Paolo Pagani (22 September 1655 – 5 May 1716) also known as Paolo Antonio Pagani or Paolo Pagano, was an Italian Baroque/ Mannerism painter of the 17th century.

Biography

Paolo Pagani SLiborio Guarigione San Marco Milano

Pagani was born in

Valsolda Valsolda is a ''comune'' (municipality) of about 1,400 inhabitants in the Province of Como in the Italian region Lombardy on the border with Switzerland. It is located about north of Milan, about north of Como and east of Lugano. Valsolda (''Va ...

, now a municipality in the Province of Como in the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

region Lombardy, located about north of

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

and bordering Switzerland. In 1667 he moved to Venice, where he made a series of ten aquatints from works by

Giuseppe Diamantini Giuseppe Diamantini (1621–11 November 1705) was an Italian painter and printmaker of the Baroque period, active mainly in Venice. Some sources cite varying dates for his life span including 1660–1722. Biography He was born in Fossombrone. His ...

(1621–1705). In 1675 he painted the ''Martyrdom of St. Erasmus''. The painting was exhibited at Palazzo Molin, and is currently located in the National Gallery of Spinola in

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

. In 1690 he was invited to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

by the Emperor Leopold I. In 1696 he returned to Valsolda where he frescoed what is considered his masterwork: the nave of the parish church of San Martino. The work, completed the year of the birth of

Tiepolo Giovanni Battista Tiepolo ( , ; March 5, 1696 – March 27, 1770), also known as Giambattista (or Gianbattista) Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an import ...

, who would master the art of the luminous fresco, astounds with the use of bright colors and swirling

sotto in su Illusionistic ceiling painting, which includes the techniques of perspective ''di sotto in sù'' and ''quadratura'', is the tradition in Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo art in which ''trompe-l'œil'', perspective tools such as foreshortening, an ...

perspective as a fresco technique. Michela Catalano, in an entry about Pagani on the Lombardia Beni Culturali website, states:

The result is an extraordinary invention of illusionistic perspective, consisting of two quadratura domes connected by transverse arches, framing a complex composition, in which different iconographic themes, in turn, connect the (painted narratives) of lives of the saints to their respective side chapels. (In the center of the second dome) is depicted the ''Assumption of the Virgin''... (To its side, is depicted) .. the ''Preaching of (John) the Baptist''; on the opposite side of the vault, and above the chapel dedicated to Saint Apollonia, Catherine and Lucy, (the space is) decorated with frescoes the death sentence of the three martyrs, carried to glory by angels on the ceiling of the first span. The fantastic, dizzying rush of the vault ... is a veritable compendium of the experiences drawn from the figurative painters in Venice and Central Europe, from research on
chiaroscuro Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...
and naturalistic styles of the Venetian ''tenebrosi'' artists, and impacted by the Baroque of Rubens, a reflection on models of Michelangelo,
Tintoretto Tintoretto ( , , ; born Jacopo Robusti; late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594) was an Italian painter identified with the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized the speed wit ...
and other mannerists, supplemented by a precocious adoption of the illusionistic perspective methods of Andrea Pozzo.

Paolo Pagani Affreschi San Lorenzo Valsolda

Pagani died in

on 5 May 1716. His former house in Valsolda has been converted in a museum dedicated to his work in 2004.

References

External links

Museo Paolo Pagani
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pagani, Paolo 1655 births 1716 deaths 17th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 18th-century Italian painters 18th-century Italian male artists