Carlo Cignani
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Carlo Cignani (May 15, 1628 - September 6, 1719) was a Bolognese Baroque painter.
He was born to a noble family in Bologna, where he studied first under Battista Cairo and later under Francesco Albani, to whom he remained closely allied, and was his most famous disciple. He was, however, also strongly and deeply influenced by the genius of Correggio. For instance, his masterpiece, the Assumption of the Virgin, around the cupola of the church of the Madonna del Fuoco at Forlì, is inspired by the Correggio's frescoes in the cupola of the Cathedral of Parma. These frescoes occupied Cignani for some twenty years.
In 1681, Cignani returned to Bologna from Parma. He opened an accademia del nudo for painting from models and had as one of his pupils Giuseppe Maria Crespi.
He had some of the defects of his masters: his elaborate finish and his audacious artificiality in the use of color and in composition mark Albani's influence. Despite that, he imparted to his work a more intellectual character than either of his models, and is not without other remarkable merits of his own. As a man Cignani was eminently amiable, unassuming and generous.
He accepted no honors offered him by the duke of Parma, but lived and died an artist. He moved to Forlì in 1686, where he died. When the Accademia Clementina for Bolognese artists was founded in 1706, Cignani was posthumously elected Principe in absencia for life. His most famous pictures, in addition to the Assumption already cited, are the Entry of Paul III into Bologna; the Francois I Touching for Kings Evil; a Power of Love, painted under a fine ceiling by Agostino Carracci, on the walls of a room in the ducal palace at Parma; an Adam and Eve (at the Hague); and two of Joseph and Potiphars Wife (at Dresden and Copenhagen).
His son Felice Cignani (1660-1724) and nephew Paolo Cignani (1709-1764) were also painters. His most noted pupils were Marcantonio Franceschini and Federico Bencovich.
[edit] Anthology of works
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: |
- Magdalen (Dulwich Picture Gallery) [1]
- Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, (Gemaldegallerei, Dresden) [2]
- Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, (Musee Fesch, Ajaccio) [3]
also see attributed version at [4]
- Charity (San Francisco Museum of Art) [5]
- Allegory of Spring [6]
- Pastoral Scene [7]
- Judgement of Paris (1691) [8]
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- John T Spike (1986). Centro Di, Kimball Museum of Art, Fort Worth, Texas, USA: Giuseppe Maria Crespi and the Emergence of Genre Painting in Italy, 14-15.
- Cignani Family - article from the Catholic Encyclopedia