Pietro Gonzaga

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Stage design with Rotunda Temple, 1790s, Hermitage Museum

Pietro di Gottardo Gonzaga (Pierre Gothard Gonzague in contemporary French sources, Пьетро Гонзага in Russian sources, 25 March 1751 – 6 August [

set designer who worked in Italy and, since 1792, in the Russian Empire
.

A

perspective that changes in relation to variations in musical expression."[1] According to Ferrero, Gonzaga was the first to promote scenic design into an art "in its own right" and shake off the derided image of mere decoration devoid of art.[2] With age he lost confidence in his profession and aspired, in vain, to become a practicing architect
.

Career in Italy

Subterranean Mausoleum, 1780s, Art Institute of Chicago

Gonzaga was born in Longarone, Italy. He trained in

Bibiena, Tiepolo but most of all Piranesi.[3] In 1772 he joined the art firm of the Galliari family.[3]

In 1779 Gonzaga debuted as solo stage designer in

Teatro alla Scala production of ballets by Giuseppe Canziani and Sebastiano Gallet,[4] and stayed with this theatre until the 1792 season.[5] Subsequently, he produced over sixty sets in Milan, Genoa, Rome and Venice.[3] His curtain for the La Fenice theatre became a standard copied by numerous imitators.[6]

Gonzaga's Italian works, along with Galliari family legacy, were published in Milan in three installments between 1803 and 1821.[7]

Gonzaga's life changed after meeting prince

Catherine II of Russia to Italian states, who was based in Turin during 1784–1789.[3] Yusupov returned to Saint Petersburg in 1791 to accept the role of managing entertainment of the imperial court, which placed him at the helm of state theatre companies.[3] It is not known reliably whether Gonzaga was invited to Russia by Yusupov or by Giacomo Quarenghi, but in 1792 Yusupov, representing the state, and Gonzaga signed a hire contract that made the latter chief decorator (stage designer) for all performances of the Saint Petersburg state theatre, with an unusually generous pay provision.[3] Yusupov remained Gonzaga's patron until their deaths in 1831.[3]

Gonzaga's line of scenic design at La Scala was continued by his trainee Paolo Landriani.[8]

Career in Russia

Moscow Kremlin for the coronation of Alexander I, 1801, Hermitage Museum

Gonzaga surprised Saint Petersburg audience by novel use of

lampblack, not black ink.[11]

Gonzaga dominated the art department of imperial theatres for over thirty years, surviving three monarchs:

Golitsyn and Yusupov families and diversified into decorating palace interiors and landscape design.[3] Fyodor Glinka described Gonzaga's three-dimensional trompe-l'œil folly in Pavlovsk Park (1815): "What is a reality and what is a dream? ... Convinced at the existence of what was before me, I kept going further and further forward. But suddenly something strange began to happen to my eyes: it was as if an invisible curtain of some sort was descending upon these objects and swallowing them from sight ... At length I began to quarrel with my own eyes and my head began to spin, and I hastened to be gone from this realms of charms and magic!"[12]

Gonzaga summarized his experience and theory of theatrical presentation and illusion in a series of books printed in Saint Petersburg in French language, notably the 1807 Information a mon chef and 1800 La musique des yeux et l'optique theatrale (English: Music for the Eyes).[13] Gonzaga claimed that optical illusions are not abstract theories but correspond to "things that are easily perceived when one looks with a certain degree of attention", thus the stage set should be designed as a "perceived reality to be grasped with attention in all changing aspects".[11]

As he grew older, Gonzaga gradually became more and more dissatisfied with the work of producing ephemeral follies that rarely lasted longer than a single theatrical season.

Arkhangelskoye Estate, but his attribution was later discarded.[3]

He died in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1831.

Works

Graphic works by Gonzaga are preserved in the Hermitage Museum,[14] the National Gallery of Art[15] and the Art Institute of Chicago[16]

Arkhangelskoye Estate museum stocks the original stage curtain painted by Gonzaga and four complete original stage backdrops out of sixteen he produced for Yusupov's private theatre. The museum intends to make life-sized copies for public display, as the originals are too fragile.[17] Elektronny Arhiv, a Russian company that digitized this artwork, claimed to have built the world's largest scanner specifically for this job[18]

Designs based on drawings by Gonzaga and Angelo Toselli were used to decorate the concrete walls of the private Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin (architects Sergei Tchoban and Sergey Kuznetsov, 2013).[19]

References

  1. ^ Ferrero, p. 2
  2. ^ Ferrero, pp.19-20
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Korndorf
  4. ^ Romani, p. 8
  5. ^ Romani, p. 21
  6. ^ Ferrero, p. 3
  7. ^ Ferrero, p. 85
  8. ^ Kirk, p. 144
  9. ^ Note that in 1801 the tower did not yet have its current neo-gothic spire. It was erected in 1806, destroyed by French troops in 1812 and recreated in 1816.
  10. ^ Russian: Он первый писал декорации прямо на полу, не картинною живописью, а наброском и толстой кистью и часто растушевывал просто ногой, и это ножное маранье при искусственном освещении превращалось в полное очарование - "Pietro Gonzaga (in Russian)". Arkhangelskoye museum. 2009-09-15.
  11. ^ a b Ferrero, p. 84
  12. ^ Cited, in English, at length in: Newlin, p. 119
  13. ^ Publication years as in Ferrero, p. 117
  14. ^ "Architectural drawings by Pietro Gonzaga". arthermitage.org. Retrieved 2009-09-15.
  15. ^ "Works by Pietro Gonzaga". National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 2009-09-15.
  16. ^ "Work by Pietro Gonzaga". Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved 2009-09-15.
  17. ^ "Events in Arkhangelskoye (in Russian)". Arkhangelskoye museum. Archived from the original on 2009-08-26. Retrieved 2009-09-15.
  18. ^ "Scanning Pietro Gonzaga's stage sets (in Russian)". Elektronny Arhiv. Archived from the original on 2011-10-08. Retrieved 2009-09-15.
  19. ^ Museum // Architectural Drawing in Form & Function, BerlinArtLink

Sources

  • Ferrero, Mercedes Vialle (2002). Stage and set, in:
Bianconi, Lorenzo; et al. (2002). Opera on stage. University of Chicago Press.
ISBN 9780226045917
.

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pietro Gonzaga.
  • Maria Teresa Muraro (1967). Scenografie di Pietro Gonzaga (in Italian). N. Pozza, Venezia. LC ND2885.M87.
  • Carlo Manfio (1986). Omaggio a Pietro Gonzaga (in Italian). Centro culturale Longarone. LC N6923.G65 O62 1986.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pietro_Gonzaga&oldid=1188023965"