Maffei: Touches of Mystery and Bizarre Fantasy

Francesco Maffei - Perseus Liberating Andromeda - 1657-58 - Oil on canvas, 200 x 145 cm - Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice (click photo for larger image)Francesco Maffei (1605 - 1660) was an Italian painter, active mainly in the Veneto, a region of northeast Italy bordering on the Adriatic Sea. Maffei had a refreshingly individualistic style, carrying on the great painterly tradition of Tintoretto and Bassano, to which he added his own note of mysterious and sometimes bizarre fantasy. He painted mythological scenes and allegorical portraits of local officials. The painting featured here comes from the Palazzo Nani. The Tintorettoesque approach of the paintings from the Palazzo Nani reaches a peak of expressionistic tension in the daring perspective view of Andromeda, who appears to have been broken up into a series of disconnected segments.