Giuseppe Maria Crespi

Bio

With his international reputation as one of the greatest Italian painters of his generation, Crespi closed the great epoch of Bolognese painting, which had opened with the Carracci a century before. Frequenting the studios of Canuti and Cignani, he educated himself in the tradition by relentless study of Annibale’s and Ludovico’s altarpieces and frescoes, as well as the works of the first generation Carracci students, Guercino and Reni. The powerful vitality of his figures derives its physical virtuality from his alleged attachment to working from nature, which he is said, by his biographers, never to have neglected. In accord with this interest he produced numerous genre paintings which had a limited but illustrious patronage. He amused and delighted such connoisseurs as Prince Ferdinand de’ Medici and Cardinal Ottoboni with his inventions, based on the observation of common life. His rendering of the Seven Sacraments as scenes of the Church’s contemporary ministrations in the confessional or at the deathbed of a friar are today his most admired works. However, the dazzling virtuosity of his brush can be appreciated in his most pietistic paintings. His influence on painters such as Piazzetta and Pietro Longhi, and his place in the general development of genre painting have recently become the focus of attention and appreciation.