GUALA, PIETRO FRANCESCO. - Painter, b. at Casale Monferrato on 21 Sept. 1698, d. at Milan on 7 Feb. 1757. Very few biographical notices have come down to us concerning this painter whom his contemporaries proclaimed "famous and celebrated."

His works exhibited at the exhibitions of the Italian eighteenth century in Florence in 1921 and particularly of Piedmontese Baroque art in Turin in 1935 and 1938 rightly placed the emphasis on his personality, while recent studies have made known his vast output scattered through churches, palaces and museums mainly of Piedmont. His painting is vibrant with light, lively in touch, rich in colour. Besides being a painter of sacred and mythological subjects, G. was a skilful decorator and a lively portraitist. Nothing indeed is more spirited and vivid than the portraits of the Canonici of Lu and of Count Filippo Sanazzaro. According to the statements of the earliest biographers, G. in his advanced years entered the Order of the Minims and died at Milan, leaving incomplete the grandiose fresco of the Assumption in the vault of the sacristy of the beautiful church of St. Francis of Paola in that city.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: B. C. K., s. v. in Thieme-Becker, XV, pp. 162-63; N. Gabrielli, L'arte a Casale Monferrato dal sec. XI al XVIII, Torino 1935, pp. 85-88, 93-103; R. Carità, P. F. G., ivi 1949.

Gennaro Moretti

@incollection{ec6_guala_pietro_francesco, author = {Moretti, Gennaro}, title = {Guala, pietro francesco}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VI}, pages = {1195}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/guala-pietro-francesco} }

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Guala, Pietro Francesco

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