Artistic and scientific authenticity of Giovanna Garzoni (30 photos)

Doubly brave. That's what you can call this woman. After all, she challenged the established foundations in art, and even being a representative of the fairer sex.





Giovanna Garzoni (1600 – 1670) was an Italian Baroque artist and scientific illustrator. She specialized in still life paintings depicting objects from around the world. Her paintings are small, but full of interesting details.



Portrait of Giovanna Garzoni by Carlo Maratti

Many of the paintings depict natural objects, including plants, animals, insects and shells. They are scientifically accurate and at the same time impeccably beautiful, as if Garzoni managed to combine scientific illustration and expressive painting into a single art form. Her highly realistic paintings contain objects from all over the world. For example, one shows a blue and white porcelain vase from China filled with flowers that grow in an entirely different part of the world. Other paintings feature shells, insects, flowers, fruits, cute dogs and even works of art.

Garzoni was highly respected. The artist's works were expensive. They were collected by the Medici and Colonna families. It's clear why. Garzoni's work is light and pleasing to look at, depicting interesting subjects in a realistic manner. The style and subject matter of Garzoni's paintings were very attractive to the public of the 17th century, when science and painting were gaining popularity and expansion.

Garzoni's compositional and color ideas were used by great artists of the following eras. And, according to critics, they are brilliant, despite their apparent simplicity.