Angelo Solimena was born in 1629 at Canale di Serino, and was certainly one of the figures who contributed to the development of the Baroque and Rococò styles. He was a Francesco Guarino’s student, a prominent painter from Solofra, and over time evolved approaching Mattia Preti, Massimo Stanzione and Luca Giordano, the last one especially after his collaboration with his son Francesco Solimena (born 1657, died 1747).
The two paintings by Angelo Solimena in the Saints Peter and Paul’s Church in Capocastello, which are of certain attribution thanks to the discovery of the AS monogram in both instances, are certainly interesting. The painting depicting the Holy Family with Saints is part of an iconographic vein much frequented by Angelo Solimena and his son Francesco. The altarpiece is on two levels. On the lower level there are Saints Andrew, Bartholomew, Stephen and Sebastian in the foreground, while on the upper level there are Christ’s relatives, with the Holy Family and next to them Saint Elizabeth and Saint Joachim.
Quoting the art historian Mario Alberto Pavone: “if the typological and formal rigour of the two kneeling saints is indicative of Angelo’s hand, as is the case for St. Joachim and St. Anne in the upper floor, for the standing saints Sebastian and Stephen (the latter suggesting that it is a portrait by Francesco Solimena), the delicate treatment of the epidermis shows the influence of his son’s tricks”.
In the Madonna and Child the participation of Francesco becomes more explicit,” adds Pavone, “who not only intervenes to give a wider scope to the blue mantle, but also softens the flesh, creating a background where the Virgin’s halo is made sensitive to the sun’s glare. The solemn layout and the insertion of the architectural structures also contribute to the hypothesis of close collaboration between the two Solimena, as do the chromatic choices, which see the Virgin’s clothes contrasting with those of Saint Anne, to whose definition the revival of models from the early 17th century contributes.
Another interesting element is the Christ child, who opens his arms, simulating the sacrifice of the cross, in accordance with an iconographic scheme that became frequent in the south of Italy, which in many cases includes the depiction of the Child on the cross”. The painting opens up a series of issues concerning the role played by his son Francesco in the first decade of his activity in terms of choices, design proposals and the refinement of the works, which saw a gradual intensification of clearly Baroque contributions. The same theme of collaboration between the two Solimena artists is repeated in the second painting by Angelo depicting St. Gennaro, St. Matthew and St. Lawrence. The painting had been placed on one side of the triumphal arch. For this new location, the painting had been modified in size by turning back about 30 cm of canvas on the frame.
The monogram AS was placed in this portion. The restoration, carried out by Martino Del Mastro and Antonietta Petruzziello, restored the painting to its real size and brought the monogram back to light. The work belonged to the “Cappellania di San Gennaro, San Lorenzo e altri”, documented since 1673 in two notarial acts, and was located in the third chapel on the left of the nave. The collaboration of his son, who was a teenager at the time and trained in his father’s workshop, is also evident in the design of parts of the works his father produced.
It is no coincidence that the dancing angels in the upper part of the Mercogliano painting,” says ABAP Superintendency official Paola Apuzza, “have the same vibrant sense of movement, the twisting of the limbs and the anatomical details, enhanced by chiaroscuro effects, as a drawing attributed to Francesco Solimena in a private collection. Here too the painting is distributed over two planes: the lower one with the figures of St Matthew, the angel and St Lawrence, dense with light and colour; the upper plane with St Gennaro, the angels and the clouds in the background “is more airy and animated, with a beam of golden light symbolising the presence of the divine.
St. Gennaro is seated on a podium formed by steps, a technical device that serves to increase the optical illusion of spatial depth. Angelo does not apply a naturalistic approach to St. Gennaro’s face, but follows the classical principle of the correspondence between physical beauty and moral perfection. The face of St. Gennaro has a transcendent hieratic beauty”. (Paola Apuzza). While the young St Laurence has a sweet, absorbed face, St Matthew is painted as an old man with wrinkled skin, demonstrating an interest in the detailed representation of reality, drawing on the “lesson learned from Guarino and then matured through the influence of the works of Battistello Caracciolo and Massimo Stanzione”.
