The Artist Antonio da Correggio

ALL ARTISTS

ANTONIO ALLEGRI DA CORREGGIO, the Italian painter, was born in Correggio, Italy, 1494 and died there, March 5, 1534. Little is known of his early life and training, but his first important work, the Madonna with Saints painted in 1514-1515 for San Francesco in Correggio, reveals familiarity with the styles of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci. These influences continue throughout his career, even though all evidence points to his having been active almost exclusively in Correggio and nearby Parma. His own style is in the grand manner initiated by these men but has a markedly personal flavor, soft and poetical in the treatment of light and color, joyous and exuberant in overall expressive character. His most impressive works are a series of mural decorations, beginning with the ceiling of a room painted in 1518-1519 in the Convent of San Paolo at Parma. Then follow the boldly original frescoes in the dome of San Giovanni Evangelista at Parma painted between 1520 and 1524. Here the ascending figure of Christ in the center is watched by the Apostles who form a ring around the edge of the dome. The sharply foreshortened figures of the Apostles seated on clouds filled with angels give a strong sense of upward movement into space. This idea is further elaborated in his most famous work, the fresco decoration of the dome of the Cathedral of Parma, painted between 1526 and 1530. In this larger painting the eye is carried up through two concentric rings of foreshortened figures. The lower ring features the standing figures of the Apostles looking up at the group in which the Virgin Mary ascends to heaven in the company of many saints and angels. The complex interweaving of the figures and the many outthrust arms and legs serve both to increase the sense of movement and to convey a quality of exultation appropriate to the theme. These paintings were far ahead of their time. They met with mixed reactions then and their greatest influence was felt in the next century in the work of baroque muralists in Rome. Of Correggio's many altarpieces in oil, some, such as the Madonna of St. George (Dresden), are in the current mannerist style ; others, such as the Madonna with St. Jerome (Parma) and the Adoration of the Shepherds (Dresden) anticipate the 17th century in their treatment of light and space. At the end of his life Correggio devoted himself mainly to themes from classical mythology. In these works his soft modeling and frank sensuousness create an expressive quality that is highly individual, as may be seen in his Jupiter and lo (Vienna) and Leda (Berlin). Correggio's influence and reputation grew steadily in the later 16th and 17th centuries. He was the founder of the school of Parma and his influence spread beyond Parma and is reflected in the academic style initiated by the Carracci in Bologna and Rome as well as in the work of more baroque artists in Rome and outside of Italy.