Giovanni Lanfranco was pupil of Agostino Carracci, when Agostino was working for the Duke of Parma, and later of Annibale Carracci, in his large and prominent Roman workshop. The most decisive influence on Lanfranco's work, however, was not just the classicism of the Carracci brothers but the dynamic illusionism of the paintings by Correggio in Parma's cathedral. Lanfranco translated Correggio’s 16th-century style into a Roman Baroque idiom. In his first years in Rome Lanfranco contributed to the works of Annibale's studio but by 1605 he was obtaining independent commissions. After Annibale Carracci died in 1609, and with the Emilian school of painting temporarily out of favor, Lanfranco returned to Parma for two years. Returning to Rome the end of 1612-1615, initially Lanfranco and three other main Carracci trainees, Reni, Albani, and Domenichino, competed for Roman patronage. Reni, however, was soon to depart to Naples and then Bologna. For the following decades in Rome, Lanfranco and Domenichino developed a bitter rivalry for the main fresco commissions. Lanfranco's crowning masterpiece, and one of the major church fresco decoration of the late 1620s, was his 'Assumption of the Virgin' frescoed on the dome of Sant'Andrea della Valle, completed in 1627. In 1631, Lanfranco was named 'Principe' (Prince) of the Academy of St. Luke, the artist's guild in Rome. From 1634 to 1646, Lanfranco worked in Naples, his best known work there being the decoration of the dome in the chapel of San Gennaro in the cathedral (1641-46). |
