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Antonio Allegri da Correggio
(1489 – 1534)
Stylistically influenced by the following painters - Lorenzo Costa, Francesco Francia, Mariotto Albertinelli Michelangelo Anselmi and Andrea Mantegna
One of the Greatest Painters Of All Time
Correggio Biography and Information
The quality of Correggio's artistic character was fundamentally cheerful. The figures he painted are filled with joy in life and movement. Their faces are wreathed with eternal joy. Mythological, Biblical and youth themes were his favorite subjects. A major part of Correggio's career as an artist was focused on mural painting. The subject Correggio was most famous for was that of the Madonna and Child. His magnificent style, particularly in his depiction of women, holy or otherwise, was fortunately unscathed by the age of Savonarola.
Correggio's life prior to becoming one of the most celebrated painters in all of Italy was tumultuous and heartbreaking. His family was poor and he often went to bed hungry. The great painter was remembered by his colleagues as a mysterious, gloomy and reclusive man, occasionally given to bouts of binge drinking.
The endless wonder of Renaissance painters for all things classical spurned them on to study the human body in ways not seen since the ancients. A change of attitude was taking place. Artists reveled in their new found passion, the passion for beauty, for sophistication, and for elegance.
At the closing of the fourteenth century there was an awakening of the senses. Italy felt the awakening earlier than the rest of Europe, and felt it far more powerfully. Its first manifestation was a limitless and unquenchable curiosity, urging people to find out all they could about the world and about man. They looked around them at the amazing building that still stood, the Roman forum, the coliseum and realized that something truly great had preceded them. People turned enthusiastically to the study of classic literature as well as nature. Giorgio Vasari observed "Art owes its origin to Nature herself... this beautiful creation, the world, supplied the first model, while the original teacher was that divine intelligence which has not only made us superior to the other animals, but like God Himself, if I may venture to say it. "
The newly emerging
painting techniques
and styles were a
reflection of the
transformation that
was taking place in
Europe, the change
from the medieval
period to a more
liberal, noble
society.
Artists, writers and
scholars were
climbing new heights
of greatness.
Great states were
being created. Large
centers of commerce
were being founded.
High above the
turreted towers of the
castle and the peaked
roof of the town-hall,
rose the slender spire
of the newly built
Gothic cathedral.
Everywhere the world
was in transition. The
newly wealthy merchat
class, was becoming conscious
of their own strength
and were struggling to
throw off the yoke of
their feudal masters.
Key
Descriptive Words and Phrases associated with the Renaissance Movement
rebirth,
rediscovery of the
classical
world, publication of Della Pittura, a book about the laws
of mathematical perspective for artists, sfumato, chiaroscuro,
Savonarola,
spiritually significant,
illuminated
manuscript, idealized biblical themes,
scriptorium,
illuminator,
Age of Discovery, axonometric
drawing, curiosity about the natural world, the works of
Dante,
realistic use of colors
and light, Bonfire
of the Vanities,
Old Testament stories, ethereal and foggy
backgrounds, Gospel parables,
The Black
death,
romanticized landscapes,
Christian
symbolism
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