Saint Lawrence

1619

Not on view

Cesi was an artist devoted to the Counter-Reformation belief, expressed most forcibly in the 1582 treatise of the Bolognese Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, that the proper function of painting was the clear communication of a religious message. Like the Carracci brothers, Cesi reacted against the complexity and artificiality of much sixteenth-century painting and returned to the study of nature, beginning each work with careful drawings from the model and abstracting from these to create an ideal form. In his late works, however, such as this modello for an altarpiece of 1619, Cesi strove for an increasingly severe geometry and reductive purity that were far removed from the dramatic action and externalization of emotion characteristic of the Carracci.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: Saint Lawrence
Artist: Bartolomeo Cesi (Italian, Bologna 1556–1629 Bologna)
Date: 1619
Medium: Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash; squared in black chalk
Dimensions: 11 3/16 x 7 3/16in. (28.4 x 18.2cm)
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Purchase, Charles and Jessie Price Gift, 2000
Object Number: 2000.495
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

By Bartolomeo Cesi

In the same medium

From the same time and place

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Standing Pregnant Woman (Study for the Pregnant Virgin Mary), Bartolomeo Cesi Italian, Red chalk, highlighted with white; squared in black chalk — Standing Pregnant Woman (Study for the Pregnant Virgin Mary)
Bartolomeo Cesi
1576–1629

Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti, Giovanni Paolo Panini Italian, Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, watercolor, over graphite — Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti
Giovanni Paolo Panini
ca. 1756–58

Youth Playing a Pipe for a Satyr, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto) Italian, Brush with colored oil paint; paper partly saturated with oil; lined — Youth Playing a Pipe for a Satyr
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto)
1645–50

Queen Esther Approaching the Palace of Ahasuerus, Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée) French, Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, heightened with white, over black chalk — Queen Esther Approaching the Palace of Ahasuerus
Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée)
1658

Scrapbook of Drawings and Prints, Gideon Saint British, Pen and ink, engraving and etching — Scrapbook of Drawings and Prints
Gideon Saint
ca. 1760

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