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The '''Bamboccianti''' were a group of Dutch genre painters active in Rome from 1625 - 1700, during the high and late Baroque. The themes of their canvases were typically small cabinet paintings or etchings of everyday life, including peasants in picaresque activities or other scenes of daily life.
The name originated from the nickname "''Bamboccio''" allotted to the Dutch painter Pieter van Laer during his stay in Italy (1625-1639 ), a nickname given to him due to a physical deformity in van Laer, as well as the puppet size of his figures. In Italian, Bamboccio means, "puppet". The group included Andries Both, Jacob van der Does, Karel Dujardin, Jan Graaf, Jan Miel, Johannes Lingelbach, and Jan Asselyn (Aselino), and among the Italians, Viviano Codazzi (1611-72) and Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602-1660). Dutch painters in Rome organized a guild called the Schildersbent.
Other later Bamboccianti include Jacques Callot, David Teniers, Michiel Sweerts, Adriaen Van Ostade, Adriaen Brouwer, Theodor Helmbrecker (1633-1696); and even Sebastien Bourdon.
They were to influence Rococo artists such as Antonio Cifrondi, Pietro Longhi, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Giacomo Ceruti, Alessandro Magnasco, and others.
Haskell quotes Giambattista Passeri speaking of van Laer,^[1]

"era singular nel represetar la veritá schietta, e pura nell'esser suo, che li suoi quadri parevano una finestra aperta pe le quale fussero veduti quelli suoi successi; senza alcun divario, et alterazione."

"(he) was unique in representing the truth, in its pure essence, such that his paintings appear to us like an open window through which we can see all that happens, without divergence or alteration"

Haskell also quotes the complaint in verse by Salvatore Rosa about the aristocratic patrons of his art:^[2]

Quel che aboriscon vivo, aman dipinto."

Those they abhor in life, are loved in paint"

Contents

Sources

Sources

★ Pelican History of Art, Art and Architecture Italy, 1600-1750, , Rudolf, Wittkower, Penguin Books Ltd, 1993,

★ Patrons and Painters: Art and Society in Baroque Italy, , Francis, Haskell, Yale University Press, 1993,
1. Haskell F., p132
2. Haskell F., p134