Orazio Borgianni

Orazio Borgianni painted in the dramatic, shadow-filled style of early 17th-century Rome, with strong light cutting across figures from the dark. He combined Caravaggio’s tenebrism with the more classical drawing of the Carracci, and his religious scenes have a raw, emotional directness.

Born in Rome in 1574, he spent time in Spain, where he is documented in 1605 and proposed founding an academy of painting in the Italian style. He painted nine pictures for the Convent of Portacoeli in Valladolid, and the Prado holds his Saint Christopher and Stigmatization of Saint Francis. Back in Rome he worked until his death in 1616. His self-portrait is in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Rome, and a Saint Charles Borromeo from his last year is in the Hermitage.

In his Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, look for the strong, raking light that models every face.