Domenico Morelli
Italian, 1823 - 1901
Italian painter and teacher. Unique among his Italian colleagues in enjoying an international reputation in his lifetime, he was, with Filippo Palizzi (see Palizzi, (2)), the leading exponent of the Neapolitan school of painting in the second half of the 19th century and a major figure in the artistic and cultural life of Italy. His realistic treatment of Romantic subjects revitalized academic painting, and his bold rendering of light and dark and his use of colour influenced both academic artists and more innovative painters such as the Macchiaioli.
1. Early work, to 1865.
Morelli trained at the Reale Istituto di Belle Arti in Naples (1836–55) under Costanzo Angelini, Camillo Guerra (1797–1874), Filippo Marsigli (1790–1867) and Giuseppe Mancinelli (1813–75). While there he met Palizzi, with whom he formed an enduring friendship; he later credited Palizzi with having taught him to observe nature and expressively convey its effects by means of colour tones and chiaroscuro. In 1845 Morelli won the Concorso Trienniale, gaining a prize that enabled him briefly to visit Rome, to which he returned in subsequent years and where he admired the work of Raphael and Michelangelo and came in contact with the Nazarenes (1847).
Morelli took part in the political uprising of 1848, being wounded and (briefly) arrested. In the same year, with the Angel Appearing to Goffredo (Naples, Gal. Accad. B.A.), he gained a scholarship to study in Rome, but because the political situation made this impossible, he used the scholarship in Naples instead. In 1850 he visited Florence with his future brother-in-law Pasquale Villari (1826–1917), who suggested literary themes to him and inspired him to paint Christian subjects with patriotic overtones, among them Christian Martyrs Carried to Heaven by Angels (1855; Naples, Capodimonte). Morelli’s interest in the history paintings of Paul Delaroche is apparent in several works of the 1850s, including Cesare Borgia at Capua (1852; ex-Tasca Lanza priv. col., Palermo, see Levi, p. 54), his first significant history painting. The subject was drawn from Francesco Guicciardini’s Storia d’Italia (1561–4) and it contains a reference to an illustration of the Inquisition by Joseph Nicolas Robert-Fleury as well as architecture inspired by Raphael’s School of Athens (Rome, Vatican, Stanza Segnatura). Under the influence of Delaroche, Morelli adapted Palizzi’s realism to historical themes and subjects taken from Romantic literature, rendering them as episodes of real life in order to enhance their impact: his theory was that ‘the purpose of painting is to represent figures and things, not seen, but imagined yet real at the same time’.
Morelli’s first and most significant work in the new style, The Iconoclasts (1855; Naples, Capodimonte), is characterized by bold structural definition, strong modelling in chiaroscuro, fiery colouring in the manner of 17th-century Neapolitan painting and lack of finish. With this realistic representation of the martyrdom of the Byzantine monk and painter St Lazarus (d c. 867), Morelli alluded to the persecution of liberal artists by the Bourbon government. Similarly, the simulated reality of Christian Martyrs evoked the factual reality of friends and patriots killed in the uprising in Naples. The emphatic diagonals linking the figures in this picture and the dramatic colouring illustrate Morelli’s taste for theatricality. Both paintings were exhibited in 1855 at the Esposizione di Belle Arti, Naples, where The Iconoclasts received public acclaim that established Morelli’s reputation and was seen as a significant step in the move away from Neo-classicism towards Romantic Realism in history painting in Naples. Despite its political innuendo, it was purchased by Ferdinand II, King of Naples and Sicily, who in 1857 commissioned from the artist a fresco cycle of the Life of St Francis (unexecuted; 2 bozzetti in Rome, G.N.A. Mod.) for S Francesco, Gaeta. It was in his portraits that Morelli’s realistic vocabulary was most effective; for example, the portrait of Bernardo Celentano (1859; Rome, G.N.A. Mod.), with its penetrating characterization and strong physical presence, is regarded as a prime example of 19th-century Italian Realism.
In 1855–6 Morelli travelled extensively in Italy and in Germany, the Low Countries and England, visiting painters, museums, collections and, in Paris, the Exposition Universelle (1855). He met some of the leading painters of the time—including Jean-Léon Gérôme and Ernest Meissonier in France, Louis Gallait in Belgium and Lawrence Alma-Tadema in England—and greatly admired the work of Rembrandt and Delaroche, as well as examples of German decorative art. In Milan, Venice (where he was drawn to the work of Giambattista Tiepolo) and Florence he met painters who were reacting to the constraints of an academic training. This stimulated him to establish links with artists from other regions that were intended to lead to the formation—with the unification of Italy—of a national style.
In the 1850s Morelli became a friend of the collector Giovanni Vonwiller, with whom he travelled and from whom he received several commissions. In Florence Morelli executed for him Florentine Aubade in the Time of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1856; ex-Sonzogno priv. col., Milan; oil sketch, Rome, G.N.A. Mod.), probably inspired by Sunday in Florence in the Fifteenth Century (1855; Fontainebleau, Château) by Auguste Gendron. Its bold tonal structure and modelling of forms in chiaroscuro, its brilliant colours, depiction of natural light and bravura brushwork was to influence such academic painters as Stefano Ussi but was also to make an impact on the development of the macchia aesthetic in Florence in the late 1850s (see Macchiaioli). Morelli also retained enthusiastic followers in northern Italy, particularly in Milan. At the first Esposizione Nazionale in Florence, in 1861, where The Iconoclasts met with enormous public and critical success, Morelli was hailed as the national leader of the new school of Verismo storico (see Verismo).
Morelli became increasingly interested in quick, loose renderings and nuances of colour. This resulted in a progressive softening of forms, as shown by Tasso and Eleonora d’Este (c. 1863; Rome, G.N.A. Mod.), one of his most accomplished and evocative paintings, which he retained in his studio during his lifetime. The more finished second version, Tasso and the Eleonoras (1865; Rome, G.N.A. Mod.), on account of the freedom of the brushwork, unusual and harmonious juxtaposition of lustrous colours and tonal gradations, appeared extremely ‘modern’ and earned him fame as a colourist, winning a prize at the Exposition Universelle of 1867 in Paris.
2. Mature work, after 1865.
By the mid-1860s Morelli had become one of the most celebrated painters in Italy, enjoying also a certain international reputation. In 1864 he had been appointed Consulente Ufficiale per gli acquisti della Casa Reale for the new Capodimonte collection; in this capacity, and as adviser to Vonwiller, Morelli shaped the character of the major 19th-century Neapolitan art collections. In 1867 he was appointed a member of the jury at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. In 1868 he became Professore di Pittura and in 1876 Direttore della Scuola di Figura at the Istituto di Belli Arti in Naples. Together with Palizzi, he carried out a reform of teaching methods that encouraged the exchange of ideas and freedom of expression, which attracted students from other cities. He was known and respected throughout Italy, and his guidance was sought by art schools and academies across the country.
In the late 1860s Morelli’s subject-matter changed. He abandoned historical subjects and began to concentrate on religious themes, finding inspiration in both the Bible and the Koran—for example Muhammed’s Paradise (1866–7; untraced) or Muhammed’s Prayer (?1882; Trieste, Mus. Civ. Revoltella). This cycle began with the large painting of the Assumption (1864–9; in situ), which was commissioned for the ceiling of the chapel in the Palazzo Reale in Naples. In his approach to these subjects Morelli broke away from traditional formulae, carefully reading the sacred texts which he supplemented by studying contemporary literature on Islam, the writings of Joseph-Ernest Renan (1823–92)—in particular La Vie de Jésus (1863), a map of Palestine and numerous photographs, and by making contact with the Rabbi of Naples. All this he undertook in an attempt to convey an authentic character and atmosphere in scenes represented as if he were a contemporary observer. Stylistically he found inspiration in the art of Donatello. Such pictures as the Marys on Mt Calvary (c. 1870–71; Naples, Mus. N. S Martino) display his talent for evoking strong emotion and for endowing biblical events with a human dimension, using a new, simplified language. His taste for powerful ‘effect’ and ‘expression’ is present in several strongly Rembrandtesque scenes, structured with a forceful pattern of light and dark (e.g. Deposition, c. 1867; Rome, G.N.A. Mod.). Many of his works from this period are characterized by the expressive lack of finish, already evident in 1863.
Morelli worked with equal enthusiasm on paintings depicting lofty themes and on such commissions as designs (see Vertova, 1975, nos 26–7) for the crib (Caserta, Pal. Reale) of the Prince of Naples (later Victor-Emanuel III, King of Italy) in 1869. In 1870 he was commissioned to decorate the curtain (in situ) for the new Teatro Municipale (now Teatro Verdi), Salerno, with a depiction of the Battle of the Lega Campana against the Saracens (‘Expulsion of the Saracens from Salerno’). The image has a striking border of complex linear interlacings, reminiscent of medieval illuminations, in the painting of which Morelli was assisted by Giuseppe Sciuti and Ignazio Perricci (1834–1907).
In the early to mid-1870s Morelli’s brushwork became even broader and freer, his palette brighter and splashed with light, especially after the arrival in Naples in 1874 of Mariano Fortuny y Marsal. They formed a close friendship, sharing an enthusiasm for the light and colour of the Mediterranean. An interest in exotic and Orientalist subjects manifested itself in a series of erotic nudes and sensual female figures, among them Lady with a Fan (1874; Naples, Banco di Napoli) and such anecdotal scenes as Turkish Cemetery (1876–8; Florence, Pitti). Morelli is remembered principally in this period for the Temptation of St Anthony (1878–9; Rome, G.N.A. Mod.), a highly charged image that expresses one of the preoccupations of the time in its depiction of woman as the embodiment of earthly temptation as well as his own concern with the dualistic opposition of matter and spirit. Like most of his religious paintings, this work was not meant to be hung in a church for the devotion of the faithful; rather, it is a personal expression of philosophical idealism and emotional conflict. He executed three or four versions and numerous preparatory drawings. Morelli was seldom satisfied with his pictures, which he reworked many times over periods of years, often to the frustration of his clients, among whom was the French art dealer Adolphe Goupil.
In the 1870s and 1880s Morelli stayed at different times in the country at Cava de’ Tirreni, where he painted numerous landscapes on small wood panels and a few watercolours, which are free and spontaneous recordings of a poetic response to nature. He used these images in his late compositions, in which landscape settings are invested with transcendental significance. The sterile nature of the Temptation and The Obsessed (1873–6; Milan, Casa Riposo Musicisti), symbol of sin and suffering, gave way to the fertile, festive nature of Pater Noster (1885–90) and the melancholy hill in a melting sunset light of Loves of the Angels (c. 1885; both Rome, G.N.A. Mod.). Based on a poem by Thomas Moore, Loves represents a theme that fascinated Morelli for some 20 years (from c. 1874) and of which he executed several versions. In these late pictures his manner became more abstract, his juxtaposition of colour at times strident, the light intense and penetrating, the figures diaphanous; the paintings have philosophical overtones that go beyond the subject represented. Morelli had moved from a literary Romanticism towards a more expressive form, which, in its externalization of ideas and feelings, parallels the Symbolist fusion of art and idea.
In 1883 Morelli was commissioned to produce cartoons (1884–9; Amalfi, Mus. Stor. Mun.) for mosaics on the pediment (the Apocalypse), the arches of the upper order (the Apostles) and the portal of Amalfi Cathedral. Between 1895 and 1898 he was commissioned to produce seven of the 100 illustrations for the Illustrated Bible (Amsterdam, 1900). He executed numerous preparatory drawings, including Herodiad (1897) and the Prodigal Son (1898; both Rome, G.N.A. Mod.). Throughout his career he produced numerous drawings, mostly in preparation for his paintings: the early ones, in pencil, are characterized by solid lines, the use of chiaroscuro and attention to detail; in later years he worked almost exclusively in pen and ink, using very fine, rapid lines, at times intricate and agitated, and ink blotches for dramatic expressive effects. For the most part he seems to have been preoccupied with individual poses, but he also sketched whole compositions, rapidly and vividly rendered in tiny dimensions and framed with a firm line.
In 1897 Morelli became Direttore Artistico of the Museo Artistico Industriale in Naples, an arts and crafts school that he had collaborated in founding in 1880. In 1886–99 he was responsible, with Guglielmo Raimondi, for the decoration of the maiolica façade of the building. Having resigned from the Istituto di Belli Arti in 1881, he returned as Direttore delle Scuole di Pittura di Figura e d’Ornamentazione in 1891, took charge of its art gallery in 1892 and became Direttore in 1896, before succeeding Palizzi as Presidente in 1899. Praised by his contemporaries as the poet-philosopher of the Christian legend, in his very late works, predominantly on a small scale, Morelli celebrated biblical expressions of piety, love and repentance; such was the dream-like Shulamite and the Shepherd (Song of Songs) (1901; Rome, G.N.A. Mod.), one of his last, unfinished works. At his death the Italian State purchased all the works in his studio: 47 paintings and bozzetti, 90 wood panels with landscape sketches and over 800 drawings and watercolours (all Rome, G.N.A. Mod.).
Efrem Gisella Calingaert. "Morelli, Domenico." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T059562 (accessed April 11, 2012).
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