Poetry and Painting in the 17th Century. Giovan Battista Marino and the “Marvelous” Passion (original) (raw)
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2021
Ovid’s Metamorfosi’s great importance during XVI and XVII century is well known as an inspiring model, expecially for painters. Different scholars investigated also the widespread of Ovidio’s rinascimental re-interpretations, such as Anguillara’s Metamorfosi, published starting from 1561 in Venice. In a large part of even recent studies about baroque iconography, the developement of mythological representations and the use of classical sources during the XVII century, when referring to sources used by baroque painters is quite common to speak generically about “Ovid” and in not many cases we found precise links to one of the edited texts of the Metamorfosi, which were largely used by painters instead of the original latin version. In the same way, the new “baroque language” used by poets is founded too on the basis of classical poems, revisited by great literates of the XVI century: expecially Tasso, Ariosto and Anguillara. The more logical way of reading the roots of the baroque culture through objects, such as books and works of art, is to understand completly the cultural landscape in which both poet and painters lived and the sources they considered to be “classical” or “antico”: a perspective that is radically different from ours. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how in Genoa, one of the greatest cities in which rised the new baroque culture, from the beginning and until the end of XVII century, expecially the book by Anguillara was used both as a model by literates for their baroque rethorical composition and by painters as a more comprehensible and “modern” source of the “antico” for their works of art. The importance of Anguillara’s book is well demonstrated by its finding into the most important genoese libraries of XVI and XVII century, which have been checked in some recent publications. The great literary works by Luca Assarino and Anton Giulio Brignole Sale, and the painted myths by Orazio De Ferrari, Domenico Fiasella and Gregorio De Ferrari become, from this point of view, important examples of the communitas studiorum that was present in Genoa’s Republic all along the XVII century and that made the Ligurian city an important and today still less studied center of European cultural update.
Li pittori parlano con l'opere: Visualizing Poetry in Practice in Early Modern Italian Art
Athens Journal of Humanities and Arts, 2021
The relative sophistication of artists in the early modern era is contested, especially with regards to their educational backgrounds. On one hand, Dempsey-esque intellectual history is vested in touting the structured, literary curricula in art-educational institutions; while on the other, a complete rejection of the "artist-philosopher" as historical fiction seeks to undermine this hegemonic construct. This study argues that the lack of early formal education in the cases of artist like Annibale Carracci and Nicolas Poussin, who, unlike Peter Paul Rubens, did not have a firm foundation in the classics and languages that would allow them to engage directly with source material, would later be supplemented through their relationships with literary figures in the circles of Torquato Tasso, Giambattista Marino, and the Accademia dei Gelati. In addition to such relationships, informal exchanges, gatherings, and supplemental materials like Giovanni Paolo Gallucci's Della Simmetria could be called upon when treating poetic subjects. With intimate knowledge of vernacular poetry, literati themselves participating in lectures and studio visits, and, finally, quick reference guides for subject matter, these artists were able to produce works that spoke to both poetic and artistic theory of the day, as one naturally informed the other.