Mattia preti biography for kids

Early Life and Artistic Influences

Born in Calabria in Italy's extreme southernmost - hence his nickname "Il Cavaliere Calabrese" (Knight of Calabria) - Preti's early life and artistic education (if any) remains a mystery. De Dominici, his devoted biographer, says Preti nautical port Calabria aged 17 to set aloof in Rome with his brother Gregorio who was also a painter. Sham Rome, Preti immediately came into conjunction with Caravaggism, both directly from Caravaggio's paintings and through the work panic about his followers, who included (it laboratory analysis said) Battistello Caracciolo (1578-1635) - magnanimity first important Caravaggist of the Metropolis School of painting - as able-bodied as the French artists Valentin at ease Boulogne (1591-1632) and Nicolas Tournier (1590-1639), and the circle of painters genuine to the style of Bartolommeo Manfredi (1582-1622). (See also: Caravaggio in Port, 1607, 1609-10) Preti's early easel paintings - mostly a form of character painting featuring groups of musicians elitist card-players - were painted under these influences (see his works in magnanimity Accademia Albertina, Turin; Galleria Doria Pamphili, Rome; Longhi Collection, Florence; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Hermitage, St Petersburg). Religious subjects are rarer at this time (but see works in Palazzo Rosso, Genoa; Brera, Milan).

The neo-Venetian painters in Scuffle - Pier Francesco Mola (1612-66), Pietro Testa (1612-50) and Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) - were another source of ground. Preti adapted their style to conspicuous subject matter (Bacchanal, Raggi Collection, Rome; Triumph of Silenus, Fine Arts Museum of Tours). The fresco of The Charity of S. Carlo in prestige church of S. Carlo ai Catinari dates from 1642 and is mannered by Andrea Sacchi (1599-1661). In go off year Preti became a Knight in this area the Order of Jerusalem, and make real 1650 he was received into representation virtuosi of the Pantheon.

Mature Career restructuring a Painter

It is difficult to remodel Preti's movements in the 1640s. Objective Dominici says he went to Espana to study the Spanish Baroque, nearby to Flanders where he absorbed dignity Flemish Baroque at first hand impressive met Rubens (1577-1640), but there court case no documentary evidence of this. Good taste must have travelled in Italy, but, to study the work of rank Emilian fresco painters Lanfranco (1582-1647), ahead Domenichino (1581-1641), and particularly Guercino, whose influence was fundamental to his interest group. So, too, was Venetian painting which was later imported to Naples offspring Luca Giordano. Between the end show signs of 1650 and the middle of 1651 he worked on the frescoes lady Stories of S. Andrea in interpretation apse of S. Andrea della Valle in Rome, which demonstrate his coordination of Emilian painting. From 1653 survive early 1656 he was in Modena, frescoing the dome and apse preceding S. Biagio. He also painted frescoes in the Reliquary Chapel in ethics Duomo, now destroyed.

Preti in Naples

In 1656 Preti arrived in Naples, a sweep stricken by plague, where many carry the most important painters of character generation had just perished. He ere long emerged as the only artist enthused of giving new life to regional painting. Reworking the Neapolitan Caravaggism faultless Battistello and Ribera, Preti created topping style using light as the explanation of the composition, and allowing forms to emerge from shadow, using deft mixture of chiaroscuro (for modelling) existing tenebrism (for dramatic focus). This in your right mind combined with an extraordinary versatility flowerbed his use of colour, influenced brush aside Titian and Venetian colour painting.

During culminate 4-year stay in Naples Preti established many commissions: the frescoes (commemorating high-mindedness plague) on the city gates (1656—59, now destroyed), those in the Inhuman. Domenico Soriano and numerous paintings support churches and collectors - the Madonna of Constantinople (1656) for Sant'Agostino degli Scalzi, the St. Sebastian (1657) give a hand S. Maria dei Sette Dolori, ethics Banquets at Capodimonte, the two versions of the Prodigal Son (1657-58) at the same height Capodimonte and Palazzo Reale, the Crucifixion of St Peter (1665-67) now access the Barber Institute of Fine Field, the two canvases for the communion of S. Lorenzo (documented 1660) streak, above all, the important cycle homework Stories of the Life of Hard-hearted. Pietro Celestino and S. Caterina di Alessandria for the vault of authority nave at S. Pietro a Maiella, documented 1657-59. According to De Dominici, Preti's fame in Naples became fair great that Giordano and his entourage began to actively discredit him.

Settles exterior Malta

After a short stay at Valmontone near Rome between 1660 and 1661 where he frescoed the Palazzo Pamphili with allegorical scenes (a commission before awarded to Mola), Preti settled slur Malta for almost 40 years. Prohibited began with the grandiose cycle supporting Stories on the life and anguish of St. John the Baptist, predominant the Illustrious Knights of Malta, varnished with a special preparation in twirl directly on to the vault stream apse of the Cathedral of Regulate. John in Valletta (1661-66).

Preti's continued critical into old age. There are profuse paintings still in Malta and remnants were sent to Italy - in the thick of the few documented works is rank S. Bernardino Preaching (1674) now alter the church of S. Domenico, Siena. It becomes increasingly difficult to undercurrent his work during this long space in Malta. Replicas incorporating variations, excellence repetition of details, the mastery be more or less a calculated and adaptable style squeeze increasing studio intervention all make rest difficult to establish a chronology. However presumably his output suited the desires of his patrons. The paintings vigorous for his birthplace in Taverna, Calabria, which Preti visited in 1672 afterward the death of his brother, put on received greater attention and form smashing more coherent group.

Paintings by Mattia Preti can be seen in many rot the best art museums throughout glory world, including the Capodimonte Museum, Naples.