Page 54 - Vision & Ecstasy - Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione's St. Francis.
P. 54
© MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS However striking, the High Baroque of Cortona and Bernini
is only one aspect of the altarpiece for Osimo. It appears
Fig.11 G.B. CASTIGLIONE immediately qualified by the more idealised forms and
The ImmaculateConception (detail), attenuated colour of the heavens surrounding theVirgin, which
Minneapolis Instituteof Arts, Minneapolis. instead resemble Bolognese examples of the previous generation
and specifically recall another great painting from Castiglione’s
first experience, Guido Reni’s Assumption of theVirgin in Genoa’s
Gesù (Fig. 13). If this element can be understood as both
iconographically apt and personalising, the figures of Saint
Francis and Saint Anthony, indeed the lower half of the
composition, seem the antithesis. Their elegant postures,
restricted palette with variegated modelling in the flesh, and
broad handling return to the works of Van Dyck, and again to
the figure of Saint Francis in the altarpiece at Rapallo. This
explicitly Genoese aspect is reinforced by the landscape in the
painting’s foreground; its prominence and distinctively rich
handling suggest Flemish still-life painting, in turn Franciscan
reverence for the natural world. The contrast in style between
the upper and lower parts of the painting is thus pronounced.
Their contrast reinforces the metaphysical distinction between
celestial and terrestrial spheres. The overall composition, so
hieratic and compressed that it resembles that of a processional
standard, may well reflect a specific requirement of the
commission. Whatever the senses, whatever the accounts, there
is no other painting in which Castiglione’s modes appear more
starkly juxtaposed, their synthesis less complete, or the result
more strangely discordant.
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