Carlo Saraceni

(Venezia, 1585 - Venezia, 1625)

Elijah, the prophet of prayer. The painting in question is one of the few by the author to be dated (1620) and signed with monograms. Undoubtedly unpublished, a new piece in the search for the biography of this artist and in the organization of his workshop, in which Jean Le Clerc collaborated. Being the work dated shortly before the painter's death, in it we can define all the stylistic canons of the Saracens who, despite the good acquaintance with Caravaggio, follows him but does not imitate him, making the chiaroscular light his own, metabolizing it and reworking it through of his Venetian artistic training. In fact, the Venetian colors remain in his paintings that never reach, as in this work, the plastic drama of the Caravaggists, to express and convey to the viewer a pathos that is never excessively tragic but aimed entirely at expressing the factual story in its entirety. and in its narration. Signed and dated 1620 in the lower center.