Giovanni Serodine

Switzerland · 1594–1630

Giovanni Serodine was a Swiss-Italian painter of the early Baroque period. Born to a family of stuccoists in Ascona in Canton Ticino (in present-day Switzerland), he gravitated to Rome and there developed an idiosyncratic expression of Carravaggist style. His style has the loose brushstroke and luminosity of some of the northern Caravaggisti, such as Lys, Strozzi and Fetti, who were active in Venice. However, some of Serodine's canvases show a provincial eccentricity, for example Coronation of the Virgin in Ascona. Baglione found in his art a great vivacity, although he noted Serodine appears to have made few friends and patrons in Rome.