Workshop Of Francesco Graziani, Known As Ciccio Napoletano, Four Battle Scenes

Workshop of Francesco Graziani, known as Ciccio Napoletano

(active in Naples and Rome in the second half of the 17th century)

Four Battle Scenes

(4) Oil on canvas, 20 x 46 cm

With frame, 35 x 59 cm

Francesco Graziani, better known as Ciccio Napoletano, is primarily known as a battle painter, a genre that was very popular in the 17th century. His works are characterized by dynamic, crowded battle scenes, where the figures are rendered with a swift, energetic stroke, enhanced by effective highlights. His painting is distinguished by an expressiveness that combines the fury of battle with remarkable attention to detail and composition. However, Graziani did not limit himself to battle scenes alone. He was also a skilled landscape painter, creating vistas that often served as backdrops for his battle scenes but could also stand as works in their own right. His landscapes reflect an atmospheric sensibility and a speed of execution that place him squarely within the Baroque era, with swift brushstrokes and vigorous emphasis. He was influenced by the greatest masters of his time, particularly Salvator Rosa and Jacques Courtois, known as “the Burgundian,” the latter perhaps his teacher. Francesco Graziani’s style is recognizable for its curled and broken brushwork, a manner of painting that lends a sense of movement, excitement, and liveliness to his compositions. His paintings, often small in size, depict animated figures rendered with vivid colors and darting brushstrokes, foreshadowing the airy compositional style typical of the 18th century. This synthesis of rapid, vigorous brushstrokes, combined with an illustrative sensibility, makes him a unique artist within the 17th-century art scene. The decorative character and the charm drawn from the works of Borgognone and Salvator Rosa are, in Graziani’s paintings, tempered by an illustrative sensibility that still finds a clear point of contact in the canvases of early naturalism. Nevertheless, the painting’s rapid execution and atmospheric sensibility—while suggesting that the works fully belong to the Baroque era—point to a date of creation that extends into the 18th century.

The overall character of these four small-scale paintings presents a synthesis of rapid brushstrokes and vigorous emphasis that can be perfectly traced back to the work of Graziani’s workshop, whose members composed battle scenes with crowded movements where the figures are outlined with a rapid, nervous stroke, almost curled, enlivened by effective touches of light.