Workshop of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, known as Il Grechetto (Genoa, 23 March 1609 – Mantua, 5 May 1664), Family of shepherds

Workshop of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, known as Il Grechetto (Genoa, 23 March 1609 – Mantua, 5 May 1664)

Shepherd family

Oil on canvas, 72 x 98 cm

With frame, 87 x 112 cm

Giovanni Castiglione was born in Genoa in March 1609, as reported by a series of documents relating to the registration of his baptism. He began to approach painting at a very young age, following the indications of masters such as Giovanni Battista Paggi, Giovanni Andrea De Ferrari and Sinibaldo Scorza, with whom he worked for a long time. His early works show his deep attachment to animalist painting, which was extremely popular at the time: this tendency can be seen in paintings such as The Entry of the Animals into the Ark (Genoa, Accademia Ligustica) and Noah Brings the Animals into the Ark (Florence, Gall. of the Uffizi, inv. 1336), attributable to the first season of the painter's activity. Contact with the Roman environment in the 1600s profoundly changed Castiglione's artistic vision, deeply fascinated by the nascent baroque forms of Bernini and the classical painting of Poussin, which contributed to the Genoese artist's discovery of a new artistic conception, which is particularly evident in paintings such as Satyr and Nymph and the Adoration of the Golden Calf. After brief stays in Naples and a long stay in Rome, in 1639 Grechetto returned to Genoa where he married and started a family, as reported in some notarial documents. After a period of artistic pause, Castiglione created The Nativity in 1645 for the Genoese church of S. Luca, still showing a notable attachment to classical forms but interposing a new spatial dimension in which suggestions taken from the Roman and Neapolitan environment converge. The same goes for paintings of religious inspiration such as the Vision of St. Bernardo (Genoa-Sampierdarena, S. Maria della Cella) and S. James driving out the Moors (Genoa, Oratory of S. Giacomo della Marina; sketch in Petworth, coll. Wyndham). But these are the years in which Castiglione begins to develop an imaginative style without abandoning the hallmarks of classicism: against the backdrop of an ancient world made of busts, vases, emerging ruins covered by vegetation that almost hides them from view, mythological figures such as nymphs or satyrs emerge, taking on an almost unreal and magical dimension. In 1647 he returned to Rome with his family and the years spent in the Eternal City consolidated his approach to Baroque art, as demonstrated by the work Immacolata di Osimo (now preserved at the Institute of Art in Minneapolis; sketch at Windsor Castle, Royal Library) and the affirmation of a more fantastic-archaeological style, revealing all the intellectual and philosophical depth of the artist as is evident in the Bacchanalia and Circe. In 1654 he moved to Mantua, working at the Gonzaga court. According to the letters of his brother Salvatore, the agreement between the Gonzagas and Castiglione should not be understood as a sort of dependence but as a non-binding bond that left the artist freedom of movement and expression. Castiglione was also known for his work as an engraver, specialized in the etching technique and inventor of the monotype: his luminous and strongly chromatic technique placed him among the most appreciated engravers of the seventeenth century. Grechetto's production was an inspiration for many artists, just think of the Neapolitan Andrea De Lione, Pier Francesco Mola and Pietro Testa, all united by a temperament that Luigi Salerno defined as 'of dissent' and to which we must add the name of Salvator Rosa.

This painting, made in Grechetto's workshop, presents many of the key characteristics of the master's animalist production. The artist's ductus is nuanced, at times undefined, anything but academic: at the same time, the depiction of the animals is extremely precise. The Genoese author proves, in this scene, perfectly capable of fully rendering the humanity of the shepherds' family, depicted in a realistic manner and in total absence of pietism. Even the light and radiant colors are perfectly channeled into the dictates of Grechetto's vast animalier production.