Venetian school, mid-18th century, Loth and his daughters

Venetian school, mid-18th century Loth and his daughters Oil on canvas, 43 x 57 cm Framed, 70 x 84 cm The canvas in question clearly depicts Loth and his daughters, protagonists of the story narrated in Genesis (19:30 - 38) and closely intertwined with the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot, Abraham's nephew, lived in Sodom with his family, until God, seeing the corruption and sin spreading, decided to destroy them. Two angels were sent to warn Loth and help him escape, but during the escape his wife disobeyed by looking back at the burning city, and was immediately turned into a pillar of salt. Loth and his two daughters then found refuge in a cave: here, fearing that they would not have other men with whom to procreate and perpetuate their lineage, the daughters made their father drunk and lay with him carnally while he slept unaware of what was happening, becoming pregnant. The protagonists are depicted here in half-length, placed in the foreground against a neutral black background, in some ways echoing the approach inaugurated by Giorgione in the famous painting The Three Ages of Man, kept at the Galleria Palatina in Florence. From a formal and chromatic point of view, in fact, the canvas in question can be attributed to a Venetian artist active around the mid-18th century, who therefore had the opportunity to engage with the great models of previous centuries. The skillful use of light and color are, in fact, distinctive elements of Venetian painting of this period: masterfully exploiting light to create effects of atmosphere, depth and softness, the artist gives life to a work of great charm and realism. The colors used, bright and vibrant, combined with rapid and pasty brushstrokes in a bold and contradictory way, create a dynamic narrative effect. The artist here limits the sexual aspect of the story, giving his figures more dignity and a deeper psychological interaction: the canvas alludes with great balance and measure to the events without showing them in their entirety, capturing the exact moment in which one begins to perceive the intoxication of Loth, who with his unguarded gaze, cheeks red from the high alcohol content and the uncertain balance of his body, abandons himself among the bodies of his daughters, the latter caught in the moment of maximum concentration and sensuality for the implementation of their plan.