1523, Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi), St. Anthony the Abbot, St. Anthony of Padua, and St. Cecilia -- Palazzo Barberini (Rome)
From the museum label: When Garofalo arrived in Rome, he was struck "[...] almost with despair, by seeing the grace and vivacity that the pictures of Raphael revealed and the depth in the design of Michelangelo" (Vasari, Lives of the Artists, 1568). He had found his stylistic home and his own personal fortune in Raphael's classicism. Returning to Ferrara, he built a reputation for himself as the artist for religious painting thanks to a calm, solemn and reassuring style which successfully blended his training in the handling of colour in the Venetian tradition with a figurative approach typical of central Italy. This altarpiece is an excellent example. The three figures occupy a space perfectly divided into three parts. St. Anthony the Abbot (titular saint of the Bonlel Chapel in Santa Maria Nuova, for which it was painted) between St. Anthony of Padua and St. Cecilia, the latter an explicit tribute to Raphael's better known St. Cecilia which reached neighbouring Bologna in 1514.
1523, Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi), St. Anthony the Abbot, St. Anthony of Padua, and St. Cecilia -- Palazzo Barberini (Rome)
From the museum label: When Garofalo arrived in Rome, he was struck "[...] almost with despair, by seeing the grace and vivacity that the pictures of Raphael revealed and the depth in the design of Michelangelo" (Vasari, Lives of the Artists, 1568). He had found his stylistic home and his own personal fortune in Raphael's classicism. Returning to Ferrara, he built a reputation for himself as the artist for religious painting thanks to a calm, solemn and reassuring style which successfully blended his training in the handling of colour in the Venetian tradition with a figurative approach typical of central Italy. This altarpiece is an excellent example. The three figures occupy a space perfectly divided into three parts. St. Anthony the Abbot (titular saint of the Bonlel Chapel in Santa Maria Nuova, for which it was painted) between St. Anthony of Padua and St. Cecilia, the latter an explicit tribute to Raphael's better known St. Cecilia which reached neighbouring Bologna in 1514.