STROZZI, BERNARDO. — Known as the Genoese Capuchin, painter, born in Genoa in 1581, died in Venice in 1644. He is among the most notable Genoese painters of the early seventeenth century.
S., whose training was exceptionally complex despite his almost popular, aggressively emphatic manner, is the most typical exponent in his city of that Venetianizing naturalism which G. A. De Ferrari would subsequently follow. Among the early Tuscanizing works are the Madonna in the Louvre and that in Genoa (Crosa di Vergagni collection), the S. Caterina in Hartford, the finest example of a large series; among the Lombard works, the Flagellazione in the Migone collection in Genoa and the Deposizione in the Accademia Ligustica. Closer to the sensibility of the Flemish masters present in Genoa, such as Aersten, Beukelaert, and van Roos, and thus more frankly realistic, is a group of paintings including the Pifferai in Genoa’s Palazzo Bianco, the Musicanti in the Bavesi collection in Genoa, and the celebrated Cuoca of Palazzo Rosso. Of the few surviving frescoes by S., those in Palazzo Carpaneto in Sampierdarena (1623–25) and those of the lost Paradiso in the church of S. Domenico are of great interest; particularly noteworthy is the sketch in the Accademia Ligustica, almost pre-Venetian in its coloring, as are also the canvases depicting the Sogno di Giuseppe, in the Spinola, Serra, and Pallavicino versions. Among S.’s final works from his Genoese period, paintings of great quality such as the Vocazione di s. Matteo in the Art Museum of Worcester and the S. Agostino in veste di pellegrino che lava i piedi a Gesù in the Accad. Ligustica display aims associated with the nascent Caravaggesque movement. In Venice, where he withdrew in 1630 and from which he never again moved until his death, S. developed his qualities to the fullest, while not remaining untouched by the influence of the great sixteenth-century masters; Veronesian motifs are found above all in the airy Ratto d’Europa in Posen and in the architectural backgrounds of the Cena in the Gallerie dell’Accademia. Criticism has recognized his predominant role in that revival of painting which, in the full seventeenth century, initiated Venice’s great achievements of the eighteenth century. Among S.’s highest attainments are the works in Vienna, the Amanciata in Budapest, and the portraits in Moscow.