Realistic Elements in the Work of Giacomo Francesco Cipper before 1715

Abstract

With this paper the author attempts to show that in some hitherto unpublished paintings Cipper works from real life. His oeuvre has always been characterised as anecdotal or erotic, but his early period work especially has a lot of realistic, "portrait-like" compositions with a psychological intensity that offers an important point of departure for Ceruti's genre scenes. Cipper's early work has to be seen in a different light: it is not a development for mastering his central spatial perspective, as Proni proposed in 1994. To the contrary, it is linked to the "northern" principle of the projection onto the pictorial plane as first discussed by Pacht. The colouristic development of the oeuvre will be demon­strated with the help of the colour reproductions of some important, crucial paintings known until now only in black and white.