The Suida-Manning Collection: Jacob Asking for Laban

The picture above illistates the famous Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione who’s the master of the Baroque in Genoa. The story you can attain from the oil canvas basically sets the story in Genoa, Italy where it shows Jacob asking some towns people in a small town Haran of the whereabouts of his uncle Laban.

            To me, the colors used above emphasized on dark colors, which to me, it represents negatively and disasters since that is what dark colors are usually associated with. Seeing that Giovanni personal horse is the only thing of bright color, where it was marked with vibrant white and golden hairs, I believe that emphasized on the elegance and great importance that the horse was to the owner. It shows the significance that the horse actually meant something to Benedetto and that it wasn’t just any horse.

            Due to the facial expression of one of the towns people as one seems to be amazed at the gold hairs on the horses tail and how the other man just seems to be dumbfounded by Benedetto’s questioning of where his uncle presently is, we can conclude that Haran is a place of poverty because even a horse could amaze the towns people. In addition to this, the clothes work by the towns people seem to be old, raggedy and somewhat torn.           

            You can tell that Giovanni is in a rush to find his uncle because the objects on the groud, such as vases and the knitted baskets seem to be knocked around as well as the animals present. One in particular is the calf in the oil canvas. The calf seems to be diving, trying to move out of the way. It is as if the calf’s motive was to dodge so that it won’t get hit.Since the calf and other animals seem to be flabbergasted on the event of almost being run overm we can tell that the calves, along with the other animals in the picture seem to be of less importance to humans. Instead of stopping to see and actually care about is the calf was okay, Benedetto bypasses such a task as he persists on asking the towns person on about where his uncle is.

            It seems the relationship the horse and him seem to be of greater importance than the regular town animals since he or she is kept well groomed. For example, the golden talk is neatly tried up. It can also be said that humans and animals have a commensalistic relationship because it seems as though humans just use the animals; for example, Benedetto using the horse to travel and get around.