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PIANCA, Giuseppe Antonio - b. 1703 Agnona di Borgosesia, d. ~1757 Agnona di Borgosesia - WGA

PIANCA, Giuseppe Antonio

(b. 1703 Agnona di Borgosesia, d. ~1757 Agnona di Borgosesia)

Italian painter. Between 1718 and 1725 he travelled and studied in northern Italy. Around 1720 he is recorded in Milan and it was during this formative period that he came into contact with the chief protagonists of the revival of Lombard painting, above all Magnasco. To his youthful Lombard period can be assigned the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception (Pescarenico, Chiesa Parrochiale) and the Holy Family (Verbania, Madonna di Compagna). Apart from Magnasco, another major influence was the fresco cycle painted by Filippo Abbiati (1640-1715), whose somewhat macabre subject matter and tenebrist technique evidently struck a chord with Pianca and provided him with a continuing source of inspiration.

During the mid-1740s Pianca frequented the circle of Magnasco and Clemente Spera in Novara. From Magnasco and from his study of the earlier work of the Lombard mannerists, Pianca derived the emotional intensity and the rapid, nervous brushwork which are evident in such canvas as the Four Hermit Saints (c.1740, Novara, Museo Civico). Like many Piedmontese artists, Pianca was also influenced by the work of French Seicento painters such as Vouet, and his Pietà (Cappella del Ospedale Maggiore, Novara) was taken directly from a Vouet composition.

In 1742 Pianca was awarded the title of ‘pictor insignis’ in his home town, a badge of official recognition, and in 1745 he painted the group of pictures for which he is most celebrated, among them the dramatic Martyrdom of Sant’Isidoro Agricola (Novara, Chiesa di Sant’Eufemia), The Patience of Job (Novara, Cassani Collection) and The Assumption (Chiesa Parochiale di Ghemme).

The period between 1745 and 1748 was a period of great creative activity for Pianca during which he painted a series of major altarpieces in Novara, but this burst of creativity was cut short tragically by the early death of his wife Joanna in March 1748 after which the painter, inconsolable for his loss, left the city for good.

Pianca was fond of many different themes. His paintings ranged from portraits to religious subjects to Arcadian scenes - luminous paintings with light colours in which the quivering contours of shepherds, fishermen and wayfarers seem to appear and disappear in idealized landscapes. To this array of subjects we must add the group of extremely realistic genre paintings, that part of his oeuvre in which the painter gives free play to a purely expressionistic vein, without any decorative concessions or superfluous frills.

St Augustine of Hippo
St Augustine of Hippo by

St Augustine of Hippo

This powerful and emotionally-charged painting is still, despite its light colouring and sketchy brushwork, firmly rooted in the Baroque tradition, sharing many of the characteristics of the paintings executed by the artist during the 1740s. It shows St. Augustine, half-length and seated at a desk. The emotional intensity of this picture reflects a long iconographical tradition of depictions of the saint which stretches back to Botticelli’s fervent Ognissanti fresco.

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The Pinch of Snuff
The Pinch of Snuff by

The Pinch of Snuff

The Pinch of Snuff belongs to the group of extremely realistic genre paintings which Pianca executed in the mid-18th century. In the decades straddling the 17th and 18th centuries, painters such as Bernhard Keil, Giacomo Francesco Cipper, Giacomo Ceruti, and others used amusement and curiosity to depict wretches and beggars, peasants with ruined hands or tables laden with simple foods, and without overly intellectualising the subjects.

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