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Domenico
Fetty

Italia • 1589−1623

Biography and information

The son of a painter. He studied in Rome Cigoli, was familiar with Alzheimera. In 1613-1621 worked in Mantua for the Duke Ferdinando I Gonzaga. Then moved to Venice, where he worked in parallel with Bernardo Strozzi and Johann Liss, digesting the impact of the Roman Baroque, Caravaggio, Rubens.

From the works of fetti's most well-known series "Parables," individual paintings "Tobias healing his father", "Portrait of an actor", "Think Archimedes". His creation are different skill color, lyricism of the landscape, character characters.

The beginning of the brief artistic career fetti connected with Rome, where he was patronized by cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga, who became Duke of Mantua, in early 1614 invited him to his court as a caretaker of the gallery and asked him a few orders. In 1621 he was sent by the Duke to Venice for the purchase of paintings; then, in 1622, after a brief stay at Mantua, where he had an unpleasant history with some notable mantuana, fetti moved to Venice, where he died very young on April 4 next year, due to "a malignant fever" or, according to Ballon, "debauchery".

Fetti was formed in Rome in the circle of Cigoli, as evidenced by the painting "Behold the man" (Florence, Uffizi), but attracted by the works of Caravaggio, he is particularly interested in Venetian karabagazgol Borgianni. Important role in the work of Domenico fetti and played and Ruben, in which he saw not only the great masters of Baroque, but also a fan of the giants of Venetian painting. These experiences had a decisive importance for the artistic orientation fetti, which, although were not venetiarum, but during his brief stay in Venice was able to enter into the history of Venetian painting, using the legacy of the Venetian masters of the XVI century and contributing to the revival of the Venetian tradition in the XVII century.

Chronologically to trace the evolution fetti hard enough, because he almost never dated his works - religious (his famous "Parable") and mythological paintings. A large composition "the multiplication of the loaves" (Mantua, Ducal Palace), which was probably written in Mantua on his return from Venice in 1621, indicates a good knowledge of Venetian painting of the XVI century, particularly works of Tintoretto; however, a naturalistic interpretation of the gospel story with emphasis demotic characters (which is characteristic of the worldview in the seventeenth century) dates back to caravaggism. However, the expressive manner fetti very new and independent of any one culture. Its lightweight and virtuoznaya brush and iridescent and luminous colours create a poetic, whimsical world in which pictorial realism combined with imagination, generated by restless, almost romantic imagination. The world depicted in "Melancholy" (Paris, Louvre; Venice, Gal. Academy), both sad and blossoming in livid light; arrogant "David" (ibid.) and the many "Parables" ("the Parable of the lost drachma", Florence, Palazzo Pitti; Dresden Art Gal.; "The parable of the tenants" and "the Parable of the prodigal son", Dresden, Art Gal; Caen, musée des Beaux-arts; London, air Gal. Courtauld Institute; "the Parable of the good Samaritan", San Diego, California, Gal. fine arts; Boston, Museum of fine arts; "the Parable of the pearl of great price", Dresden, Art Gal.; Kansas city Museum; Caen, musée des Beaux-arts). "Proverbs" fetti is a collection of genuine masterpieces. Addicted to the artist's vivid narrative, in the spirit of the North "genre painters", reminiscent of the delicate manner of Bassano and at the same time anticipates artists "bamboccianti". However, his works are full of anxiety, despite the light color, close Veronese. Some of the more dramatic scenes have a lot in common with the art of Bruegel ("the parable of the blind leading the blind", Dresden, Art Gal.; Birmingham, Barbarovski Institute of arts). Inspired by Venetian tradition of the XVI century, executed a "Flight into Egypt" (Vienna, Museum of art history), reminiscent of works by Tintoretto, Veronese and luminism the concept of landscape Elsheimer. Graceful mythological paintings by fetti and stored in the Vienna Museum of art history ("Perseus and Andromeda", "hero and Leander", "the Triumph of Galatea"), are a brilliant proof of the value fetti for the development of not only Venetian art but also the wider art of the Italian Baroque. In its elegicheskogo mood and exquisite coloring they anticipate the XVIII century.