A selection of master drawings 2016

13
Fedele Fischetti
Naples 1732 - 1792
Fame and the Virtues prevail over the Vices
Black chalk, polychrome wash heightened with white on prepared paper
654 x 473 mm (25 ¾ x 18 ⅝ in.)
Inscriptions: bottom left corner, in an old hand, traces of writing in ink il Decoro e […]; on the verso,
upper left in ink la Dignità, la Pace, l’Equità e l’Innocenza […] la Malvagità e l’Inganno.
Born into a family of painters, Fedele Fischetti learned
the rudiments of painting in the studio of Gennaro
Borrelli, steeped in the post-Solimenian tradition. His
early painting was carried out above all in the religious
sphere with work executed in the Neapolitan Spirito
Santo, Santa Maria in Portico and Santa Maria la Nova
churches. Evident here, his leaning towards Roman
classicism with a Batonian bent can be explained by a
presumed study stay in the papal city. Specialising in
fresco painting and having a close artistic partnership
with Luigi Vanvitelli, Fischetti decorated the interiors
of aristocratic buildings in Naples and the principal
royal residences outside of the city that the architect
worked on, like the Palazzo Casacalenda (c. 1770),
Villa Campolieto in Herculaneum (1772-1773), the
Royal Palace of Caserta (1778-1781), the Palazzo
Doria d’Angri (1784) and the Palazzo Cellamare (c.
1789). In the frescoes, carried out from 1780 almost
until his death in 1792, Fischetti became an increasing
devotee of neo-classical principles, creating a happy
synthesis between the local rocaille solutions and
the contemporary examples of Classicism linked to
the Neapolitan works of Anton Raphael Mengs and
Angelika Kauffmann, the latter residing in Naples
from 1782 to 1786.
The highly finished composition and the obsessive
attention to detail, the extremely careful rendering of
the light and shade and the studied harmony of the
chromatic values are all elements which qualify this
Allegory of the Virtues prevailing over the Vices by Fedele
Fischetti as a true and authentic modello, made to
prefigure the final result to be submitted to the client.
The iconographic framework which regulates this
symbolic representation appears likewise highly studied
and complex to decipher. It is a framework which
shows itself to be so learned and well-orchestrated
that it suggests the presence, at the painter’s side, of an
expert in iconology.
The scene – to be read from the bottom to the top -
expresses the eternal battle between Good and Evil, the
former personified by the triumphant Virtues arranged
on the clouds in an orderly fashion, and the latter by
the Vices portrayed in the act of plummeting from
the clouds, agitated and screaming, succumbing to the
violent whip lashes inflicted on them by a young winged
man. These, as can be inferred from the Iconology by
Cesare Ripa, represent the Love of Virtue, whilst Deceit
with the serpent’s tail, Fraud with the eagles talons,
holding in his hands two hearts and a mask, and Theft
equipped with a bag and a knife should be recognized
in the Vices 1 . The Love of Virtue, having undertaken the
task of battling and annihilating everything that causes a
diversion from the right path, rises to the defence of the
three allegorical personifications behind them: Equity,
furnished with scales and a cornucopia, Innocence -
«young virgin dressed in white, with a garland of flowers
on her head, and a Lamb in her arms» - and Virtue
portrayed as a young winged girl «crowned with la aurel,
and holding an oak branch» 2 .The message is clear: only
through a heroic and virtuous being, immune from sin
and led by the sentiments of justice and of equity is it
possible to obtain that Authority in social assembly – the
matron seated in the act of pointing to the symbols of
power at her feet (a crown, a cardinal’s hat, a sword and
a book) – and that Decorum - «A youth of handsome and
honest appearance, wearing a lion skin» - which allows one
to ascend to Fame, and through this, to the Empirical
supreme, evoked here along the upper margin of the
sheet by a circular temple 3 . This dialectic of themes
is not solely metaphoric but is also expressed in the
physical space on the sheet through the counterposition
of the groups in the lower section.