Stramondo - The Holy Scriptures

Father Raffaele Stramondo's pictorial production is distinguished by its prevalence of sacred subjects. In this painting, entitled "The Gospel," we can recognize the traditional iconography of "Saint Matthew and the Angel." A widespread subject in 17th-century painting, both classicist and baroque, it depicts the evangelist Matthew writing his book under dictation from an angel. The highly concentrated scene displays a profound religious intimacy and descriptive realism. The humanity and realism of the entire composition, along with the choice of a dark background, suggest a Caravaggio-like inspiration.

All of Father Raffaele Stramondo's artistic production is rooted in an illustrious pictorial tradition. His style is fully included in the great family of Italian Classicism, which led him to adopt the great Naturalism as his artistic language. Stramondo's painting draws on the masters of the late Renaissance and the evolution of painting that spanned the entire 17th century, before flowing into the various classicist currents of the contemporary era. Stramondo embraces this noble material and synthesizes it in a new, original form unique to him. The distinctive features of Stramondo's classicism are, of course, to be found in the completely naturalistic rendering of sensory reality, of which he is capable, thanks to his excellent pictorial technique. This naturalistic rendering is evident not only in the physiognomic and psychological truthfulness of his subjects, but also in their entirely natural immersion in the space of his works. Indeed, the atmospheric fusion of subjects in space is another prerogative of the classical and naturalist tradition that we find excellently in Stramondo's work. Here too, everything is resolved with great technical skill, because this fusion of subject and space is possible thanks to the extraordinary tonal coherence of the paintings. The entire surface of Stramondo's works is perfectly unified in the prevalence of generally brown hues. Within this unity, the artist masterfully modulates light and shadow, measuring the space and creating stunning landscape backdrops. Another distinctive feature of Stramondo is his perfect balance between idealization and realism: the monumentality and magniloquence of his figures hark back to the glorious past of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, but the Belpasso-born artist tends to exalt the humanity of his subjects, with a profoundly realist approach that demonstrates a desire to embrace more contemporary aesthetics.

Don Raffaele Stramondo, born Mauro Stramondo, was born in Belpasso in 1919 and passed away in Catania in 1997. Showing innate artistic talent from childhood, he trained at the Badia di Cava, encouraged by Abbot Ildenfonso Rea, who had noticed his talent. There, his religious calling developed, leading him to take his vows in 1932 at the age of just twelve, entering the Benedictine Order. While still a novice, he painted the vault of the chapter house and, in 1941, painted the abbot's tenth-anniversary portrait. He was ordained a priest in 1945. Father Raffaele Stramondo's extensive artistic output consists primarily of oil paintings on canvas. Many works are held in public and private collections both in Italy and abroad.

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