Simone Cantarini (1612-1648)

Simone Cantarini also known as Simone da Pesaro or Il Pesarese, born on April 12, 1612 in Pesaro in the present region of Marche, and died very young in Verona in 1648 at the age of 36 years, is an Italian painter and baroque engraver of the Bolognese school.

Simone Cantarini was first a student of the Venetian Claudio Ridolfi and the Pesarese Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi. Coming from a city that offered few examples of modernity in art, he went to Bologna at an early age, where, around 1634/35, he was a student of Guido Reni for four years.
He later became estranged from Reni and did not return to Bologna until after his death (1642). Today he is more appreciated as an engraver than as a painter.  There are 37 known engravings by Simone Cantarini, 33 of which are in the Collezione Licci in Pesaro.

From his earliest works, Cantarini showed a delicate naturalism, underlined by silver-colored lights, which, beyond beauty, expressed the deep feelings of a passionate and painful humanity. He returned to Pesaro in 1639: strengthened by the example of the works that Gentileschi had left in the Marches, his naturalist orientation was confirmed. Before returning to Bologna, c. 1642, he stayed in Rome, where, in painting as in engraving, an expression in which, like Pietro Testa, he was an authority, he adopted the new neo-Venetian style.

Although he never achieved real fame and despite the brevity of his career, dramatic and solitary artist, Simone Cantarini is certainly one of the most important Italian artists of his century and is absolutely a unique voice, a brilliant and innovative painting of his time.