded in seizing the most authentic bond between the various figures, Leonardo da Vinci's lesson From the richness of light sources of Night or Orr in the garden, the research on the luminance of the Carracci

Next to these works are the private commissions for small-scale works (extraordinary such as Child Adoration at the Uffizi or Ecce Homo at the National Gallery in London) and launch the series of mythological works, which were the recurring subject In its latest production

Between 1524 and 1527 he performed the canvas with Venus and Love spied on by a satire, now preserved at the Louvre, representing Earth Love, and the Cupid Education of the National Gallery of London, which represents heavenly Love Maybe The pair of canvases was made on commission by Count Mantua Nicola Maffei, in whose house they were found in 1536 By now affirmed and esteemed by the Po Valley, spent the last years of life in an attempt to meet the many requests for works that came from many Local lords and especially those of Mantua

Isabella d'Este, marquise of Mantua, commissioned two works that would complete the decoration of his studio in the Palazzo Ducale of Mantua, certainly the most dear and intimate environment for her. They are thus made up to 1531, Allegory of Vizio and The Allegory of Virtue, two canvases that represent one of the highest points of his painting, and which, in a sense, prefigure the four masterpieces with which he concludes his activity: the so-called Love of Jupiter (Danae, Leda and Swan, Ganimede and the eagle, Jupiter and Io) commissioned by Duke Federico II Gonzaga in the thirties of the sixteenth century

These are fundamental contributions to the development of painting with a mythological and profane subject, thanks to the new and extraordinary balance between naturalistic rendering and poetic transfiguration

Returning home, Correggio dies suddenly on March 5, 1534 The following day is buried in St. Francis at Correggio near his youthful masterpiece, the Madonna of St. Francis today in Dresden

Works:
List of pictorial works by Correggio, by date

Youth phase:
Madonna and Child among the Saints Quirino and Francesco, circa 1505, fresco detached, 94.5 × 111.5 cm, Modena, Galleria Estense
Funeral Chapel by Andrea Mantegna, circa 1507, fresco cycle, Mantova, Sant'Andrea Basilica
Madonna Barrymore, circa 1508-1510, oil on canvas, 56 × 41 cm, Washington, National Gallery of Art
Sacred Family with the Saints Elisabetta and Giovannino, circa 1509-1511, fresco detached, diam 150 cm, Mantua, Diocesan Museum
Deposition, circa 1509-1511, fresco with sinopia, diam 150 cm, Mantua, Diocesan Museum
Madonna and Child among the saints Elisabetta and Giovanni Battista, circa 1510, oil on table, 60 × 43 cm, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Sacred Family with the Saints Elizabeth and John, circa 1510, oil on the table, 28 × 21.5 cm, Pavia, Pinacoteca Malaspina
Judith and her handmaid with Oloferne's head, circa 1510, oil on the table, 27 × 20 cm, Strasbourg, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Mystical wedding of St. Catherine of Alexandria and Saints, circa 1510, oil on canvas, 27.8 × 21.3 cm, Washington, National Gallery of Art
Young Christ in the Temple, circa 1510, oil on board, 42.6 × 33.3 cm, Washington, National Gallery of Art
Mystical wedding of St. Catherine of Alexandria and three saints in a landscape, about 1512, oil on table, 136 × 123 cm, Detroit, Institute of Arts
Committed of Christ by His Mother, circa 1512, oil on canvas, 86.7 × 76.5 cm, London, National Gallery
Nativity with the Saints Elisabetta and Giovannino, circa 1512, oil on table, 77 × 99 cm, Milan, Brera Art Gallery
Madonna with Child, about 1512-1514, oil on canvas, 66 × 55 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum
Portrait of doctor (uncertain attr), circa 1513, oil on canvas, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie
Madonna with Child and Saint John, circa 1513-1514, canvas oil, 64 × 30 cm, Chicago, Art Institute
Sacred Family with St. John, circa 1514, oil on canvas, 26 × 20 cm, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Young Christ, circa 1514, oil on table, 55 × 44 cm, private collection
Madonna Bolognini, circa 1514-1519, oil on canvas, 60 × 51 cm, Milan, Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco
David in front of the Ark of the Alliance, 1515, oil on canvas, 260 × 153,5 cm, Turin, private collection
Madonna of St. Francis, circa 1515, oil on table, 299 × 245 cm, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie
Portrait of young woman, circa 1515, oil on table, 42 × 33 cm, Miami, Lowe Art Museum
Sacred Family with Saint Jerome, circa 1515, oil on board, 68 × 56.6 cm, Hampton Court, Royal Collection
Madonna with Child between two musician angels, about 1515-1516, oil on table, 20 × 16.3 cm, Florence, Uffizi Gallery
Adoration of the Magi, circa 1515-1518, oil on canvas, 84 × 108 cm, Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera
Pietà, 1516-1517, oil on table, 34,5 × 29,2 cm, Correggio, Civic Museum
The Zingarella, circa 1516-1517, oil on table, 49 × 37 cm, Naples, Museum of Capodimonte
Four saints, 1516-1517, oil on canvas, 221.6 × 161 cm, New York, Metropolitan Museum
San Girolamo, circa 1517, oil on board, 64 × 51 cm, Madrid, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
Madonna Campori, circa 1517, oil on table, 58 × 45 cm, Modena, Estense Gallery
Sant'Antonio Abate, circa 1517-1518, oil on table, 49 × 32 cm, Naples, Museum of Capodimonte
Madonna of Albinea, 1517-1519, oil on table, 160 × 152 cm, lost
Mary Magdalene, circa 1518, oil on canvas, 38 × 30 cm, London, National Gallery
Madonna with Child and St. John, circa 1518, oil on canvas, 48 ​​× 37 cm, Madrid, Prado Museum
Face of Christ, circa 1518, Correggio, Civic Museum
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