Print this page The Baroque Painting of Naples: From Caravaggio to Luca Giordano

Caravaggio's five years in southern Italy were critical to the artistic path of the region during the seventeenth-century Baroque period. Meet artists such as Caracciolo, who drew on both Caravaggio's technical and inventive inspiration. See how a naturalistic depiction of life and dramatic contrasts of light and shadow were used to create southern Italy's own aesthetic ethos, in the at times gritty world of its cities and regions. Explore the robust, tactile Neapolitan still-life tradition, depicting the kitchens, markets and produce of what was then Europe's second-largest city. In the later decades of the seventeenth century, we see such naturalism superseded by the vast and effortlessly lyrical paintings of the international master of the brush, Luca Giordano. Above all, discover a region whose painting is as raw and tactile as the land it comes from.

DELIVERY MODE

Face to face

COURSE RESOURCES

• Christopher Marshall, Baroque Naples and the Industry of Painting (Yale University Press: 2016). ISBN-13: 9780300174502
• Bernardo Cavallino of Naples, ed., Anne Percy (Indiana University Press: 1984). ISBN: 9780910386753
• Keith Sciberras, Mattia Pretti: The Triumphant Manner (Midsea Books: 2012). ISBN: 978-99932-7-407-0
• Giuseppe Scavizzi, Luca Giordano: His Life and Work (Arte'm: 2017). ISBN: 8856905701

COURSE OUTLINE

Major Caravaggio-inspired painters of 17th-century Naples

• Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, an early adopter of Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro. 
• Massimo Stanzione, who combined chiaroscuro naturalism with classicising and Florentine Baroque traits, inclusive of his relationship with the painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
• Jusepe Ribera, the Spanish-born painter, known for dark, dramatic paintings and technically brilliant etchings. 
• Mattia Preti, who absorbed and transformed influences from across Italy. 
• Bernardo Cavallino, whose classical and biblical subjects brought greater narrative drama. 
• We end with the plague of 1656 that ended the stylistic dominance of Caravaggio.

Still Life in Naples

• Explore the robust, tactile Neapolitan still-life tradition
• Kitchens, markets and produce of Europe’s second-largest city, contrasting this with the more subdued Dutch tradition
• Examine Luca Giordano, one of Naples and Europe’s most prolific artists, whose remarkable speed and versatility helped shift Neapolitan painting beyond Caravaggio’s influence after the plague

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Have gained an overarching historical understanding of painting in Naples, via the lives of some of its most prominent painters.
• Perceive of Neapolitan painting more broadly, within its specific cultural, social and political context.  
• Be able to clearly recognise historical developments within painting in Naples. 
• Learn to visually analyse a work of art.