Carlo Crivelli

Carlo Crivelli

Carlo (Giovanni) Crivelli

(b ?Venice, ?1430–35; d Ascoli Piceno, before 3 Sept 1495).

He produced many large, multi-partite altarpieces in which his highly charged, emotional use of line, delight in detail, decoration and citric colours, often set against a gold ground, convey an intensity of expression unequalled elsewhere in Italy. His mastery of perspective was also used for dramatic impact. As he worked in isolation in the Marches, his style had only local influence. In the 19th century, however, he was one of the most collected of 15th-century Italian painters.

1. Life and work.

(i) Training and early work, before 1465.

On 7 March 1457 a legal suit was brought against Crivelli in Venice for having committed adultery with the wife of a sailor; he was fined and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. Since the proceedings of the trial refer to him as an independent painter, and he is known to have died in 1495, it has been estimated that he was born in the early 1430s, presumably in Venice. Although he always signed himself as a Venetian, no later document mentions him in Venice.

Crivelli presumably learnt the rudiments of painting from his father, Jacopo, who was active in the S Moisè district of Venice in the 1440s. It is assumed that Carlo was then apprenticed to some figure of greater distinction early in life. Ridolfi (1648) claimed that he was a pupil of Jacobello del Fiore; but Jacobello died in 1439, so this must be discounted. Crowe and Cavalcaselle (1871) suggested that Giambono was his master, emphasizing the taste both artists share for lavish costumes and intricate textile patterns. Davies (1972) and others proposed that Crivelli was connected with the Vivarini workshop, since works by him from the 1470s share many characteristics with earlier Vivarini workshop paintings in their treatment of figure types.

Crivelli soon came under the influence of the school of Squarcione at Padua. This is evident not so much from stylistic affinities with Squarcione himself, but with his pupils, including Mantegna, Marco Zoppo and Giorgio Schiavone. Schiavone’s work c. 1460 shows many connections with Crivelli’s early style, especially in figure types and characterization, and Zampetti (1961) conjectured that the two may have emigrated to Dalmatia together. This would help to explain how Crivelli was often able to draw on sources from regions in which he is not known to have worked. Squarcione possessed a considerable and diverse collection of drawings for the purpose of teaching, and when Schiavone left Squarcione’s workshop he took with him 19 of these drawings, which may have become available to Crivelli during his Dalmatian period. One of these drawings showed ‘certain nudes by Pollaiuolo’, and this possibly provided the model for the nude figures in the Martyrdom of St Sebastian from the predella of Crivelli’s Odoni Altarpiece (c. 1491; London, N.G.).

Most of these early influences on Crivelli’s style may be seen in one of only two signed works datable before his time in the Marches, the Virgin and Child (c. 1460; Verona, Castelvecchio), originally from S Lorenzo in Venice. Like many of his paintings, this is iconographically a complicated work, combining two disconnected themes, the infancy and the Passion of Christ. The Virgin stands behind a parapet on which seven minute children, perhaps representing Holy Innocents, present instruments of the Passion to the Child. Behind the Virgin, a cloth of honour and a swag of fruit hang from a curious classicizing structure. Here, as elsewhere in Crivelli’s work, fruits and similar objects are not used merely in a decorative manner, but also serve a symbolic function, enhancing the devotional significance of the image. To the right, an arch frames a view of the outskirts of a city, in the middle ground the episode of Peter cutting off the ear of Malchus is enacted, and in the distance the Crucifixion takes place. Van Marle (1923–38, xviii) related the painting to works by Giambono, but Paduan elements are much more prominent: swags and parapets are frequently found in works by Squarcione’s pupils, where they are used to construct the spatial context. Mantegna’s influence is particularly evident in details such as the raven perched in a defoliated tree, the angel foreshortened from below and the dilapidated wall, here used to mark off the middle ground. All of these features have possible parallels in Mantegna’s Agony in the Garden (London, N.G.)

Possibly of greater significance for his later work than any one of these influences is Crivelli’s dependence on aspects of the work of Jacopo Bellini, in whose workshop he may well have received some training. In the picture at Verona the Virgin’s facial type and expression correspond with works by Jacopo such as the Virgin and Child (Florence, Uffizi), while the treatment of the landscape and the extraordinary perspectival arrangement echo types found in Jacopo’s sketchbooks. Several of Crivelli’s narrative scenes depend on compositions known from Jacopo’s drawings.

(ii) Mature work, 1465 and after.

By 1465 Crivelli was living in Zara in Dalmatia (now Zadar, Croatia), then a province of the Venetian Republic. A document dated 11 September 1465 refers to him as a master painter from Venice and a citizen of Zara, indicating that he had been resident there for some time. By 1468 he was working at Fermo in the Marches on his earliest dated work, the Massa Fermana Altarpiece (on dep. Urbino, Pal. Ducale), a small polyptych commissioned by a local patron. Interesting comparisons may be made between this altarpiece and the four triptychs painted in the 1460s for S Maria della Carità, Venice, which have been attributed to the studio of Jacopo Bellini. Crivelli was also familiar with the early work of Giovanni Bellini, who probably contributed to the Carità triptychs. Giovanni’s early representations of the Pietà furnished Crivelli with ideas on which his own highly emotional Pietà compositions are based. It is likely that Crivelli maintained some contact with Giovanni in later life.

In 1469 Crivelli executed two more altarpieces at Fermo, one for the parish church at Porto San Giorgio (dispersed) and the other for the Franciscan church at Macerata, of which only a fragment survives (Macerata, Pin. & Mus. Com.). These works established him as a major artist in the Marches. By the end of his career most of the larger towns in the region could boast examples of his work in their principal churches. He achieved his success by satisfying a demand from local ecclesiastics and members of the minor nobility for religious panel paintings, chiefly altarpieces, which could attract attention through devotional appeal and a dazzling display of decorative effects.

Carlo Crivelli: Saint George, tempera on wood, gold ground, 38...Between 1468 and 1473 Crivelli completed no fewer than eight altarpieces (see fig.), each one showing greater confidence in technique and stylistic refinement. In these works he developed the distinctive characteristics for which his work is most admired, seen to advantage in the polyptych of 1473 in the cathedral of S Emidio, Ascoli Piceno, one of his few altarpieces to remain intact, retaining its original Gothic frame. Like several of Crivelli’s early altarpieces, this is an ancona in three tiers, the principal tier showing in separate compartments the Virgin and Child surrounded by four saints. Although this was an old-fashioned format, he gave it new relevance by imbuing the figures with a compelling vitality, as in the Pietà depicted in the central panel at the top of the polyptych .

Carlo Crivelli: Pietà, tempera on wood, gold ground, overall 28...Crivelli perhaps continued to be based in Fermo for the next few years. Works dating from the early 1470s, such as the polyptych from S Francesco at Montefiore dell’Aso (dispersed), were destined for churches in the vicinity. By 1483 he had settled in Ascoli Piceno, the largest city in the southern Marches, where local prosperity probably guaranteed superior commissions. The earliest work (untraced) that he seems to have executed in the city was in 1471 for the church of S Gregorio. From 1473 until 1488 his presence in the city is frequently recorded (see fig.). In June 1478 he bought a house near the cathedral. Documents dating from this year and from 1487 explicitly refer to Carlo Crivelli as a citizen of Ascoli; however, he also received commissions from outlying towns, suggesting a fairly peripatetic life.

Ascoli lay just north of the kingdom of Naples, but was under the Pope’s sovereignty. In 1482 Sixtus IV granted the city the right of self-government in return for acknowledgement of his suzerainty. The city celebrated the event by instituting an annual procession held on the feast of the Annunciation, when news of the agreement reached the city. A phrase was coined, Libertas ecclesiastica (‘Freedom under the Church’), to describe the arrangement. This is inscribed on two commemorative paintings, both depicting the Annunciation: one is by Crivelli’s follower Pietro Alemanno (1484; Ascoli Piceno, Pin. Civ.); the other is one of Crivelli’s most sumptuous and powerful compositions and his largest work devoted to a biblical narrative (1486; London, N.G.). Painted for SS Annunziata, the church where the procession ended, it is notable for its spectacular perspectival scheme, based on a composition in Jacopo Bellini’s sketchbook, and is Crivelli’s most ambitious attempt at integrating figures and architectural setting. Its use of extra-narrative elements, such as citizens dressed in contemporary costumes and St Emygdius, patron saint of Ascoli, indicates that the work was intended to have special significance for the people of Ascoli.

Rushforth (1900) conjectured that Crivelli may have been involved in political events. In 1490 the anti-papal party gained control in Ascoli, and Neapolitan forces took command. In April 1490 Prince Ferrante of Capua, the future King of Naples, knighted Crivelli at Francavilla. He is also referred to as the Prince’s familiaris (companion), an honour unlikely to be connected with recognition of artistic distinction—there being no evidence that Ferrante commissioned anything from him—but rather with some service to do with the surrender of the city. Furthermore, it seems significant that Crivelli appears not to have returned to Ascoli until 1495, the year of his death.

During the last five years of Crivelli’s life he accepted commissions from towns in the northern Marches, such as Fabriano and Camerino. In most of these works he added the title miles (knight) to his signature. On one panel, the Madonna della candeletta (Milan, Brera), part of a large altarpiece from Camerino Cathedral and possibly his last completed work, his signature is followed by another title, Eques aureatus, perhaps indicating that he had been granted a still greater honour. The enormous cost of his late works is confirmed by an inscription on the Becchetti Altarpiece (1491; London, N.G.), referring to the considerable expense that the patron incurred in ordering it. His last dated work, the Coronation of the Virgin with Saints surmounted by a Pietà (1493; Milan, Brera), originally from S Francesco at Fabriano, is one of only three altarpieces by Crivelli for which records of contracts have survived. On 9 February 1493 he committed himself to completing this commission within two years at a cost of 250 ducats; the altarpiece was delivered in August 1494. The speed of the work suggests that Crivelli ran an exceptionally efficient workshop. Its form was certainly influenced by Giovanni Bellini’s altarpiece painted for Pesaro in the 1470s; this originally consisted of a large Coronation of the Virgin (Pesaro, Mus. Civ.) surmounted by a panel of the Pietà (Rome, Pin. Vaticana). The expressive interlacing of hands in Bellini’s Pietà was exploited in Crivelli’s late works, particularly in the Pietà of 1493.

2. Technique and style.

Carlo Crivelli: Madonna and Child, tempera and gold on wood,...Crivelli is often treated as an isolated figure, worthy of attention on account of his unmistakable style and fanciful sense of decoration, but standing apart from the main developments in Italian art because his oeuvre, which is exclusively religious, shows little evidence of concern with the prevailing interests of Renaissance artists. The choice of Ascoli as a base for his operations cut him off from major centres of artistic activity, and consequently several aspects of his work seem old-fashioned by comparison with contemporary painting in Venice or Florence. Unlike many Venetian artists, he never took up oil by itself as a medium, always employing tempera on panel. He also favoured devices such as raised gesso-work to heighten the three-dimensional effects of such details as saints’ attributes, gold backgrounds and pieces of coloured glass to simulate jewels, all of which had fallen out of use in Venice soon after he settled in the Marches. Nonetheless, from a technical standpoint he was a highly accomplished artist, bringing traditional techniques to a new peak of refinement. His palette is especially notable, expertise in the handling of pigments being evident from the wide range of rich and brilliant colours he brought to his work (see fig.).

Crivelli’s very individual style is characterized by vigorous draughtsmanship, bold modelling and great attention to such naturalistic details as veins and wrinkles. Each figure is carefully worked out so that no pose or gesture is repeated, a variety emphasized by the use of a wide range of vivid, almost garish colours. But it is the inclination to exaggerate form, sometimes to the point of contortion, yet always with expressive results, that makes these figures memorable. This tendency towards exaggeration may have been deliberately developed to satisfy the devotional needs of the Dominicans and Franciscans, Carlo’s major patrons, who advocated the use of striking images as an aid to devotion. However, the immediate source for this kind of treatment of the figure was probably Donatello’s altarpiece in Il Santo at Padua (in situ), which had a profound effect on many artists of Crivelli’s generation, including some who shared these qualities of exaggeration, for instance Cosimo Tura.

Although in his later career Crivelli adopted the Renaissance type of altarpiece, integrating the principal figures into a single space as in the Odoni Altarpiece (London, N.G.), his figure style remained remarkably consistent. The tendency to exaggerate, however, gradually became more prominent, some figures appearing neurotic, even hysterical. Ornamental qualities were also developed further, perhaps inspired by contemporary schemes of architectural decoration in the Palazzo Ducale at Urbino. While it is clear that the major developments in Italian art had little effect on Crivelli’s later work, it is sometimes possible to detect isolated new influences. Still-life details in the Annunciation, for example, suggest familiarity with Flemish paintings, available to him at Urbino, and the musician angels in the Coronation of the Virgin may owe something to Melozzo da Forlì, whose work of the 1480s at Loreto was accessible to him.

Grove Art online, accessed 7/22/14 by E. Reluga