Pietro Longhi (Venice, 1701 - 1785)
The Confession
Oil on canvas, 54.5 x 44.5 cm
with frame 67 x 59 cm
The canvas in question depicts a subject, The Confession, taken up in several variations by Pietro Longhi. This particular model refers to a work by Longhi kept at the Galleria Querini Stampalia in Venice from which Marco Alvise drew an engraving, kept at the Luigi Bailo Museum in Treviso by Marco Alvise. On closer inspection, however, one can note how the engraving presents slight differences with the work at the Stampalia; differences that become analogies if compared to the work analyzed here. In this regard, in addition to the presence of the dog, observe the closed eyes, instead of open, of the female figure in the center and the symbol in the upper right, instead of the clock.
Regarding the canvas in question, Longhi often dedicated himself to the subject of the Sacraments and the Confession itself. Another similar work is displayed at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
The Venetian painter Pietro Longhi, real name Pietro Antonio Falca, was born in Venice in 1701. His first training took place in his father's workshop, a silversmith. From an early age, Pietro showed great aptitude towards art and his father encouraged him in the technique of drawing. He met the famous painter Antonio Balestra with whom he worked together learning the art of painting. From around 1734 Longhi's work abandoned religious subject painting for a certain period to devote himself to genre painting. Longhi also moved to Bologna where he met the painting of Gambarini, a refined painter of genre scenes. On his return to Venice, he devoted himself to painting scenes of daily life of the Venetian bourgeoisie, following the style of Nicolas Lancret even if in a more ironic way. His paintings can provide a detailed documentation of Venetian life, showing the artist's interest in the social life of the era. In the first half of the 1950s he dedicated himself to the representation of careers, that is, scenes of real and common popular and bourgeois activities. Around the 1960s his tones became brownish with perspective lines that were not very accurate, very close to the style of Rembrandt.
In 1763 Pietro Longhi was the director of the Pisani Academy of Design and Engraving and dedicated himself to portraits with the help of his son Alessandro.
The great Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793) praises Longhi's dedication to representing the manias of contemporary society. In fact, Longhi's work, full of humor and irony, is a bit like Goldoni's comedies. The artist is also mentioned in Carlo Goldoni's works "Le commedie". Their activity moves in parallel on two different artistic fronts, that of the theater and that of art.
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