Donato Creti

Donato Creti (1671 - 1749) was an Italian painter of the Rococo period, active mostly in Bologna. He is described by Wittkower as the "Bolognese Marco Benefial", in that his style was less decorative and edged into a more formal neoclassical style. It is an academicized grand style, that crystallizes into a manneristic neoclassicism, with crisp and frigid modeling of the figures.

In mythological and pastoral paintings, the art of Creti reaches the best results of refinement of stretch and contour precision. worthy of mentioning Alexander the Great threatened by Father Philip of Macedonia, Episodes of Achilles' History, Country Scenes and Balloon of nymphs.

Donato Creti was born in Cremona by the quadraturist painter Giuseppe and by the Cremonese Anna Caffi, sister-in-law of the famous nature mascot Margherita Caffi.

Donato's childhood news is scarce, after returning to his family in 1673.

Given the environment in which he lived, the boy showed an early disposition to the drawing, prompting his father to place him in the shop of the painter Giorgio Raparini, where he was passionate about Guido Reni and Simone Cantarini's sheets.

Having produced a favorable impression in the painter Gerolamo Negri called the Boccia, he persuaded Donato's father to place him in the prestigious Academy of Nude at home by the famous painter Lorenzo Pasinelli. It seems due to the fact that, being the youngest among the students, the little Donato was called in the "Little Boy" environment. He attended the Accademia for delight and family passion also Pietro Ercole Fava, son of one of the most distinguished noblemen in Bologna, Senator Count Alessandro.

Palazzo Fava, who could boast of the prestigious painting cycle of the Carracci with the Stories of Giasone and Medea, was considered a temple of Bolognese painting, and the same Count Alexander exercised an enlightened patron, receiving within it the best artists of the city. Encouraged by the flattering impressions of his son, he invited Donato, then fourteen, to his home, inviting him to propose an essay about his skill in drawing.

The result was that Count Alessandro conceived a great admiration for the talent of Donato and since then housed him home together with his son to follow and patronize his artistic education.

Until that time, Donato had not yet begun to paint, but from that moment on, he painted numerous canvases, most of which was jealously preserved by Count Fava in his palace, and at seventeen (1688) The same Count entrusted to Donato the decoration of a contiguous hall (now lost) to that frescoed by the Carracci.

Many drawings and paintings from Crete carry the notes of Count Fava on the back, which invented and dated with love the works Donato produced. It is this time that the first paintings came to us, depicting a boy with two candles in his hand, bearing the inscription "1688 - Donato Cretti made A.FA.".

As far as I'm concerned, the "self-portrait", in which Donato represents himself as an avid young man with dreamy expression and vaporous hair. The brushstroke is soft and the rarefied clarity that will be the distinctive brand of Crete is still far away.

From 1711 Crete produced eight paintings depicting the observation of an astronomer.

In the early eighteenth century, Crete was in Venice in the company of Pietro Ercole Fava. In 1713 he married Francesca Zani, who died six years later, leaving the painter with three children.

Donato Creti was named Prince of the Clementine Academy in 1728.

Among the many ecclesiastical commissions that the Crete remembered the altarpiece Incoronazione della Vergine and the paintings Madonna and S. Ignazio (1737), The alms of S. Carlo Borromeo (1740), Dream of Job and Solomon and the queen Of Saba.

Works:
One memorable conceit in Creti's output is a series of small canvases depicting celestial bodies, disproportionately sized and illuminated, above nocturnal landscapes. The paintings, commissioned in 1711 by the Bolognese count Luigi Marsili and intended as a gift to Pope Clement XI, were meant to accentuate the need for the Papal States to sponsor an astronomical observatory. With the support of Clement XI, the first public astronomical observatory in Italy was opened in Bologna a short time later. The eight small canvases display the sun, moon, a comet, and the then-known five planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. His Jupiter depicts the Great Red Spot (first reported in 1665) and at least two moons.

Cleopatra at Blanton Museum, Austin, Texas
Alexander Threatened by his Father[permanent dead link] at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Artemisia Drinking the Ashes of Mausolus at the National Gallery, London
Achilles Handed over to Chiron at Palazzo d'Accursio, Bologna
Education of Achilles at Palazzo d'Accursio, Bologna
Mercury and Paris at Palazzo d'Accursio, Bologna
Charity at Palazzo d'Accursio, Bologna
Allegorical Tomb of Boyle, Locke, and Sydenham at Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna
Allegorical Tomb of the Duke of Marlborough at Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna
Landscape with Female Figures at Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna
Visitation of the Virgin to Saint Elizabeth at Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna
Achilles Dipped in the Styx at Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna
Charity
Allegorical Tomb of Josepha Addison
Cumaen Sybil
Achilles and Chiron
"The Education of Achilles by Chiron"1714
https://hisour.com/artist/donato-creti/