Franklin Einspruch reviews Cagnacci’s “Repentant Magdalene”: An Italian Baroque Masterpiece from the Norton Simon Museum at the Frick Collection, New York, on view through January 22, 2017.

Einspruch observes: “Parts of this scene are exquisite… Parts of this scene are not exquisite… Nevertheless, the whole of the thing is a marvel. Light catches on an interior corner, forming a dagger of illumination that points at the devil’s back. The two-point perspective on the tiled floor is not just convincing in its demonstration of perspective, but also conveys the eye through the lower edge of the painting in a canny way. The angel’s blue drape snakes nonsensically in the middle of the picture, but how Cagnacci handled the color tone against the warm, dark background is enthralling.”