Domenico Morelli
{{Short description|Italian painter (1823–1901)}}
{{for|the bishop|Domenico Morelli (bishop)}}
File:Domenico Morelli Portrait.jpg
Domenico Morelli (4 August 1823{{spaced ndash}}13 August 1901)Calingaert, Efrem Gisella . "Morelli, Domenico." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. was an Italian painter, who mainly produced historical and religious works. Morelli was immensely influential in the arts of the second half of the 19th century, both as director of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples, but also because of his rebelliousness against institutions: traits that flourished into the passionate, often patriotic, Romantic and later Symbolist subjects of his canvases. Morelli was the teacher of Vincenzo Petrocelli, Ulisse Caputo, and Anselmo Gianfanti.
Biography
He was born to a poor family in Naples. His mother had hoped he would become a priest.[https://books.google.com/books?id=Zz0bAAAAYAAJ {{lang|it|Dizionario degli Artisti Italiani Viventi: pittori, scultori, e Architetti.}}], by Angelo de Gubernatis. Tipe dei Successori Le Monnier, 1889, Page 309-310. His precocious talent was noted, and he was enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Naples in 1836–1846, where he befriended Francesco Altamura. His early works contain imagery drawn from the Medieval stories and Romantic poets such as Byron. In 1845, he painted a prize-winning {{lang|it|L' angelo che porta le anime al Purgatorio dantesco}}.Gubernatis, page 310. In 1845–46, with the painting of {{lang|it|Saul calmato da David}}, and help from a generous patron, the lawyer Ruggiero, he won a fellowship to study in Rome.Gubernatis, page 310. In 1847–48, he painted {{lang|it|Il corsaio}} and {{lang|it|Una sfida di Trovatori}}, the prize-winning {{lang|it|Bacio del Corsaro}}, and {{lang|it|Goffredo a cui appare l'angelo}}. In 1847 at Rome, he painted a {{lang|it|Madonna che culla il bambino, aiutata da San Giovanni}}.
Morelli had just returned to Naples, when the insurrections of 1848 erupted in Naples. He joined the protesters in the barricades on via Toledo, and was wounded, nearly killed, and briefly imprisoned. In a retrospective published after his death, Isabella Anderton would label Domenico as one of the warrior artists of Italy, a group which also included Filippo Palizzi, Telemaco Signorini, Stefano Ussi, and Francesco Saverio Altamura.The Art of Domenico Morelli by Isabella M. Anderton, Studio International Art, Volume 24, (1902), Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, pages 83-91.
Released, Morelli returned to Rome. He painted {{lang|it|Van der Welt in mezzo ai corsari sopra una via romita}} (1851) and {{lang|it|Cesare Borgia a Capita in mezzo ad una folla di fanciulle}}. In 1855 at the Florentine Exposition, he displayed his famous The Iconoclasts.
He participated in the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1855. Later, in Florence, he was an active participant in the Macchiaioli discussions on Realism. Morelli claimed that it was these discussions that made his own work less academic and helped him to develop a freer style and to experiment with color. In this period, he is grouped into the school of Realism.
In 1857, he won a contest to design the decoration of the {{ill|Tempio di San Francesco|it|lt=Church of San Francesco}} of Gaeta, a project never completed. On a trip to Milan he painted {{lang|it|Count di Ijara}}, Pompeian Bath, and a {{lang|it|Madonna Addolorata}}. By 1857, he had returned to Naples, painting a {{lang|it|Torquato Tasso}}. For the ceiling of the Royal chapel of Naples, he painted an Assumption of the Virgin.
He was a member of an independent society, led by his friend Filippo Palizzi, to promote the liberal arts, called the {{lang|it|Societa Promotrice}} in 1862.A.R. Willard, page 29 He was appointed consultant for new acquisitions of the Capodimonte art museum in Naples and, thus, had significant impact on the subsequent direction of the collections. In 1868, Morelli became a professor of painting at his old Academy, which now became the Royal Institute of Fine Arts in Naples. From that period onward, his interest turned to religious and mystical themes, drawn from mostly Christian, but also Jewish and Muslim traditions. Perhaps best known from this period is the Assumption on the ceiling of the Royal Palace in Naples. Morelli was also one of the collaborators for the illustrations of the Amsterdam Bible in 1895. From 1899 until his death, he was president of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Naples.
Morelli late in life won many awards and distinctions. he was named honorary professor of the principal academies of Italy and Europe, commendatore of the Order of SS. Maurizio e Lazzaro and of the Order of the Crown of Italy, and {{lang|it|cavaliere dell' Ordine civile di Savoia}}. In June, 1886, he was knighted a senator by the King.
He died on 13 August 1901 in Naples.
Among his many pupils were Giuseppe Costa, Francesco Paolo Michetti, Vittorio Matteo Corcos, Giuseppe Boschetto, Camillo Miola, Edoardo Tofano, Antonio Mancini, Vincenzo Montefusco and Enrico Salfi. Morelli designed the frescoes painted for the tomb of Giacomo Leopardi, located in the church of San Vitale at Fuorigrotta, but they were completed posthumously by his son-in-law, Paolo Vetri.Anderton, page 91
Gallery
File:Domenico Morelli 009.jpg|Neophyte, 1851
File:Domenico Morelli - I martiri cristiani.png|Christian Martyrs, 1851
File:Domenico Morelli - Ritratto di donna in rosso.jpg|Girl in Red, 1855
File:Domenico Morelli 010.jpg|Angels carry Martyrs, 1855
File:Domenico Morelli 006.jpg|Guinevere kisses Lancelot
File:Domenico Morelli 005.jpg|Sultan's wife returns
from the Bath
File:I Vespri Siciliani - Domenico Morelli 1823-1901.jpg|Sicilian Vespers
File:Domenico Morelli 003.jpg|Pompeian Bath, 1861
File:Domenico Morelli 008.jpg|Maria De Medici visits
Ruben's studio, 1861
File:Domenico Morelli 004.jpg|Tasso reads his poem
to Eleonora d'Este, 1865
File:Coat of arms of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.svg|Gemini, 1870s
File:Domenico Morelli 001.jpg|Sermon of Mohammed, 1890s
File:Domenico Morelli - Le tentazioni di Sant'Antonio.jpg|Temptation of St Anthony
File:Domenico Morelli - Cristo che veglia gli apostoli.jpg|Christ watches over the Apostles, 1891
File:Domenico Morelli Noahs Dankgebet.jpg|Noah gives Thanks for Deliverance, 1901
References
{{Reflist|2}}
Sources
- {{cite book|last= Willard|first=Ashton Rollins|title= A sketch of the life and work of the painter Domenico Morelli|publisher=The Riverside Press, Houghton, Mifflin, and Company |location=Cambridge, MA, USA|year=1895|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-SwDAAAAQAAJ&q=Saverio+Altamura&pg=PA52}}
External links
- {{commons category-inline}}
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Category:19th-century Italian painters
Category:Italian male painters
Category:19th-century Neapolitan people
Category:People of the First Italian War of Independence
Category:Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli alumni
Category:Academic staff of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli