The author of this piece of art is Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609-1664), a painter of the Genoese School. He was a very independent and original creative personality. He inclined to the realism of northern Europe’s painters and, following them, he took a keen interest in the animalistic genre. He was one of the first in Italy to discover and creatively assimilate the art of Rembrandt.
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione very often depicted animals in his pictures, such themes were appreciated by the art admirers of that time. He found historical episodes that would allow depiction of people surrounded by animals. Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione adhered to this theme throughout his lifetime. The epic content of the Bible’s texts inspired the artist.
Our picture is based on the biblical test on the creation of the world. The powerful figure of God the Father reigns over all. He is moving above the earth without touching it. On the earth is the first man Adam surrounded by multiple animals.
One can clearly see the figures of sheep, the head of a camel, the image of a horse. The rest is a swirling mass as if in the process of form making. Addressing the Creator Adam is pointing at the animals. The subject seems to reflect the text from the Book of Genesis: ‘So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field.’
Based on the text of the Holy Scripture the painter reconstructs the world condition in the days of creation. We can sense the tension, high spirit, creative will that creates the world. In his last years Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione who became a virtuoso in the art of painting and drawing made a lot of free drawings like ours with a brush using oil paints on paper by the method he invented himself.
Such sheets were valued and acquired by the collectors. The sketch manner which the painter even flaunts allowed him to express dynamism valued so highly in the baroque period. By the time of restoration of this piece of art in 1937 paper became very frail and was slightly torn in some places. Ivan Iv.Vasiliev, an art restorer, who had worked in the Hermitage before, duplicated the old support on a new canvas thus extending the picture’s lifetime. Besides a remarkable artistic value, the art piece by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione has a special meaning for museum because it comes from the collection of the museum’s founder Alexei P.Bogoloubov.
