Jacques Callot (1592-1635) was born in Nancy, the center of the School of Lorraine. At sixteen he left for Rome to study with Phillippe Thomassin then settled in Florence for the next ten years under the patronage of Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. He developed a protective ground for copper etching plates derived from lute varnish. This discovery allowed him to render scores of figures with convincing gestural detail while using a minimum of lines. The crowds in his most famous work The Fair at Impruneta showed this technique to particular advantage. Callot produced a large number of prints and almost two thousand drawings of religious and allegorical subjects, landscapes, stage set designs and festivals. He returned to Lorraine and Nancy after the Duke's death in 1621. Where he found a new patron in Henri II, Duke of Lorraine. The invasion of Lorraine in 1633 inspired his series "Les Grandes Miseres de la Guerre", a powerful precursor to Goya's Disasters of War series two hundred years later. Callot's version of the Temptation of Saint Anthony also reflects the gruesome events he witnessed.
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2 works
