ARARPI0222525
Ancient Painting P.F. Mola Attr. The Preaching of St. John '600
The Preaching of St. John Baptist
Oil painting on canvas. The painting can be traced back to the sphere of Pier Francesco Mola, known as il Ticinese, a painter active in Italy in the 17th century whose production included at least two canvases with the same subject (at the National Gallery in London and at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation in Lugano ). In these works by Mola, until then predominantly a landscape painter, the human figure began to take on a primary role with respect to the landscape, but the attention to the naturalistic element always remained alive throughout the production of this artist, who always sought a right relationship between the figures and the background. This balance is found in the work presented here: the figures are placed within the landscape, well distributed in spaces and on different levels of depth, and interacting with the naturalistic elements. The figure of the Baptist is sitting on an isolated and barren rock; the crowd listening to the Prophet, arranged in a semicircle in the foreground, from behind or in profile, almost blends in with some barren trees and the sparse and poor vegetation around; in the distance, on the right and indicated by the Baptist, Christ advances, a shaded and blue figure in the equally shaded and blue landscape. Restored and relined at the end of the 19th century, the painting is presented in a gilded frame from the second half of the 19th century.
