Pompeo batoni biography of martin short

Pompeo Girolamo Batoni was an Italian painter who lived during the 18th century. He was known for his portraits and allegorical paintings. Nationality Italian. Pompeo Girolamo Batoni 25 January — 4 February was an Italian painter who displayed a solid technical knowledge in his portrait work and in his numerous allegorical and mythological pictures.

The high number of foreign visitors travelling throughout Italy and reaching Rome during their "Grand Tour" led the artist to specialize in portraits.

Pompeo batoni biography of martin short: draft of a biography of Batoni

Batoni won international fame largely thanks to his customers, mostly British of noble origin, whom he portrayed, often with famous Italian landscapes in the background. Such Grand Tour portraits by Batoni were in British private collections, thus ensuring the genre's popularity in Great Britain. One generation later, Sir Joshua Reynolds would take up this tradition and become the leading English portrait painter.

Although Batoni was considered the best Italian painter of his time, contemporary chronicles mention his rivalry with Anton Raphael Mengs. He also received numerous commissions for altarpieces for churches in Rome, Brescia, Lucca and Parma, for example as well as for mythological and allegorical subjects. Batoni's style took inspiration and incorporated elements of classical antiquity, French Rococo, Bolognese classicism, and the work of artists such as Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain, and especially Raphael.

As such, Pompeo Batoni is considered a precursor of Neoclassicism.