Circle and GUIDO RENI (Calvenzano di Vergato, Bologna, 1575 - Bologna, 1642).
"Madonna del Silenzio.
Oil on canvas. Re-drawn.
It presents faults and restorations.
Measurements: 137 x 115 cm.
The painter offers us a scene of very long tradition in the Christian West, worked with subtle gradations of half-tones and great monumentality reminding to a great extent the aesthetics of the master Guido Reni. The iconographic theme is the contemplation of the sleeping child while his mother, the Virgin, adores him. It is the combination of the concepts of mother and child in a natural and tender attitude, as well as the mother of God observing the divine and transcendental character of her child.
The undisputed master of Roman-Bolognese classicism along with Albani and Domenichino, Guido Reni was undoubtedly the best of the three. Closely linked to the Carracci family and to the city of Bologna, they all had a similar career. They trained in Bologna with Denys Calvaert, and then went on to the Accademia degli Incamminati, directed by Ludovico Carraci. In 1600 Reni arrived in Rome, where he worked with Annibale Carracci in the Galleria Farnese. His best period began in these years; in 1609, on Annibale's death, Reni became the head of the classicist school. In the city he was the protégé of Scipione Borghese, the future Pope Paul V, for whom the painter produced one of his most important works, "La Aurora" (Palazzo Rospigliosi). It reveals something that would always be characteristic of Reni's style, his admiration for ancient sculpture. Based on classical statues, he developed an ideal of beauty and perfection that would be greatly admired by subsequent painters.