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CAMBIASI, LUCA (1527-1585)

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 82 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CAMBIASI, LUCA (1527-1585) , Genoese painter, familiarly known as Lucchetto da Genova (his surname is written also Cambiaso or Cangiagio), was See also:born at Moneglia in the Genoese See also:state, the son of a painter named Giovanni Cambiasi. He took to See also:drawing at a very See also:early See also:age, imitating his See also:father, and See also:developed See also:great aptitude for foreshortening. At the age of fif teen he painted, along with his father, some subjects from See also:Ovid's Metamorphoses on the front of a See also:house in See also:Genoa, and afterwards, in See also:conjunction with See also:Marcantonio See also:Calvi, a See also:ceiling showing great daring of See also:execution in the Palazzo See also:Doria. He also formed an early friend-See also:ship with Giambattista See also:Castello; both artists painted together, with so much similarity of See also:style that their See also:works could hardly be told apart; from this friend Cambiasi learned much in the way of See also:perspective and See also:architecture. Luchetto's best See also:artistic See also:period lasted for twelve years after his first successes; from that See also:time he declined in See also:power, though not at once in reputation, owing to the agitations and vexations brought upon him by a See also:passion which he conceived for his See also:sister-in-See also:law. His wife having died, and the sister-in-law having taken See also:charge of his house and See also:children, he endeavoured to procure a papal See also:dispensation for marrying her; but in this he was disappointed. In 1583 he accepted an invitation from See also:Philip II. to continue in the See also:Escorial a See also:series of frescoes which had been begun by Castello, now deceased; and it is said that one See also:principal See also:reason for his closing with this offer was that he hoped to bring the royal See also:influence to See also:bear upon the See also:pope, but in this again he failed. Worn out with his disquietudes, he died in the Escorial in the second See also:year of his sojourn. Cambiasi had an ardent See also:fancy, and was a bold designer in a Raphaelesque mode. His extreme facility astonished the See also:Spanish painters; and it is said that Philip II., watching one See also:day with See also:pleasure the offhand zest with.which Luchetto was See also:painting a See also:head of a laughing See also:child, was allowed the further surprise. of seeing the laugh changed, by a See also:touch or two upon the lips, into a weeping expression. The artist painted sometimes with a See also:brush in each See also:hand, and with a certainty equalling or transcending that even of Tintoret. He made a vast number of drawings, and was also something of a sculptor, executing in this See also:branch of See also:art a figure of Faith.

Altogether he ranks as one of the ablest artists of his day. In"See also:

personal See also:character, notwithstanding his executive See also:energy, he is reported to have been timid and diffident. His son See also:Orazio became likewise a painter, studying under Luchetto. The best works of Cambiasi are to be seen in Genoa. In the See also:church of S. Giorgio—the martyrdom of that See also:saint; in the Palazzo Imperiali Terralba, a Genoese suburb—a See also:fresco of the " See also:Rape of the Sabines "; in S. Maria da Carignano—a " Pieta," containing his own portrait and (according to tradition) that of his beloved sister-in-law. In the Escorial he executed several pictures; one is a See also:Paradise on the vaulting of the church, with a multitude of figures. For this picture he received '2,000 ducats, probably the largest sum that had, up to that time, ever been given for a single See also:work.

End of Article: CAMBIASI, LUCA (1527-1585)

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