Defendente Ferrari - Nativity in Nocturnal Light - WGA07812

Defendente Ferrari (c. 1480/1485 – c. 1540) was an Italian painter active in

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

. His work marks the transition from late Gothic traditions to

Renaissance art Renaissance art (1350 – 1620 AD) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occ ...

in the region.

Life and work

Ferrari was born at Chivasso, near

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

. Here he trained and initially worked in the workshop of Giovanni Martino Spanzotti. Spanzotti had been the pre-eminent painter in western Piedmont after moving to Chivasso c. 1502. Many works previously thought to have been by Spanzotti are now attributed to Defendente.Riccardo Passoni. "Ferrari, Defendente." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 30 March 2016 Defendente achieved considerable success as a painter of polyptychs and altarpieces. He painted a number of nocturnal scenes such as the ''Nativity in Nocturnal Light'' (1510, Museo Civico d'Arte Antica, Turin). He left a number of signed and dated works.''Italian Paintings: North Italian School''
a collection catalog containing information about Ferrari and his works (see index; plate 58), p. 17 His work developed away from its initial harsh style following Gothic traditions towards the use of more fluid brushstrokes and the creation of soft, dense highlights more in line with Renaissance painting. His style seems to indicate that he may have known the work of northern European artists such as Rogier van der Weyden, while his later work shows the influence of Macrino d'Alba.

Selected works

*Triptych (1507) in the

Sacra di San Michele The Sacra di San Michele, sometimes known as Saint Michael's Abbey, is a religious complex on Mount Pirchiriano, situated on the south side of the Val di Susa in the territory of the municipality of Sant'Ambrogio di Torino, in the Metropolitan Cit ...

, Piedmont *''Nativity'' (1511), Church of St. John, Avigliana, Piedmont *Polyptych of ''Sant'Ivo'', Galleria Sabauda, Turin *''Bianzè Polypthych'', Museo Borgogna,

Vercelli Vercelli (; pms, Vërsèj ), is a city and ''comune'' of 46,552 inhabitants (January 1, 2017) in the Province of Vercelli, Piedmont, northern Italy. One of the oldest urban sites in northern Italy, it was founded, according to most historians, ...

, Piedmont *''St. Jerome in Penitence'', Museo Civico d'Arte Antica, Turin *''The Mourning of Christ'', Cathedral of Chivasso, Piedmont *''Madonna and Child'',

Galleria Palatina The Palazzo Pitti (), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the presen ...

, Pitti Palace,

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

Sources

* * Fantino Fabrizio, ''Defendente Ferrari e la critica d'arte nell'Otto e Novecento'', in «Annali di critica d’arte», III, 2007, pp. 175–217. * Fantino Fabrizio, ''Altare ipsum est munitum icona satis pulcra: i dipinti cinquecenteschi di Gerolamo Giovenone e di Defendente Ferrari'', in ''La chiesa di San Giovanni di Avigliana'', a cura di Paolo Nesta, Borgone di Susa, 2011, pp. 149–177. * Fantino Fabrizio, ''Il Battesimo di Cristo del duomo di Torino e un probabile disegno giovanile di Defendente Ferrari'', in ''Mosaico. Temi e metodi d'arte e di critica per Gianni Carlo Sciolla'', 2 vols., a cura di Rosanna Cioffi e Ornella Scognamiglio, Napoli, 2012, I, pp. 33–40.

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External links

1480s births 1540s deaths People from Chivasso 15th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 16th-century Italian painters Painters from Piedmont {{Italy-painter-15thC-stub