About Everything

Written on September 7, 2010 – 3:14 am | by admin |

Antonio da Correggio

Antonio Allegri da Correggio (August 1489 – March 5, 1534), usually known as Correggio, was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th century. In his use of dynamic composition, illusionistic perspective and dramatic foreshortening, Correggio prefigured the Rococo art of the 18th century.
Antonio Allegri was born in Correggio, Italy, a small town near Reggio Emilia. His date of birth is uncertain (around 1489). His father was a merchant. Otherwise, little is known about Correggio’s life or training. In the years 1503-1505 he apprenticed to Francesco Bianchi Ferrara of Modena. Here he probably knew the classicism of artists like Lorenzo Costa and Francesco Francia, evidence of which can be found in his first works. After a trip to Mantua in 1506, he returned to Correggio, where he stayed until 1510.
By 1516, Correggio was in Parma, where he generally remained for the rest of his career. Here, he befriended Michelangelo Anselmi, a prominent Mannerist painter. In 1519 he married Girolama Francesca di Braghetis, also of Correggio, who died in 1529. One of his sons, Pomponio Allegri, became an undistinguished painter.
Correggio’s first major commission (February-September of 1519) was the ceiling decoration of the private dining salon of the mother-superior (abbess Giovanna Piacenza) of the convent of St Paul called the Camera di San Paolo at Parma. Here he painted a delightful arbor pierced by oculi opening to glimpses of playful cherubs. Below the oculi are lunettes with images of feigned monochromic marble. The fireplace is frescoed with an image of Diana. The iconography of the unit is complex, joining images of classical marbles to whimsical colorful bambini. While it recalls the secular frescoes of the pleasure palace of the Villa Farnesina in Rome, it is also a strikingly novel form of interior decoration.

The mystic marriage of St. Catherine, 1515
Oil on panel
The National Gallery of Art
Washington DC, USA ▼

Madonna and child with St. John, 1515
Oil on wood
Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain ▼

Portrait of a lady, 1519
Oil on canvas
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Vision of St. John the Evangelist, 1524
Fresco in the cathedral dome
San Giovanni Evangelista
Parma, Italy ▼

The adoration of the Child, 1520s
Oil on wood
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy ▼

The rest on the flight into Egypt, 1520s
Oil on wood
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy ▼

Adoration of the shepherds (The Holy Night), 1522
Oil on wood
Alte Meister Gallerie
Dresden, Germany ▼

Do not touch me, 1522
Oil on canvas
Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain ▼

Madonna del Latte, 1523
Oil on canvas
Szépmüvészeti Múzeum
Budapest, Hungary ▼

The assumption of the Virgin, 1525
Fresco
Parma Cathedral, Parma, Italy ▼

Mercury with Venus and Cupid (The School of Love), 1525
Oil on canvas
The National Gallery, London, UK ▼

Madonna and child with St. George, 1520s
Oil on canvas
Alte Meister Gallerie
Dresden, Germany ▼

Venus, Satyr and Cupid, 1525
Oil on canvas
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The mystic marriage of St. Catherine, with St. Sebastian. In the background is the martyrdom of two saints, 1527
Oil on canvas
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Allegory of the virtues, 1530s
Tempera on canvas
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Allegory of the vices, 1530
Tempera on canvas
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The abduction of Ganymede, 1532
Oil on canvas
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Zeus and Io, 1532
Oil on canvas
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Leda and swan, 1532
Oil on canvas
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, Germany ▼

Danae, 1531
Oil on canvas
Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy ▼

Portrait of a young man
Oil on wood
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼