CRESPI, Giuseppe Maria, called "lo Spagnolo" (Bologna, 1665 – Bologna, 1747)
Trained in his native town under Canuti, Cignani and Burrini, whose style shapes his youthful masterpiece, The Marriage at Cana (Art Institute of Chicago), Crespi completed his training with trips to Urbino, Parma, and Venice, made possible by the merchant Giovanni Ricci whom he met while working under Burrini (1686–1688). Crespi’s earliest known work is the Holy Family of 1688 for the parish church of Bergantino (the same church for which the artist would later paint a Madonna del Carmine long attributed to Bencovich). His well-known Temptation of St. Anthony, in the Bolognese church of San Niccolò degli Albari, painted two years later, follows in the tradition of Ludovico Carracci, and of his own first teacher, Canuti. The substantial painterly physicality, imbued with lively irony of Crespi’s work toward the end of the century (Aeneas, The Sibyl and Charon, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; Hecuba blinding Polynestor, Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts and Tarquin and Lucretia, Washington, DC, National Gallery, with its emphatic neo-Titianesque handling) is magnificently deployed in his mythological frescoes on the ceilings of Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande in Bologna (The Triumph of Hercules, The Four Seasons, The Three Fates, Neptune and Diana) where the traditionally theatrical, ornate settings are modulated by the bemused, almost irreverent qualities of the artist’s particular anti-classical and anti-monumental approach. In the first decade of the 18th century, Crespi’s principal protector was the Grand Prince Ferdinand of Tuscany for whom he painted The Ecstasy of Saint Margaret of Cortona in 1701, destined to replace on the Venuti altar of Santa Maria Nuova (now in the Duomo), Lanfranco’s masterpiece which Ferdinand wanted for himself (and which is now in the Galleria Palatina in Florence). In 1708, Crespi personally delivered his Massacre of the Innocents (Galleria degli Uffizi), painted two years earlier, to his illustrious patron. In 1709, the artist was Ferdinand’s guest in his villa in Pratolino (The Fair at Poggio a Caiano, Galleria degli Uffizi). Crespi’s exposure to the prince’s Flemish and Dutch collections would leave its mark on his subsequent style.
The artist founded a painting school in Bologna at the beginning of the century, while he also joined the Accademia Clementina which was founded shortly after his return from Florence. During these years Crespi painted his celebrated series of The Seven Sacraments (Dresden, Gemäldegalerie), commissioned by the Roman cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (The Baptism is dated 1712). This is a series of pictures in a markedly naturalistic style and in an almost monochrome brown enlivened by the white highlights of the priest’s surplices. It pays homage, on the one hand, to Guercino’s expressive vigour (also approximating that of the Genoese Assereto) but simultaneously looking to Piazzetta’s dramatic chiaroscuro, all, however, in a humane spirit that excludes any hint of sarcasm or of impropriety. In this regard, there is a marked contrast between this painting and the work now in the Národní Galerie in Prague of the historical Meeting between James Stuart and the Prince Albani in Parma in 1717. Here the painter’s social censure is clear, as the common people are depicted with natural liveliness, contrasting with the caricatured, grotesque stiffness of the aristocrats represented.
Crespi’s later works include numerous commissions for churches. Among these, some of the most successful are the Annunciation with Saints in the Cathedral of Sarzana (1722); The Crucifixion for the church of the Bolognese convent of Santa Maria Egiziaca (today in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan); The Assumption of the Virgin for San Ponziano in Lucca (today in the Archivio Arcivescovile, c. 1730); the two altarpieces for the church of the Gesù in Ferrara (1728–1729), and the four altarpieces for the parish church of San Paolo d’Argon near Bergamo (1728–1729). Among the latter, the Martyrdom of Saint John the Evangelist stands out for its backward glance at Guido Reni. Joshua Stopping the Sun for the Colleoni Chapel in Bergamo and the strong Martyrdom of Saint Peter of Arbuès for the Collegio di Spagna in Bologna (for which there is a fine preparatory drawing on paper in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna), both dated 1737, belong to his later years. Three years later, Pope Benedict XIV knighted the artist, who was by this losing his sight.
Any sketch of the artist is incomplete if it fails to mention the other genres apart from religious and historical works in which he was such a master. Firstly portraiture, with works of unadorned simplicity and spontaneity (for example, the Self-portrait, and The Family of Zanobio Troni, both in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna), as well as more formal commemorative works (Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo, Kunsthaus Zurich, Gentleman with a Letter, Walpole Gallery in London), allegorical ones (The Lute Player, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts), portraits as genre painting (The Hunter, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, The Messenger, Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle, the latter a witty, Rembrandt-like joke). Secondly, his genre paintings (Courtyard Scene, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, The Flea, Florence, Uffizi, and Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, The Woman Washing Dishes, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi). These include intimate scenes such as Saint John Nepomuk Hears Confession from the Queen of Bohemia (Turin, Galleria Sabauda), a masterpiece of the Italian Settecento, for which he was paid indirectly in 1743 but which probably dates from slightly earlier. But Crespi’s name is also crucially associated with the history of still-life painting. While it would be enough to mention his two paintings of Bookshelves with Musical Scores (Museo Civico, Museo Bibliografico Musicale), it is impossible to omit a mention of his Still Life with Game and Gun in the Galleria degli Uffizi, commissioned by the Grand Prince Ferdinand in 1708, or the Still Life with Birds (private collection) dated 1717, and, lastly, the rare Aloe Plant (private collection) of 1718, certainly inspired by the botanical wonders (particularly by Bimbi) admired a few years earlier in the Medici collections. Crespi’s sons were also painters: Luigi was an excellent portrait painter, while Antonio, of lesser talents, specialised in still life.
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