Giovanni Paolo Pannini
It is not easy to be certain about Pannini's biography because we only have one monograph about him, by Ozzola in 1921. He is known to have gone to Rome at a very early age. In 1715 he was still studying architecture in Piacenza, and in 1717 he was a pupil of Benedetto Luti and Andrea Locatelli. He quickly freed himself from this double influence to find his inspiration in Salvatore Rosa whose 'genre painting' style he admired, and his battle scenes on a landscape background. He was received into the Accademia di San Luca where he attended a session for the first time on 20 April 1719 and of which he became 'princeps' on 8 December 1754.
His entire output is vast and uniform and does not lend itself to a detailed commentary. He took up the same genre scenes with the same background of ruins throughout his career. It is difficult to know where to start when most of his abundant production is designated with the single title Ruins. Sometimes an ancient subject is superimposed: Marius on the Ruins of Carthage, sometimes a Christian subject: St Paul in Athens. As an architect, he did not make sacrifices only to the current popular taste for ruins. He produced many Church Interiors that are often a vehicle for a striking event, for example, Consecration of Cardinal Pozzobonelli in St Peter's. The Architectural Pictures or Views of Towns, sometimes imaginary in the 'capriccio' genre, very often represent aspects of Rome, for example, Triumphal Arch of Titus in Rome, and are often the framework of a historical scene: Fireworks in Piazza Navona in Honour of the Birth of the Dauphin, or views of places on his travels: View of Paris with the Royal Bridge.
He made some large decorative works of which only traces remain. It could be said that, like Salvatore Rosa, he was less at ease with these than in the small genre scenes that made his reputation. From 1718 to 1725 he painted the decorations of the Villa Patrizi, destroyed after 1799. In 1720, he worked on the decoration of the ground floor of the Palazzo de Carolis that was to be transformed into an Apostolic Chamber. In 1721 or 1722, Cardinal Spinola commissioned him for the decorations of the Roman Seminary. In 1722 Innocent XIII commissioned paintings for the mezzanines in the Quirinale. In 1729 on the order of Cardinal Polignac he executed four paintings to celebrate the birth of the dauphin. In 1732 he was nominated to the royal academy and taught at the academy of France in Rome. In 1745 he was again commissioned for decorative works on the occasion of the dauphin's marriage.
He probably painted more ruins than any other artist, following the example of the French Classics of the 17th century, and joined the movement that interested the whole century in studying antiquity and its remains, continuing the work of the Flemish Vanvitelli of Rome. However, his works do not have anything in common with the numerous 18th-century Italian painters of ruins or French and German "Italianising" painters in the same century, like Hubert Robert, who was directly inspired by him. In Pannini's work, although the ruin is architecturally accurate, it is primarily a pretext to demonstrate multiple games of light by the subtle play of materials. It is fully justified when it fixes the décor of a daily scene of Roman life, or numerous little figures, well portrayed and identified that prefigures the characters of Daumieresque comedy, coming and going, and bowing courteously to each other.
The same interest for the Mannerist masters of the 18th century in Italy, already half way to the pure 19th-century landscape artists, has revived Pannini and artists like the Canalettos, uncle and nephew, Pietro Longhi and his carnival scenes, Guardi who will radically escape the painting of vedute, and Magnasco in fantasy.
"PANNINI, Giovanni Paolo or Giampolo or Gian Paolo." In Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/benezit/B00135475 (accessed April 11, 2012).
