Emilian School, 17th Century, Allegory Of Geometry And Music

Emilian School, 17th century
Allegory of geometry and music
(2) Oil on canvas oval, cm 66 x 52
With frame, cm 79 x 63


The two ovals represent two identifiable female figures thanks to the attributes they bear: 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 the Emilian or Bolognese one of the seventeenth century, daughter of that Academy of Incamminati founded by the brothers Carracci right 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; The warm tones wrapped in an opaque golden light highlight the shades of the clothes and hair while the light chiaroscuro delicately draws the facial features, rendered with an effective textural consistency. In addition, the two paintings are stylistically related 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 typologies filtered through a more modern taste; the comparison between the faces of the Madonnas del Correggio, such as the one called ''milk'' preserved in Budapest, and that of these two female figures finds more than a tangency.