Artist of the day, June 29, 2020: Giovanni Battista Moroni, an Italian painter (Renaissance) (#1034)

Giovanni Battista Moroni (1524-1579) was an Italian Renaissance painter notable for his sober and dignified portraits. He was best known for his elegantly realistic portraits of the local nobility and clergy, he is considered one of the great portrait painters of sixteenth century Italy.

Moroni was a pupil of the local painter Moretto da Brescia, who strongly influenced Moroni’s manner in painting religious compositions. It is Moroni’s portraits that have earned him his importance, however, for he was one of the few Italian Renaissance artists who made portraiture their chief specialty. His portraits were mostly of the petty aristocracy and bourgeoisie of Bergamo. He also worked in Brescia and Trento, where he painted mostly religious works. One of his best-known works is The Tailor (1565–70). Moroni emphasized a sitter’s dignity and nobility by means of natural, unforced poses and masterful compositions and infused his portraits with physiognomic individuality and psychological depth. Despite their impassive facial expressions, many of his portraits impart a sense of gentle melancholy that is reinforced by predominantly gray tonalities and by a restrained treatment of the textures of cloth and draperies. Moroni’s simple yet subtle style of portraiture was clearly influenced by that of Titian, who himself commended Moroni’s work. Among Moroni’s other more-notable portraits are the Portrait of Pietro Secco Suardo (1563) and the Portrait of Gian Gerolamo Grumelli (c. 1560).

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1520, Portrait of a Man

1550, Bust of Isotta Brembati

1550, Portrait of a Man and a Boy (Count Alborghetti & Son)

1550, Portrait of an Unknown Woman

1552, Portrait of the sculptor Alessandro Vittoria

1553, Portrait of a Man

1553, Portrait of Bartolomeo Bonghi

1555-60, A Gentleman in Adoration before the Baptism of Christ

1555-60, Portrait of a Soldier

1555, Isotta Brembati

1555, The Vestal Virgin Tuccia

1556, Portrait of a Lady

1557, Abbess Lucrezia Agliardi Vertova

1557, Martyrdom of Saint Peter of Verona

1559-60,  Portrait of a Lay Brother

1559, Canon Ludovico Di Terzii

1560, A Gentleman in Adoration before the Madonna

1560, Gian Gerolamo Grumelli

1560, Portrait

1560, Portrait of Don Gabriel de la Cueva

1560s, Portrait of a Camaldulense Friar

1563, Portrait of a Gentleman (traditionally called Giulio Gilardi)

1565, Ritratto di Antonio Navagero

1569, The last supper

1570-75, The Tailor

1570, Bust Portrait of a Magistrate

1570, Portrait of a Man holding a Letter

1570, Portrait of a Young Woman

1570, Ritratto di bambina di casa Redetti

1572, Portrait of a Man With Raised Eyebrows

1575, Portrait of a Young Woman

1575, Titian's Schoolmaster

1578, Mystical apostasy of St. Catherine of Alexandria