Circle of Giovan Battista Fattori (1696-Trento, 1776), Christ in the Garden of Olives

Circle of Giovan Battista Fattori (1696-Trento, 1776) Christ in the Garden of Olives Wood, 58 x 36 cm The subject is the episode recounted in the Gospel according to Matthew (chapter 26), when Jesus and his disciples went to the Mount of Olives, outside Jerusalem, on the night Jesus was arrested; at the center stands the kneeling figure of Christ with his hands clasped and his gaze fixed upwards, while two angels, of reduced proportions, rush towards him, one of them holding a chalice. He had in fact moved away from the disciples momentarily to withdraw in prayer, just before Judas indicated to the soldiers to arrest him. The subject is quite famous in the pictorial tradition, which however frames the story by putting the sleeping apostles in the foreground, here instead excluded from the narration, and Christ in prayer in the background. This story is less frequent in sculpture, which makes this relief a rare piece. The work is of great beauty and technical refinement. The wood is finely carved and the author pays attention to every detail, creating lighting effects of great intensity. The dark wood, in fact, is bathed in light homogeneously where the surfaces are perfectly smooth, contrasting with the ripples of the soft draperies. This technical expertise does not exclude the carver's interest in exploring the movements of the human soul: in Christ's face, in fact, the emotional charge of a man aware of his destiny is manifested. The drama is increased by the compositional choice, which sees the three characters almost crushed by the edges of the support. The stylistic investigation leads the author back to the circle of Giovan Battista Fattori, a sculptor active mainly in Trento, his hometown. Among the certain works is a wooden sculpture of Jesus Christ in prayer in the Garden of Olives made for the church of Sant'Anna and now in the adjacent church of San Pietro in Trento. For the high altar of the Church of Carmine in the same city he created two sculptures depicting Sant'Anna and Sant'Elisabetta, now located in the parish church of Civezzano. The statues of Saints Peter and Paul from the altar of the church of San Pietro in Trento are also attributed to him; the busts of the same saints from the collegiate church of Arco; two reliefs depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Tower of Babel, kept at Castel Thun; some wooden panels from the choir of the cathedral of Trento; the statues of the high altar of the church of Sant'Andrea di Torbole sul Garda; the statues of the church of San Carlo Borromeo of Volders. He died at the age of eighty, and was buried in the church of San Francesco Saverio in Trento.