Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Paolo Farinati at the Royal Collection

Paolo Farinati
Ornamental frieze of musical instruments, with putti
late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Minerva and Prometheus
ca. 1560-80
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati (1524-1606) made oil paintings and frescoes like other Renaissance masters of Mannerism, but the uniqueness of his work consisted especially in these monochrome wash drawings.

"Although he was a painter's son, Paolo Farinati trained under another local painter, according to Giorgio Vasari.  His master's eccentric manner encouraged Farinati to emphasize line over color and to restrict his palette to grays, browns, mauve, and rust.  Farinati worked mostly in his native Verona, but a 1552 painting commission for the Mantua Cathedral altered his approach.  In Mantua, Farinati studied Guilio Romano's complex, energetic frescoes and soon adopted his animated figure types and elaborate, imaginary architecture.  He also adopted Paolo Veronese's chiaroscuro and less polished brushwork and Michelangelo's muscularity, which he had studied in reproductions. Farinati kept a detailed journal from 1573 until his death.  In it, he outlined his wide range of projects: painting frames; designing costumes; decorating headboards, doors, horse trappings, and missal covers; and prestigious commissions for altarpieces and frescoes for churches and villas.  His chiaroscuro drawings on tinted paper are particularly notable; he often used them to plan his paintings, and more than five hundred survive.  Very soon after his death, they became collector's items." 

 from curator's notes at the Getty Museum

Paolo Farinati
Solomon and Isaiah holding tablets
late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Vestal Claudia pulling ship up the Tiber
with statue of Cybele as holy cargo

late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Bellona
late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection,  Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Entombment
late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Monk casting out a demon from a sufferer
late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
King David with harp
(seated on architectural bracket)

late 16th century
drawing for mural
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Julius Caesar seated on triumphal car
late 16th century
drawing for mural
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Figure of Victory
late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Alexander the Great
late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Alexander the Great in Persian costume
late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Alexander the Great in Persian costume
late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Neptume driving his chariot
late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paolo Farinati
Neptune and Medea
late 16th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

The 17th-century portrait painter and art collector Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) was the original English owner of several Farinati drawings before they entered the Royal Collection under Charles II. These also are among the works recently rephotographed at the Royal Collection, which explains why such manifestly brilliant creatures have not appeared here earlier.