Important purchase for the Museo de Bellas Artes in Valencia , which secures an Ecce Homo by Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi; Vercelli, 1477 - Siena, 1549): for the Spanish museum, it is the first painting by the Piedmontese painter by birth but Sienese by adoption, and it was purchased along with other works for a total of about 130 thousand euros, of which only 70 thousand were used for the Sodoma. The work was purchased from the Catalan auction house Setdart, which is based in Barcelona.
In this work, Sodom conceives the theme of Ecce Homo through the use of a simple and clear composition with the presence of Christ in the center flanked on either side by soldiers and a crowd gathering in the background. The artist seeks a certain veracity in the conception of the image: however, it is the luministic treatment that dominates, highly contrasted and effective, based on a light that falls directly on the figure of Christ, creating expressive chiaroscuro effects and leaving the rest in semi-darkness, a feature that further enhances the physical presence of the character. The chromaticism is based on a narrow and warm, enormously shaded palette of ochre, earthy and carmine tones. As for the technical quality, the mastery with which Sodom resolves details such as Christ’s hair, beard, or the pageantry of both the foreground and background armor is evident.
The work bears great similarities to Bazzi’s painting dedicated to the same subject that is in the collection of the Metropolitan in New York, in fact the figure on the left has the same gestures and Pilate in this painting (the figure in the background) has the same face as in the Met work, while instead the composition and Christ’s face are more similar to theEcce Homo owned by the Uffizi.
Sodom is the name by which one of the most interesting Italian Renaissance painters, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, is known. His first teacher was Martino Spanzotti, and he was also a pupil of the painter Giovenone. After acquiring the strong colorism and other distinctive stylistic traits of the Lombard school (although his trip to Milan is not documented) he went to Siena before 1503, perhaps at the request of agents of the Spannocchi family, and began with cycles of frescoes. Along with Pinturicchio, Sodoma was one of the first practicing artists to bring the mature Renaissance to Siena. His first important works were frescoes in the Benedictine monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore. Sodoma was then invited to Rome in 1508 by the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi, one of the greatest patrons of the time, and there he obtained a commission from Pope Julius II at the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican, where he executed ornaments and grotesques. Before October 1510 he was in Siena, where he painted the exterior of the Palazzo Chigi. Recalled to Rome by Chigi, at Villa Chigi (now Villa Farnesina), working with Baldassarre Peruzzi, Sodoma painted subjects from the life of Alexander the Great. Bazzi returned to Siena and later sought work in Pisa, Volterra and Lucca, returning to Siena from Lucca shortly before his death on February 14, 1549.a
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| Spain, Valencia's Museo de Bellas Artes acquires a beautiful Sodom painting |
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