STANZIONE, Massimo
(b. 1585, Orta di Atella, d. 1656, Napoli)

Ceiling decoration

1644
Fresco
Passetto del Tesoro, Certosa di San Martino, Naples

In the former sacristy chapel, which is now only a passageway, Massimo Stanzione decorated the ceiling in 1644. Although Stanzione specialised in altarpieces, he was also highly successful in Naples as a wall and ceiling painter. In accordance with the technical realities of the medium, in these works the richly contrasting chiaroscuro of his oil paintings gives way to buoyant, saturated colours clearly influenced by the Bolognese artists. The vault of the former sacristy chapel is the best example of his style as a painter in fresco, one schooled in the academic painting of Rome but enlivened by a Neapolitan temperament.

The decorative system on the ceiling frames an arrangement of pictures. There are four scenes from the Passion in the vault's spandrel: Nailing to the Cross; Erecting of the Cross; Longinus Piercing Christ in the Side with His Spear; Descent from the Cross. In the centre of the vault the scene of the Ascension of Christ is depicted. Four Old Testament scenes are in the pear-shaped cartouches around the central scene, between them the four evangelists are represented in a scale far larger than that of the figures in the paintings.




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