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拍品专文
Neoclassical painting drew its ideas and motifs from Graeco-Roman art and artifacts and from the Renaissance classicism of Raphael. The excavations of Herculaneum and Pompei, dating from 1738 and 1748, respectively, stimulated the interest of artists, amateurs and collectors throughout Western Europe. These 'scavi' mainly aimed at the recovery of buried statues; at the same time, they unearthed vast numbers of wall paintings and mosaics whose designs were soon copied in prints and watercolors for distribution to an eager public.
The Roman delight in still lifes for murals and mosaics was already known in the Renaissance. The most popular motifs were baskets of fruit or flowers, and larder shelves laden with good things to eat. The famous Basket of Fruit painted by Caravaggio around 1596 (Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana) was a masterful recreation of these trompe l'oeil decorations. By contrast, the neoclassical painters shut their eyes to still lifes, preferring to represent the glorious deeds of gods and heroes.
Giuseppe Artioli, originally of Cento, but active in Mantua, was a fascinating exception. Vincenzo Requeno y Vives (Saggi sul ristabilimento dell'antica arte de' greci e romani pittori, I, Parma, 1787, 344), calls him a 'celebrated' painter. Be that as it may, Artioli was the Italian pioneer of the neoclassical revival of encaustic, or molten beeswax, medium. The ancient technique, which Pliny the Elder describes in his Natural History, made its first re-appearance in six encaustics sent by Joseph Marie Vien to the Salon of 1755. The present still lifes in encaustic, signed and dated 1784 on their reverses, exemplify Artioli's archaeologically-inspired classicism, of which only two other examples, dated 1785 are known (F. Zeri, ed., La Natura morta in Italia, 1989, I, 213, fig. 246). In them, Artioli depicts traditional Mantuan breads and comestibles with the unpretentious realism of Pompeian murals.
As in an ancient fresco, the foodstuffs are arranged on shelves, or in two rows, one above the other without regard for perspective, as in the Lettuce, Onions and Carrot. These same vegetables were staples of the Roman diet, as Artioli was well aware. The pendant still life is also timeless in its own way, representing a classic Italian merenda of panini (rolls) and sliced salame. It is worth pointing out that the tan, red and grey colors reflect the palette of Cento's greatest master, Guercino. These depictions are restricted to the barest essentials -- almost astonishingly so, given the skills commanded by an eighteenth-century painter. In point of fact, the simplicity, sobriety and archaeological accuracy of these still lifes are as opposed in their own way, as much as the Horatii of Jacques Louis David, to the frivolity of the previous rococo style.
Artioli arrived at these solutions through a combination of special circumstances that he carefully recorded. An identical Latin inscription on the back of each panel reads in translation,
With the advice and aid of Giuseppe Bianchi, patrician of Mantua, Giuseppe Artioli of Cento, painted this panel with brush and encaustics. Mantua 4 December 1784.
An indefatigable patron of the arts and sciences, Marchese Giuseppe Bianchi organized inside his Mantuan palace a laboratory of encaustic painting in this same year, 1784. The immediate stimulus was the first edition of the Saggi sul ristabilimento dell'antica arte de' greci e romani pittori (Venice, 1784) by Vincenzo Requeno y Vives, which energetically promoted a return to the classical technique, providing practical instructions. The attraction of the idea was not merely technical, but based on the prevailing concept that 'progress could be achieved by a proper imitation of the Ancients' (Rémy G. Saisselin, Neo-classicism: Virtue, Reason and Nature, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1964, 3).
The principal artist in the encaustic academy of palazzo Bianchi (today Palazzo Castiglioni or Bonacolsi) was Giuseppe Artioli, who completed the present still lifes around the time that a distinguished visitor came to the studio. None other than Vincenzo Requeno, the author, had hastened to Mantua to see the first fruits of his publication. What he found is vividly described in his second edition of 1787: 'The first to do honor to my invention was the coltissimo Marchese Giuseppe Bianchi of Mantua, who so nobly sponsored Giuseppe Artioli, of Cento, in the experimentation of my encaustics, applying them either with a blunt-tipped knife or a brush, and accomplishing them so carefully and precisely as to make paintings worthy of presentation to the most scrupulous and demanding Masters of Fine Art' (338). The practical value of the molten wax medium, as Requeno eruditely demonstrated, includes its pleasing translucence, resistence to moisture, and remarkable durability. The encaustic portraits by Greek artists of the 2nd century AD, first excavated in the Faiyum district of Egypt, are among the oldest known paintings on panel, and remain extraordinarily well-preserved. Artioli's efforts at revival did not survive the Neoclassical Age, but the medium has never been completely forgotten. In recent years, the most distinguished painter in encaustics has been the American, Jasper Johns.
We are grateful to Dr John Spike for the above entry.
The Roman delight in still lifes for murals and mosaics was already known in the Renaissance. The most popular motifs were baskets of fruit or flowers, and larder shelves laden with good things to eat. The famous Basket of Fruit painted by Caravaggio around 1596 (Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana) was a masterful recreation of these trompe l'oeil decorations. By contrast, the neoclassical painters shut their eyes to still lifes, preferring to represent the glorious deeds of gods and heroes.
Giuseppe Artioli, originally of Cento, but active in Mantua, was a fascinating exception. Vincenzo Requeno y Vives (Saggi sul ristabilimento dell'antica arte de' greci e romani pittori, I, Parma, 1787, 344), calls him a 'celebrated' painter. Be that as it may, Artioli was the Italian pioneer of the neoclassical revival of encaustic, or molten beeswax, medium. The ancient technique, which Pliny the Elder describes in his Natural History, made its first re-appearance in six encaustics sent by Joseph Marie Vien to the Salon of 1755. The present still lifes in encaustic, signed and dated 1784 on their reverses, exemplify Artioli's archaeologically-inspired classicism, of which only two other examples, dated 1785 are known (F. Zeri, ed., La Natura morta in Italia, 1989, I, 213, fig. 246). In them, Artioli depicts traditional Mantuan breads and comestibles with the unpretentious realism of Pompeian murals.
As in an ancient fresco, the foodstuffs are arranged on shelves, or in two rows, one above the other without regard for perspective, as in the Lettuce, Onions and Carrot. These same vegetables were staples of the Roman diet, as Artioli was well aware. The pendant still life is also timeless in its own way, representing a classic Italian merenda of panini (rolls) and sliced salame. It is worth pointing out that the tan, red and grey colors reflect the palette of Cento's greatest master, Guercino. These depictions are restricted to the barest essentials -- almost astonishingly so, given the skills commanded by an eighteenth-century painter. In point of fact, the simplicity, sobriety and archaeological accuracy of these still lifes are as opposed in their own way, as much as the Horatii of Jacques Louis David, to the frivolity of the previous rococo style.
Artioli arrived at these solutions through a combination of special circumstances that he carefully recorded. An identical Latin inscription on the back of each panel reads in translation,
With the advice and aid of Giuseppe Bianchi, patrician of Mantua, Giuseppe Artioli of Cento, painted this panel with brush and encaustics. Mantua 4 December 1784.
An indefatigable patron of the arts and sciences, Marchese Giuseppe Bianchi organized inside his Mantuan palace a laboratory of encaustic painting in this same year, 1784. The immediate stimulus was the first edition of the Saggi sul ristabilimento dell'antica arte de' greci e romani pittori (Venice, 1784) by Vincenzo Requeno y Vives, which energetically promoted a return to the classical technique, providing practical instructions. The attraction of the idea was not merely technical, but based on the prevailing concept that 'progress could be achieved by a proper imitation of the Ancients' (Rémy G. Saisselin, Neo-classicism: Virtue, Reason and Nature, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1964, 3).
The principal artist in the encaustic academy of palazzo Bianchi (today Palazzo Castiglioni or Bonacolsi) was Giuseppe Artioli, who completed the present still lifes around the time that a distinguished visitor came to the studio. None other than Vincenzo Requeno, the author, had hastened to Mantua to see the first fruits of his publication. What he found is vividly described in his second edition of 1787: 'The first to do honor to my invention was the coltissimo Marchese Giuseppe Bianchi of Mantua, who so nobly sponsored Giuseppe Artioli, of Cento, in the experimentation of my encaustics, applying them either with a blunt-tipped knife or a brush, and accomplishing them so carefully and precisely as to make paintings worthy of presentation to the most scrupulous and demanding Masters of Fine Art' (338). The practical value of the molten wax medium, as Requeno eruditely demonstrated, includes its pleasing translucence, resistence to moisture, and remarkable durability. The encaustic portraits by Greek artists of the 2nd century AD, first excavated in the Faiyum district of Egypt, are among the oldest known paintings on panel, and remain extraordinarily well-preserved. Artioli's efforts at revival did not survive the Neoclassical Age, but the medium has never been completely forgotten. In recent years, the most distinguished painter in encaustics has been the American, Jasper Johns.
We are grateful to Dr John Spike for the above entry.