작품 상세

Alessandro Magnasco, called Il Lissandrino, A Hunter Gutting an Animal The biographer Carlo Giuseppe Ratti referred to the Genoan painter Alessandro Magnasco as a "Pittore di un carattere particolare nelle sue pitture" - a painter whose works display an exceptional character - and the present work illustrates exactly what the artist's first biographer meant with this comment.At first glance one sees only a flurry of colours upon canvas, formed from nervous dashes, sketchy patches and flurried curves. Only gradually do these marks condense within the mind's eye and we begin to recognise the landscape, figure, objects and subject of the painting: The dark grey and brown patches become a steep cliff, the diagonal lines form a frame from which a dead animal hangs, and we see various objects such as a horn, lantern and bowls, and finally the figure of a hunter with a white shirt, blue trousers and a bag. Alessandro Magnasco has transformed a simple genre scene into a painted spectacle, providing a stage for his eccentric style. This eccentricity was not only revealed in his style, but also the unique motifs chosen by this artist, such as Capuchin Monks or beggars. Carlo Giuseppe Ratti was outraged by his contemporaries who often failed to recognise the exceptional character of this artist's capricious works and instead favoured more realistic and detailed pictures by mediochre artists. Although this may have been the case for some collectors in Magnasco's ligurian home town, it certainly did not apply to the sophisticated aristocrats of Florence and Milan, where "il Lissandrino" learnt to paint at 14 years of age under Filippo Abbiati. He painted for Ferdinando de´ Medici in Florence in 1703 before returning to Milan in 1709, where he carried out commissions for various illustrious patrons, including the Austrian Stadtholder Colloredo, the Visconti and the Borromeo families. He found many sources of inspiration in Milan, and more still in Florence, including the work of Jacques Callot, the bawdy genre scenes of the Dutch painters, as well as motifs from Spanish and Italian literature.Alessandro Magnasco was a celebrated artist during his lifetime, but was largely forgotten in the 19th century only to be rediscovered in the 20th. We mainly owe this rediscovery to the Viennese art historian and author Benno Geiger, who carried out extensive research on this artist, published two monographs and organised various exhibitions of his works. The present work was part of Benno Geiger's collection in the early 20th century. 55 x 45 cm