BatiGol Weekly 109: When I paint my masterpiece

Since Florence is the home of the Renaissance and the Uffizi and all the good art, and since we had a hilariously long and detailed discussion in the comments last week about paintings, I’ve decided to go back through some of my favorite pictures of Fiorentina over this past season that could easily double as Renaissance or Baroque altarpieces.

1. We’ll start with this one. The arrangement of the twisting and stretching figures, the obvious physicality of the composition, and the gazes directed in all different directionsk put me in mind of Domeninichino or Lanfranco or one of those early 17th-century dudes who worked in Rome.

Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images

2. Beginning with the most recent, here’s Bryan Dabo achieving godhood. The faces, with their various extreme expressions and each pointing in different directions, along with the implied motion and the left arm of Diego Falcinelli adding obvious depth, make me think of maybe Artemisia Gentileschi doing a mythological scene.

Photo by Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images

3. The joy on the faces is not quite right, but the diverse faces and poses of the crowd has some Dutch or Flemish to it.

Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images

4. The triumphal pose of Jordan Veretout’s arm and the slightly ambiguous expression on the face of Nikola Milenković in front of a colorful but indistinct background give this a sort of early Mannerist feeling.

Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images

5. The subject matter may be more Breugel or Bosch than anything else, but the movement and the figural pyramid in the composition make this feel a lot more Italian, or maybe Spanish.

Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images

6. While he’s not usually considered a master, a genre-painter like Magnasco is sometimes way more fun to look at due to the energy and sometimes despair in his works.

Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images

7. It’s the perfect arrangement of the principal actors here that creates an interesting effect. The twisting bodies are pure Rubens circa Antwerp, but the arrangement of the subjects into a perfect pyramid means that there’s still a sense of stability; making Milan Badelj the base of that pyramid is a perfect way to subtly indicate that he’s the stable and sturdy base that all the writhing, grasping chaos of a match is built on. Matos Ryder’s face, though, is pure Renaissance: even in a stressful moment, it’s bathed in this unearthly calm. Simply a masterpiece.

Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images

8. Fede and Cyril are good here, but oh my god look at Marco Benassi. That’s one of the most late-Renaissance faces I’ve ever seen.

Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images

9. Radical foreshortening. Intense focus in one direction. Figures painted from the back. Non-idealized facial expressions. Yeah, it’s definitely a Caravaggio.

Photo by Mario Carlini / Iguana Press/Getty Images

Latest news

Mercato mania is beginning in Florence, so here’s a rumor about exciting young winger Arber Zeneli.

If you prefer your winger rumors to be a bit less exciting, we have you covered here with a writeup on the Mattia Sprocati link as well.

You could relive our complete coverage of the match against Cagliari yesterday if you wanted to. Or you could just hit yourself in the face with a live octopus for two hours; it’d be a lot more enjoyable.

If you want some news that won’t make you want to vomit, here’s something about Fiorentina doing right by Vittoria Astori.

Must read

I did a lot of math last week to figure out Fiorentina’s odds of qualifying for the Europa League. I, uh, may need to re-run those numbers now.

Three months on, it seems like we may all be losers in the deal that saw Khouma Babacar and Diego Falcinelli swap places.

We asked how much Federico Chiesa is worth right now. You answered.

Comment of the week

Catalogue gave us the original “Expulsion of St. Juan” almost 5 years ago (cripes), but Vraji86 took it to a whole new level. Is this what the kids mean when they talk about something being “extra”?

That’s it for this week, folks. Go to the museum. There’s a lot of cool stuff there.