In the early years of the sixteenth century, when great artists such as Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo were courted by popes and princes, Correggio, who was no less talented, was living in positive obscurity in the provincial Emilian city of Parma. Even the local cognoscenti were not truly appreciative of the genius in their midst. A ranking member of the clergy criticized Correggio's frescoes in the dome of Parma's cathedral by remarking spitefully, "You've made us a nice stew of frogs."
History has been kinder to Correggio. By the end of the sixteenth century, the esteem in which his art was held was comparable to that of his great contemporaries, and in the seventeenth century, his phenomenally inventive spirit was taken as a model by those artists who forged the Baroque style. If Correggio has risen above the pervasive anonymity generally reserved for Emilian artists, other painters from that region have not. Overshadowed by the emphasis placed on the study of art from Venice, Florence, and Rome, Emilian artists and painting have remained relatively unknown. This is a pity because during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries one of the greatest schools of Italian art flourished in Emilia, and this "golden age" produced some of the most remarkable and beautiful art ever seen.
Fertile Heartland
The region now known as Emilia lies in the heartland of northern Italy. Today, it is part of the province of Emilia-Romagna. The region is named for the ancient Roman road, the Via Emilia, which stretched from Rimini to Piacenza across the fertile agricultural plain connecting the cities of Ferrara, Bologna, Modena, Reggio, and Parma. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Emilia was not a politically unified territory. It consisted of various independent duchies and was an extension of the Papal States. Its capital, Bologna, is situated where the major roads connecting Milan to the northwest, Venice to the northeast, and Florence and Rome to the south converge. Thus, the artists who flourished in Emilia were nourished not only by their local heritage but also by the other principal artistic centers of Italy, to which they had easy access.
In the early sixteenth century, Parma emerged as the most eminent and influential of the artistic centers due to the presence of two extraordinary painters, Correggio and Parmigianino. At the same time, the Este court in Ferrara was one of the most brilliant in Italy. By the end of the century, Bologna dominated the artistic scene in Emilia. Under the innovative leadership of the Carracci family, painting assumed a vital new direction, which emphasized naturalism in style and subject. Through the direct influence of the Carracci, Bologna during the seventeenth century became one of the primary artistic centers not only of Emilia but of all Europe.
Correggio's artistic genius and originality was unequaled in northern Italy at the beginning of the Renaissance. He was born Antonio Allegri in the small town of Correggio not far from Parma sometime between 1489 and 1494. By 1518, he was working in Parma and his earliest paintings, such as The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), reveal a training in the fifteenth-century tradition of Mantegna and an awareness of the works of Leonardo da Vinci. He soon developed, however, a personal style of the utmost power and suavity. He explored the devices of illusionism
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