Saint John the Baptist (San Giovannino)

Giovanni Cambiaso, a painter, was the first to recognize the talent and artistic genius of his precocious son Luca. The boy's early production includes numerous Genoese frescoes executed jointly with his father, who was his first teacher and later collaborator. Luca's artistic growth benefited from interactions with two important contemporary figures: the "virtuous friend" Gaetano Alessi, a "famous Perugian Architect, who, upon seeing them (Luca's works), liked them so much, and became so enamored with that frank brushwork, that he wanted to know the Author" [Soprani/Ratti p. 80], and the "famous Competitor" Gio. Battista Castello da Bergamo (called the Bergamasco), a "young man of high talent, a good Painter, and skilled in Sculpture, and in Architecture" [Soprani/Ratti p. 81]. With the Bergamasco, they went beyond a professional collaboration: "the two Professors, recognizing how uniform they were in conceiving and coloring, contracted a close friendship, which they always maintained in their lives" [Soprani/Ratti p. 82]. The list reported by Soprani of the frescoes and paintings present in the main Genoese churches and noble palaces is long; there were so many works by Cambiaso, due to a high and tireless production, that "...; so if I wanted to count them all, I could certainly not come to an end. He was in continuous, and very expeditious work" [Soprani/Ratti p. 86]. In 1583 Cambiaso, with his son Orazio and his disciple Lazzaro Tavarone, left for Spain called, like many of his illustrious colleagues (Titian, Velazquez, Luca Giordano and also the friend Gio. Battista Castello), by Philip II to fresco the monastery of the Escorial in Madrid where he died in 1585.  The subject of this magnificent canvas depicts San Giovannino, one of the most loved and represented figures in art. An image full of symbols of Christianity. Seated in a wood, leaning against a tree, the young child with his left foot indicates the Agnus Dei, the lamb symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, with his right the cross symbol of the passion, death and resurrection of Our Lord. With his hands he shows us the way. With his right hand he holds a bowl to contain the water of baptism, the purification that will allow us to be reborn and arrive there, in that direction indicated by the left hand, that glimpse at the back of the wood where a new life awaits us in a magnificent place. This our canvas represents an example of the artistic change of Cambiaso who passes from profane representations, sometimes erotic and a little ambiguous, to turn to more spiritual themes; in fact our San Giovannino can be compared to a "profane" version preserved at the Galleria Borghese in Rome that depicts in the guise of "Love at rest" the figure of the young child naked, in the same position, inside the same wood and supported by a tree trunk, sporting a pair of wings and holding a quiver. The work of extraordinary executive quality is the evident example of that natural talent that Luca Cambiaso was provided with and that made him so famous at the time and in centuries to come. Dimensions: canvas 107x80.5 cm - frame 127 x 101 cm