File:Barocci, Federico, Studies for Saint Sebastian, ca. 1592-96.jpg

English: Catalogue Entry:

A major artist of the Counter-Reformation period, Federico Barocci produced altarpieces that in their theological clarity and atmospheric drama ushered in the Baroque naturalism of the Carracci and Caravaggio. As part of his labor-intensive preparatory process, Barocci drew his studio assistants from life in a variety of poses, selecting the most natural ones for the finished composition, while further refining the lighting and modeling. Together with eleven other life studies (including one in the ­Museum’s collection), this luminous sheet was made by Barocci in preparation for the heroically posed figure of Saint Sebastian in the Crucifixion with the Mourning Virgin, Saint John, and Saint Sebastian (Senarega Chapel, Genoa Cathedral). The pictorial harmony achieved by Barocci’s economical strokes in different colored chalks results in an organic ensemble that conveys materiality of form without sacrificing expressive beauty.

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Executed for Barocci’s large Crucifixion altarpiece in the cathedral in Genoa, this study for the athletic figure of Saint Sebastian conveys the core of the artist’s preparatory process, in which he refined the lighting and modeling of poses he had already established through studies from life, clay models, or after casts of antique sculptures. Knowing that the altarpiece would complete the decoration of a funerary chapel that included life-size marble statues of family saints, Barocci intended the semi-nude Sebastian to have a competing three-dimensional presence. Employing a battery of devices, Barocci enlivened and particularized each part of Sebastian’s body with flickering shadows and atmospheric sfumato (seamless blending of tones, as in smoke, or fumo), forgoing clinical observation for the desired theatrical effect.