GUARDI, Gianantonio
(b. 1699, Wien, d. 1760, Venezia)

Madonna and Child with Saints

1746-48
Oil on canvas, 234 x 154 cm
Parish Church, Belvedere di Aquileia

Gianantonio Guardi's most important religious painting was also a work of astounding novelty. The scene seems to be accelerating at a vertiginous space. The seed is conveyed above all through the nervous brushstrokes which get continually shorter or are interrupted. The effect is brilliantly successful.

The saints represented are Sts Anthony the Abbot, Dominic, Sebastian and Mark.

The painting is stored in the Pariarch's Palace in Gorizia.