1582 -1647 · Parma, Rome and Naples

Domes open to the sky, bold shortcuts and swirling light make Giovanni Lanfranco a decisive master of Italian Baroque.

Giovanni Lanfranco was born in Parma in 1582. He first trained with Agostino Carracci, then in the service of the Farnese, then joined Annibale Carracci's workshop in Rome. He participated in the decoration of the Farnese gallery and assimilated Bolognese drawing, classical composition and the study of Raphael. After Annibale's death, stays in Emilia allowed him to rediscover the domes of Correggio in Parma. This experience transformed his art. Lanfranco understands that the ceiling can become a limitless space where figures revolve around a luminous center. His great Roman masterpiece is the dome of Sant'Andrea della Valle, painted between 1625 and 1627. In the Assumption of the Virgin, apostles, angels and clouds rise in a spiral that seems to truly open architecture to the sky. This solution deeply marks the baroque decoration and rivals Dominiquin's more structured approach. Lanfranco received numerous pontifical commissions, painted altarpieces, biblical scenes and devotional paintings. The Annunciation combines surprise, movement and light; the Last Supper organizes the reactions of the apostles around Christ; his Madonnas retain a Carraccian sweetness. In 1634, he settled in Naples, where he decorated the dome of the Gesù Nuovo, the Carthusian monastery of San Martino and several churches. His painting further gained energy, contrasts and freedom. Returning to Rome in 1646, he died the following year. Between the classicism of the Carracci and the illusionist expansion of the high Baroque period, Lanfranco established a model of celestial dome which would be taken up throughout Europe. The "Giovanni Lanfranco" selection notably compares The Annunciation and The Last Supper. His reading favors figures.

Lanfranco does not pose figures on a dome: he constructs an ascending current where clouds, bodies and light take the gaze beyond architecture.