Triumph of the Holy Name (Gaulli sketch)

This bozzetto is Gaulli’s working proposal for the vast ceiling fresco in the Church of the Gesù. At its core, the radiant IHS (the Holy Name of Jesus) explodes through stucco cloudbanks, drawing elect figures toward the light while sinners recoil and fall. Painted swiftly over warm ground, the sketch compresses the Baroque toolkit—diagonals, vaporous color, and theatrical chiaroscuro—into a hand-held scale. It records invention in motion and shows how painters pitched their designs to patrons before scaffolds rose. Compared with the finished fresco, the oil keeps the heat of first thought: light as doctrine, composition as persuasion.