The mystery of Matthias Stom, Caravaggesco Without Face – Brescia – Arte.it

Brescia – who was Matthias stupid? For many, a dark name, only a note at the foot of the page in the long history of the seventeenth century. But behind this apparent marginality, a painter hides in a strong way to strongly interpret the Caravaggio -Luminist Revolution, so that it is rejected with a personal style that has left important traces in Italy and Flanders. There Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo Van Brescia chooses to give him space with the First Italian monographic reviewplanned from September 18, 2025 to February 15, 2026, compiled by Gianni Papi.

The route collects almost all works that have been stored in Lombardy, including masterpieces from Bergamo and van vanCarrara AcademyTogether with cloths in churches and private collections. It is a rare opportunity to observe an artist who lived between Antwerp, Utrecht and Rome and then passes through Naples, Palermo and Venice, before he disappears from the chronicles around the middle rate.

The heart of his painting is light: night scenes illuminated by candles, natural figures immersed in dramatic chiaroscuro, intense and vulnerable faces. Compared to other Nordic caravaggesque, such as Honthorst O BabinStupid retains a gloomy and introspective tension, far from the cozy and worldly taste. In his canvas, the shadow is not only a technical device, but the narrative matter is able to transfer restlessness and pathos.

Paintings such as theUnbelief of San Tommaso or the Christ among the doctors They show his talent in telling the doubt and the inner conflict, while the monumental canvas with Vespasian who frees Giuseppe Flavio from the chains, reveals the ambition of a large -scale historical painting. The concentration of many works in Lombardy shows how much this language born in Rome on the Gulf of Caravaggiohas found a fertile soil, even away from large centers.

The exhibition therefore invites you to reconsider what it means to be “minors” in art history. The seventeenth century was not only the century of sacred genes such as Wink O RembrandtBut also from less celebrated painters who have been able to refuse normal grammar with original and intense results. Stupid belongs to this constellation: a coherent artist, faithful to the caravaggesque lesson, but able to bow to his own sensitivity.

By bringing it to the center of an assessment today, it not only means repairing a missing piece, but to proposing a different perspective on the European Baroque. A choice that is consistent with the calling of Brescia -Museums that with the direction of Stefano Karadjov He has often investigated the boundaries of art history and gave room to even minors, to bring them back – let’s think about the extraordinary exhibition on Giacomo Ceruti that from Brescia then went to Los Angeles to Getty Museum In 2023 – again in the spotlight. So this Matthias stupid exhibition seems to promise a new rediscovery. The fragmentary biographies, the scattered paintings, the shadows that surround the life of the Flemish painter, feed the suggestion and make the encounter fascinating with an artist who, although mystery, still speaks powerful by light.