1664
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Eighteen Views of Rome: The Piazza Farnese (recto) is a 1664 by Lievin Cruyl, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You’re looking at a busy Roman square: the Palazzo Farnese looms on the left, people chat under umbrellas, and laundry flaps on lines above the street. Cruyl drew this scene in 1664, two years before it was turned into an etching. The top-heavy cornice you see was Michelangelo’s tweak—he wanted the building to feel like it was leaning forward, almost tipping into the piazza. If you like this kind of sharp, on-site sketch, flip through more drawings in the technique: chiaroscuro—it’s the play of light and shadow that gives the scene its punch.
Flemish artist Lieven Cruyl made a number of drawings of emblematic vistas of Rome for the Roman publisher Giovanni Battista de Rossi, of which ten were published as etchings in 1666. The Piazza Farnese features architecture designed by Michelangelo, who completed the Palazzo Farnese after the death of its original designer, Antonio da Sangallo, in 1546. His main contribution was the third story and the significantly protruding cornice at the top of the facade, which dramatically hangs over the front of the building, like sculpture.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Lievin Cruyl or Lieven Cruyl was a Flemish priest and a draughtsman and etcher of landscapes, seascapes, and architectural views.
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