Antonio Moro - Retrato de Giovanni Battista di Castaldo

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Antonio Moro. Portrait of Giovanni Battista di Castaldo. Antonio Moro, or Antonis van das Horst Moor, was above all a great portraitist and as such worked as a painter of the court of Charles V and Philip II in the Spanish Low Countries. Disciple of his uncle Jan van Schorel, from 1549 he was under the protection of Cardinal Granvella, with whom he traveled to Rome, which allowed him to contact the works of the great masters of Cinquecento and Manierism. In his work he knew how to fuse the ability in the approximation to the similar, typical of the genre in the Low Countries, with the art of portraying Titian, of whom he takes the greatness in the representation of the high dignitaries. With his work he spread a new type of portrait, highly appreciated in the European courts. The portrait, standing, and with the attributes of his position, boasts an air of authority and dignity typical of his position. The portrait of Giovanni Battista di Castaldo belongs to this type of portrait of apparatus. The portrait was an illustrious Neapolitan military man who fought at the service of Charles V and intervened in important military actions such as the Battle of Pavia or the Victory of Mühlberg. It is represented standing, with the sword at the waist and the cross of the Order of Santiago on the chest. The dignity of the character, who looks at the spectator with a high and distant gesture, is reflected in his attitude and behavior, as well as in the rich, although austere, clothing. The work has a very pictorial treatment, in the style of Titian, little drawing, although the brush is fine-tuned for the ornamental details, the handle and belt of the sword or the thick chain. The character is cut out on a neutral background, in which only a table is embossed, which we recognize as such by the fact that the hand rests on it. The general simplicity of the painting helps to highlight the physiognomy of the portrait, to which Antonio Moro has dedicated himself carefully. The face reflects the details of the skin, its qualities and chromatic variations, the features have been individualized, and in the center of all this the serious and perspicacious eyes, in which life has left its mark, are directed to the spectator, endowing the portrait with extraordinary strength and realism.