Carlo Maratta or Maratti (18 May 162515 December 1713) was an Italian Baroque painter and draughtsman, active principally in Rome where he was the leading painter in the second half of the 17th century. He was a fresco and canvas painter who painted in a wide range of genres, including history and portrait painting. He is the leading representative of the classicizing style in the Italian Late Baroque. He worked for prominent clients in Rome, including various popes.
Biography
Early life and education The principal contemporary source on Maratta's life is the biography written by his friend, Giovanni Pietro Bellori published in 1732 in Rome under the title Vita di Carlo Maratti pittore (Life of the painter Carlo Maratti).Bellori, Giovanni Pietro. Vita di Carlo Maratta pittore, Rome, 1732 Maratta was born on 18 May 1625 in Camerano (Marche), then part of the Papal States, as the son of Tommaso and Faustina Masini. He moved to Rome in 1636 in the company of family friend Don Corintio Benicampi, secretary to Taddeo Barberini who was a nephew of pope Urbano VIII and brother of Cardinals Francesco Barberini and Antonio Barberini. He had been encouraged to do so by the painter Andrea Camassei, who had seen the young Maratta's drawings.G.P. Bellori, The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Cambridge (U.K.) 2005. In Rome he was then hosted by his half-brother Bernabeo Francioni, an unsuccessful painter. Bernabeo introduced him to Andrea Sacchi, whose workshop he entered in 1637. He developed a close relationship with Sacchi and would remain in his workshop until his master's death in 1661.
Maratta followed the usual practice of Roman studios, making copies after the Antique and after the celebrated works of the Renaissance and early 17th century. He also attended the theoretical discussions that took place at Sacchi's studio, where the most eminent Roman artists gathered and drew from life. In 1636 a debate between Sacchi and Pietro da Cortona, then the leading Roman painters, took place at the Accademia di San Luca, the academy of artists in Rome. Sacchi argued that paintings should only have a few figures which should express the narrative whereas Cortona countered that a greater number of figures allowed for the development of sub themes.See the article on Andrea Sacchi for further discussion of the debate. Maratta's painting at this time was close to the classicism espoused by Sacchi and was far more restrained and composed than the Baroque exuberance of Pietro da Cortona's paintings. Like Sacchi, his paintings were inspired by the works of the great painters from Parma and Bologna: Annibale Carracci, Guercino, Guido Reni, Francesco Albani, and Giovanni Lanfranco.
Early career, to 1661 Maratta’s earliest works are untraced: Bellori cited two half-figures of St. Peter and St. Paul, a David Victorious and an Assumption of the Virgin, painted for Benicampi, and, presumably through the mediation of Benicampi, a Birth of the Virgin for a convent in Nocera Umbra. The earliest surviving work is the Glory of Saints (1645; Monterotondo Cathedral), commissioned by Taddeo Barberini before his departure for France in 1645. It was probably around 1646 to 1648 that Maratta undertook a journey to Camerano and Ancona in the Marche, during which he was able to see works by Titian and by local artists.
His fresco of Constantine ordering the Destruction of Pagan Idols (1648) for the Baptistery of Saint John Lateran, based on designs by Sacchi, gained him attention as an artist. Maratta’s first independent public work in Rome, in which he first moved away from Sacchi’s dominance, is the Adoration of the Shepherds (1650) for the church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami. The female figure, with its large eyes and oval face framed by strands of dark hair, was characteristic of the painter’s early phase.
It would seem, however, that this work was preceded by a considerable output. On the basis of drawings in the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid and a drawing in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, a group of works have been assigned to the period immediately before and contemporaneous with the altarpiece of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami. These drawings include studies both for this altarpiece and for other works: the figures in Gaspard Dughet’s Landscape with Dido and Aeneas (London, National Gallery), the Virgin with Saints in the parish church of Camerano, the Preaching of St. John the Baptist (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau) and the Sacrifice of Noah. Maratta’s collaboration with Dughet suggests his rising popularity with a circle of distinguished private collectors.
The Adoration of the Shepherds marked his début in the public domain and the start of an uninterrupted flow of official commissions. The 1650s were decisive for his development. The influence of Sacchi remained, both in the classical rhythms of his compositions and in his Venetian painterliness; but he also explored other sources. The colour and chiaroscuro, best displayed in St. Rosalía among the Plague Sufferers (before 1660; Florence, Galleria Corsini), suggest the work of Giovanni Lanfranco, while the delicacy of the figures is indebted to Guido Reni. Pietro da Cortona became an invigorating influence, especially after 1656, when both artists worked for Pope Alexander VII on the decoration of the gallery of the Quirinal Palace.
In spite of remaining connected to the workshop of Sacchi, Maratta acted independently, and the works from these years display characteristics that make them original and individual. His style, less revolutionary than that of his young contemporaries, such as Pier Francesco Mola or Giovanni Battista Gaulli, perfectly fulfilled the requirements of the high dignitaries of the Roman Church for an official art that continued the classical tradition and was both grandiloquent and decorative. The most important of Maratta’s works from the early 1650s is the Peace of Augustus (Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille), commissioned by Louis Phélypeaux, Seigneur of La Vrillière, for the upper gallery of the Hôtel de la Vrillière, Paris. In this picture Maratta was in competition with the most distinguished artists working in Rome: Guido Reni, Guercino, Nicolas Poussin, Alessandro Turchi and Pietro da Cortona, all of whom had contributed heroic subjects from ancient history to La Vrillière’s gallery. The picture suggests Maratta’s deep knowledge of the Classical world; both the dress and decorative detail reveal his knowledge of Roman sculpture, and the frieze-like composition and some of the figures appear to have been inspired by the reliefs of Augustus’ Ara Pacis.
Between 1651 and 1656 Maratta decorated the Cappella Alaleona in Sant'Isidoro a Capo le Case, Rome; for this he painted three altarpiecesthe Marriage of the Virgin, the Death of St. Joseph and the Flight into Egyptas well as the frescoed lunettes, of St. Joseph’s Dream and the Adoration of the Shepherds, and the fresco in the cupola of St. Joseph in Glory. Here he moved towards a more Baroque composition, with figures in movement, and strong contrasts of light and shadow. From the same period are the frescoed figures of Prudence and Innocence and the altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi (all Rome, San Marco), commissioned by Nicolò Sagredo, the Venetian ambassador in Rome. The altarpiece suggests the influence of Guido Reni and, in the figure of the Virgin, of François Duquesnoy’s St. Susanna (Santa Maria di Loreto, Rome). In the St. Augustine in Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori, Rome, the artist used glowing, Venetian-inspired colour.
Pope Alexander VII commissioned many works from Maratta, notable among which is the Visitation (1656) for the church of Santa Maria della Pace, Rome. This is an accomplished composition, with many figures in movement, ideal beauty and elegant gesture; the ample clothing envelops the figures in a mass of folds set off by the light and demonstrates the influence of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Maratta also contributed a fresco, the Adoration of the Shepherds, to the decoration of the Quirinal Palace, which was directed by Pietro da Cortona; here, for the first time, he used the light colours that were to characterize his later work. The commissions of the later 1650s, such as the Submission of Victor IV to Innocent II (Rome, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme) and Summer (Ariccia, Palazzo Chigi), with fruit and flowers painted by Mario Nuzzi, demonstrate his brilliant synthesis of the light and movement of the Roman Baroque with the ideal beauty of antique art.'Carlo Maratti', Marquez, Manuela B. Mena. Oxford Art Online
Mature years, 1662–c. 1680
From 1660, he built a private client base of wealthy patrons throughout Europe. His workshop became the most prominent art studio in Rome of his time and, after the death of Bernini in 1680, he became the leading artist in Rome. In the early 1660s he worked on the decoration of the Cappella de’ Sylva in the Roman church of Sant'Isidoro, a project directed by Bernini; Maratti contributed the oval canvas of the Immaculate Conception over the main altar. This picture shows the Virgin with the Christ Child in her arms, helping her to kill the serpent of heresy; it became widely known through copies and engravings, and its iconography was immensely influential.
In the same period Maratta continued a series of Apostles for the Palazzo Barberini, which had been commissioned from Sacchi by Cardinal Antonio Barberini. The project, completed with the St. Matthew in the late 1690s, constitutes a direct precedent to the sculpted Apostles (Rome, Saint John Lateran) that he designed later. Maratta’s activity in cities outside Rome began in the same decade; he painted two altarpieces, the Visitation and the Flight into Egypt, for the Chigi Chapel in Siena Cathedral, where he again collaborated with Bernini. The Immaculate Virgin with Saints for the Sienese church of Sant'Agostino dates from .
In 1664, Maratta became the director of the Accademia di San Luca and, concerned with elevating the status of artists, promoted the study and drawing of the art of Classical Antiquity. In 1672 Maratta travelled to Loreto to restore works by Annibale Carracci, Federico Barocci and Lorenzo Lotto, and in that year executed the Virgin with Saints for the altar in the Altieri Chapel of the Roman church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. In both style and iconography this work is seminal to Maratta’s conception of the altarpiece; it is a balanced and harmonious composition, in which classical and monumental forms are enhanced by the clear light and rich, pure colours. Despite their idealization, each of the figures remains individual.
In 1674 Maratta was commissioned by Pope Clement X to fresco the ceiling of the salone in the Palazzo Altieri. The iconographic programme for The Triumph of Clemency (dated 1674) in this Roman palace was devised by Bellori. The fresco represents an allegorical glorification of pope Clement X Altieri and his nephews, which in a play on his name celebrates a central personification of Clementia, the Roman goddess of mercy. Around her twines an allegorical composition that immortalizes the pope's happy and peaceful reign.Paintings by Carlo Maratti, NICHOLAS HALL 17 East 76th Street, New York 26 October – 30 November 2017 Unlike the nave fresco in the nearby Church of the Gesù which Giovan Battista Gaulli was painting at the same time, Maratta did not employ illusionistic effects. His scene remained within its frame and used few figures in line with the principles of sparsity of figures championed by Sacchi.Maratti intended further decorations to this room which were not executed due to the death of the pope.