Italian school; 17th century.

Italian school; XVII century.
"Military portrait",
Oil on canvas. Relined antique.
Measurements: 68 x 54,5 cm.
We see in this canvas a portrait of bust of a knight of severe look, nailed in the spectator, without more symbols of his rank than the dignity that his face gives off and the richness of his clothes, that follow the prevailing fashion in the Europe of the time. Wearing armor and a large white scarf, which attracts the light around the face, the character stands out against a neutral and dark background. His face, vividly illuminated, is modeled precisely through the contrast of light and shadow, magnificently worked. Technically, the work stands out for the use of precise and defined brushstrokes. In addition to a use of light that falls on the flesh tones, highlighting the look, of great psychological depth. A halo of melancholy crosses it. It is a fundamental aspect of the portrait of the seventeenth century, to convey the personality and mood of the portrayed, which was not expressed in previous times focused exclusively on the external appearance. Naturalism advocates the non-idealization of the countenance. In contrast to other contemporary trends in Italian painting, which focused on decorativism, sober and measured elegance prevails in this portrait. As in the rest of Europe, the portrait became in the XVII century the protagonist genre par excellence of painting, since it began a growing development around it, as a consequence of the new social structures that were implanted in the western world throughout this century.
The work presents certain aesthetic relationship with the painting of Sicipione Pulzone (Gaeta, 1544 - Rome, 1598), finding similarities with works such as the portrait of Giacomo Boncompagni or Marco Antonio Colonna. Pulzone began his artistic training as a pupil of Jacopino del Conte, although he soon preferred to take as references for his art such personalities as Girolamo Muziano or Siciolante. His taste for descriptive effects led him to study Flemish and Venetian models, from which he extracted a rich palette of colors. However, it was in Raphael where he found his greatest influence reflected in the use of defined contours and schematic clarity. His art recalls above all the earliest Raphael, the one that refers us to the style of a Perugino or a Domenico Ghirlandaio. That is why his art is largely revisionist, since his sources are not to be found in his immediate predecessors, but in the great masters of the late Quattrocento. In 1584 Pulzone traveled to Naples and Florence. In the latter city he came into contact with local artists of a similar sensibility to his own. Pulzone is the archetype of counter-mannerist art. He was primarily a portrait painter and his works submissively followed the dictates of the Roman Church: he tried to transmit simple emotions, within the reach of the simplest of spectators, with a didactic intention and sometimes, with an almost artisanal air, which prioritizes art as a vehicle to transmit an idea, in this case of a religious type, rather than seeking beauty, the artist's showcasing or the assumption of artistic challenges.