CR ESPI, GIUSEPPE MARIA (Caveuene), a painter and engraver of Bologna, distinguished in his time, was born at Bologna in 1665. Ho was the scholar of Canuti and of Cignani, and was called Lo Spaguuolo on account of his gay attire. He was also remarkable for his perseverance in copying the works of the Caracci, Correggio, and Earroccio, and some of his copies are said to have been sold at Bologna as originals. He studied later the effect of Guercino and the compo sition of Pietro da Cortona. He became eventually one of the most careless and capricious of painters, though all his works exhibit great skill, and he had a surprising facility of execution; indeed he is in this respect probably unequalled. Meogs terms him the destroyer of the Bolognese school, his great facility and equal success having seduced the painters of his time to adopt similar carelessness of manner. There are twelve of his works in the gallery of Dresden, including the Seven Sacraments,' painted for Cardinal Ottoboui, and an Ecce Homo,' which with all its faults is a masterly performance.
In colour it is rather green, but in drawing and in character it is excellent, and in boldness and decision of touch surprising; it appears to have been painted in one heat, and that a short one, though it contains three half-leugth figures of the size of life—Christ and two soldiers. Crespi died iu 1747.
His two sons, Luigi and Antonio, followed their father's profession, but not his style. Luigi Crespi, or Don Luigi Canonico, as he was designated, is well known for his writings on art, and especially for his continuation of the Felsina ' or Bologna Paintreas,' of Count Malvaala. The count's work is in two volumes, and Crespi published a third, with the same title, in 1769. In it he has written a life of hia father, and an apology for his faults. Ile died in 1779.
(Guida di Bologna ; Lanzi, Storia Pittorica, ; Bartsch, Graveun)