Ceiling decoration

1644 · Passetto del Tesoro, Certosa di San Martino, Naples

religious

In the former sacristy chapel, which is now only a passageway, Massimo Stanzione decorated the ceiling in 1644. Although Stanzione specialised in altarpieces, he was also highly successful in Naples as a wall and ceiling painter. In accordance with the technical realities of the medium, in these works the richly contrasting chiaroscuro of his oil paintings gives way to buoyant, saturated colours clearly influenced by the Bolognese artists.

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About the Artist

Massimo Stanzione

1585 – 1656

One of the leading Neapolitan painters of the Caravaggio School. He was working in Rome by 1617 where he would have seen the Farnese Gallery by Annibale Carracci. His style is similar to that of Saraceni in that it is a more graceful and elegant form of Caravaggism than that practised by his fellow Neapolitan Ribera, although Ribera exerted some influence on him. Stanzione has been called the Neapolitan Guido Reni which aptly summarizes his semi-Bolognese classicism (e.g. his signed picture in San Francisco). He may have died in the great plague of 1656 in Naples. Most of his pictures are in Naples, but there are others in Dresden, Florence, Frankfurt, Kansas City, London, Manchester, New York and Sarasota Fla.

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