June 2, 1946

Today is Festa della Repubblica as it is June 2, and Italians celebrate their vote, on this day in 1946, to become a republic. Of course the banks are closed, so if you wanted to write a check for the painting below, La Madonna del Gatto , you could not check your balance. Probably there is not enough money in the whole bank, anyway, to acquire this 16th century masterpiece by the Renaissance artist Federico Barocci.





Although the Getty does not own the copyright to this picture, they have a
pleasant write up on the artist, Federico Barocci (ca. 1535 to ca. 1612), who was born and died, in Urbino. They tell us:

As one of Italy's leading altarpiece painter in the late 1500s, Federico Barocci exerted a profound influence on his contemporaries. He moved beyond the linear style of his teacher Battista Franco around 1563, when he discovered Correggio's sfumato effects, which made the defining lines of forms appear to dissolve into delicately colored, smoky mists. Barocci's decorations for the Casino of Pope Pius IV at the Vatican used this technique and became so celebrated that they established his reputation as an up-and-coming young painter.

Although his biographer Giovanni Bellori certainly exaggerated when he claimed that Barocci always worked from life, the artist did draw numerous preparatory studies. His diligence did not always please his patrons, however, for they often waited on his commissions.

In 1565 Barocci returned to Urbino for good, claiming that he had been poisoned and working only two hours a day due to constant pain. Yet he continued to invent new compositional strategies, incorporating the viewer into his circle of foreground figures in the Madonna del Popolo of 1579 (Galleria degli Uffizi). The composition's emotional draw had a strong impact on Annibale and Lodovico Carracci and many younger painters.

Poisoning was trendy then, and so apparently was teasing cats, though they only considered the former a character blemish.

And an aside, I just realized, for reasons too complicated to go into, how many wonderful people read this blog. And I am so pleased, and so grateful. Marsha