''The Deploration of Abel'', Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Madrid).">Madrid.html" ;"title="Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Madrid">Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (
Italian painter and engraver active in the Mannerism">Mannerist and Baroque">list of Italian painters">Italian painter and engraver active in the Mannerism">Mannerist and Baroque style.
Life
He was born in Turin. He first trained in the Piedmont, under a painter by the name of Spirito, then was the main pupil of Pietro dal Po in Rome.
Filippo Titi, Titi gave some details of his activity in Rome and he mentioned the following works: the ''Annunciation'', the ''Crucifixion'' and the ''St. Michael who Defeats the Rebel Angels'' in
San Bonaventura al Palatino
The Church of San Bonaventura al Palatino is a small 17th century church building in Rome built on Via Marco Colidio the Palatine Hill
The Palatine Hill (; la, Collis Palatium or Mons Palatinus; it, Palatino ), which relative to the seven ...
; the frescoed ''Fortress'' in a vault of the left aisle of
San Carlo al Corso
Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso (usually known simply as ''San Carlo al Corso'') is a basilica church in Rome, Italy, facing onto the central part of the Via del Corso. The apse of the church faces across the street, the Mausoleum of Augustus o ...
; the two paintings depicting ''Daniel in the Lions' Den'' and the ''Resurrection of Lazarus'', the frescoes with ''Eternal Father in Glory'' and the ''Assumption'' in the choir of
Santa Maria del Suffragio (dating to shortly after 1662). Some other work performed for private individuals and today no longer traceable were mentioned in the Lives of
Pascoli.
In the paintings mentioned above he showed a marked influence of
Lanfranco
Lanfranco (active in Modena from c. 1099 to 1110) was an Italian architect. His only known work is the Modena Cathedral. Record of his work there is in the early 13th-century manuscript ''Relatio de innovatione ecclesie sancti Gemeniani'' in the ...
's painting, although Benaschi could not have studied under the master, since Lanfranco died in 1647. The master's influence persisted and was enriched with new ideas during his stay in Naples, which began around 1664, the year in which he decorated, with a ''Life of San Nicola'', the small, no longer extant, church of St. Nicola alla Dogana.
As did many other aspiring artists, Benaschi drew inspiration from the
Carracci frescoes from the Farnese Gallery, from the statues in the
Belvedere Belvedere (from Italian, meaning "beautiful sight") may refer to:
Places
Australia
*Belvedere, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region
Africa
*Belvedere (Casablanca), a neighborhood in Casablanca, Morocco
*Belvedere, Harare, Zim ...
at the Vatican Palace, paintings from
San Carlo de' Catinari
San Carlo ai Catinari, also called Santi Biagio e Carlo ai Catinari ("Saints Blaise and Charles at the Bowl-Makers") is an early- Baroque style church in Rome, Italy. It is located on Piazza Benedetto Cairoli, 117 just off the corner of Via Arenu ...
and the works of
Lanfranco
Lanfranco (active in Modena from c. 1099 to 1110) was an Italian architect. His only known work is the Modena Cathedral. Record of his work there is in the early 13th-century manuscript ''Relatio de innovatione ecclesie sancti Gemeniani'' in the ...
from the church of
Sant Andrea della Valle. Among his patrons were Giovanni Battista Cesalassi and the Jurist Alberetti.
[L. Pascoli, page 226.] In
Naples, he painted several ceilings and frescoes, for example at the
Chiesa di Santa Maria in Portico, and the cupula of
Santi Apostoli. He completed an etching of a ''Holy Family'', after
Giovanni Domenico Cerrini, who was his intimate friend.
Relative to Lanfranco's style, Benaschi lightened the tints and attenuated the graphic prominence of the contours of the figures in order to achieve greater chromatic fusion and a more rough pictorialism. This style manifested in the frescoes of the chapel of
Santa Maria La Nova (''Death of Saint Anne'', ''St Paul Preaching'', ''St Louis of Toulouse Shows the Bull of Indulgences to the People''), in the paintings of the chapel of St Michael in the church of the
Santi Apostoli, then in the fresco executed in the dome of this same church (1680, with the collaboration of
Orazio Frezza), and then in the Saints on the front arches of the chapel of the church of the
Gerolamini (1681).
Being ill he retired to live in the convent of
Santa Maria delle Grazie in Caponapoli Santa Maria delle Grazie Maggiore a Caponapoli or Santa Maria delle Grazie Maggiore is a church located in the historic center of Naples, Italy.
History
Work on the church and adjacent monastery began in 1447, inspired by the beatified Pietro da ...
where he decorated the church with a vast cycle of frescoes executed with the help of
Orazio Frezza and
Giuseppe Castellano and depicting episodes from the ''Life of Christ and Virgin''. During a hospitalization in that monastery, he died on the 28th of September 1688.
He had a daughter, Angela, born in Turin in 1666 and died in Rome in 1746, also a painter who was appreciated by her contemporaries - and especially by Pascoli - as a portraitist: at the moment, however, no work of hers is known.
Among his pupils was
Orazio Frezza.
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Beinaschi, Giovanni Battista
1636 births
1688 deaths
17th-century Italian painters
Fresco painters
Italian Baroque painters
Italian male painters
Painters from Turin
