Caravaggisti
"[3] At the height of his popularity in Rome during the late 1590s and early 1600s, Caravaggio's dramatic new style influenced many of his peers in the Roman art world.
The first Caravaggisti included Mario Minniti, Giovanni Baglione (although his Caravaggio phase was short-lived), Leonello Spada and Orazio Gentileschi.
Yet, in Rome and in Italy, it was not Caravaggio, but the influence of Annibale Carracci, blending elements from the High Renaissance and Lombard realism, which ultimately triumphed.
[6] His work had a profound effect on the local artists and his brief stay in Naples produced a notable school of Neapolitan Caravaggisti, including Battistello Caracciolo, Bernardo Cavallino, Carlo Sellitto, Massimo Stanzione, Francesco Guarino, Mattia Preti, Andrea Vaccaro, Cesare Fracanzano and Antonio de Bellis.
The Caravaggist style of painting had been brought to Genoa both by Domenico Fiasella, after his return from Rome in 1617–18, and by followers of Caravaggio who spent time working in the city.
The Italian painter and engraver Bernardino Mei worked in his native Siena and in Rome, finding patronage above all in the Chigi family.
Pietro Ricchi (or il Lucchesino), born in Lucca, also often depicted brilliantly lit figures set against a dark background (see St. Sebastian).
He later made a copy of Caravaggio's Entombment of Christ and recommended his patron, the Duke of Mantua, to purchase The Death of the Virgin (Louvre).
Although some of this interest in Caravaggio is reflected in his drawings during his Italian residence, it was only after his return to Antwerp in 1608 that his works show openly Caravaggesque traits such as in the Cain slaying Abel (1608–1609) (Courtauld Institute of Art).
[8] Artists, who were influenced by Rubens, such as Pieter van Mol, Gaspar de Crayer and Willem Jacob Herreyns, also used certain stark realism and strong contrasts of light and shadow, common to Caravaggisti style.
The composition Scaldis and Antwerpia of 1609 derives its expressive power from the use of strong contrasts of light and shadow (chiaroscuro) as was pioneered by Caravaggio.
The influence of Caravaggio and his followers on their work can be seen in the use of dramatic light effects and expressive gestures as well as the new subject matter such as card sharps, fortune tellers, the denial of St Peter, etc.
For instance, Adam de Coster was referred to as the Pictor Noctium (painter of the nights) because of his preference for the use of stark chiaroscuro and the repeated motif of half-length figures illuminated by a candle which is covered.
[10][15] In the first three decades of the 17th century, some Catholic artists from the city of Utrecht in the Dutch Republic travelled to Rome where they were profoundly influenced by the work of Caravaggio and his followers.
One of the first French artists to studio in Rome during the Caravaggio Years was Jean LeClerc, who studied under Saraceni during the early 17th century.
[18] He also visited other parts of Italy: Venice; Bologna, (where the Carracci family had their academy); Genoa, (where from 1620 to 1622, he worked for the Doria princes); and Naples.
He absorbed what he saw and distilled it in his painting: Caravaggio's dramatic lighting; Italian Mannerism; Paolo Veronese's color and di sotto in su or foreshortened perspective; and the art of Carracci, Guercino, Lanfranco and Guido Reni.
The style garnered a number of adherents in Spain, and was to influence the Baroque or Golden Age Spanish painters, especially Zurbarán, Velázquez and Murillo.
Giovanni Battista Crescenzi was an Italian painter and architect of the early-Baroque period, active in Rome and Spain, where he helped decorate the pantheon of the Spanish kings at El Escorial.
