Luca giordano biography cortazar

Early Art Training and Commissions

Born in Naples, the son of Antonio Giordano, who was also a painter, Luca Giordano was first trained in the workshop of Ribera, where he learned the use of tenebrism (for dramatic focus) and chiaroscuro (for modelling).

In about 1652, perhaps just after the death of Ribera, he first left Naples for a short period of study in Rome, Florence and Venice, paying particular attention to the Baroque art of Pietro da Cortona in Rome, as well as the great masters of sixteenth-century Venice - such as Titian, Veronese and their followers.

(See also: Titian and Venetian Colour Painting.) In Venice he won his first commissions: to paint altarpieces for the churches of S. Pietro in Castello, S. Maria del Pianto and S. Spirito. (See also: Venetian Altarpieces.)

Style of Painting

He was back in Naples in 1653 where he began to develop a style of Baroque painting based on the Roman and Venetian techniques he had le