A delightful, ridiculously dramatic painting, full of delicious color and brushwork, the passages of black-shadowed chiaroscuro and vivid flesh - the contrast between the rebels angel's rough, sun-reddened faces and hands and their silvery white bellies is a quite realistic portrayal of the bodies of the artist's workmen models - show the strong influence of Giordano's master, Ribera.
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Luca Giordano (18 October 1634, Naples – 12 January 1705, Naples), Italian Baroque painter. The son of a painter, at about the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to José de Ribera, who would have much influence on his early work. (As here.) Prolific, extremely versatile, and successful, Giordano worked in Naples and Rome, Florence and Venice, before spending a decade in Spain at the court of Charles II. After his return to Naples, his later work became lighter, both visually and psychologically, and prefigures Rococo. With his success, he gave generously to charitable causes, showing particular concern for impoverished artists.
