The Holy Family With Saints Anne And John The Baptist,...

The painting The Holy Family with Saints Anne and John the Baptist, 1592 (oil on canvas) was created by Italian painter Sofonisba Anguissola (c.1532-1625). It is currently held at the Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, as a gift from Mrs. Forbes Hawkes and Bridgeman Images. This painting is among the unique pious narrative paintings by Anguissola. â€Å"The Holy Family† is the last dated painting by the artist. It was executed when she had just returned to Italy after spending 14 years working for King Philip II at the Spanish court. By this time, she had already married to a Genoese ship captain. Her various visits to court and her personal contacts with great painter at that time largely inspired herself. Through these contacts, she successfully stayed in touch with current developments in art. By closely observing this masterpiece, I argue that the artist perfectly sustain the beauty of counter-reformation arts in her work by use of light and shadow, de licate brushwork and accurate proportions of each subjects. Anguissola is mostly interested in portraits painting, thus this is a unique one as an exception. As one of the well-known Counter reformist works, this masterpiece depicted the interest of religion worship in order to appeal to the viewers in an expressive fashion. â€Å"The Holy Family† was done during Catholic Counter-Reformation era. The Protestants mostly removed public art from religion and preferred that society moved towards secular styles. The