Friday, November 4, 2016

Guercino in the 1650s

Guercino
Diana the Huntress
1658
oil on canvas
Fondazione Sorgente Group

Guercino
Libyan Sibyl
1651
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

Guercino
Personification of Astrology
ca. 1650-55
oil on canvas
Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin

" ... his protagonists bring onto center stage a decisive, sometimes even dissonant chromatic force  especially with his invention of that shade of blue that foreshadows the later use of Prussian blue. This new sense of color as form seems to be associated with other successful material arts and expressions like embroidery, weaving, and especially ceramics. The skilled, forceful painting of red with azure blue has the completeness of a resplendent chromatic skin, almost as though it had an expressive autonomy."

– from Andrea Emiliani's essay in Guercino : Master Painter of the Baroque (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1992)


Guercino
Penitent Magdalene
ca. 1650-55
oil on canvas
private collection

Guercino
Return of the Prodigal Son
1654-55
oil on canvas
Timken Museum of Art, San Diego

". . . the returning son cries, a sign of his contrition as previously noted. Yet he also turns his head away from his father, an expression of shame in the sign language of rhetoric, to which we shall return. Furthermore, the hands of father and son are entwined in a classic gesture of reconciliation and, as carriers of meaning, are positioned at the center of the composition. The hands allude to a subsequent and theologically significant verse from the Gospel of Luke in which the father grants his forgiveness: "for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found" (Luke 15:24). Both figures face the viewer almost frontally and depict two moments in the narrative: contrition and forgiveness, climax and catharsis. Because no real action is depicted, but instead two morally significant emotional states  or the "essence" of the text  the figures, particularly that of the son, appear more artificial to modern eyes than those in any of the earlier versions. The communication of the passions is not achieved through the depiction of a real mood or a real action, but through recognized rhetorical gestures. This rather statue-stiffness, in which the protagonists serve primarily to exemplify moments of self-examination, is relieved by the figure of the page at left, who regards the viewer directly and, as in a theater, opens a curtain."

– from Sybille Ebert-Schifferer's essay in Guercino : Master Painter of the Baroque (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1992)

Guercino
Abraham rejects Hagar and Ishmael
1658
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Guercino
Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness with Angel
1652-53
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

Guercino
David with the head of Goliath
1650
oil on canvas
National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

Guercino
Lot and his daughters
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Dresden

Guercino
Assumption
1650
oil on canvas
Detroit Institute of Arts

Guercino
Flagellation
1657
oil on canvas
Palazzo Barberini, Rome

Guercino
Entombment
1656
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Guercino
Virgin & Child with four Saint-Patrons of Modena
ca. 1651
oil on canvas
Louvre

Guercino
St Luke displaying his portrait of the Virgin
1652-53
canvas
Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City