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Christ and the Adultere…
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LUCIANO BORZONE (Genoa, 1590 - 1645)
Christ and the Adultere…
See original version (Italian)
Lot no. 49
Description
LUCIANO BORZONE
(Genoa, 1590 - 1645)
Christ and the Adulteress
Oil on canvas, 124X148 cm
The Caravaggesque tenor of the painting shows the influence of 17th century Roman painting, in particular the creations of Mattia and Gregorio Preti. One need only think of Christ Preaching to the Doctors kept in the sacristy of the church dedicated to the Holy Trinity in Via Condotti to glimpse the community of intentions and suggestions gathered by Luciano Borzone during his stay in the Eternal City. The artist, in fact, expresses a very personal interpretation of naturalism and the Baroque norm, renewing the lesson of Giovan Battista Paggi, of the Milanese school and the neo-naïve seductions learnt from Cesare Corte with autonomy of craftsmanship, but attentive to assimilating central Italian novelties. Thus, the tenebrous magisterium will also be explored by him in both illustrative and painterly terms, regulated by a colourism constructed in veils and luminous scores that seem to blur forms with refined elegance. These aspects are very well grasped in the canvas under examination, which eloquently expresses the wisdom achieved by the master during his maturity. Equally important is to grasp his sprezzatura in combining classicism and adherence to truth with appreciable formal grace. In the work presented here, in fact, the light seems to dilute the colour and goes so far as to unravel the drafts by playing with the preparation and calibrated glazes, measuring light and dark according to an experimentation that was to be decisive for his students. Therefore, it is necessary to interpret Borzone's expressiveness by correcting the simplistic reading in Caravaggio's viewpoint, because it is achieved with a discordant technique. For Caravaggio and his close followers, light was revelatory of forms that stood out in the round from the dark background, on the contrary, in Borzone, forms are transformed, as Pesenti said, into 'restless appearances', placing the artist among the forerunners of the chiaroscuro research that was to be carried out by Gioacchino Assereto, Orazio de Ferrari and Giovan Battista Langetti. The question of how and when Borzone or other painters embraced Caravaggism then becomes irrelevant, while it is more relevant to recognise Borzone in embracing the different themes of Lombardy, Manfredi and Bamboccianti, approaching the Venetian-derived mixtures of the late Titian, Tintoretto and Palma il Giovane codified as 'Giorgionesque' paintings. These clues may suggest a possible journey to Venice, but as far as the mature production is concerned, one must bear in mind that from 1621 Genoese art would be confronted with Van Dyck (Antwerp, 1599 ; London, 1641), an elegant meditator on the use of lagoon colour, veiling and tinted shadow contrasts, to which Borzone was not immune. Looking back over his production, we can therefore see that he assimilated the best examples of his time, dialoguing with Ansaldo and Fiasella, synthesising layouts and techniques, profoundly marking the young Assereto and leading him, from a compositional point of view, to devise similar subjects and narrative solutions with him during his maturity, especially after his stay in Rome between 1633 and 1635. It is probable that on this occasion he studied Merisi's originals, was intrigued by the bamboozling and genre painting, and found affinities with the French Valentin de Boulogne (Coulommiers, 1591 ; Rome, 1632), Nicolas Tournier (Montbéliard, 1590 ; Toulouse, c. 1638) and Guy François (Le Puy-en-Velay c. 1578 ; 1650), as some of his late conformations reveal, but it is reliable to assume a contact with Mattia Preti (Taverna, 1613 ; Valletta, 1699) documented in Rome from 1630.
We thank Camillo Manzitti for the attribution.
Reference bibliography:
C. Manzitti, Caravaggesque influences in Genoa and new findings on Luciano Borzone, in Paragone XXII, no. 259, September 1971, p. 33
A. Manzitti, Luciano Borzone 1590-1645, Genoa 2015, ad vocem
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