Veronese school, XVI century.

Veronese school, XVI century.
"Holy Family and St. Johnny".
Oil on wood.
It is in good condition, except for slight craquelure.
Measurements: 68 x 53 cm; 99 x 84 cm (frame).

The Virgin and the Child Jesus occupy the center of this magnificent composition of the Italian Cinquecento, flanked by St. Joseph and St. John (John the Evangelist). The two children exchange silent glances. The Virgin's face is endowed with great delicacy thanks to a masterful use of chromatic ranges. Some attributes of Veronese painting converge in this representation of the Holy Family: the sculptural treatment of the bodies, the harmonious proportions, the chromatic luminosity, especially noticeable in the contrast between the carmine reds and the fiery flesh tones. The bodies have been modeled in a precious turning of the limbs through a masterful shading. The figures manage to emerge from the dark background and position themselves with all their carnality in the foreground. During the Renaissance, painting in Verona experienced a great artistic flowering. The city was an important commercial and cultural center, and attracted artists from all over Italy. The Veronese school is stylistically directly related to the Venetian and Lombard schools, and artists such as Paolo Veronese, Tiziano Vecellio and Girolamo dai Libri contributed to its definition.

In the most common sense of the expression, the Holy Family includes the closest relatives of the Child Jesus, that is, mother and grandmother or mother and nurturing father. In both cases, whether it is St. Anne or St. Joseph who appears, it is a group of three figures. Other figures can be added to this main group, as here St. John the Child, Jesus' cousin. From the artistic point of view, the arrangement of this terrestrial Trinity poses the same problems and suggests the same solutions as the heavenly Trinity.

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