Oil paint on canvas, Giovanni Ghisolfi (Milan 1623-1683 Milan). Architectural caprice. Cm 130x94
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Oil paint on canvas, Giovanni Ghisolfi (Milan 1623-1683 Milan). Architectural caprice. Cm 130x94
"Giovanni Ghisolfi (Milan 1623-1683), architect Giuseppe Piacenza’s son, studied painting in Milan with the lombard Girolamo Chignoli. In 1649 he was entrusted with the important task to collaborate for the realization of the triumphal arches and the pictorial decorations, for the arrival of the Archduchess Marianna of Austria in the city.
In 1650 he is in Rome for the study of ancient architecture and graphic reproduction of architectural fragments, maybe with his friend painter Antonio Busca. According to the story of biographer and art historian Filippo Baldinucci, Ghisolfi stayed in Rome for a long time, also learning to "paint the figures" and to realize the architectural perspectives, being in close contact with the most experienced Neapolitan Salvatore Rosa.
In 1659 he had returned to Milan. In fact, the fresco decoration of the third chapel on the right of the Certosa of Pavia, executed in 1661, is his first work documented in Lombardy, after his fruitful stay in Rome, while in the following years he will also be active in Veneto.
About the last years of his life, Orlandi tells us about his physical decay and the blindness that struck him at the end.
He died in Milan in 1683 and was buried in the church of S. Giovanni in Conca.

This painting depicts a glimpse of classical ruins, traceable to his formative Roman experience, and expresses a firm architectural structure: the figures, with a few measured gestures, are dressed in drapery, hats and shoes, details of clothing that seem also taken from the inventory of Salvator Rosa.
The classicism that emerges from his paintings, rendered through linear compositions, light colors, diffused light and the solid architectural setting, make Giovanni Ghisolfi a forerunner of eighteenth-century vedutism and a tread of new expressive trends.
Some of the landscapes, views and perspectives created in this period will be a fundamental model of inspiration for the most celebrated emilian Giovanni Paolo Pannini." ASOR Studio