Giovan Francesco Gonzaga

Don Quixote of La Mancha, 1962

1962

Oil painting on canvas. French school of the seventeenth century. The scene, set at night in the garden of a villa, of which you can glimpse the ornate facade on the right and in which the fountain gushing with cherubs stands out, under a dark sky and further obscured by heavy clouds, proposes two figures who entertain each other in conversation : an elderly modestly dressed is sternly admonishing a seated young man, richly dressed, who seems instead to make the gesture of mea culpa with his hand. The physiognomy and the gestures of the two characters, together with the style of the clothes, would refer to the philosopher Aristotle who was called to the court of Macedon to be the tutor...

The figure of the Magdalene emerges from the darkness, leaning to follow the curve of the stone support; it is depicted vaulted with an interrogative air towards the dark, as if in an attitude of listening, the left hand raised and the other leaning on the "memento mori" very shortened. In front of her a scourge and the jar of ointment. Painted en pendant, Saint John the Baptist is depicted as a young man, with a lamb at his feet, in his hand the processional cross with the banner "exception agnus dei", while with his right hand he draws from the source of water, recalling the episode that will see Jesus Christ baptized. In both paintings the figures stand out in a strong and incisive way thanks to the black that characterizes the slate plate on which they are depicted. Historical-critical analysis: We are faced with two examples of oil painting on stone. The beginnings of this particular technique are to be placed in the first half of the sixteenth century: after some fifteenth-century experiments it is with Sebastiano del Piombo that the genre takes hold in the sixteenth century. There were different types of support used, also linked to their availability: amethyst, marble in various colors, alabaster and blackboard. The reasons underlying this technical choice refer to Renaissance artistic theories: it is no coincidence that the painter who most often experimented with oil painting on marble...

Oil painting on canvas. Mid 19th century. The large scene tells an unidentified historical episode, set in the Renaissance period, in which an archbishop listens to the plea of a you...

Oil on panel. Northern European school of the 17th century. The scene depicts an episode in the life of Scipio narrated by Tito Livio and Valerio Massimo. Publius Cornelius Scipio, l...