STROZZI, BERNARDO. - Called the Genoese Capuchin, painter, b. in Genoa in 1581, d. in Venice in 1644. He is among the most notable Genoese painters of the early seventeenth century.
Strozzi, whose formation is exceedingly complex despite his almost plebeian, aggressive immediacy, is in his city the most typical exponent of that Venetianizing naturalism toward which G. A. De Ferrari would follow him. Among the youthful works in the Tuscan manner are the Madonna of the Louvre and that of Genoa (Crosa di Vergagni collection), the St. Catherine of Hartford, the finest example of a large series; among the Lombard ones, the Flagellation of the Migone collection in Genoa, the Deposition of the Accademia Ligustica. Closer to the sensibility of Flemish masters present in Genoa, such as Aersten, Beukelaert, van Roos, and thus more frankly realistic, is a group of paintings including the Pifferai of the Palazzo Bianco in Genoa, the Musicanti of the Bavesi collection in Genoa, and the very famous Cuoca of the Palazzo Rosso. Of the few frescoes by Strozzi that survive, those of the Palazzo Carpaneto in Sampierdarena (1623-25) are of great interest, as are those of the lost Paradise of the church of S. Domenico; highly remarkable is the bozzetto of the Accademia Ligustica, almost pre-Venetian in color, as are the canvases with the Dream of Joseph, in the Spinola, Serra and Pallavicino versions. Among Strozzi's last works of the Genoese period, paintings of great quality such as the Calling of St. Matthew of the Art Museum in Worcester and the St. Augustine in the guise of a pilgrim washing the feet of Jesus of the Accad. Ligustica show intentions traceable to the Caravaggesque source. In Venice, where he withdrew in 1630 and whence he did not move again until his death, Strozzi developed his qualities to the utmost, not untouched by the influence of the great sixteenth-century masters; Veronesian touches are found above all in the airy Rape of Europa in Posen and in the architectural backgrounds of the Supper of the Gallerie dell'Accademia. Criticism has acknowledged his preponderant part in that pictorial awakening which, in the full seventeenth century, gave the start to the great eighteenth-century conquests of Venice. Among Strozzi's highest achievements are the works in Vienna, the Handful in Budapest, the portraits in Moscow.
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Luisa Mortari