Giovanni Venanzi

GIOVANNI VENANZI(Pesaro, Italy, 1627 - 1705).
"Madonna and Child".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Certificate attached.
Measurements: 99 x 81 x 2 cm.
This work of Giovanni Venanzi, in which the Virgin with the Child is represented, constitutes a refined example of the devotional classicism developed in the Centro-Italian environment during the second half of the XVII century. The composition, of serene and symmetrical structure, presents the Virgin Mary in frontal position, seated or enthroned, tenderly holding the Child Jesus, who, naked and in a playful attitude, establishes a visual or gestural link with the viewer. The scene, of apparent simplicity, reveals a careful balance between formal idealization, inherited from the teaching of Guido Reni and Simone Cantarini, with whom Venanzi was linked according to tradition, and a soft emotional charge that humanizes the sacred motif.
Giovanni Venanzi, a painter originally from the city of Pesaro, was according to tradition a disciple of Guido Reni and Simone Cantarini, which places him within one of the most refined lines of Italian classicism of the seventeenth century. He developed his activity both in his native city and, from 1650, in Parma, where he worked at the court of Ranuccio Farnese, probably commissioned by the Theatine Fathers, for whom he produced a significant number of religious works. Among his main patrons were also the Carmelite order and the Meli-Lupi princes of Soragna, which indicates a certain recognition in both ecclesiastical and noble circles.