Francesco Graziani, nicknamed Ciccio Napoletano (Active in Naples and Rome in the second half of the 17th century), Cavalry battle against the Turks – Battle between European cavalcades

Francesco Graziani, nicknamed Ciccio Napoletano (Active in Naples and Rome in the second half of the 17th century) Cavalry battle against the Turks – Battle between European cavalcades (2) Oil on copper, 23.7 x 17.4 cm With frame, 37 x 45 cm The two oil paintings on canvas presented here are a particularly eloquent example of the mature production of Francesco Graziani, a Neapolitan painter active in the second half of the 17th century and known to his contemporaries by the nickname Ciccio Napoletano. The first painting depicts a clash between European and Turkish cavalry in an open, barren landscape, crossed by a stormy sky in gray-ochre tones. At the center of the composition is the heart of the combat: armored knights and soldiers in colorful attire attack each other in a chaotic tangle of bodies, lances, and flags. A knight in a striking red jacket and white turban occupies the right side of the scene, visually dominating the melee with an imperious gesture. In the foreground, bodies of fallen horses and figures prostrate on the ground accentuate the sense of violence and carnage just consummated. In the background, enveloped in a misty light, stands a cylindrical tower - an architectural element recurring in Graziani's repertoire, as in the Battle near a Bridge now at Palazzo Bardini in Florence - which helps to place the scene in a plausible and recognizable landscape. The second painting, set on a battlefield with a fortified city in the background, stages a clash between European cavalry. Francesco Graziani, nicknamed Ciccio Napoletano, is a figure still not fully clarified by art history, but whose body of work is progressively being defined thanks to discoveries and stylistic comparisons. A painter of Neapolitan formation, he specialized in the battle genre, developing a personal style of great expressive immediacy. The influences that guided his training are attributable mainly to two great masters: Salvator Rosa, the Neapolitan painter-poet famous for his wild landscapes and scenes of soldiers and brigands, and especially Jacques Courtois, known as Borgognone, a painter from Lorraine active in Rome, whose name often appears in relation to Graziani as a possible master or direct model. From Borgognone, Graziani borrowed the dynamic arrangement of equestrian masses, the disposition of figures on superimposed planes, and a certain theatrical management of space. From Salvator Rosa, he derived a keener atmospheric sensibility, a freedom of brushwork that translates into lively and fragmented strokes, and a taste for gloomy and dramatic background landscapes. To support the paternity of these paintings to Francesco Graziani, comparison with some known works, preserved in museums and public collections, is useful. Particularly significant is the aforementioned Battle near a Bridge, now preserved at Palazzo Bardini in Florence: in this painting, a cylindrical tower appears that is practically identical to the one visible in the background of the first of the two oils described here, with the same construction in masses of loose color and the same scenic placement in a hazy light. A second fundamental comparison is with the Battle Scenes preserved at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. In these works, the same solutions are found in the rendering of the horses - powerful, agile, rendered with highly synthetic brushstrokes - and the knights, figures almost anonymous in their excitement but capable of conveying an immediate physical presence.