An astonishing draftsman of portraits but also a very refined etcher and engraver, the roman artist Ottavio Leoni (1578-1630) offered a new technical interpretation of the dotting in his chalcographic experiments. In his self-representations, made respectively around 1621 and in 1625, and in a series of portraits of artists, writers, poets, musicians, scientists, cardinals, dating from 1621 to 1628, he focused primarily on the psychological features, which are also highlighted by the use of the dotting technique. Inspired by the models of Marcello Fogolino and Domenico Campagnola, the dotting technique was masterfully combined with the elaboration of a strict and sharp definition of the volumes and of the chiaroscuro resulting from the well balanced use of etching and engraving. Another aspect of originality is the self-portrait’s vantage point, located behind its sitter, which replaced the canonical foreshortened frontal position. Anton van Dyck re-interpreted this model for the self-portrait proposed by Leoni. The Flemish painter probably met the roman artist of Paduan origin in Rome between 1622 and 1623. In fact, the first etched self-portrait by Leoni (c. 1621), based on the drawing held at the Marucelliana Library in Florence, was revisited by Van Dyck in the technically equivalent self-portrait (around 1630). The etching was then altered by Jacob Neeffs for the title-page of the Iconographia, a work whose conceptual genesis has been coherently ascribed by many scholars to Leoni himself.

Ottavio Leoni

TORDELLA, Piera Giovanna
2015-01-01

Abstract

An astonishing draftsman of portraits but also a very refined etcher and engraver, the roman artist Ottavio Leoni (1578-1630) offered a new technical interpretation of the dotting in his chalcographic experiments. In his self-representations, made respectively around 1621 and in 1625, and in a series of portraits of artists, writers, poets, musicians, scientists, cardinals, dating from 1621 to 1628, he focused primarily on the psychological features, which are also highlighted by the use of the dotting technique. Inspired by the models of Marcello Fogolino and Domenico Campagnola, the dotting technique was masterfully combined with the elaboration of a strict and sharp definition of the volumes and of the chiaroscuro resulting from the well balanced use of etching and engraving. Another aspect of originality is the self-portrait’s vantage point, located behind its sitter, which replaced the canonical foreshortened frontal position. Anton van Dyck re-interpreted this model for the self-portrait proposed by Leoni. The Flemish painter probably met the roman artist of Paduan origin in Rome between 1622 and 1623. In fact, the first etched self-portrait by Leoni (c. 1621), based on the drawing held at the Marucelliana Library in Florence, was revisited by Van Dyck in the technically equivalent self-portrait (around 1630). The etching was then altered by Jacob Neeffs for the title-page of the Iconographia, a work whose conceptual genesis has been coherently ascribed by many scholars to Leoni himself.
2015
XXXII
4
427
429
Ottavio Leoni, incisioni, opus punctile, Giulio Campagnola, Domenico Campagnola, Marcello Fogolino, Hendrick Goltzius, Claude Mellan, Anton van Dyck
P.G. TORDELLA
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/1508079
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