Federico Barocci
1528-1612
Federico Barocci was an Italian painter and printmaker of Baroque / Mannerist Era. He was active in Counter-Reformation or proto-Baroque. His original name was Federico Fiori, and he was nicknamed Il Baroccio. His work fills an oft-overlooked period of art; while in his day his work was highly esteemed and influential.
Federico Barocci was born at Urbino, Italy, and received his earliest apprenticeship with Battista Franco. His early career in Rome was mentored by Taddeo Zuccari and his uncle Bartolomeo Genga.
Barocci is known to have had two long stays in Rome in mid 1500s. During his second sojourn, while completing the decorations for the Vatican Casino of Pius IV, Barocci fell ill. He left Rome in 1563, but he remained productive for nearly four decades more. His paintings are lively and brilliant.
Barrocci never returned to Rome, and was mainly patronized in his native city by Francesco Maria II della Rovere, duke of Urbino.
While Barocci was removed from Rome, the fulcrum of artistic fame and influence, he continued to innovate in his style. Barocci's remarkable pastel studies are the earliest examples of the technique to survive. In pastels and in oil sketches, another technique he pioneered, Barocci's soft, opalescent renderings evoke the ethereal. Such studies were part of a complex process Barocci used to complete his altarpieces. An organized series of steps leading up to the final product ensured its speed and success in execution.
Barocci did innumerable sketches: gesture, compositional, figural studies, lighting studies, perspective studies, color studies, nature studies, etc. Today, over 2,000 drawings by him are extant. Every detail of his subsequent cartoons for canvases was worked out in this way. Despite this painstaking process, Barocci kept the brushstrokes passionate and liberated.
Barocci's embrace of the Counter Reformation would shape his long and fruitful career. By 1566, he joined a lay order of Capuchins, an offshoot of Franciscans.
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