Orazio Gentileschi: The life and art of a transitory Carravagiste

In an earlier piece on this blog I detailed how the Caravaggisti thread flowed through Italian adherents to Utrecht, carried there by Dutch painters returning from sojourns in Rome. In this series, I will cycle back to the Italian Caravaggistis, beginning with Orazio Gentileschi.

Portrait of Orazio Gentileschi, c. 1630
Lucas Emil Vorsterman after Sir Anthony van Dyck

Orazio was born in Pisa in 1563, son to a Florentine Goldsmith named Giovanni Battista Lomi. He moved to Rome in either 1576 or 1578 and took up residence with a maternal uncle whose surname -- Gentileschi -- he adopted.

There is no widely accepted account as to how Orazio acquired his painting skills. His first mention as a painter was as part of a team of artists decorating the Vatican Library in the period 1588 - 1589. He subsequently worked with the landscape painter Agostino Tassi painting frescos in the churches of Santa Maria Maggiore, San Giovanni Laterano, and Santo Nicolosi in Carcere. This work ran from 1590 - 1600 and Orazio probably contributed figures for Tassi's landscapes.

During this period Orazio was considered a "competent but undistinguished practitioner of the dominant late maniera style."

San Giovanni dei Fiorentino --Interior 
Attributed to Orazio Gentileschi

San Giovanni dei Fiorentino --Interior 
Attributed to Orazio Gentileschi

Exposure to Caravaggio's works led to major changes in Orazio's life and painting styles. According to Keith Christiansen and Judith W. Mann (Orazio and Artemisia Genteleschi, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, 2001):

Orazio's encounter with Caravaggio in the summer of 1600 was the central event of his life. Prior to the unveiling of Caravaggio's canvases showing the calling and martyrdom of Saint Matthew (ed., see below) in the French national church of San Luigi dei Francesi, which created a sensation by making the Lombard artist's work publicly visible for the first time, Orazio had painted in a style that was predicated on compromise and accommodation. His figures were types, his composition conventional; his color was slack. There is a blandness, an anonymity, and a disturbing lack of conviction to his work of the 1590s that comes (sic) as a shock to those who know only his distinctive, post-Caravaggesque pictures.

The Calling of St Matthew, 1599-1600
Caravaggio

The Martyrdom of St. Matthew, 1599-1600
Caravaggio

Orazio became a close associate of Caravaggio, and "unexpected and bold" development in that he was married, the father of four kids, and, at 37 years of age, 11 years older than the oldest of the followers. That being said, his paintings post-1600 began to incorporate elements of the Caravaggio approach (NGA, Christiansen and Mann):

• Use of models
• Dramatic lighting
• Simplified compositional structures with a restricted number of figures close to the picture plane
• Use of dramatic, unconventional gestures and monumental composition
• Uncompromising realism and contemporary representation of figure types.

In the paintings immediately following, Orazio's movement away from Mannerism and incorporation of Caravaggic elements are on full display.

St Francis supported by an Angel, c. 1603
Orazio Gentileschi

David and Goliath, 1605 - 1607
Orazio Gentileschi

Circumcision of Christ, c. 1605 - 1610
Orazio Gentileschi

St Michael and the Devil, 1607 - 1608
Orazio Gentileschi

R. Ward Bissel (Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, 1967) saw the foregoing paintings as Orazio seeking to find his own way of expressing Caravaggism: "Having explored these alternatives, Gentileschi chose to work towards increased refinement of sentiment and of pictorial effects, and, in so doing established himself as the most original painter among the Roman Caravaggeschi."  Young Woman with a Violin characterizes this moment. It is pure Caravaggio in the placement of a single figure against a dark background with the individual illuminated by an intense light.

Young Woman with a Violin, c. 1612
Orazio Gentileschi

It was during this period that Orazio formed a relationship with the painter Agostino Tassi to collaborate on the frescos in the Casino delle Muse for Cardinal Scipione and in the Sala del Consistorio in the Quirinale Palace. The partnership came to a scandalous end when Orazio accused Tassi of "deflowering" his daughter (and student) Artemisia.

Following the scandal, Orazio actively began seeking work outside of Rome. This led to commissions in Fabriano in 1616-17 and he then accepted the invitation of a Genoese nobleman to work for him in that city. He resided in Genoa from 1621 - 1623. Post that period he became primarily a court painter, traveling to Paris to work with the court of Marie de Medici (1624 - 1626) and then on to the court of Charles I in London. He died in London in 1639.

Somewhere around 1615 his painting style also changed. According to the National Gallery of Art, he "developed a Tuscan lyricism foreign to Caravaggio's almost brutal vitality" and this was reflected in a lighter palette and a more precise treatment reminiscent of his Mannerist beginnings. In the NGA article, Sydney Freedberg is quoted thusly: "Orazio passed beyond dependence on the art of Caravaggio into a powerful and highly personal style, for which the prior assimilation of Caravaggio was a threshold." His masterpiece -- Annunciation -- was created during this post-Caravaggio period.

Annunciation, c. 1623
Orazio Gentileschi

Even though Orazio backslid, he still enjoys special prominence when discussions arise re Caravaggisti active in the first two decades of the 17th century. He was the first to respond to the shift but he also influenced others, notably Bartolomeo Lavarozzi (1590 - 1625), Orazio Riminaldi (1593 - 1630), and Giovann Francesco Guerreiri (1589 - 1655/1659), Italians all. He also influenced Hendrik Terbruggen who the took the style back to Utrecht. But, by far, his most prominent student was his daughter Artemisi who I will cover in my next post in this series.

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