Carlo Crivelli (1435 in Venice, Italy – 1495 in Naples, Italy) was a
Venetian Renaissance or Quattrocento painter.
The only dates that can with certainty be given are 1468 and 1493; these
are respectively the earliest and the latest years signed on his
pictures--the former on an altar-piece in the church of San Silvestro at
Massa near Fermo, and the latter on a picture in the Oggioni collection in
Milan.
Though born in Venice, Crivelli seems to have worked chiefly in Ancona,
and especially in and near Ascoli; there are only two pictures in Venice,
in the church of San Sebastiano. He is said to have studied under
Jacobello del Fiore, who was painting as late at any rate as 1436; at that
time Crivelli was probably only a boy. The latter always signed as Carolus
Crivellus Venetus; from 1490 he added Miles, having been then knighted (Cavalière)
by Ferdinand II of Naples. He painted in tempera only, and is seen to most
advantage in subject pictures of moderate size.
Unlike the naturalistic trends arising from Florence at the same time,
Crivelli's style still echoes the Byzantine styles. The urban settings are
jewel-like, elaborately detailed, and full of allegorical detail.
He introduced agreeable landscape backgrounds; and was particularly
partial to giving fruits and flowers as accessories, often in pendent
festoons. The National Gallery, London is well supplied with examples of
Crivelli; the Annunciation with St Emidius, and the Beato Ferretti (of the
same family as Pope Pius IX) in religious ecstasy, may be specified.
Another of his principal pictures is in San Francesco di Matelica; in
Berlin is a Madonna and Saints (1491); in the Vatican Gallery a Dead
Christ, and in the Brera of Milan the painters own portrait, with other
examples.
Despite his Venetian birth, his paintings have a linear Umbrian quality.
Crivelli is a painter of marked individuality, hard in form, crudely
definite in contour; stern, and sometimes admitting into his pictures
objects actually raised in surface; distinct and warm in color. His
pictures gain by being seen in half-light, and at some little distance.
Few artists seem to have worked with more uniformity of purpose, or more
forthright command of his materials, so far as they go. It is surmised
that Carlo was of the same family as the painters Donato Crivelli (who was
working in 1459, and was also a scholar of Jacobello) and Vittorio
Crivelli. Pietro Alamanni was his pupil.
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It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Italian Renaissance".