Francesco Fieravino Il Maltese Biography
Francesco Noletti, known as "the Maltese", formerly Francesco Fieravino (1611-1654) was an Italian painter who owes his nickname to the island where he was born, Malta.
A great interpreter of still life and exponent of the Baroque age, Noletti concentrated on the narration of objects, flowers, fruit, especially fabrics, showing an incredible ability in painting carpets and fabrics.
A virtuoso of the brush, his paintings are detailed beyond belief. Not to be confused with a hyper-realist style of the modern generation, Noletti has colors that are not expressly natural but exalted in the brightness, in the contrasts of his floral subjects, in the generous painting of fruit. His paintings are a riot of pictorial brightness, perfect in their three-dimensional narrative and graceful composition. The fabrics are folded in fluid poses, show an impeccable drapery, hide in the shadows that are never exaggerated, always soft, finely shaded in tones, a work of absolute virtuosity.
There is a big difference in Noletti's detailed description rather than in the faithful contemporary figurative pictorial reproduction; the human eye, not yet accustomed to photographic two-dimensionality, tended to render the perfection of the subjects, but enhanced those more engaging details. Noletti's fabrics are in fact brighter than they could ever be in reality, whilst remaining in a natural context.
