MORAZZONE

Morazzone’s characteristic style is fully developed in his frescoes in the chapels of Sacro Monte of Varese and Sacro Monte of Varallo.

The Sacri Monti (Italian for “Sacred Mountains”) of Piedmont and Lombardy are a series of nine calvaries or groups of chapels and other architectural features created in northern Italy during the late sixteenth century and the seventeenth century. They include the Sacred Mount Calvary of Domodossola, the Sacro Monte di Belmonte, the Sacro Monte di Crea, the Sacro Monte di Ghiffa, the Sacro Monte di Oropa, the Sacro Monte di Orta, the Sacro Monte di Ossuccio, the Sacro Monte di Varallo, and the Sacro Monte di Varese.

Considered a rare oddity by contemporaries, this painting by “three hands” (Morazzone, Giovan Battista Crespi and Giulio Cesare Procaccini) recalls the competitions that were common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which painters vied to outdo one another in rendering the same subject. Here, however, the three artists collaborated on a single picture. Similar outlooks and experiences created a common bond, a sort of “family resemblance” among the three, so that stylistically the painting has unity, despite variations and differences.

The compositional structure of the work, probably conceived by Morazzone, pivots the central figure of the executioner. On the left there is Cerano’s flashingly lighted horse and rider, the horse sumptuously dappled in black and white, vaguely recalling Van Dyck. Cerano’s typical spiraling forms are seen in the cupid with the dog and the decapitated saint. In his broken line and repeating contours, as well as in the “marbled” effect not only of the drapery but also of the flesh, he shows unmistakably greater maturity and feeling than is to be found in Morazzone’s warm theatricality or in Procaccini’s softly pleasing effects.

In the centre, Morazzone’s executioner, with his tensely elongated trunk and arms, recalls similar figures by the artist in the seventh chapel at the Sacro Monte, Varese. Also attributable to Morazzone is the angel bearing the palm of martyrdom, disposed along a diagonal paralleling the executioner’s arm, and the luminous freely rendered heads in the background. Procaccini was responsible for the figure of the saint, languidly waiting for the blow to fall, and the attendant angel who comforts her and points to heaven.

In some respects this work is associated with the point in Morazzone’s career when he was working on the frescoes in the seventh chapel at the Sacro Monte, Varese. The painting may be viewed as a symbol of the tireless search for subtleties and depth of feeling that marked the Counter-Reformation spirit of seventeenth-century Lombard painting. Having abandoned the profane elegance of the preceding period, it strains for a programmed mortification of the senses. The corrupt and corruptible body is the principal subject, and tears and sorrow prevail. Intended to show a forthright, almost brutal realism, this St Francis achieves the opposite effect. From its insistent “reality” there emerges an absolute abstraction, an entirely expressionistic unreality. Impetuous rhythms explode in and around the metallic brown habit, the claw-like hands, the drawn mask of the face, the agitated sky and the highlights on the figure.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 33 minutes):

Michael Haydn: St Francis Mass

This painting is a study for a larger picture. Morazzone’s authorship is traditionally accepted, although formerly in the Hermitage catalogue the painting was ascribed to Donato Creti.