DOMENICHINO - Un paese con figure piccole

We are now in front of what I would say is one of the most popular genres. Until a few years before the arrival of Domenichino and the Barrazzi, the landscape was considered as a kind of decoration that was entrusted to poor painters. And so it was treated as a quadraturist, that is, a finisher, of operations, of decorations. Domenichino, on the other hand, Domenico Trantieri, a Bolognese painter born in 1501, and Nicolae Barrazzi, a fellow of the studies of Guido Reni and Francesco Albani, invents a different genre. Nicolae Barrazzi had already found a way to make the landscape a protagonist, that is, to remove it from the background, from the portraits, from the corners of civil or religious gardens, and to make it become an assisting genre. The landscape of Annibale, however, is a more naturalistic than classical landscape, that is, it appears within the background landscapes that recall the plains of the Po, or the temple of the Po, the plain of Padano Venta, which is illustrated with all the characteristics of the huts, or the embankments of the valley, and with the common people who work there. Instead, Domenico comes to Rome in 1602, already good at landscape painting, and here he comes into contact with a series of intellectuals, among the first, the Cardinal Giomattucchi, who is his protector, who is the secretary of the Cardinal's nephew, Pietro Aldobrandini, and who is a theorist of the new vision of nature, which in that period is becoming more and more developed. Nature, that is, which is no longer seen as a godmother, but is seen as a friend, as an ideal place, as a place where to live in great tranquility, surrounded by the beauties of both architecture and nature itself. Strong of this commitment, and therefore strong of the theory that has developed in this period, Domenichino manages, in painting, to interpret it. Domenichino, in fact, is a painter who, by his preciousness, by the preciousness of creating paintings that were his own real scenographies, or his own real architectures, manages, in the enterprise, to make this genre one of the most appreciated, especially in the Europe of the time, in particular in England and France, where the scarcity, in these paintings, of subjects of religious type found a particular sympathy in French or English communicants. The painting in question is just the classic example of the landscape of Domenichino of the very first period, in which he comes to Rome. He is at the Bottega D'Annibale, of course, of his old master, who has just finished the Circus of Freschi, in the Parnese Gallery, and, through his commitment and projector, manages to produce a series of very precious landscapes, very few remaining, using, in particular, to create works of a finiteness, of a technical effectiveness, of a very high quality, so much to make this genre an extremely precious genre. Domenichino's paintings were particularly ambitious, but, apart from the early years, although he never neglected the section, let's say, of landscape painting, Domenichino devoted himself to history, so to the most important cultures, such as the Churches or the Palaces, and so this genre comes from him, slightly transfigured, or entrusted to the Alibis, or to his followers, who will later bring this genre to Europe and will be in great fashion for two or three centuries, with fantastic, extraordinary names in the history of art, such as the title we have here, which represents, on the left, with a theatrical corner, and on the right, with another theatrical corner, on the left, a classical building, similar to those architectures that were being built in the countryside by the great cardinals of the Papal Court. In this case, there is a strong reference to the architectures of the Villa Comandini di Pasquati, and this classical building was built by the Varanasi, by Apollo and by the Muses, which are practically ancient statues that, when they came out of the ground during the excavations of this period, had to be used to decorate the prospects and the walls of modern buildings, made, however, by the same Vermini, for example, in the Colonnade of San Pietro, in the Piazza San Pietro. We remember, in addition to the element on the left, which is precisely this window, we remember the architectural quality and the capacities of the building. On the right, we have the Natura, absolutely pleasant, in which all the botanical elements are, all the bushes, which were used, are different from one another, the leaves are described in a technical literacy that Vermini used for this purpose. The use, then, of very precious pigments, such as lapis lazuli, which also denote the great possibilities of the purchase of the Comitete, because it was clearly a particularly precious pigment, being a precious stone, which, scattered in the sky, creates a feeling of three-dimensionality of the reflection of light, without degeneration or alteration of the entire building. Other elements that frame this scene, more and more from one point to the other, are, as you can see, this arch, in the center there is a mysterious city with clouds and domes, which prevents a momentary glance, but the converging line goes towards the sea. In this Eden, in this ideal landscape, there are a series of figurines, precisely for landscapes with small figures. Domenichino has become famous. These figurines are not simple spots, as they were often placed inside the landscapes to create, let's say, colors, but they are figurines that have and live their own lives. So, from their relationship, we also find a singular thing, to understand how this environment should be in the idea of those who had, in some way, thought of a place where the figurines were annulled, where the men of low satisfaction, such as the fisherman, the wanderer or the curious, could peacefully live and live with, instead, the group of privileged people, that is, those who could drink water and other elements. Always present in the classic landscape is a fundamental link, also from the prospective point of view, between the first floors and the deeper floors. We also consider that in the villas that this painting recalls, in the famous suburban villas of the great cardinals of Porte, water was considered an essential element. So it is true that Pietro Dobrandini received from his uncle, obviously Ottavio, a huge sum of 50,000 scudi that was equivalent to the value of the building that was being built, to bring the water through a gigantic duct up to around the port. Nature is domed, nature is no longer godmother, it is no longer jungle. We enter into that concept of nature that the committee and the inspirer, Domenichino, who was a gentleman Giovanni Battista Bucchi, wants nature to change, that is, an ideal place in which the hand of man is always present, in which there is a particular attention towards the botanical species, those botanical species from which we began to discover the medicinal capacities and that created in that period real museums. Botanical varieties became like wonders to expose, to cultivate, to show to friends, to study from a scientific point of view, precisely because within them there was the perfection of creation.