Italian · Contemporary realism · Neo-Baroque
Roberto Ferri
b. 1978, Taranto, Italy
Roberto Ferri (born 1978, Taranto) is an Italian painter who works in the manner of the Baroque masters, known for dramatic, Caravaggesque scenes of angels, fallen angels, martyrs and tangled nude bodies.
1 work in the collection
Works by Roberto Ferri
Roberto Ferri is an Italian painter, born in Taranto in 1978 and based in Rome, whose oil paintings revive the look and technique of seventeenth-century Baroque art. Angels, often fallen or dying, are among his most searched subjects, and the clearest example in our catalogue is The Angel, the Death, and the Devil (2018).
Life in brief
Ferri finished his schooling at the Liceo Artistico Lisippo in Taranto in 1996 and then largely taught himself to paint by studying old masters. He moved to Rome in 1999 and later took a degree at the city's Academy of Fine Arts (sources give 2006 or 2011). His work was shown in the Italian pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2011, and he has received church commissions, including a Way of the Cross for Noto Cathedral in Sicily and a portrait of Pope Francis.
Style and technique
Ferri names Caravaggio as his chief model, alongside academic and Symbolist painters. You can see it in the hard raking light, the black grounds, and bodies modeled so smoothly they look carved. Where Caravaggio used ordinary Roman models, Ferri's figures are idealized and often contorted, wings and limbs knotted into dense, airless compositions that leave almost no empty space.
Angels and fallen angels
Searches for "Roberto Ferri angel" and "fallen angel" point to a constant theme: winged figures shown at the point of collapse or surrender rather than in glory. In The Angel, the Death, and the Devil, a hooded, black-winged Death presides over a dead angel on a bank of cloud. For the tradition he draws on, see Fallen Angels in Art and Alexandre Cabanel's Fallen Angel.
Where to see his work
Most of Ferri's paintings are in private collections. Churches such as Noto Cathedral hold commissioned works, and he exhibits through galleries in Italy and abroad.
Questions & answers
Who is Roberto Ferri?
Roberto Ferri is an Italian painter born in Taranto in 1978 and based in Rome. He paints in a revived Baroque style inspired by Caravaggio, with dramatic light, dark backgrounds and idealized nude figures, and is especially known for angels, martyrs and religious commissions.
Does Roberto Ferri paint fallen angels?
Yes. Angels shown falling, dying or overpowered are one of his recurring subjects. The Angel, the Death, and the Devil (2018), for example, sets a dead angel beneath a hooded, winged figure of Death, in the long tradition of fallen-angel imagery.
What style does Roberto Ferri paint in?
Ferri works in a figurative, old-master manner, often called neo-Baroque. He uses oil on canvas, strong chiaroscuro and carefully modeled anatomy, taking his cues from Caravaggio and from academic and Symbolist painters of the nineteenth century.