Giovanni Battista Viola

Training under Annibale Carracci is recorded. Places of work recorded in the authority are Rome. Works named in the authority record are Landscape with Absalom Wounded by Joab's Spear, Concert on the Water and Landscape with St. Work by Giovanni Battista Viola is recorded in the collections of National Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, National Gallery of Ireland, Harvard Art Museums and Fogg Museum.

• Name — Giovanni Battista Viola • Born — 16 June 1576 • Birthplace — Bologna, Romagna, Papal States (modern Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy) • Died — 10 August 1622 • Place of death — Rome, Papal States • Occupation — Painter • Known for — Landscape painting • Training — Annibale Carracci • Movement — Baroque • Patrons — Vincenzo Giustiniani

Giovanni was born in Bologna on June 16, 1576. According to Malvasia, he arrived in Rome as a young man with Francesco Albani, who joined Annibale Carracci’s studio there in 1601. He is recorded working with Albani and Domenichino on the frescoed decoration of the Vincenzo Giustiniani's palazzo in Bassano Romano, in 1610, and was living in Albani's house in Rome in 1612. In 1612, Viola married Silvia Gemelli, who was already mother to an Anna Gemelli, who in turn married Albani. Hence, Albani became Viola's stepson-in-law. In 1617 Viola assisted Domenichino with ten landscape frescoes depicting scenes from the Life of Apollo for the Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. His fresco Landscape with Travellers (1621–2) in the Camerino dei Paesi in the casino of the Villa Ludovisi, Rome, forms part of a decorative scheme to which Domenichino, Paul Bril and Guercino also contributed. On the basis of these frescoes and of works listed under his name in 17th-century inventories, including the Landscape with the Death of Absolom (c. 1600; Paris, Louvre), Spear attributed a coherent body of works to Viola. His work is characterized by a predominantly cool colour scheme with dark, blue-green water and dark green and brown trees, bushes and ground. His figure drawing is awkward, and the figures tend to stand in the foreground, with exotically shaped mountains in the distance. Spatial recession is achieved through contrasting bands of light and dark tones. Sometimes the paintings illustrate common biblical or mythological subjects, as in the Landscape with St. John the Baptist Preaching (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum), but more typically they show fishing or hunting scenes. Giulio Mancini commented in his writings that Viola was well respected for his landscape canvases, which were documented among the works in the collections of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, Giustiniani, Cardinal Mazarin, and the Pamphilj. Louis XIV of France collected at least landscapes, now in the Louvre. He was a teacher of Bartolommeo Lotto and Pietro Paolo Bonzi (il Gobbo dalle Frutta), and would have been influential for Claude Lorrain. The biography of Amorini recounts that Viola died mortified after offending the Cardinal Ludovisi.

• Illustration — The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew, Princeton University Art Museum • Illustration — Pan Pursuing Syrinx, Museum of Fine Arts, Reims • Illustration — An Episode from Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, National Trust