Second half of the 16th century - first half of the 17th century, Male Portrait

Second half of the 16th century - first half of the 17th century Male Portrait Oil on canvas, 35.5 x 29 cm With frame, 49 x 42.5 cm Doubly aimed at the most votive introspection as well as the stubborn execution, this painting poetically recounts the ability to recognize the movements of the soul in human eyes. The apparent speed of execution that distinguishes the canvas, devoid of strong executive lines, is accentuated in the vibrant formulation of the pictorial material, capable of spreading along the planes, in a continuous dissolving of light. A quick softness characterizes the complexion and beard of the portrayed, barely enlivened by a warm redness of cheeks that pushes the vitreous body of the eye to sparkle. A flat lighting of the foreground isolates the spiritual dimension of man as the protagonist, here limited to a dark hood and a hint of a staff, sealing his participation in the mystical sphere. The small details mentioned allow us to hypothesize the portrait of a saint, a Franciscan monk or specifically an apostle already invested by Pentecost. Having overcome the humanistic conception of the portrait as a document concretizing only historical reality, at the turn of the 16th century the personal memory relating and closely linked to the individual character allowed an intrinsic elevation to emerge, capable of restoring not only the physical essence but also the intellectual solidity of the person one was trying to fix in eternity. The compositional variation aimed at preferring the positioning of the protagonist frontally and no longer in profile, gave painters the possibility of investigating iconically what is not normally visible to the naked eye.