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- Guglielmo Cortese
- Also known as
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Guglielmo Cortese
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primary name: Cortese, Guglielmo
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other name: Borgognone, il
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other name: Bourguignon, le
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other name: Cortois, Guillaume
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other name: Courtois, Guillaume
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; Roman; Italian; French; Male
- Life dates
- 1628-1679
- Biography
- Painter, b. St Hippolyte, Franche-Comté, 1628, d. Rome, 1679. Guglielmo Cortese (Guillaume Courtois, Il Borgognone), elder brother of Giacomo. b. Franche-Comté, to Italy with his brother in 1630s. In studio of Pietro da Cortona c.1650 onwards.
Although strictly speaking he belongs to the French School, like his younger brother Giacomo (q.v.), he spent his career in Italy, mostly in Rome, and his work is therefore best understood in the context of other Roman art of the period. The date of his arrival in Italy is unclear. He is said to have come as a child with his brother in the mid-1630s, joining Pietro da Cortona's studio in Rome in 1638. The development of his style, on the other hand, seems to show that Cortona's influence seriously affected his work only from about 1650 onwards, suggesting that he had not joined the master's studio before then. The preceding years he probably spent working alongside his brother, as a painter of battles.
From c. 1650 Guglielmo specialised in the production of history pictures. He was one of a group of artists from Cortona's studio to paint a cycle of frescoes of the 'Story of St Mark' in S.Marco, Rome, to which he contributed three of the scenes, in 1656-7. His work was admired by Bernini (q.v.), through whom he was commissioned to paint altarpieces in three of Bernini's then recently constructed churches: the 'Assumption of the Virgin', in S. Tommaso da Villanova at Castelgandolfo (1660); another 'Assumption' at the Collegiata, Ariccia (1664-6); and the 'Martyrdom of St Andrew', for the high altar of S.Andrea al Quirinale, Rome (1668). Other Roman commissions include 'St Hilary Meditating on the Trinity', S. Giovanni in Laterano (1660); the decoration of the Cappella Cesi, S.Prassede (1661-3); and, together with his brother, the frescoes in the Oratorio della Congregazione Prima Primaria, the Gesù (1660-63). From c. 1660 the influence of other artists besides Cortona began to preponderate, including Bernini, Carlo Maratti (q.v.), Mattia Preti (1613-99) and even Raphael (1483-1520), with the result that Guglielmo's figures became more monumental and his compositions more stately and classical.
He was an accomplished and attractive draughtsman, skilful in suggesting light and solid form with the simplest of means. Cortona's style of the 1650s remains the predominant influence on his drawings, a large number of which survive in the Gabinetto Nazionale, Rome, and in the Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf.
- Bibliography
- Turner 1999 (whence biography below)
Robert-Dumesnil I pp.211-5 (4 nos)
