Gaetano Gandolfi

Bio

Gaetano was born on a Po Valley estate which his father managed for a landowner. He followed the example of his older brother, Ubaldo, and enrolled at the Accademia Clementina in Bologna. There he was the recipient of several prizes for both figure drawing and sculpture. Later, in a laconic autobiography, Gaetano claimed Felice Torelli (1667-1748) as his master. Other sources mention that he was also taught by Ercole Graziani II (1688-1765) and Ercole Lelli (1702-1766), a gunsmith turned instructor of anatomy to artists.[1] Whatever the case, Ubaldo’s highly original style must have been his brother’s primary exemplar.

In a time of diminishing patronage for artists in Bologna, Gaetano flourished for almost five decades. He supplied private devotional pictures, monumental altarpieces and wall paintings for churches, frescoed decorations for palazzi, some portraits and allegorical and historical paintings that were despatched as far as Moscow. He also made sculpture (about which we know little) and was an inveterate draughtsman.

From its beginnings, Gaetano’s art was brilliant and individual, as can be seen in the Vision of St. Jerome[2] (London, Private Collection), a sketch of 1756 for the altarpiece in Bazzano, Oratorio del Suffragio. In the 1760s the impact of Venice, and Tiepolo in particular, is particularly noticeable in his frescoes such as those in the church of San Rocco, Bologna, where there is an emphasis on bravura effect in contrast to the firm design of Bolognese painting. Gaetano’s art perhaps reached its apex in 1775-80 in the huge canvas of The Marriage of Cana (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale) and the cupola frescoes for Santa Maria della Vita, Bologna. Here, he successfully achieved a complexity of design combined with a splendour of execution that in Settecento Italy was surpassed only by G.B.Tiepolo. He is rightly now considered one of the greatest Italian artists of the century.

In later years, even before he visited London in 1788, Gaetano’s art became increasingly neo-classical. By this time, both stylistically and thematically he seems to have been well aware of Giaquinto as well as artistic currents in France in the 1760s. Gaetano died playing bowls in the church field of S. Egidio, probably of a heart attack, although there is an alternative tradition that he was knocked on the head by a ball.[3]

NOTES

[1] Mimi Cazort (Ms. Communication 18 Oct.1998) draws attention to the importance of Lelli’s teaching ‘as I think it explains the fierce anatomical accuracy in both Ubaldo’s and Gaetano’s work’. This was recognised by the Gandolfi’s contemporaries; Vincenzo Martinelli (Ms..Atti e Memorie del’Accademia Clementina,Vol.IV, 1789-1804, pp.440-41, dated 1802) states ‘Fu ad esso di gran profitto il frequentare la scuola di Ercole Lelli, il quale lo rese in pochissimo tempo erudito’. Giambattista Grilli in his funeral oration (Ms. Atti…, pp.441-42) mentions ‘Ercole Lelli, l’unico di lui maestro’. Finally, Jacopo Alessandro Calvi , in his Succinte Notizie dei due celebre professore di Pittura Ubaldo e Gaetano Gandolfi, dated 30 June 1802 (Kutschera MS. 11.334, Institut für Kunstgeschichte, University of Vienna) stated that [Ubaldo] ‘…erasi affidato alla direzione di Ercole Lelli, al quale fu raccomandato del pari il giovanetto Gaetano; era il Lelli, come ognuno sa eccelente in singolar modo nella Anatomia….Sotto il di Lui magistero li due fratelli Gandolfi appresero esattamente la cognizione della ossa, e de’ muscoli, cosa proficua al sommo ed importante per l’intelligenza dell’ignudo.’

[2] Formerly Matthiesen Gallery, London, 1986, exhibited Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, Bella Pittura: The Art of the Gandolfi, 1993, p.15, no.35, pl., p.59.

[3] Mimi Cazort (Ms.communication) points out that Martinelli, states, loc.cit., that in his later years Gaetano suffered ‘un gastoso umore fu la cagione che nell’ultim’anno della sua vita fu attacato da fieri stringimenti di petto’ which is pretty conclusive evidence that he died of cardiac seizure.