In the context of Il Perdono di Gesualdo, explore the Technical considerations of the History.
Giovanni Balducci's work on the Perdono di Gesualdo has not been the object of any particular commentary. Judgements of the Florentine painter's technique in general tend to be critical. According to Françoise Viatte, “his drawing style, directly descendent from the teaching of Vasari and very close to that of Naldini, is marked by an attachment to traditional models of representation.” William Griswold, curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, adds that, “Although he was a prolific artist, profoundly influenced by Naldini, Balducci was a timid draftsman, and his pen drawings—characterized by thin, nervous contours and pale washes—are seldom to be confused with those of his master.”Francesco Abbate therefore describes the Perdono di Gesualdo as “a prestigious commission” for a painter of minor importance who had not found a way to impose himself in the face of “fierce competition in Rome,” and whose pictorial technique was readily critiqued by his colleague Filippo Baldinucci as “mannered and somewhat crude.” From the seventeenth century to the present, art historians and music critics have been interested in the painting primarily for the “history” it evokes.
Florentine Gesualdo Giovanni Balducci