Italian art – Inner Surfaces

Two Women in White: Whistler’s Symphony in White, No. 2 and De Nittis’s Giornata d’inverno

This essay brings together Giuseppe De Nittis’s Giornata d’inverno. Ritratto della signora De Nittis of 1882 and James McNeill Whistler’s Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl of 1864 as an accostamento: a juxtaposition of two works that share a contextual affinity. They are separated by nearly two decades. Yet Edmond de Goncourt’sContinue reading “Two Women in White: Whistler’s Symphony in White, No. 2 and De Nittis’s Giornata d’inverno”

Battistello Caracciolo: Painting after Caravaggio in Naples (Part 1).

Part One: Caravaggio, Naples, and the First Inheritance Overview Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, known as Battistello, was born in Naples in 1578 and died there in December 1635. In 1598 he married Beatrice di Mario da Gaeta, with whom he had a large family, and by the beginning of the new century he was already activeContinue reading “Battistello Caracciolo: Painting after Caravaggio in Naples (Part 1).”

Battistello Caracciolo: Painting after Caravaggio in Naples (Part 2).

Part Two: Ribera, Lanfranco, and the Wider Neapolitan Field That darker current was associated above all with Ribera. His arrival in Naples around 1616 did not simply displace Caravaggio, but changed both the character and the reach of the local naturalist tradition. Causa’s distinction between the two painters is less a judgement of artistic greatnessContinue reading “Battistello Caracciolo: Painting after Caravaggio in Naples (Part 2).”

Battistello Caracciolo: Painting after Caravaggio in Naples (Part 3, Gallery).

Part Three: Selected Works by Battistello Caracciolo Battistello Caracciolo, Due putti vendemmianti / Two youths with grapes, 1605–10; oil on poplar panel; 58.5 × 70.5 cm; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Credit: Wikimedia Commons. First published by Raffaello Causa in 1950, while it was in the Moretti collection in Rome, this small early panelContinue reading “Battistello Caracciolo: Painting after Caravaggio in Naples (Part 3, Gallery).”