Giovanni Battista Moroni

Giovanni Battista Moroni ( * 1521-1524 in Albino, † 1580 ) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance. Moroni painted mostly portraits. He gained fame in his own lifetime, but was particularly appreciated in the 19th century in England, where even today in the National Gallery is the largest collection of his works outside Italy.

Curriculum vitae

Moroni was probably born in Bondo in Albino near Bergamo. He probably grew up in modest circumstances. The parents sent him to Brescia Alessandro Bonvicino, called il Moretto da Brescia, in teaching. In 1549 he painted in Abino two rooms in the house of the Count of Spini, one with a landscape scene in the then popular Chinese style, the other with a family coat of arms.

A dated from the year 1553 drawing of two figures of a retable Moretto, who died in 1554, allows for the assumption that both at that time were in contact. From 1553/54 Moroni painted his first picture. These have yet elements of the teacher Moretto, but already show an independent development.

In connection with works from this period is to stay in Trento think relations between the school of painters of Brescia and Trento existed for some time, so worked Girolamo Romanino, the teacher Moretto for the Archbishop of Trent. 1573 Moroni could have attended a council in Milan, in which spiritual representatives and artists met to discuss an appropriate icon representation. From long trips or other teachers is not known.

Moroni works must already have come to Venice early: " A wealthy man from Bergamo from the house Albani wanted to be painted by Titian, but he told him to his compatriot Moroni with the remark that if he his portrait " would have al vero ", so would he as good or better portrayed by Moroni. " This episode went to probably the early sixties of the 16th century, and, although it is not safe to occupy, told by different authors.

Bernard Berenson called Moroni in 1907 as uninteresting and unimaginative.

Moroni's life can be largely reconstructed only through his paintings, because the written sources are meager. In addition to orders for noble families from Bergamo, he also received commissions from monasteries and churches. It is always about oil painting and not frescos. Many weaker works in his style suggest a lively teaching. A student of his, Giovanni Battista Moneta, signed his paintings with the same signature GBM. Many of these images are therefore assigned to Moroni ( knowledge, 1933). Moroni's last work is a painting of the Last Judgment for the Church in Gorlago. Moroni died on February 5, 1578, without finishing this. Apparently finished an assistant the image so bad that it was said, " in Gorlago it was better than in heaven in hell ."

Moroni, leaving his wife and two children.

The portrait in the school of Brescia

Giorgione created a new kind of portrait painting: the man is idealized, atmospheric and melancholic shown in infinite harmony and beauty, such as in Lorenzo Lotto's man with a lion's paw or Titian's Man with gloves).

Around 1530, this is abandoned by the portrait artists in favor of a realistic portrait accuracy. What the artist now also interested in the representation of mental and physical health of a person, for example, Lorenzo Lotto's The liver patients. This type of representation is only a transition of the Masters to represent the people in the end leads before simple colored background without the representation of fate, suffering, as in the Lotteries old man image. " From these works ( Moretto's works ) really is no way to Moroni, their spiritual essence remains alien to him. He is the perfecter of lottery started, sought by Romanno with something inadequate means. On this ground grows his art, it is realistic, unhöfisch, haunting and leads us into a sphere formed middle class, which is not yet recognized by the Mannerist in such form as darstellenswert. ".

Titian: Man with gloves

Lorenzo Lotto: Man with Lion Paw

The New size ratio

Moroni developed in his paintings a new conception of the half-figure portraits. The figure is no longer above the knee but above the picture frame overlap ( " the unknown poet "). He wants to achieve with the fact that the person is represented in the image area takes up as much space.

Works

• Antonio Navagero, 1565, Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera
• Prioress Lucrezia Vertova Agliari, 1557, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Portrait altar in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Trento, 1558
• Portrait of the brothers Ludovico and Gian Federigo Madruzzo, 1558