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Battle Scene

Creator

Italian Artist · 1467–1551

According to biographer Giorgio Vasari, Girolamo Genga studied with Luca Signorelli at age fifteen, then became his assistant. Between 1498 and 1501, he worked in a studio in Perugia, where fellow student Raphael influenced him strongly. Genga worked throughout Italy, primarily as a painter and architect in Urbino, though he also found employment in Tuscany and Lombardy. In 1522 the duke of Urbino

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Date: about 1525
Medium: Pen and brown ink
Culture: Italian
Department: Drawings
Institution: Getty Museum

Girolamo Genga created a lively assortment of figure types, drawn in a rapid, energetic fashion. Rearing horsemen with their arms thrown back above their heads compete with men on foot carrying shields. Other groups contain pairs of soldiers locked in combat, wrestling each other on the ground or on foot. The artist used a delicate pattern of hatched lines in the background, adding texture and a sense of depth to the figures in front. Along the bottom edge Genga placed the design for a frieze, filled with sea gods riding an assortment of sea monsters. Scholars propose that this drawing may reflect Genga's early ideas for a battle scene. The Duke of Urbino commissioned him to paint such a scene for the Villa Imperiale in Pesaro.

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