The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (95 page)

(1616–56?).
Neapolitan painter. He was the most individual and sensitive Neapolitan painter of his time, but his career is somewhat obscure. About eighty paintings by him are extant, but only one is dated,
St Cecilia in Ecstasy
(Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, 1645; a
modello
is in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples). Most of his pictures are small-scale religious works, peopled by exquisitely elegant and refined figures who evoke a feeling of tender melancholy. Their fragile sensitivity is in complete contrast to the earthy vigour of much of Neapolitan painting of his period. Cavallino trained with Massimo
Stanzione
, but his style has more in common with that of van
Dyck
, whose work was fairly well known in Naples. He is presumed to have died in the plague that devastated Naples in 1656.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1500–71).
Florentine sculptor, goldsmith, and metalworker. His autobiography, written in a racy vernacular, has been famous since the 18th cent. (it was first published in 1728) for its vivid picture of a
Renaissance
craftsman proud of his skill and independence, boastful of his feats in art, love, and war, quarrelsome, superstitious, and devoted to the great tradition embodied in
Michelangelo
. It has given him a wider reputation than could have come from his artistic work alone; but to modern eyes he also appears as one of the most important
Mannerist
sculptors, and his statue
Perseus
is one of the glories of Florentine art. His life can be roughly divided into three periods. From the first, spent mainly in Rome, nothing survives but some coins and medals and the impressions of two large seals. During the second (1540–5), which he spent in the service of Francis I of France (see
FONTAINEBLEAU, SCHOOL OF
), he created the famous salt-cellar of gold enriched with enamel (Kunsthistorisches Mus., Vienna), the most important piece of goldsmith's work that has survived from the Italian Renaissance. He also made for the king a large bronze
relief
, the
Nymph of Fontainebleau
(Louvre, Paris). The remainder of Cellini's life was passed in Florence in the service of Cosimo I de'
Medici
, and it was only in this period that he took up large-scale sculpture in the round. The bronze
Perseus
(Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, 1545–54) is reckoned his masterpiece. His other sculptures include the
Apollo and Hyacinth
and the
Narcissus
(both in the Bargello, Florence) and the
Crucifix
(Escorial, near Madrid), all in marble. His two portrait busts,
Bindo Altoviti
(Gardner Mus., Boston), and
Cosimo
I (Bargello), are in bronze. Their somewhat dry, niggly quality shows that the exquisite precision of handling of his goldsmith's work did not always transfer easily to a larger scale. Because of his fame, many pieces of metalwork have been attributed to him, but rarely on secure grounds.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(
c.
1370–1440).
Florentine painter and writer. None of his paintings has survived, but he is remembered as the author of
Il Libro dell' Arte
(translated by Daniel V. Thompson as
The Craftsman's Handbook
, 1933), written in about 1400 and the most important source concerning artistic practice in the late Middle Ages. Cennini states in the book that he was a pupil of Agnolo
Gaddi
, who learnt from his father Taddeo Gaddi , who in turn was a pupil of
Giotto
, so his detailed descriptions of *tempera and *fresco painting no doubt reflect, even if at several removes, the technical procedures of the founder of the great tradition of Florentine painting.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Cercle et Carré
(Circle and Square)
.

A discussion and exhibition society for
Constructivist
artists formed in Paris in 1929 by
Seuphor
and
Torres-Garcia
. Three numbers of a journal of the same name appeared in 1929–30.
Mondrian
contributed an article. In Paris Cercle et Carré was superseded in 1931 by the more important
Abstraction-Création
group, but some years later Torres-Garcia formed an Asociación de Arte Constructivo in Montevideo and edited a journal entitled
Circulo y Cuadrado
, of which seven numbers appeared between 1936 and 1938.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1602–60).
Italian painter, known as ‘Michelangelo of the Battles’ because of his predilection for battle scenes. He spent all his career in Rome, but had considerable contact with Northern painters; his friendship with the Dutchman Pieter van
Laer
led to his becoming the leading Italian exponent of
bambocciate
(small pictures of low-life and peasant scenes).

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search