BAROQUE STILL LIFE IN ROME (text page)
The season of the great baroque still life opened in Rome a little before the middle of the 17th century, while the generation of Caravaggio-style painters was running out. The phenomenon, which was linked to the demands of the princely collections, was parallel with what was happening in the fields of monumental frescoes, the decorative arts, and architecture. Thus were born sumptuous paintings, often of large dimensions, in which the intense luministic research and the naturalism of the early decades gave way to an explosive wealth of colours and to an overabundance of the objects represented: fruits, sparkling crystal-ware, and magnificent oriental carpets were prominent. The case of a collaboration in the same work between a still life specialist and a painter of figures, particularly within the ambit of Pietro da Cortona and then Carlo Maratta, was also not infrequent. Within this trend were two painters born in Rome: Mario Nuzzi ("Mario dei Fiori") and Michelangelo Pace ("Michelangelo del Campidoglio"), who were flanked by the workshop of the Stanchi family. The fashion of garlands of flowers became widespread. Painters coming from northern Europe also carried out an intense activity, and were particularly versed in reproducing fruits and inanimate objects: for example, the Flemish painter Abraham Bruegel; the Dutch painters Karel van Vogelaer and Werner Tamm; and the German Christian Berentz, famous above all for the presence in his paintings of fragile and precious crystal objects. The taste for the sumptuous still lifes of the Roman baroque came to an end shortly before the middle of the 18th century, at the threshold of the Enlightenment.