arlone Giovanni Andrea
(Genoa 1639 - Genoa 1697)
The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
Biography
Giovanni Andrea Carlone learnt much from his father, Giovanni Battista Carlone who was also a distinguished painter. Subsequently, however, his extensive travels throughout Italy, first to Rome, left a great mark on his painting style. In Rome he made contact with Giovanni Battista Gaulli who is credited with influencing his early ornamental style. In the 1660s Carlone worked in Perugia, painting the frescoes in the church of S. Filippo Neri. And with Gaulli, he worked on frescoes in Il Gesù in Rome painting a fresco of the life of St. Francis. The following decade he travelled to key art centres of many Italian territories: Naples, Messina and Palermo and from there to Venice, Padua, Ferrara, Bologna, Modena, Parma and Piacenza. In 1675 in a clear signal of his importance in Roman artistic circles, Carlone became a member of the Accademia di San Luca. Towards the end of his life, the artist worked with his brother in their native Genoa, frescoing two rooms in the Palazzo Rosso with an Allegory of the Arts and the Age of Mankind (1691-1692).
Carlone’s nomadic life style permeated his output. His paintings from Perugia and Foglino have much in common with the Umbrian artists. In contrast, his Roman works underline the profound influence Maratti had on his artistic development. The Genoese frescoes that he completed with Niccolò Carlone hark back to the style of his father and his famous contemporary Cortona. Yet he unites this with the High Baroque art of Gaulli and Maratti. By the close of the century, the artists of the Casa Piola had absorbed this high Baroque style, certainly in part due to Carlone’s work