Aniello Falcone

Aniello Falcone or Ancillo Falcone (15 November 16001656) was an Italian Baroque painter, active in Naples and noted for his painted depictions of battle scenes.

Biography

Early life and education Born in Naples to a tradesman, he showed his artistic tendency at an early age. He first received some instruction from a relative, before becoming a pupil of Jusepe de Ribera. Bernardo de' Dominici records a journey to Rome, and Falcone's early works include genre paintings influenced by artists working in Rome, such as Pieter van Laer and Michelangelo Cerquozzi, and, equally importantly, by works painted by Diego Velázquez in Italy (1629–30); it was perhaps through Falcone that the painting of bambocciate (low-life scenes) spread to Naples.

His early Schoolmistress (New York, Wildenstein's) is a harshly naturalistic work with strong contrasts of light and dark. The theme of St. Lucy Distributing Alms (Naples, Museo di Capodimonte) is religious, yet Falcone painted a scene from everyday life. The saint and her companions give alms to tattered, disabled beggars in a Neapolitan street, and the group is portrayed with a warmth and dignity reminiscent of Velázquez and Louis Le Nain.

Falcone also painted in fresco and received several official commissions. In the frescoes in the chapel of St. Agatha in San Paolo Maggiore, Naples and in the signed Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1641; Naples Cathedral) Falcone began to move towards an academic style influenced by Romano-Bolognese classicism, developing it further in frescoed scenes from the Life of St. Ignatius in the sacristy of the Gesù Nuovo in Naples. In these pictures, and in the battle scenes of the 1640s, Falcone's handling became more painterly, and his richer colour and warmer light suggest a response to Nicolas Poussin and to Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione.

Maturity Falcone won international renown as a specialist in battle scenes, their subjects taken from both biblical and secular history, and was nicknamed L'Oracolo delle Battaglie. His works attracted the attention of the Flemish dealer and collector Gaspar Roomer, who sold his work across Europe, and he was one of the artists commissioned by Philip IV of Spain to paint a series of scenes from ancient Roman history for the Buen Retiro palace. His pupils included Salvator Rosa and Carlo Coppola, Domenico Gargiulo (known as Micco Spadaro), Paolo Porpora and Andrea di Leone.

Drawings Falcone was an important draughtsman. His favoured medium was red chalk, and he interpreted the red chalk drawings of Ribera in a more subtle and more pictorial manner. By 1636, he was holding a life drawing class in his studio over the winter months, and his academic nude drawings (for example, Paris, Louvre, 7623) are forcefully modelled and sharply outlined. Many preparatory studies for the battle scenes survive, among them copies of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci; they include horsemen and strongly characterized heads of shouting men and warriors. He also made landscape drawings, and the naturalism of the landscape backgrounds in his battle scenes is indebted to these informal studies.

Selected works

The Charity of Saint Lucy, 1630, oil on canvas, 75 × 86 cm, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples; Battle of Turks and Christians, 1631, Louvre, Paris; The school teacher, 1631, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples; Jacob contemplates the bloodied clothes of his son Joseph, 1630-31, Lanfranchi Palace, Matera; The Anchorite , Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome; The frescoes (1652) on the vault of the sacristy of the Gesù Nuovo, Naples; The Concert, Museo del Prado, Madrid; Roman Soldiers in the Circus, Museo del Prado, Madrid; The expulsion of the merchants from the Temple, Museo del Prado, Madrid; Supper at Emmaus, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg; Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Naples Cathedral; Entombment of Christ, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York; Portrait of Masaniello, National Museum of San Martino, Naples.