Benvenuto Tisi (il Garofalo)

Le Sommeil de l'Enfant Jésus (Louvre)

Benvenuto Tisi or Il Garofalo, 1481-1559, was an Late-Renaissance-Mannerist painter of the School of Ferrara. Garofalo's career began attached to the court of the Duke d'Este. His early works have been described as "idyllic", but they often conform to the elaborate conceits favored by the artistically refined Ferrarese court.

Biography

Early training

Tisi is claimed to have apprenticed under Panetti and perhaps Costa and was a contemporary, and sometimes collaborator with Dosso Dossi. In 1495 he worked at Cremona under Boccaccino, who initiated him into Venetian colouring. He may have spent three years (1509-1512), in Rome. This led to a stylized classical style, more influenced by Giulio Romano.

Mature works and assessment

Even his least successful works retain, amid their frigid and porcelain quality, a harmony which marks Venetian colouring. His youthful works include the "Boar Hunt" in the Palazzo Sciarra. Laater, the "Knight's Procession" in the Palazzo Colonna in Rome — gave promise of an Italianate Cuyp, less commonplace, more romantic, and more refined than the Dutch artist.

His youthful works — the Boar Hunt in the Palazzo Sciarra; the Virgin in the Clouds with Four Saints (1518) in the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice is one of his masterpieces. The Pietà (1527) in the Brera Gallery in Milan reveals an increasingly stylized treatment. The Madonna (1532) in the Modena Gallery is a charming picture; however, the large Triumph of Religion in the Atheneum at Ferrara has been described as a "bookish" affair, whose episodes are difficult to elucidate. Garofalo is one of the painters known and described by Vasari. From 1550 till his death Garofalo was blind. In 1520, Girolamo da Carpi is said to have apprenticed in Garofalo's workshop, and worked with him in Ferrarese projects in the 1530-40.

Anthology of works

• Madonna and Child (1510, Galleria dell'Arte Studiolo, Milan)[1]
• Holy Family, ( Musee de Angers) [2]
• Adoration of the Child (1508-9, Pinacoteca Ferrara)
• Neptune and Pallas, (1512, Gallery Dresen)[3]
• Madona delle Nuvole, (1514,Pinacoteca Ferrara)
• Madonna del Baldacchino, (1517 National Gallery)
• Massacre of the Innocents 1519 Pinacoteca Ferrara)
• Madonna del Pilastro, (1523, Pinacoteca Ferrara)
• Madonna Enthroned with Saints, (1524, Duomo, Ferrara)
• Madonna in Glory (1532, Capitoline Museum, Rome)
• St Sebastian, (Capodimonte, Naples)[4]
• Madonna Enthroned with Saints[5]
• Annunciation, (1528, Capitoline Museum, Rome)[6]
• Madonna Enthroned with Saints (1532,Modena)
• Raising of Lazarus (1534, Pinacoteca Ferrara)
• Washing feet of Christ (National Gallery, Washington DC)[7]
• Blessing of Saint John the Baptist, (1542, San Salvatore, Bologna)
• Annunciation, (1550, Brera, Milan)
• The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Catherine of Siena, (c1500-1505, National Gallery, London)[8]
• The Madonna and Child enthroned with Saints William of Aquitaine, Clare, Anthony of Padua and Francis, (1517-1518, National Gallery, London)[9]
• A Pagan Sacrifice, (1526, National Gallery, London)[10]
• The Holy Family with Saints John the Baptist, Elizabeth, Zacharias and (?) Francis, (1520, National Gallery, London)[11]
• Saint Catherine of Alexandria, (c1515-1530, National Gallery, London)[12]
• The Agony in the Garden, (1520s-30s, National Gallery,London)[13]
• The Vision of Saint Augustine, (c1518, National Gallery, London)[14]
• An Allegory of Love, (c.1527-1539, National Gallery, London)[15]
• Christ and the Samaritan Woman, 1536 [16]
• Madonna with Saint John and Saint Elisabeth (Courtald Institute, London) [17]
• Jesus in the Orchard[18]
• The Triumph of Bacchus, (Castello Estense)
• Holy Family [19]
• Mars, Venus, Kupido, (Wawel Royal Castle, Krakow)

References

• Freedberg, Sydney J. (1993). Pelican History of Art: Painting in Italy, 1500-1600. Penguin Books.
• Francis P. Smyth and John P. O'Neill (Editors in Chief) (1986). National Gallery of Art, Washington DC: The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the 16th and 17th Centuries, 141-43.
• Dosso Dossi, Garofalo, and the Costabili Polyptych: Imaging Spiritual Authority
• Art Bulletin, The, June, 2000 by Giancarlo Fiorenza

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia.

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