|
This a big canvas was painted around 1746 by Giambattista Piazzetta for the hall of the Palazzo Pisani Moretta in San Polo, where it was accompanied by a painting by Paolo Veronese depicting Alexander and the Family of Darius, taken to the National Gallery in London during the nineteenth century. This is one of the masterpieces of the historical genre mainly cultivated by Piazzetta in his later work. An intensely dramatic work, marked by an exceptional maudlin tension, it shows examples of great pictorial skill in the overall plotting of the scene, in the statuesque figure of Alexander and in the abandoned bodies of the Persian king and his horse, all touched by a leaden light.
The painting, formerly in the Palazzo Pisani, was much admired in the past for its attractive colours and beautiful effects of light. Sadly, these have been compromised by the Armenian bole used to prepare the canvas.
|
