Paolo Fiammingo (Anversa, 1540 - Venezia,1596)

Pauwels Franck, known as Paolo Fiammingo (Antwerp, 1540 - Venice, 1596) Venus reclining in a landscape   Oil on canvas (116 x 150 cm - in antique frame 136 x 170 cm) The work is accompanied by a critical essay by Dr. Federica Spadotto   Full details of this work can be viewed directly from the following -  LINK - The splendid painting proposed portrays a refined and sensual Venus, unclothed and reclining on a red gold-brocaded drape dotted with roses, in a composition with a profound symbolic value, arriving at the perfect representation of the Renaissance woman who, like Venus, becomes an allegory of love, Eros, beauty, and fertility. The canvas fits into the prestigious artistic and cultural Venetian milieu of the second half of the sixteenth century, whose distinctive feature is found in its cosmopolitan vocation. This characteristic, as Dr. Spadotto pointed out in her in-depth study, belongs to the very physiology of the Venetian capital, i.e. being a notably commercial city located in a strategic exchange point. Representing one of the Mediterranean's liveliest ports therefore meant witnessing the continuous passage not only of goods, but of men, ideas, and suggestions from faraway lands, which influenced not only the taste of its people, but above all art.   This occurred thanks to the circulation of prints, as well as pictorial examples, in addition to the stays of great foreign artists and, above all, the permanent residency in the capital of a considerable number of Dutch, Flemish and German masters. An emblematic case in this regard comes from Pauwels Franck (Antwerp, 1540 - Venice, 1596), better known as Paolo Fiammingo, who established himself in his native town at a young age - in 1561 he is listed in the Guild of Saint Luke - and arrived in Venice in 1573.   He resided in Venice from 1584 until his death, although the stylistic and formal references of some of his works have led critics to believe that in previous years he had undertaken a trip to central Italy, i.e., to Florence and Rome, where he would have assimilated the lively cultural debate that permeated those cities and which, instead, seemed completely absent in Venice.   Here Paolo was fascinated by the sense of color and the atmospheric component fixed on canvas by Jacopo Tintoretto (Venice 1518 - 1594), of whom he became a collaborator, to undergo, around 1590, the suggestion of Paolo Caliari known as Veronese (Verona 1528 - Venice 1588) both from a coloristic and precise guiding-characters point of view.   The painting in question stands as an illuminating figurative example of what has just been mentioned, since it revisits the Venetian pictorial tradition through the Nordic filter, which is grafted onto a subject typical of the Renaissance repertoire. In the Venus in the foreground, with a typically Veronese physiognomy, the reference to the Venus with organist, Cupid and dog executed by Titian (Pieve di Cadore, 1488-90 Venice, 1576) and now at the Staatlische Museum in Berlin appears as a true tribute to the great master. With the latter it shares the compositional layout, with the red curtain that dominates the goddess and the landscape in the background, although revisited in a strictly Nordic key, according to a modality that can be traced in the Venus with dog of Ca' Rezzonico, in Venice.   In this version of the theme, however, the author still appears linked to Flemish dictates, which in the wide canvas under study become a complete synthesis of aesthetics between Northern Europe and the lagoon sensitivity. In the small flowers in the foreground and in the beautiful landscape that evokes the great Flemish masters, the very peculiar Venetian light is clearly perceptible: a true seal, together with the sky taken from Caliari, of the pictorial recipe elaborated by Pauwels. These creates a smooth cameo imbued with elegance, refinement, and expressive happiness at the same time, in which the composed female beauty and the landscape reproduced with care and detail coexist with a fast, lively brushstroke impregnated with light.   The painting is presented in excellent condition, with a beautiful antique frame.   The work is accompanied by a photographic certificate of authenticity according to law. We take care of and organize the transport of purchased works, both for Italy and abroad, through professional and insured carriers. For any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact us.   Follow us also on:   https://www.instagram.com/galleriacastelbarco/?hl=it https://www.facebook.com/galleriacastelbarco/