Drawing the Masters: The Formation of Giovan Battista Bassi and…

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_article_14529
dc.title	Drawing the Masters: The Formation of Giovan Battista Bassi and the Methods of the Accademia Clementina
dc.contributor.author	Cellura Orfeo
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.type	Research Article
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/mdccc-1800/2023/1/drawing-the-masters-the-formation-of-giovan-battis/
dc.description.abstract	This article expands our understanding of the formation and early career of the landscape painter Giovan Battista Bassi (Massa Lombarda, 1784-Rome, 1852), and, in particular, of his time at the Accademia Clementina in Bologna. An investigation of his production – with a focus on four Bassi drawings – paired with an analysis of newly discovered archival documents reveals that the Academy’s landscape painting students began by studying etchings of famous artists, such as Giovan Battista Piranesi, from the collection of Pope Benedict XIV. From these etchings they borrowed various elements, which can be clearly identified in their invented and idealised landscapes. For their annual end-of-year exam, students were challenged to reproduce actual landscapes, creating unique compositions based on real environments. An analysis of Bassi’s artistic evolution during his studies at the Academy, under Bolognese master Vincenzo Martinelli, together with an investigation of the Academy’s archives, sheds light not only on Bassi’s formation but also on the pedagogical methods employed in the Academy before its 1803 closure.
dc.relation.ispartof	MDCCC 1800
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 12 \| December 2023
dc.issued	2023-12-04
dc.dateAccepted	2023-06-26
dc.dateSubmitted	2023-03-14
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2280-8841
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/MDCCC/2280-8841/2023/01/001
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Accademia Clementina
dc.subject	Angelo Venturoli
dc.subject	Bologna
dc.subject	Drawing
dc.subject	Giovan Battista Bassi
dc.subject	Giovan Battista Piranesi
dc.subject	Landscape
dc.subject	Massa Lombarda
dc.subject	Masters
dc.subject	Pope Benedict XIV
dc.subject	Pupils
dc.subject	Rome
dc.subject	Stefano Della Bella
dc.subject	Vincenzo Martinelli

Research Article
open access peer reviewed

Drawing the Masters: The Formation of Giovan Battista Bassi and the Methods of the Accademia Clementina

Orfeo Cellura Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Italia

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abstract

This article expands our understanding of the formation and early career of the landscape painter Giovan Battista Bassi (Massa Lombarda, 1784-Rome, 1852), and, in particular, of his time at the Accademia Clementina in Bologna. An investigation of his production – with a focus on four Bassi drawings – paired with an analysis of newly discovered archival documents reveals that the Academy’s landscape painting students began by studying etchings of famous artists, such as Giovan Battista Piranesi, from the collection of Pope Benedict XIV. From these etchings they borrowed various elements, which can be clearly identified in their invented and idealised landscapes. For their annual end-of-year exam, students were challenged to reproduce actual landscapes, creating unique compositions based on real environments. An analysis of Bassi’s artistic evolution during his studies at the Academy, under Bolognese master Vincenzo Martinelli, together with an investigation of the Academy’s archives, sheds light not only on Bassi’s formation but also on the pedagogical methods employed in the Academy before its 1803 closure.

Published

Dec. 4, 2023

Accepted

June 26, 2023

Submitted

March 14, 2023

Language

Keywords: Landscape • Massa Lombarda • Giovan Battista Piranesi • Accademia Clementina • Pupils • Stefano Della Bella • Bologna • Pope Benedict XIV • Masters • Rome • Giovan Battista Bassi • Vincenzo Martinelli • Drawing • Angelo Venturoli

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/MDCCC/2280-8841/2023/01/001

Copyright: © 2023 Orfeo Cellura. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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