CASTIGLIONE, Giovanni Benedetto

In Greek mythology, Circe is a Queen goddess living on the island of Aeaea.

This canvas depicts an episode told in Homer’s Odyssey (Book 10). It shows the sorceress Circe using her magical powers to transform Ulysses’ companions into wild beasts (a monkey, a dog, various birds, a deer, and a guinea pig). The gleaming armor in the right foreground evokes the human origins of the beasts.

When studying in Genoa under Giovanni Battista Paggi (documented in 1626—27), Castiglione was in contact with the colony of northern artists in the city, above all with the Flemings Lucas and Cornelis de Wael, as well as with Anthony van Dyck. From these painters Castiglione developed a realistic style of great immediacy, concentrating above all on animals and still-lifes set mostly in landscapes with religious staffage. This expertise is clearly seen in the painting depicting Noah’s story.

Before the Flood, Noah was charged by God to build an ark and to save a male and a female of every species (Genesis VII, 1—9). Castiglione skilfully depicts only part of the event and part of the wooden ship, so that the immensity of its size and the enormity of the number of animals is left to the viewer’s imagination. Noah arranges the entry of the animals, which have assembled in two lines parallel to the picture plane. Curiously they consist only of European indigenous animals, many of them domestic.

Noah arranges the entry of the animals, which have assembled in two lines parallel to the picture plane. Curiously they consist only of European indigenous animals, many of them domestic.

This is one of the treatments of this Old Testament subject by Castiglione. It was executed during the artist’s stay in Rome.

Castiglione followed the iconographic tradition that had become quite widespread at the end of the sixteenth century through the work of the Bassano family.

This painting was acquired for the Hermitage in the 18th century as a Castiglione original but later came to be considered a copy. Restoration carried out in the 1960s revealed the artistic merits of the picture, and X-ray analysis confirmed Castiglione’s authorship beyond all doubt.

The story of a great flood occurs in the mythology of many races. The Greek version (Met. 1:348-415) tells of Deucalion, son of Prometheus, who, like Noah, escaped the destruction that overtook the rest of mankind by building an ark in which he floated for nine days with his wife Pyrrha. After the waters had subsided they were advised by an oracle to veil their heads and ‘throw the bones of your great mother behind you’, which they took to mean the rocks of Mother Earth. They did as they were bid, the rocks which Deucalion threw turning into men and Pyrrha’s into women. Thus a new human race was created.

In the painting Pyrrha and Deucalion are shown in the act of casting the rocks. On the ground rocks change into men and women who scramble to their feet.

This is a reduced version with variations of a large altarpiece painted in 1645 for the church San Luca in Genoa. An inscription on the back of the copper plate indicates that it was painted in 1659.

The painting represents the fable when Diogenes is looking with a lantern for a good man.

The young Castiglione was the first Italian to discover Rembrandt’s etchings, and Rembrandt remained a permanent stimulus throughout his life. He treated philosophical subjects in picturesque mood.

The present etching represents a youth holding a trumpet representing fame holding a book with Castiglione’s name.

At the end of his career Castiglione produced ecstatic compositions of great intensity, reminiscent of Bernini’s style of these years. One of the few documented paintings in Castiglione’s career, the present Immaculate Conception was executed for the high altar of the new Capuchin church in Osimo, a small town in central Italy.

The artistic genius and professional success of the Genoese painter was often overshadowed by the artist’s difficult and violent personality. He reportedly threw his sister off a rooftop, sent his brother to jail, and nearly murdered his nephew in a fistfight. Yet he produced religious pictures of stunning grandeur and inspiration.

At the end of his career Castiglione produced ecstatic compositions of great intensity, reminiscent of Bernini’s style of these years. One of the few documented paintings in Castiglione’s career, the present Immaculate Conception was executed for the high altar of the new Capuchin church in Osimo, a small town in central Italy.

The artistic genius and professional success of the Genoese painter was often overshadowed by the artist’s difficult and violent personality. He reportedly threw his sister off a rooftop, sent his brother to jail, and nearly murdered his nephew in a fistfight. Yet he produced religious pictures of stunning grandeur and inspiration.

The painting depicts the miracle which occured, according to the Dominican tradition, in the church of the Convent of Soriano in Calabria in 1530. It was commissioned in 1654 by the Dominican friars.