Landscape with ruins and biblical scene, Antonio Travi, known as Sestri (Sestri Ponente 1608 – Genoa 1665)

Antonio Travi, known as Sestri (Sestri Ponente 1608 – Genoa 1665)

Landscape with ruins and biblical scene

First half of the 17th century

oil on canvas, 82 x 121 cm

Complete descriptive and photographic details: www.ANTICHITACASTELBARCO.it

The beautiful published painting, a large landscape with architectural ruins, fully reflects the pictorial poetics of Antonio Travi (Sestri Ponente 1608 – Genoa 1665), the first landscape painter of the Genoese pictorial school; poetics that remained constant throughout his profitable career: from his beginnings, as a pupil of Bernardo Strozzi, until his death in 1668, by which time his flourishing workshop was supported by numerous sons and students. The imposing ruins, highlighted by an icy and shining brightness, are the backdrop to the biblical episode of the flight into Egypt, with the Holy Family in the foreground.

Observing the style characteristics, we note the evidence of the brushstroke and the love for color typical of the master Strozzi, but also a clarity and precision typical of the Flemish artists active in Genoa, with a particular reference to the German Goffredo Waals, present in several collections of the Genoese aristocracy. Wals' luminous and metaphysical scenography translates into Travi's painting with a ruinistic taste in a Ligurian key, through fast brushstrokes, dense with color and a fantastic naturalism accentuated by silvery brightness. From the proposed canvas, typical elements of his palette can be seen, such as the accurate chromatic agreements and the studied insertion of brighter colors on the basic tones of earths and whites.

As regards the composition, his passionate investigation of the Italian landscape remains almost unchanged over time, where the traces of time that passes inexorably - the ancient architecture in ruins and the dilapidated houses - inhabit the scenarios of a silent nature. His works are always animated by small figures, who carry out their daily activities with simplicity: they lead the flocks to water or graze on the banks of the river. The same popular everyday life of his genre subjects also characterizes the paintings with a sacred theme, like the one in question, always dominated by an order that instills a sovereign calm in the environment.

However, it should be underlined that the presence of man never appears decisive but rather, the true protagonist of his works is a nature that shows itself in all its simplicity. This canvas explains it well: almost a manifesto of his poetic vein, where ruin is the true queen of the scene: the inexorable passing of time to which nothing can be opposed, except Mother Nature, in her silent resistance made of eternally blue skies crossed by clouds, by streams that will always flow down to the sea, by meadows and valleys, trees and stones.

The quality that is perceived is that of an exquisitely authored work: see the reflections on the water, the descriptive detail of the ruin in every stone and even in the traces of decoration on the arches above, the white brushstrokes which are flashes of light.

Certificate of authenticity (FIMA – CINOA)