Gian Paolo Lomazzo

Gian Paolo Lomazzo (Milan, April 26, 1538 – Milan, February 13, 1600; his first name is sometimes also given as "Giovan" or "Giovanni") was a Milanese painter of the second generation that produced Mannerism in Italian art and architecture. Lomazzo became blind in later life, and turning to writing, produced two complex treatises that are milestones in the development of art criticism. His first work, Trattato dell'arte della pittura, scoltura et architettura (Milan, 1584) is in part a guide to contemporary concepts of decorum, which the Renaissance inherited in part from Antiquity, which controlled a consonance between the functions of interiors and the kinds of painted and sculpted decors that would be suitable in a systematic codification of esthetics that typifies the more formalized and academic approaches typical of the later 16th century.

Literature

• Kemp, M.: 'Equal Excellences': Lomazzo And The Explanation of Individual Style in the Visual Arts, in Renaissance Studies vol 1.1, March 1987.
• Lomazzo, Gian Paolo: Trattato dell'arte della pittura, scoltura et architettura in Scritti sulle arti Vol. II, Roberto Paolo Ciardi, editor. Florence 1974.
• Manegold, C.: Wahrnehmung - Bild - Gedächtnis. Studien zur Rezeption der aristotelischen Gedächnistheorie in den kunsttheoretischen Schriften des Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo; Ph.D. thesis. Published as Studien zur Kunstgeschichte vol. 158; Olms 2004. ISBN 3-487-12675-3. In German.