Allegory Of Geometry And Allegory Of Music

Emilian School, 17th century

Allegory of geometry and Allegory of music

(2) Oil on canvas oval, cm 66 x 52

With frame, cm 79 x 63

The two ovals represent two female figures identifiable thanks to their attributes: the flute together with the singing birds and the compass with the team immediately suggest the allegories of music and geometry. As far as the school of origin is concerned, we can identify it in that of Emilia or Bologna in the seventeenth century, the daughter of that Academy of Incamminati founded by the Carracci brothers in Bologna. Many artists had confronted the success of the Carracci and the Academy founded by them, deciding to adopt the canons of a classicism expressed with a more modern and vibrant vein. The three brothers, together with painters of the caliber of Guido Reni and Guercino, have inspired both their own and successive generations of Emilian artists, as is also evident in these two allegories; Warm tones wrapped in a matt golden light highlight the shades of clothes and hair while the light chiaroscuro delicately draws facial features, rendered with an effective textured texture. In addition, the two paintings are stylistically similar to other circles that make up a series attributable to an artist of culture close to that of Marcantonio Franceschini (1648-1729), Bolognese painter, in which there are almost neocorreggesche types filtered through a more modern taste; the comparison between the faces of the Madonnas of Correggio, such as the one called ''milk'' preserved in Budapest, and that of these two female figures finds more than a tangential.