Carlo Saraceni
Italian, c. 1580/85 - 1620
"SARACENI, Carlo." In Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/benezit/B00160884 (accessed April 12, 2012).
Person TypeIndividual
BiographyCarlo Saraceni arrived in Rome at the beginning of the 18th century during the pontificate of Clement VIII and frequented the studio of the Venetian sculptor Camillo Mariani. Six small mythological scenes suggest that he was also the pupil of the German painter Elsheimer, a supposition confirmed by the mannerism discernible in some of his later works.In 1616-1617 Saraceni worked on the frescoes in the Sala Regia of the Palazzo del Quirinale alongside Tassi, Lanfranc, Spadarino and the two Caravaggesque painters Bassetti and Ottino, both of whom, like Saraceni, were born in Venetia. We know that he painted his pictures for the church of Santa Maria dell'Anima during that period, as they were paid for in 1618. In 1620 he was in Venice, collaborating with his friend Jean Le Clerc, a native of Lorraine, on a painting in the council chamber. Saraceni appears to have died before completing this project, which was finished by Le Clerc. It is, however, difficult to distinguish the work of these two artists during this period; for instance, the curious painting of the Denial of St Peter in the Corsini gallery in Florence, which is wreathed in ombres chinoises, is impossible to attribute with certainty to either artist. Le Clerc was Saraceni's disciple before becoming his friend, and engraved a number of his works. The German artist Jan Lys was another of Saraceni's pupils.The artist who exerted greatest influence over Saraceni was without doubt Caravaggio - from 1620, Saraceni was included in the list compiled by Mancini of the leading followers of Caravaggio - though it must be said that Saraceni's work has just an echo of Caravaggio's dramatic power. In his youthful works he attempted to combine luminarist research and use of the decorative landscape devices of Elsheimer and Domenico Feti with his early Caravaggesque influences. Some of his paintings on copper during this era may be attributed to Elsheimer. Subsequently, perhaps borrowing more from Caravaggio, he nevertheless transmuted the dramatic oppositions of light and shade in the latter's work to produce a measured, restrained chiaroscuro, designed above all to show the subject to best advantage. This reveals his Venetian origins, and led Longhi to attribute to him in 1951 the stylistic qualities of a florid Giorgione.Works by Carlo Saraceni were featured in the collective exhibition on the theme of still-life in Italy, entitled Still World: Three Centuries of Italian Still-life Painting (Stille Welt. Italienische Stilleben aus drei Jahrhunderten), mounted at the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung in Munich in 2003.
"SARACENI, Carlo." In Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/benezit/B00160884 (accessed April 12, 2012).
