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 told in the Gospel according to Matthew (chapter 26), when Jesus and his disciples went to the Mount of Olives, outside Jerusalem, on the night in which Jesus was arrested; in the center stands the kneeling figure of Christ with his hands clasped and his gaze fixed upwards, while two angels, of reduced proportions, come impetuously towards him, one of them holding a chalice. 

He had in fact moved away from the disciples momentarily to retreat in prayer, just before Judas told the soldiers to arrest him.  

The subject is quite famous in the pictorial tradition, which however layouts the story by placing the sleeping apostles in the foreground, here excluded from the narrative, 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 luminous effects of great intensity. The dark wood, in fact, is bathed in light in a homogeneous way where the surfaces are perfectly smooth, contrasting with the rippling of the soft drapery. However, this technical expertise does not go beyond the carver's interest in exploring the movements of the human soul: in the face of Christ, in fact, the emotional charge of a man aware of his own destiny is manifested. The drama is increased by the compositional choice, which sees the three characters almost crushed by the edges of the supports. 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 there is a wooden sculpture of Jesus Christ praying in the olive garden created for the church of Sant'Anna and today in the adjacent church of San Pietro in Trento. For the main altar of the Church of Carmine in the same city he created two sculptures depicting Sant'Anna and Sant'Elisabetta, today 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 traced back to him; the busts of the same two saints from the collegiate church of Arco; two reliefs depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Tower of Babel, preserved in Castel Thun; some wooden panels from the choir of the Trento cathedral; the statues of the main altar of the church of Sant'Andrea in Torbole sul Garda; the statues of the church of San Carlo Borromeo in Volders. 

He died at the age of eighty, and was buried in the church of San Francesco Saverio in Trento

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