Francesco Solimena (called l'Abbate Ciccio)

Bio

Solimena’s was one of the widest-ranging Neapolitan talents of the late Baroque, encompassing not only painting but also architecture, music and poetry. In 1674, he went to Naples after studying with his father, Angelo, with whom he made his debut in collaborative works of the late 1670s in Nocera Inferiore and Solofra. In Naples Solimena rapidly assimilated many influences notably those of Giordano (whom he knew), Cortona, Lanfranco and Preti, although his masters were Francesco di Maria and Giuseppe Recco, now acknowledged as one of the seventeenth-century’s major still-life painters. Solimena’s early luministic phase culminated in his decorations in the Sacristy of San Paolo Maggiore of l689-90. These show a tightening both of composition and technique in comparison with Giordano, and were recognised by Solimena’s biographer De Dominici as a turning point in Neapolitan art.

Giordano’s departure for Spain in 1692 left the field open for Solimena, who readily assumed the role of the city’s leading painter. His style, while evolving in certain respects towards a proto-Rococo manner, now tended to darker colouring, directly under Preti’s influence; this was first evident in his Miracle of Saint John of God of 1691 for the Ospedale della Pace. Already apparent to his contemporaries was his formal nobilazione, based partly on the experiments of the French Academics under Louis XIV and also of Maratta, which gained him the title of ‘Cavalier Calabrese nobilitato’. This search for visual clarity is visible in his selection of elegantly monumental forms and vigorous, saturated colour, which enjoyed success with an informed international public, and ensured the transmission of his style to many European courts through his pupils Francesco de Mura, Sebastiano Conca and Corrado Giaquinto. Although the tenebrist residue in Solimena’s style links him firmly with the past, his francophile sense of elegance anticipates aspects of the Italian Rococo style.