Federico Barocci Biography | Oil Painting Reproductions

Federico Barocci got his apprenticeship with his dad, Ambrogio Barocci, an artist of some local renown. He was then apprenticed to the painter Battista Franco in Urbino. In 1548 he went off to Rome, where he worked in the famous studio of the day, that of the Mannerist painters, Taddeo Zuccari and Federico Zuccari.

Federico Barocci was welcomed by Pope Pius IV to aid the beautification of the Vatican Belvedere Palace in Rome, where he painted the Virgin Mary and child, with several Saints and a ceiling in fresco, representing the Annunciation.

Amid this second stay, while finishing the designs for the Vatican, Barocci fell sick with intestinal problems. He presumed that a serving of mixed greens which he had eaten had been poisoned by desirous adversaries. Dreading his sickness was terminal, he left Rome in 1563; after four years he was said to encounter a partial remission after petitions to the Virgin. Barocci from now on regularly complained of poor health, however, he was able to stay productive for four more decades.

Pastels and Oil Sketches, Techniques Pioneered by Barocci.

While Federico Barocci was gone from Rome, the center of artistic acclaim and impact, he kept on improving his style. Eventually, he may have seen colored pastel drawings by Correggio, however, Barocci's astounding pastel studies are the earliest cases of the procedure to survive. In pastels and oil sketches another technique he pioneered, Barocci's delicate, opalescent renderings inspire the ethereal.

Barocci's embrace of the Counter-Reformation would shape his long and productive career. He may have been affected by Saint Philip Neri, whose Oratorians looked to reconnect the spiritual domain with the lives of regular people. Neri, who was to some degree conflicted about the gathering lavishness of his Santa Maria in Vallicella, authorized two finished works from Barocci.

In Urbino, he painted a Descent from the Cross for the Cathedral of San Lorenzo at Perugia. Later he again went to Rome amid the papacy of Gregory XIII when he painted two excellent pictures for the Chiesa Nuova.

Barocci's beautiful brushwork was admired by Peter Paul Rubens when he was in Italy. Rubens made a drawing of his emotional The Martyrdom Of Saint Vitalis Of Milan, in which the saint's undulating flesh is the eye of a tornado of figures, motions, and dramatization. Barocci's whirling synthesis and the attention on the passionate and profound are components that hint at the future Baroque of Rubens.

Art Movement History: Mannerism.
Artists Influencing Federico Barocci: Battista Franco, Taddeo Zuccari, Federico Zuccari.
Painters Federico Barocci Influenced: Peter Paul Rubens.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.