Correggio in Translation
Saturday, July 18, 2009 - Sunday, November 15, 2009
These etchings are the first and most influential interpretation of one of the masterpieces of Western art, Correggio’s decoration of the cupola of the cathedral in Parma (reproduced at right). Antonio Allegri, called Correggio after the small town of his birth, achieved a style of unprecedented, and unsurpassed, sensory and sentimental appeal. Commissioned in 1522 and completed after 1530, his frescoes in the cathedral are the most spectacular expression of this style. Their dizzying composition, audacious perspective and luminous atmosphere transform the slightly concave ceiling into an enthralling vision of the Virgin’s bodily ascent and reception into heaven. Only a century later would this overwhelming illusionism be fully appreciated and its lessons applied in the great ceilings of the High Baroque.
Giovanni Battista Vanni was a leading painter in mid seventeenth‐century Florence. The present series represents his most important project as an etcher. Its fifteen plates divide Correggio’s decoration into sections emphasizing those most prominent or complicated in design. They were created in Florence but published in Rome a decade later amid growing enthusiasm for illusionistic decoration and reverence for Correggio. The series would have appealed specially to fellow artists and their patrons. While some could travel to Parma to see Correggio’s works in situ, most would have studied the cathedral’s frescoes through these etchings. At the same time, because Vanni’s hand was unusually fluent and the biting of his plates very light, these etchings possess their own spirited personality and allure.
Giovanni Battista Vanni was a leading painter in mid seventeenth‐century Florence. The present series represents his most important project as an etcher. Its fifteen plates divide Correggio’s decoration into sections emphasizing those most prominent or complicated in design. They were created in Florence but published in Rome a decade later amid growing enthusiasm for illusionistic decoration and reverence for Correggio. The series would have appealed specially to fellow artists and their patrons. While some could travel to Parma to see Correggio’s works in situ, most would have studied the cathedral’s frescoes through these etchings. At the same time, because Vanni’s hand was unusually fluent and the biting of his plates very light, these etchings possess their own spirited personality and allure.