Battle Scene 1590 - 1646

Belisario Corenzio made this drawing called Battle Scene with pen and brown ink, and blue wash over black chalk, heightened with white gouache, on paper. This dynamic scene of conflict, rendered in dramatic light and shadow, reflects the turbulent world of late 16th and early 17th century Italy. Corenzio, who spent most of his career in Naples, lived in a city marked by Spanish rule and frequent uprisings. It was a place where the theater of power was ever present. The gridlines suggest that the artist designed the image to be transferred to another surface, possibly a fresco. This institutional context is important. Corenzio completed several public commissions in churches and palaces. This was an era when art served as a powerful tool for communicating religious and political ideas to a broad audience. Studying the social history of art reminds us that the meaning of this image is bound to the artist’s time. To fully understand the drawing, we can consult period documents and analyses by other art historians.