Following Mattia Preti's models

Following models of MATTIA PRETI (Taverna, 1613 - Valletta, 1699).
"St. Paul the Hermit."
Oil on canvas.
Restored.
Measurements: 80 x 58,50 cm, 97 x 77 cm (frame).

The grandeur of this work lies in the scarcity of elements to which the artist resorts to define a painting determined by drama and emotion. With a clear Caravaggist inspiration, a mantle in the lower area envelops the scene on which the warmth of the flesh tones and the black background predominate, which tears the sobriety of this devotional portrait. A Saint Paul the Hermit appears in the image devoid of his usual iconographic symbols such as bread, but with the characteristic esparto grass cloak. The illumination of the scene of tenebrist aesthetics and the loose but effective brushstrokes bring us closer to the work of Mattia Preti, who achieved great recognition thanks to a work, also dedicated to St. Paul the Hermit, painted around 1660. The attention to detail, the expressiveness and the coloring used by the artist configured a scene where the baroque theatricality coexisted with an intimate effect, a trait that can also be seen in this painting, which although it differs in composition, presents common features with the work of San Giorgio dei Genovesi, as can be seen in the pictorial treatment of the torso, the way of composing the face and the play of light and shadows that is created on the figure of the protagonist.
Born in the small town of Taverna in Calabria, he began his artistic apprenticeship with the Caravaggio painter Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, which may explain his lifelong interest in Caravaggio's style. Probably before 1630, Preti joined his brother Gregorio, also a painter, in Rome, where he became familiar with the techniques of Caravaggio and his school, as well as with the work of Guercino, Rubens, Reni, Giovanni Lanfranco and Veronese. Between 1644 and 1646, he may have spent some time in Venice, although he continued to reside in Rome until 1653, returning later in 1660 to Venice to settle there. Where he worked alongside Pier Francesco Mola, Gaspard Dughet, Francesco Cozza, Giovanni Battista Tassi (il Cortonese), and Guillaume Courtois (Guglielmo Cortese). For most of the period from 1653-1660, he worked in Naples, where he was influenced by another great Neapolitan painter of the time, Luca Giordano. His Saint Sebastian, now in the Museum of Capodimonte, dates from this period. Having been made a Knight of Grace in the Order of St. John, he visited the order's headquarters in Malta in 1659 and spent most of the rest of his life there. Preti transformed the interior of the Co-cathedral of St. John in Valletta with a large series of paintings on the life and martyrdom of John the Baptist. This led to a growing artistic reputation that brought him into an extensive circle of patrons, and facilitated commissions from all over Europe. Preti was fortunate to enjoy a long career and had a considerable artistic output. His paintings, representative of the exuberant late Baroque style, are preserved in many major museums, including important collections in Naples, Valletta, Sacristy of the Chalices of the Cathedral of Seville and in his hometown of Taverna.