MAGNASCO, ALESSANDRO, known as IL LISSANDRINO. — Painter, born in Genoa in 1667, died there on 12 March 1749, one of the most original figures of the Baroque period.
Magnanimity — Depiction of magnanimity in the fresco of the Buon Governo. Detail from the work of A. Lorenzetti (14th century). Siena, Palazzo comunale.
As a young man, he went to Milan and soon abandoned portraiture to devote himself to small figures, which became his most renowned manner, in which Magnasco is included in the so-called “genre painting,” which flourished particularly at that time. In 1703 he returned to Genoa; then he went to Florence and for some time served as court painter. He traveled extensively through Tuscany, Emilia, and Lombardy; returning to Milan in 1711, he remained there until 1735, when he settled in Genoa, where he died at the age of eighty-two, having created, in his final years, some of his greatest masterpieces.
Magnasco’s art drew from multiple sources. In his native city, during his youth, he was certainly impressed by the genre paintings of Luca and Cornelio van Wael, the imaginative and bold pictorial styles of Il Grechetto, and the vivid tones of Valerio Castello. In Milan, during his formative years, the “pathos” of Crespi and Morazzone influenced him. From Ricci, he learned the rich execution of Venetian painting. Yet he assimilated all these influences into an artistic vision of extraordinary expressive and personal vigor, which nonetheless has certain antecedents in the works of Callot, Cerquozzi, and Salvator Rosa.
His painting evolved from a heavy, dark, and somewhat summary manner, as seen in *The Tamed Crow* or *The Old Woman with Gypsies* and other works in the Uffizi Gallery, to a more fluid and colorful style.
