Antonio Balestra
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Antonio Balestra (August 12, 1666 - April 21, 1740) was an Italian painter of the Rococo period.
Born in Verona, he first apprenticed with Giovanni Zeffis[1]. By 1690 he moved to Venice, where he worked for three years in Venice under Antonio Bellucci, then moved to paint in Carlo Maratta's workshop in Rome. In 1694, he won a prize from the Accademia di San Luca. He later painted both in Verona and Venice; although his influence was stronger in the mainland. His pupils in Verona were Pietro Rotari and Giambettino Cignaroli (1706-1770). In Venice, he painted for the churces of the Gesuiti & San Zaccaria, and the Scuola della Carita.Pietro Longhi briefly worked under Balestra. In Venice, other pupils or painters he influenced, included Giuseppe Nogari, Mattia Bortoloni (1695-1750) and Angelo Trevisani. Also he influenced a young Giambattista Pittoni [2].
In painting, Balestra was staid and reactionary. Wittkower [3] quotes the distaste of Balestra in 1733 for the tendency of then modern painters to deviate from enshrined standards of academic painting:
- "All the present evil derives from the pernicious habit, generally accepted, of working from the imagination without having first learned how to draw after good models and compose in accordance with good maxims. No longer does one see young artists studying the antique; on the contrary, we have come to a point where such study is derided as useless and obnoxious."
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[edit] Source
- Wittkower, Rudolph (1980). Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600-1750. Pelican History of Art (Penguin Books Ltd), pp 461, 483-484.
- Studj sopra la storia della pittura italiana dei secoli xiv e xv e della scuola pittorica. By Cesare Bernasconi
Published 1864 (Google Books).