The Alte Pinakothek in Munich is one of the most important museums in Germany and occupies a prominent position among the great museums of the world.
The building has two stories and houses a series of works of the highest quality, such as the collection of DⁿrerÆs paintings, unparalleled in the art world, along with paintings by other great German artists.
The collection was compiled by the house of Wittelsbach, first dukes and then kings of Bavaria, and included works by foreign painters: whence the museumÆs collection of works of inestimable value, such as the large collection of paintings by Rubens and canvases by the most illustrious of Italian, Spanish, French and Flemish masters.
The museumÆs layout emphasizes the quality of the artwork found there. Thus visitors can follow a route that allows them to admire a select group of the most representative works in the collection.
[3]
The dimensions of this work, painted during Antonello da MessinaÆs stay in Venice, lead us to suppose that it was a picture intended for private devotion. As if it were an icon, the artist depicts the Virgin Mary at half-length. The meticulous depiction of the objects in the painting and the cunning use of light demonstrate the strong influence of Flemish painting on the artist.
[4]
In this representation, the VirginÆs head is covered with a blue mantle that falls onto her shoulders and her hands crossed on her breast. She is looking to the left.
The prayer book that is open in front of her is reproduced by the artist in minute detail. The outline of her figure, which is bathed in the light that defines the paintingÆs depth through different planes, stands out clearly against the dark background. The geometric proportions of her face and body show the influence of Piero della FrancescaÆs work.
The Annunciation, which is centered on the representation of the main protagonist, is depicted in such a way that observers feel as if they were witnessing the event firsthand.
The work, which dates from the years 1473-1474, precedes another version of the same subject by Antonello da Messina, which is now in the Museo Nazionale of Palermo.
The picture from which the painting was reproduced was acquired in Padua at the end of the last century by a Bavarian dealer acting on behalf of the museum in Munich.
[5]
Originally in a Florentine monastery, this painting was acquired in 1814 by Crown Prince Ludovico. Painted in BotticelliÆs later years, the Lamentation is an image of great dramatic force, accentuated by the attitudes and expressions of the figures and the strong contrasts of light and shade. As if it were a mystical vision, the event is witnessed by Saints Peter, Paul and Jerome.
[6]
St. Peter is on the right, holding a large key, and St. Jerome and St. Paul are on the left, the latter grasping a sword. They are watching the drama unfolding in front of them, in the middle of the scene, with an air of calm participation. The Virgin, who has swooned in the arms of St. John the Evangelist, holds the lifeless body of Christ in her lap, which is bent in an arc with the head thrown back and the left arm hanging down.
At the sides the kneeling Mary Magdalene supports JesusÆs feet while Mary of Bethany brings ChristÆs head close to her face with both hands. Martha, alongside the Virgin, holds the nails in her left hand.
In the background, large stones frame the dark opening of the cave, that reveals the sepulcher, and seem to loom over the figures in front. The painter portrays these figures in eloquent poses and poignantly contrasts the colors of their clothing.
The expressions on their faces, such as the MagdalenÆs grief-contorted visage, and the forceful lines of their veils and cloaks accentuate the dramatic nature of the scene.
The picture was painted from 1490 to 1492. The work, which was originally set on an altar in the church of San Paolino, was bought in Florence and restored in 1814 for Prince Louis of Bavaria.
[7]
As if this painting were a sacred icon, Dⁿrer portrays himself frontally, at half length, his face framed by his long hair. Only the fashionable clothing, facial features and inscription on the right identify the subject. The stern and penetrating gaze bestows a highly introspective character on the figure.
[8]
The artist has portrayed himself in a rigidly frontal position, against a dark background, in a hieratic pose that is typical of representations of Christ.
His right hand is raised to clasp the fur collar of his jacket and mimics the position of ChristÆs hand when he is giving his blessing in pictures of the Salvator Mundi.
DⁿrerÆs intention to imitate the Redeemer is evident in the idealization of his features û such as his eyes and nose û in order to resemble those traditionally attributed to Christ. His long hair is also parted in the middle.
The compositionÆs originality can be ascribed in part to the historical period in which it was painted, when imitating Christ was done in a strictly orthodox manner, and in part to the mystical conception that Dⁿrer had of artistic creativity, which he saw as a direct derivation of divine creation.
The picture bears an inscription in Latin on the right, recording the author of the work, and the date (1500) on the left, set above the painterÆs monogram. It was acquired by Louis I in Nuremberg in 1805.
[9]
This painting was the central panel in the predella of the main altar in the church of San Marco in Florence. It was commissioned from the artist by the Medici family. It shows Fra AngelicoÆs mastery of the principles of Renaissance perspective, used to represent spatial depth on a flat surface.
[10]
ChristÆs lifeless body, which is wrapped in a shroud from the hips down, is at the center of the painting and is supported by Joseph of Arimathea. On either side of Christ, Mary and St. John bow in reverence, taking his hands in theirs, while his widespread arms evoke the Crucifixion.
The sky in the background is streaked with flat white clouds.
The cavity of the sepulcher is visible in the rock behind the group. The profile of the slope echoes and amplifies the curved position of the figures at the sides of the painting.
Behind the Madonna, on the right-hand side of the picture, is half of a palm tree: a symbol of the Resurrection. Other trees are visible behind the rock, at the sides, and are depicted in gradated perspective.
The composition of the scene is based on a central and symmetrical scheme which, along with the solidity of the figures, reveals the influence of Masaccio.
Fra AngelicoÆs skillfully uses soft shades of color, which is clearly apparent in the flesh tones of Christ and the facets of the rock
This picture, which was painted between 1438 and 1440, was the central panel in the predella of the San Marco Altarpiece. It was acquired for Prince Louis in 1818.
[11]
This is an early work by Leonardo, painted when the artist was still working in VerrocchioÆs workshop in Florence. The theme of the Madonna and Child is transferred into the setting of a Renaissance palace, where the Madonna, her hair dressed in the style of a noblewoman, appears perfectly at ease.
[12]
The Madonna is holding a small red carnation, toward which the Child seated on a cushion on her lap stretches out his hands.
The golden lining of the MadonnaÆs cloak is folded in front creating an elaborate ruffle. Alongside her, a glass vase with a long narrow neck holds a bunch of flowers.
In the background, two mullioned windows with two lights are visible, through which we glimpse a landscape with rocks and trees, represented from an aerial perspective, that fades into bluish tones near the horizon.
The windows provide another light source in addition to the light that enters from the front, so that there is a gradual, delicately-shaded transition from the planes which hold the main figure to the background.
The picture, which was painted early in the artistÆs career (around 1473), has a pyramidal structure that is typical of LeonardoÆs work.
The solid and sculptural forms of the figures, which were derived from Verrocchio, are accompanied by the use of luministic effects that have a Flemish origin.
The painting was acquired by the museum in 1899.
[13]
This painting, known as the Canigiani Holy Family, takes its name from the Florentine family that owned it in the sixteenth century. Entering the Medici collections, the painting was donated by Grand Duke Cosimo III to the elector palatine John William, on the occasion of his marriage to CosimoÆs daughter, Anna Maria Ludovica deÆ Medici.
[14]
The theme of the Holy Family is amplified to include the figures of St. Elizabeth and the Infant St. John.
The composition is constructed in a pyramidal pattern that shows the influence of Leonardo.
At the bottom of the painting, the Madonna is seated on the grass and, while keeping her place in a small book, gazes lovingly at the Child. The latter is reaching out toward the Infant St. John, who is in the arms of the kneeling St. Elizabeth. She is looking at St. Joseph, who is leaning with both hands on a staff.
The protagonistsÆ locked gazes bestow unity on the composition. The sceneÆs natural setting broadens in the background to show a village on the hills, and bluish mountains that fade into the horizon.
The little angels at the top, which were painted over in the nineteenth century, were rediscovered when the picture was restored in 1983. The artistÆs signature is visible on the neckline of MaryÆs dress.
The work was executed in Florence between 1507 and 1508 for Domenico Canigiani. In 1691 it was sent by Cosimo III of Tuscany to his son-in-law Prince John William of the Palatinate.
[15]
An early work by Rembrandt, this painting is still strongly indebted to the style and invention of Rubens. The dramatic character of the composition is accentuated by the light that brilliantly illuminates ChristÆs body and shroud. It has a marked verticality that derives from the tall cross set in the middle of the scene.
[16]
The sceneÆs focal point is the pallid, almost disjointed body of Christ, that has just been lowered from the cross. The figures are arranged in a pyramidal structure around the body, with Nicodemus at the vertex, hoisted to the top of the cross on which traces of blood can be seen.
The white shroud reflects the light coming from the outside onto the faces of the figures around Christ, as if to isolate them from the rest of the picture. In the surrounding gloom it is possible to make out Joseph of Arimathea on the right as his face is brightly lit and he is wearing an elegant costume with a tall turban. The Virgin is also distinguished on the left, swooning and supported by the other women. The dim outlines of buildings are visible in the background.
The man supporting ChristÆs body is the artist himself. Even though the composition was inspired by RubensÆ work, all traces of heroism have vanished and the tone is more subdued and humble.
The work was the first in a series of six pictures (the seventh has been lost) on the Passion that Prince Frederick Hendrick of Orange-Nassau commissioned Rembrandt to paint between 1633 and 1639. It was acquired by Prince John William of the Palatinate for his gallery in Dⁿsseldorf.
[17]
This painting, intended for the church of Schwarzach Monastery in Franconia, was executed by Tiepolo during the period he spent at the Wⁿrzburg Residenz, where he painted part of the fresco decoration. A skilled illustrator and leading exponent of the rococo style, Tiepolo often set his religious subjects in the open air, near classical ruins and illuminated by a clear light that tones down the colors.
[18]
The Madonna is seated, with the Child on her lap, on a tall stone plinth with four steps. In front, the oldest of the Three Kings, who is kneeling on the steps, gazes at the Child. The face of another king appears from behind him, surrounded by his retinue.
The crown that has fallen off the head of the first king lies on the lowest step. St. Joseph is standing inside the stable, with a halo around his head, surveying the scene. The figures of the kingsÆ retinue are huddled at his back. The angels traditionally present in such representations are represented by the heads of two cherubim at the top of the painting.
In the immediate foreground, the elbow of the Moorish king in a turban, who is seen from the back, seems to transgress the limits imposed by the picture. Further back on the right, the composition is completed by a page bearing a half-open casket filled with gold, who is also viewed from the back.
The scene has a typically Venetian diagonal structure, that is derived from the painting of Titian and Veronese.
The paintingÆs central nucleus, which is made up of the Madonna, the Child and the king, is characterized by the use of soft colors, for the flesh tones as well as the clothing, whose shades vary in relation to the effects of the light.
The pale yellow of the kingÆs cloak, which fades into white in places, contrasts nicely with the MadonnaÆs blue mantle. The other figures are dressed in more brilliant colors, especially the Moorish king, whose exotic clothing is carefully depicted.
Tiepolo signed and dated the canvas, which was painted for the Benedictine church of Schwarzach, Germany, in 1753. It came to the museum in 1804.
[19]
This is one of TitianÆs late masterpieces, which was left to Jacopo Tintoretto in the artistÆs will according to tradition. The painting is characterized by its scattered, almost blurred brushstrokes. The dark tones are brought to life by sporadic touches of white that call the observerÆs attention to the figure of Christ.
[20]
Christ is solemnly seated with the crown of thorns on his head surrounded by a crowd of tormentors.
The sticks they are waving above his head are arranged like a sunburst.
The figure viewed from the back, who is urging the others to join the action, is holding an ax in his left hand, while the shiny pommel of a sword is visible at his side.
Above the scene hangs a large chandelier lit with white tongues of flame, which emit a reddish-white light.
The architecture in the background is only vaguely visible and its grayness contrasts with the bright color of the figures' clothing and the white of Christ's mantle.
The composition's scheme, which is structured along oblique and opposing axes, shows the influence that Central Italian Mannerism had on Titian. Yet the forms dissolve in the light and the painting relies entirely on color, applied with small strokes of the brush.
The work, which is an excellent example of Titian's late style, was sold to Tintoretto after the artist's death, and was later acquirred by the prince elector of Bavaria.
[21]
This canvas was probably painted by van Dyck for his brother Theodor, canon of the church of St. Michael in Antwerp. It is characterized by its refined brushwork, capable of conveying the silky feel of the fabrics and the softness of the flesh and hair.
[22]
The three figures that make up the painting are arranged along its main diagonal, in a progression that leads from the attentive pose of St. Joseph to the quiet immobility of the Madonna and ends in the Child sleeping with his head on her breast.
The intimacy of the relationship between mother and son is emphasized by their matching flesh tones, which are enhanced by the contrast with the red and blue of the MadonnaÆs clothing.
The background is filled by a cluster of shady trees that forms a canopy over the figures, while on the right we see a patch of sky suffused with an amber light.
The work is indicative of the influence that Venetian painting exercised on the artist, especially in the features of the Madonna and St. Joseph.
The picture, which was painted between 1627 and 1632, during van DyckÆs second stay in Antwerp, was probably intended for the presbytery of the church of St. Michael. It was acquired by Prince Maximilian Emmanuel.
[24]
This painting celebrates Alexander the GreatÆs victory over the Persian army led by Darius in the battle fought at Issus in 333 BC. The work is part of a series of pictures of historical subjects commissioned by Duke William IV of Bavaria and his wife. Altdorfer has set the event in an imaginary landscape but one whose elements are realistically depicted.
[25]
These two panels probably belonged to a series depicting personifications of the temperaments. The figure holding a musical instrument and a book with notes represents the phlegmatic, while the woman looking in the mirror and trampling on a serpent, a symbol of sin, symbolizes melancholy.
[26]
The woman depicted in this painting is probably Louisa OÆMurphy, BoucherÆs model and later the lover of Louis XV, by whom she had a daughter. Boucher conveys visually tactile sensations like the different textures of the womanÆs flesh, the velvet and the silk. The objects scattered on the floor confer spontaneity on the scene.
[27]
This painting used to be in the imperial collections in Prague. It conveys a moral message and can be seen as an allegory of laziness and gluttony. Three men û a knight, a peasant and a scholar û are lying on the ground. Overcome by laziness, they are incapable of reaching the food laid out on the table. The scene is rich in strange details.
[28]
This painting was acquired in 1804 following the confiscation of the property of ecclesiastical institutions. An intensely dramatic work, it has extremely realistic elements that Cranach uses in an expressive manner to accentuate the pathos of the scene, which is set in a Northern European landscape. The artist has shown great daring by not following symmetry in the composition.
[29]
This unusual still life is made up of a dead partridge, gauntlets and the bolt of a crossbow. It is likely that it formed part of a larger composition with another subject, as the still life did not emerge as a genre in its own right until the end of the sixteenth century. The painting is signed and dated.
[30]
This work was painted for the Council of the city of Nuremberg and it remained in the City Hall until 1627, when it entered the collection of Maximilian I of Bavaria. The title of the work seems to be inaccurate as Mark the Evangelist, represented in the panel with St. Paul, was not one of the twelve apostles. The inscriptions underneath warn against false prophets and are probably a reflection of the profound changes under way in Europe during the years of Martin LutherÆs Reformation.
[31]
This triptych comes from the church of St. Catherine in Nuremberg and was acquired in 1613 by Maximilian I of Bavaria. Dⁿrer painted it for the noble PaumgΣrtner family, who are portrayed on a small scale in the central panel. The picture was probably commissioned by the children in memory of their parents Barbara and Martin PaumgΣrtner.
[32]
This painting has also been attributed to the young Titian, during the period when he was still under the influence of Giorgione. The portrait takes an unusual form, with the figure viewed from behind, looking back over his shoulders. This gives the image the liveliness and spontaneity of a photograph.
[33]
This panel belongs to a series devoted to scenes from the life of Christ. The episode is set in a box-like structure, articulated by the gallery that runs along the walls. The heavy figures of the apostles viewed from behind delimit the scene in the foreground, providing a concrete measure of the depth of the space.
[34]
This work is a replica that the artist made of a canvas he had painted in 1580 for Toledo Cathedral. It illustrates an episode from the Passion of Christ that is recounted in the Apocryphal Gospels; it is the moment when Christ is stripped prior to being crucified. The elongated forms and acid colors accentuate the drama of the scene.
[35]
This painting was commissioned before 1525 by Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg for the altar dedicated to St. Maurice in the church of Saints Maurice and Mary Magdalen in the city of Halle. It depicts St. Erasmus, bishop of Antioch, and St. Maurice, the Christian commander of the Theban Legion. The extraordinary description of the soldierÆs armor and the elaborate robes of the bishop demonstrate GrⁿnewaldÆs skill.
[36]
The identification of the man in this portrait with Willelm Croes, a burgher of Haarlem, is not certain. The painting is distinguished by its rapid, blurred brushwork, which looks extremely modern for the period in which it was painted. The summary style takes nothing away from the figureÆs authority, enlivened by strong contrasts between the dark color of the outer garment and the white of the neck and cuffs of the shirt.
[37]
This painting is the central panel of a triptych painted for the church of St. Catherine at Augsburg and commissioned by the Dominican nun Magdalena Imhof. Holbein devotes a great deal of attention to the representation of the landscape, including such secondary details as the soldiers reloading their crossbows, which serve to attenuate the drama of the scene.
[38]
This painting used to be in the collection of Rudolf II in Prague. It depicts Danaδ, the young woman shut up in a tower by her father, the king of Argos, after it was prophesied that he would die at the hands of her son. Zeus comes to her in the form of a golden shower, and Perseus their son is conceived. The scene is set against a backdrop of classical architecture which opens onto an imaginary city, filled with buildings in the style of the Italian Renaissance.
[39]
This small panel depicts St. Francis of AssisiÆs symbolic marriage to poverty, personified by a woman dressed in rags. In the painting old-fashioned elements, such as the gold background, are present alongside more modern ones, like the naturalistic construction of the bodies and the representation of the floor in perspective. The work is of Sienese origin and has recently been attributed to Francesco di Giorgio.
[40]
This painting was originally in the chapel of the guild of tanners in Bruges, for which it had been commissioned by the merchant Pieter Bultnyc. In a broad expanse of landscape, Memling sets the most joyful moments in the life of the Virgin, from the Annunciation to her ascent into heaven. In this work the Flemish painter reveals his gift for narrative and capacity to represent reality in all its details.
[41]
This is one of MurilloÆs best-known genre paintings and was probably originally in a Dutch private collection. The painter demonstrates an extraordinary capacity for the observation of reality in the depiction of the fruit, worthy of a master of still lifes, and in the spontaneous and everyday attitudes of the two children, with their dirty feet.
[42]
This large triptych was painted for the Augustinian church in Brixen. The Fathers of the Church are seated inside Gothic niches as if they were statues: from left to right, Saints Jerome, Augustine, Gregory and Ambrose. In abundant detail the painter depicts the clothing, the objects and the figures, modeled by the light. The spatial principles of the Renaissance are applied to the ornamental and a somewhat visionary imagination, a legacy of the Gothic world.
[43]
An early work by Nicolas Poussin, this painting illustrates a story told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, relating how King Midas was given the power to turn everything he touched to gold by the god Bacchus. The figures, whose beautiful bodies and poses hark back to classical models, are set in an idealized landscape, reminiscent of those invented by Titian.
[44]
This painting is called the Tempi Madonna after the Florentine family that owned it in 1829, when it was bought by Louis I. It is one of the works executed by Raphael during the time he spent in Florence and is distinguished by the spontaneous and affectionate gesture of the Virgin, who affectionately embraces the Child.
[45]
This image is full of meaning. The figure of Christ crucified is set against the backdrop of a night sky, while below the cross we can see the rocks of Mount Golgotha. ChristÆs body is stretched by the twisting of the bust, whose outlines are softened in the gloom. The anatomical structure of the figure is characterized by a powerful musculature, rendered more dramatic by the blood trickling from his hands and feet.
[46]
This painting is a portrait of RubensÆs second wife, whom he married in 1630, four years after the death of Isabella Brant. The young womanÆs attractive appearance, described by contemporaries as a very beautiful woman, is enhanced by her dress of white brocade and her jewelry. Rubens constructs a suggestive and scenic setting, and the piece of velvet draped over the column gives prominence to the figure.
[47]
This painting, which comes from the Gallery in Dⁿsseldorf, was painted by Rubens toward the end of his career, during one of his summer stays at Steen Castle. The landscape plays the leading role, along with the animals and the figures of wayfarers in the foreground. Great prominence is given to natural phenomena and atmospheric variations in the light.
[48]
This painting represents a mythological subject: the abduction of the daughters of Leucippus by Castor and Pollux. Rubens gives it a typically baroque composition dominated by a sense of movement, curved lines, complex groups of figures and solemn, almost theatrical poses. The womenÆs bodies are plump and very pale-skinned, as befitted the Flemish painterÆs ideal of feminine beauty.
[49]
This painting is the fruit of collaboration between Rubens and Bruegel. Rubens was responsible for the figures, while Bruegel, a famous painter of still lifes, executed the garland of flowers. It is likely that Rubens used his wife Isabella and son Albert as models for the Virgin and Child. The iconographic style, with Mary showing us a standing Jesus, is derived from Byzantine art, known to the artist through imported icons.
[50]
In 1605 this painting was in the monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, to which it was probably donated by Philip II of Spain. Painted by Titian toward the end of his career, the work is signed on the marble on which the Virgin is seated. A landscape forms the backdrop to the scene, an element that first began to appear in Venetian representations of the Madonna and Child at the end of the fifteenth century.
[51]
This portrait was painted during TitianÆs first stay in Augsburg, at the court of Emperor Charles V, who was to make the Venetian artist his official portraitist. Titian faithfully depicts the sovereignÆs features, clothing and honors, but the setting appears to be an imaginary one: a room whose walls are lined with damask and which faces onto a generic landscape as if it were a terrace.
[52]
This painting represents Luke the Evangelist painting the Virgin and Child. It is probable that it was executed for an unidentified guild of painters because such craft associations were often named after the saint, traditionally held to have been a painter himself. Van der Weyden sets the scene in a room opening onto a landscape at the rear, a motif modeled on one of van EyckÆs inventions.
[53]
The identity of the two figures in this painting is not certain. Although they are believed by some to be the wife and daughter of the sculptor AndrΘ Colin de Noel, and said by others to be those of the painter Theodor Rombouts. In this work van Dyck offers a taste of his skills as a portraitist that earned him, among others, prestigious commissions at the English court.
[54]
Designed between 1826 and 1829 in the neoclassical style by Leo von Klenze to house the 8000-painting collection of the house of Wittelsbach, rulers of Bavaria, the museum fits harmoniously into the cityÆs urban landscape with its Hellenic architectural style. The Alte Pinakothek contains one of the most significant groups of paintings by Rubens, as well as the worldÆs most important collection of works by fifteenth-century German painters.
The collection was started by William IV (1528-1540), who invited a group of artists to his court. Following their patronÆs Humanistic ideals, the artists painted works of glorious deeds, seen in AltdorferÆs Battle of Issus, along with examples of feminine and masculine virtues.
Maximilian I (1597-1651) enriched the collection with numerous works by Dⁿrer, whom he greatly admired. In 1689 Prince Elector Maximilian Emanuel acquired a group of 105 pictures, including the Double Portrait in a Honeysuckle Bower, Portrait of Helena Fourment and Drunken Silenus by Rubens.
As part of her dowry Anna Maria Ludovica, the daughter of Cosimo III of Tuscany, added RaphaelÆs Canigiani Madonna to her husband John WilliamÆs (1754-1777) collection. Maximilian IV Joseph, the first king of Bavaria (1799-1825), had the collections he inherited moved from Dⁿsseldorf and Mannheim to Munich, creating a single gallery. Thanks to the expropriation of the property of ecclesiastic orders, the museum acquired such masterpieces as HolbeinÆs Kaisheim Altar, Michael PacherÆs Fathers of the Church and TiepoloÆs Adoration of the Magi.
Several important collections were added to those belonging to the rulers of Bavaria, such as that of Prince ╓ttingen-Wallerstein, which contained paintings by Dⁿrer and his contemporaries, including AltdorferÆs View of the Danube and RaphaelÆs Tempi Madonna.
In the nineteenth century the policy of acquisitions was interrupted and only resumed at the end of the century. After World War II, expenditure was essentially limited to repairing the badly damaged museum. It is only in recent times that special State funding has been used to make purchases again.
[55]
With its 75,000 square meters of exposition space, the Hermitage Museum is the largest museum in the world.
The museum contains two million seven hundred thousand works, including fifteen thousand pictures, twelve thousand sculptures, six hundred thousand drawings and prints and the same number of archeological artifacts, a million coins and medals and two hundred and twenty thousand objects of applied art.
The Hermitage Museum is made up of 400 rooms, in which the collections are divided up into eight sections. A tour of the whole complex is twenty-four kilometers long.
[57]
This sculpture, executed for the Russian prince Jussupov, is a copy with some variations of the sculptural group of Cupid and Psyche, now in the MusΘe du Louvre. The composition, derived from an ancient Roman fresco that had impressed Canova at Herculaneum, is a perfect example of the sculptorÆs skill in carving marble, which is evident in the way that he imparts an extremely soft and luminous appearance to the young coupleÆs flesh.
[58]
The beautiful Psyche, who is so described by the Latin writer Apuleius in his fable The Golden Ass, deposits a butterfly in her beloved ErosÆ palm.
As the butterfly is a symbol of the soul, the sculpture may be alluding to the innocence of love.
The group is remarkable due to the extremely delicate way in which the marble has been sculpted, to give it the apparent softness of flesh. The tapering and slightly arched fingers make the figures graceful, as do the finely modeled curls that cover PsycheÆs head and cascade onto ErosÆ shoulders.
The drapery, which is barely perceptible and falls in fine folds resembling the veins of a leaf, serves to enhance the refined sensuality of the two lovers.
The group û originally in the collection of NapoleonÆs wife, Josephine Beauharnais û was acquired by Tsar Alexander I in 1815, and was placed in the Winter Palace before being moved to the Hermitage.
[59]
Taking his inspiration from seventeenth-century models, CΘzanne painted a series of pictures of card players and pipe smokers in the early 1890s. Yet these works are no longer narrative in character. In this painting, the figure of the man with a pipe is given a physical consistency and monumental appearance by means of the vigorous brushwork. The version in the Hermitage has a still life in the background, a genre of which the artist was very fond.
[60]
The picture is a portrait of a man with a moustache who is wearing a hat and smoking a small pipe of white clay. Behind him a still life by CΘzanne, which is now in Berlin, hangs on the wall. The scene appears to be set in the artistÆs studio and the man may have been a peasant who worked on his estate at Bouffan.
Here the theme of the smoker, which was common in seventeenth-century painting, does not serve as a pretext for representing the individual, but rather for a psychological study. In fact the man has a dreamy, absent-minded expression, which is effectively conveyed by representing his eyes as a two small black holes. The smoke seems to have encircled him in a curtain of oblivion that relieves him from the anxieties of daily life.
For CΘzanne, this subject û like any other, for that matter û was interesting because it offered the possibility of studying reality, of deconstructing and reconstructing it according to his own lucid vision, which was made up of solid forms and volumes.
The canvas was acquired in 1931.
[61]
This painting illustrates the legendary love between the poetess Sappho and Phaon. DavidÆs neoclassical culture is evident in the painstaking representation of the setting and description of the objects. Moving away from the historical subjects of his earlier works, David chose in this period to depict more intimate themes that harked back to eighteenth-century tradition.
[62]
This painting represents the Greek poet Sappho, who lived between the seventh and sixth century BC, and the handsome youth Phaon, whose rejection of her, according to tradition, prompted her to commit suicide by throwing herself from the Leucadian promontory.
The scene imagined by David û which is set in a bedchamber decorated in an elegant neoclassical style û shows us Sappho, surprised by the arrival of the young man and drops her lyre. The youth, who is a personification of Love, seizes the musical instrument and starts to sing the ode composed by the poet for her beloved, which is written on the scroll that she holds on her lap.
The work came under fierce attack from the critics, who saw in it the charm and voluptuousness that was typically rococo and thus markedly different from the artistÆs classical style.
It is worth noting the vivid yet delicate coloring, the fine characterization of PhaonÆs features and the detail of his fingers stroking SapphoÆs rapturous face.
The painting was commissioned by Prince Nicholas Boussovich Youssopov in 1808 and entered the Hermitage in 1925.
[63]
In this painting, GΘr⌠me has put aside his usual Oriental subjects to depict a tragic genre scene, against the background of a snow-clad landscape. The contrast between the comical costumes worn by the figures and the drama of the event is very striking. There is a replica of the painting, which achieved considerable fame, as well as engravings made after it, in the MusΘe CondΘ at Chantilly.
[64]
Against the background of a broad avenue, that is covered with snow and lined with bare trees, the tragic aftermath of a duel fought between men wearing masks is portrayed.
Pierrot, whose deathly pale face and white costume blend into the surrounding landscape, has been fatally wounded.
He is supported by a figure dressed in the black costume of Domino Duc de Guise and another in a broad red cloak decorated with arabesques of a Venetian doge.
On the right û barely visible in the misty atmosphereû the victor of the duel, who is dressed as a Native American, is moving away, accompanied by Harlequin. Near him, a few colored feathers lie on the snow, where they have fallen from his costume during the fight.
The picture may have been inspired by a duel that actually took place in Paris, in the Bois de Boulogne, during the winter of 1856-7.
Here GΘr⌠me has produced one of his finest works, displaying a refined gift for coloring that allows him to capture many shades of white on the canvas.
The painting came to the Hermitage from the museum of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1922.
[65]
The subject of this painting is JudithÆs victory over Holofernes. Giorgione bestows a meditative tone on the theme, showing us the woman gazing at her enemyÆs severed head. HolofernesÆs face may be a self-portrait of the artist. It is likely that the painting was originally the wing of a diptych or polyptych.
[66]
In the Old Testament is the story of Judith, a Jewish woman from the city of Bethulia, who freed her people from the threat of invasion by the Assyrians by seducing their general, Holofernes, and then killing him.
Giorgione portrays the biblical heroine as a beautiful and modest woman, armed with nothing but her faith in God.
She has an innocent expression and lowered gaze, as if embarrassed by the presence of the great sword and severed head of Holofernes, on which her foot lightly rests.
The landscape that blends into the horizon, a hazy green stretch of countryside that is enlivened by the bluish outline of a small town, is an example of the technique described by Vasari as ôpainting directly with colors,ö without ôsketches on paper,ö which Giorgione supposedly created.
The artistÆs meticulous depiction of the plants in the foreground and the sfumato used for the head of Holofernes show that the artist was familiar with the work of Leonardo, whom he may even have met.
The painting, which was acquired by Catherine II in 1779, was for a long time considered by art historians to be the work of Raphael, due to its formal and spiritual harmony and the calmness that it evokes.
[67]
This painting is a replica made by the artist himself of the canvas now in the MusΘe de Versailles. Probably commissioned by EugΦne Beauharnais, the work depicts Napoleon at the time of the Italian campaign, during his struggle with the Austrians. The artist succeeds admirably in conveying the courage and passion of the commander, made more evident by his dress uniform, which bestows an air of particular authority on the figure.
[68]
The future emperor of France is represented brandishing a heavy sword and holding a flag that billows in the wind and is tangled with his shiny, ocher locks. The heroÆs figure, which we know was actually short and stocky, is made to look bigger by the dark uniform, that is adorned with gold braid and buttons and with an enormous ribbon tied on one side.
The tumultuous background, where the only thing that can be made out is a small building wreathed in coils of smoke, alludes to the battle of Arcole, a small town near Verona where the Austrian army was defeated by French troops between November 15 and 17, 1796.
In this heroic portrait Gros, who was the prised pupil of Jacques-Louis David, reveals the full extent of his fascination with NapoleonÆs personality and makes use of stylistic accents that can already be described as romantic.
The painting was acquired by the Hermitage in 1924.
[69]
In this painting Jordaens uses a realistic style to illustrate a popular widespread tradition in Northern Europe. During the celebrations that take place on Twelfth Night, whoever manages to find the bean hidden in a cake served to all the guests is elected king of the festival. This is the first version of the theme, painted by Jordaens alone.
[70]
The crowded scene represents the feast of the Epiphany, or Twelfth Night, just as it is still celebrated in some countries of Western Europe today. During the banquet, whoever finds the slice of cake that has a bean baked into it is crowned king of the festival. He is then entitled to choose a queen from among the other guests, and to appoint all the members of his court.
In the painting, the king, a portly and ruddy figure, is raising an elaborate glass goblet to toast his florid but rather dowdy queen, who holds a mischevious little imp on her lap.
Behind her, a man is playing the bagpipes. On the left-hand side of the picture, an old man wearing a jesterÆs cap is casually slipping his hand down a womanÆs dress.
The scene is completed by other figures clutching gleaming pewter jugs and a number of children with animated rosy faces.
A parrot in a cage and a dog, with its ears pricked up at all the hubbub, watch the goings-on in silent astonishment.
The artist uses this subject û which was derived from CaravaggioÆs genre scenesû to depict Flemish burghers dining and, above all, their unruly and exuberant behavior after a lavish feast.
The painting entered the Hermitage in 1922.
[71]
This painting is also known as the Madonna Benois, after the name of a former owner. It is one of the few surviving examples of LeonardoÆs early work. The religious subject is placed in a familiar and intimate setting. Great importance is given to the light entering through the window at the back. The powerful influence of Flemish painting on LeonardoÆs development is evident in the extraordinary detail of the brooch pinned to the neckline of MaryÆs dress.
[72]
A cheerful young Madonna is holding out a small white flower to the Child.
The latter is looking at it with great interest, as if it were his first encounter with the world.
In the past, a number of influential critics have stressed this VirginÆs unattractiveness and plainness, with her prominent forehead, swollen cheeks, half-open and apparently toothless mouth and wrinkled throat.
These are the very features that impart an unprecedented tenderness to the figure, however, as well as revealing LeonardoÆs inspiration in Florence, where the picture was probably painted, by a refined sculptor of the previous generation, Desiderio da Settignano.
The delicate shading that blurs and softens the profiles is a completely new element, which would eventually give rise to the sfumato that was to become the distinctive feature of the artistÆs style.
The painting, which was originally in the possession of Prince Kurakin, and then the Russian wife of the painter LΘon Benois, was acquired by Czar Nicholas II in 1914.
[73]
Matisse painted this work to a commission from the Russian collector Shchukin, who wanted it to decorate his home in Moscow. The canvas was intended to be hung at the top of the flight of stairs in the house, so Matisse imagined the dance taking place at the summit of a hill. The artist had already painted another version of this work in 1909, which is now in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
[74]
With an extreme simplicity of line and a vibrant coloring, that can accurately be described as fauvist, the canvas represents five frenzied figures dancing in a ring. Their bright-pink bodies seem to fly over the surface of the grass, which is painted in a crude shade of green.
All superfluous detail has been eliminated to focus on the fluid ornamental formation that conveys the rhythm of the dance: the true subject of the picture.
The complex pattern formed by the arms of the dancers is very beautiful, creating the impression of a whirling garland.
Sergei Shchukin commissioned Matisse to paint the work in 1910 to decorate his house in Moscow. The work provoked considerable criticism and perplexity when it was shown at the Salon in 1910. It has been in the Hermitage since 1948.
[75]
Formerly in the Crozat collection in Paris, this painting is undoubtedly one of RembrandtÆs finest works. Analysis of the canvas has shown that the model initially used for the figure of Danaδ was the artistÆs wife Saskia, who died prematurely. Around 1646 or 1647 Rembrandt retouched the painting, modifying the figure and giving it the features of Geertje Dirks.
[76]
A myth tells how Zeus fell in love with Danaδ û the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos û and came to her in the form of a golden shower. Rembrandt represents the woman, who lays naked on a sumptuous canopy bed, smiling congenially at the light that falls on her.
At the back, behind the heavy drape of red velvet, we can see the figure of the girlÆs elderly father who, terrified by the prophecy that his child would kill him, did not hesitate to imprison her in a bronze tower.
DanaδÆs body, which is softened by the dim light, is one of the very few female nudes painted by Rembrandt who, over the long span of his career, was always careful not to offend the prudish Calvinist Dutch.
The rich colors, the wonderful brushwork and, above all, the exquisite handling of light make this work a masterpiece almost on the level of the celebrated Nightwatch, which was painted in 1642.
The painting, that was acquired in 1772, was vandalised in 1983 and the central figure was seriously damaged.
[78]
This large triptych was commissioned from Bonnard by Ivan Morozov, to decorate his house in Moscow. The painting develops a subject that Bonnard had already depicted in another work, the View of Saint-Tropez, painted by the artist between 1909 and 1910. Here Bonnard presents a view of the Mediterranean coast, characterized by synthetic and decorative forms and animated by tranquil scenes of family life.
[79]
This work, exhibited at the 1743 Paris Salon, was paired with another picture, entitled the Triumph of Venus, which is now also in the Hermitage. The subject of the painting is taken from OvidÆs Metamorphoses, although the reference to the classical theme appears to be no more than a pretext for the depiction of an attractive female nude, which Boucher does in a graceful and lively manner.
[80]
This still life was painted by CΘzanne when he was in Auvers-sur-Oise and Autun, where close contact with nature brought the painter to discover the full potential of light and color. The picture dates from CΘzanneÆs Impressionist period, as is apparent from the blurred and animated brushwork. It is one of the few paintings that the artist signed.
[81]
This work represents one of CΘzanneÆs favorite subjects toward the end of his life, when he was living in Provence. It is one of his finest versions of the Mont Sainte-Victoire and is distinguished by its broad sweep of space that brings out the progressively degrading hills. The pale but luminous range of colors effectively conveys the atmosphere of a summerÆs day.
[82]
CΘzanne painted this self-portrait during the years of his adhesion to Impressionism. The attentive but detached observation of the subject translates into a subtle introspective analysis, which the painter uses to investigate himself. The technique adopted, with its blurred and varied brushstrokes, is typical of the Impressionist style.
[83]
This canvas was commissioned from Chardin by Catherine of Russia to decorate the lecture hall at the Academy of Fine Arts in Moscow. In fact the work never reached the academy but remained in the Hermitage Palace. The complexity of the composition suggests that this work involved a long process of preparation. Each object is a symbol of one of the arts, and the god Mercury, recognizable in the sculpted figure, reigns over them.
[84]
The still lifes of Pieter Claeszoon are rich in symbolic meanings. Cooked dishes and other foodstuffs often appear in them, alongside kitchen utensils and crockery. In this work the artist displays some true marks of virtuosity, such as the transparent effect imparted to the glasses. The painting bears the artistÆs monogram and the date, written on the base of the upside-down pot.
[85]
This painting is the first representation of Venus in the nude in German painting and reflects the diffusion of Renaissance ideals, linked to the rediscovery of the ancient world, in Northern Europe. The image is given a moral significance through the addition of the inscription at the bottom, which warns against the temptations of the world.
[86]
This painting represents the small harbor of Martigues in Provence, a place of which AndrΘ Derain was very fond. This is one of his earliest paintings of the subject, which only began to appear in the artistÆs works in 1908. The canvas offers a synthesis of the principal characteristics of DerainÆs style, from the simplification of the figures to the interest in na∩ve art and the rediscovery of the masters of the early Renaissance.
[87]
This canvas, originally in the Lazienkowski Palace in Warsaw, is one of the most lively genre scenes painted by Fragonard, who shows in this work that he was influenced by the ideas of Greuze and Watteau. The painter devotes considerable attention to the depiction of fabrics and setting, elements which were much appreciated by his wealthier clientele.
[88]
This marvelous painting is also known as the Portrait of the Duchess of Beaufort, although the identity of the sitter is merely a conjecture. The figureÆs beauty is enhanced by extraordinary variations in color, based on shades of pink, blue and white. The work is undoubtedly one of the finest examples of GainsboroughÆs talent for portraiture.
[89]
In this painting, Gauguin transfers the religious theme to an exotic setting, in which the Christian tradition is fused with Polynesian symbols. The seated figure with a halo around her head represents the Virgin, and the woman next to her is Eve, who is holding a tropical fruit instead of the customary apple. In the foreground we see a lily, an emblem of purity but also of the luxuriance of nature.
[90]
This painting was acquired by Duke Pavel Petrovich, the future Tsar Paul I, at the end of the eighteenth century, probably after he had seen a first draft of the same subject kept along with other drawings in GreuzeÆs studio and dates from around 1782. The scene represents a priestÆs visit and sermon to a young widow and her family. The skilled representation of the childrenÆs expressions implicate the observer in the story.
[91]
This painting, exhibited at the 1765 Salon, takes its title from the image of the child offering his own food to the dog, under the resentful gaze of his mother. Greuze depicts the interior in an abundance of detail, filled with utensils and a variety of other objects that form still lifes. The artist investigates the world of family relations with a spirit of keen observation, producing an extremely vivid image.
[92]
This portrait, which was painted in Florence, depicts Nikolay Guryev, the Russian patriot who held diplomatic posts in France and Italy from 1821 onward. Ingres sets the manÆs haughty features against the backdrop of a landscape. The colorful red scarf is highly effective, breaking up the tonal uniformity of the work.
[93]
It is likely that this work was painted in 1615, to celebrate the artistÆs admission to the Guild of St. Luke. It was JordaensÆs first group portrait and still betrays a degree of uncertainty in the handling of space. The painter, identifiable as the figure playing the lute, is seated with his parents and nine brothers and sisters. Three cherubs fly above, symbolizing the souls of the three other children who had died young.
[94]
This painting is one of Wassily KandinskyÆs earliest abstract works, dating from the years of his involvement in the movement known as Der Blaue Reiter. Initially entitled Flood, the picture is made up solely of a sequence of signs and colors, the fruit of the artistÆs total freedom of expression.
[95]
The subject of this portrait is a young English noblewoman. In all likelihood the picture was painted in Paris in 1814, on the occasion of the marriage of Emily Harriet Wellesley-Pole to Lord Fitzroy Somerset, who in 1852 assumed the title of Baron Raglan.
[96]
Painted for the bishop of Le Mans, Charles de Beaumanoir, this canvas was bought in 1779 by Catherine of Russia. In it Claude Lorrain skillfully presents an idealized view of a seascape in which nature, classical antiquity and genre scene are fused in serene harmony.
[97]
This portrait of MatisseÆs family is given an effective setting in a domestic interior, a somewhat unusual subject for the artist. His sons Pierre and Jean are playing chess, while his wife AmΘlie is doing her embroidery on the sofa. The composition is completed by the figure of the artistÆs sister, represented standing. The background is made up of carpets, wallpaper and upholstery, whose decorative patterns contrast with the monumentality of the figures.
[98]
This work was painted in Paris in 1901, but represents a motif, that of the woman in a cafΘ, which the artist had developed in Barcelona in a previous period. The theme is derived from the repertoire of the Impressionist painters, whose sense of spontaneity and realism is shared by Picasso in this work.
[99]
This work is one of RenoirÆs many portraits of the actress Jeanne Samary. It was painted for the exhibition at the 1879 Salon, which explains the conventional tone of the picture. The woman is represented in a formal pose, dressed in an evening gown, against the backdrop of an elegant setting that brings out the whiteness of her skin and clothing.
[100]
This painting comes from the Potemkin collection in St. Petersburg. The mythological subject is handled in a lively and light-hearted manner and transformed into a scene of domestic intimacy. Venus artfully hides her face as her dress falls to reveal her breast. The pictorial technique and palette are the outcome of ReynoldsÆs lengthy studies of sixteenth-century Venetian painting.
[101]
This landscape is dominated by the large equestrian statue, the work of the sculptor Guillaume Coustou, which now stands in Place de la Concorde in Paris and at the time of the painting was located in the royal park of Marly-le-Roi. The elements drawn from real life are ably transferred by the artist into an imaginary landscape, animated by tiny genre scenes.
[102]
The genius of Rosso Fiorentino is evident in this painting which presents the customary theme of the Madonna and Child as if it were a miraculous apparition. The two figures emit light, as they are borne aloft by a large group of cherubim. While the pronounced musculature of the angels betrays the strong influence of Michelangelo, MaryÆs face is characterized by a tenderness still reminiscent of Leonardo.
[103]
This painting comes from the Museum of Modern Western Art in Moscow. The portrait is characterized by expanses of uniform and contrasting colors that are reminiscent of the work of the Fauves. However, the narrow range of colors and the prevalence of cold tones show that van Dongen had moved beyond that experience.
[104]
This painting still shows the strong influence of Rubens on van Dyck and is, therefore, dated to the beginning of van DyckÆs career. It is one of his earliest portraits, the genre in which the Dutch artist achieved extraordinary results as a subtle, refined and elegant interpreter of his models.
[105]
This painting is one of eight views commissioned from Vernet by the French collector Villette in 1746. Vernet includes a self-portrait in the figure on the left, busy drawing. He is accompanied by his wife and his son Livio. The park, adorned with ancient statues, is enlivened by minute figures playing games.
[106]
This composition is based on an engraving by Domenico Campagnola, from which Watteau derived the drawings that he used to prepare for the painting. Watteau replaces the original Arcadian landscape in a classical style with a more sketchy vision of nature. The couple strolling on the left is an addition from the nineteenth century.
[107]
This canvas, originally in the Walpole collection in England, belongs to the numerous series of fΩtes galantes painted by Watteau toward the end of his career. The artist depicts the conversation between a man and a woman, seated in informal attitudes in a garden, with spontaneity and liveliness. The representation of the figures and their expressions are skillfully represented.
[108]
Located in the center of St. Petersburg, on the left bank of the Neva River, the Hermitage Museum began at the time of the cityÆs foundation by Peter the Great. The collection was housed in a series of eighteenth-century buildings, including the Winter Palace, which was the tsarsÆ residence up until the revolution. The collection was enlarged in 1851 with the construction of the New Hermitage, designed by Leo von Klenze, architect of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. The museum was opened to the public in 1852 and used after the revolution to house the contents of other imperial residences and the confiscated property of the great noble and bourgeois families.
Catherine II started increasing the collections. The first group of paintings, chiefly Flemish and Dutch, was assembled in 1764 and included works by Cranach, Rembrandt and Jordaens. Initially it was chiefly works by Western artists that were acquired, due to the political ties between Russian rulers and the West. With the help of Diderot, Catherine was able to acquire such important works as GiorgioneÆs Judith and a large collection of contemporary French artwork from Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard and Vernet.
In 1779 the Russian ambassador in London managed to acquire a substantial part of the prestigious collection of Lord Walpole. The policy of making purchases from private collections continued throughout the nineteenth century, while direct links were established with artists, such as Reynolds, who painted Cupid Untying VenusÆ Girdle specially for the Hermitage.
Thanks to private collectorsÆ involvement in the twentieth century, the museumÆs collections have been expanded to include works by Symbolists, like Gauguin, and the twentieth-century French and Spanish schools, represented by Matisse and Picasso. After the October Revolution the museum also began collecting the work of well-known Russian painters from Chagall to Kandinsky and from Larionov to Goncharova.
[109]
The Kunsthistorisches Museum building was commissioned by Emperor Franz Joseph, who selected the Ringstrasse as the ideal location for the construction of twin buildings, one to house scientific exhibits, the other historical and artistic collections. Their design was entrusted to the Viennese architect Karl von Hasenauer, and the plans were drawn up by his German colleague Gottfried Semper. Work commenced in 1871 and was completed in 1891.
In the intentions of the Habsburgs and according to the project produced by the two architects, the buildings were to conserve all forms of knowledge and offer an all-embracing vision of human understanding. For this reason the faτade of the museum of art was decorated with sculptures that symbolize the various artistic disciplines and portraits of the greatest artists and philosophers of all time.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is structured around two courtyards, separated by a longitudinal central block: this constitutes the museumÆs main hall and houses the grand staircase leading to the upper floors. The lateral blocks contain the museumÆs many collections, which range from the art of classical antiquity to Egyptian art and from sculpture to painting.
[111]
This altarpiece, formerly in the church of San Cassiano in Venice, provided a model of composition for all the Venetian painters of the Renaissance, and for Giovanni Bellini and Titian in particular. The work was commissioned from Antonello da Messina by the patrician Pietro Bono in 1475. St. Nicholas and St. Anastasia are depicted to the right of the Virgin, and St. Dominic and St. Ursula to the left.
[112]
This painting is a fragment of the San Cassiano Altarpiece, painted by Antonello da Messina during his stay in Venice.
The Virgin, seated on a high throne, is surrounded by Saints Nicholas, Mary Magdalen, Dominic and Ursula. They are arranged in a semicircle around the VirginÆs throne, to give a sense of space and naturalness to what would otherwise be a tightly-packed composition.
This unique arrangement is combined with the uniformity that the golden light imparts to the painting as a whole. The artist has applied geometric synthesis and expert use of perspective to every detail: from the perfect oval of the VirginÆs face to the book with three golden balls held by St. Nicholas and the hand of the infant Jesus.
To these are added a number of optical subtleties in the Flemish manner, such as the transparency of the MagdalenÆs glass and the elegant clothing of the Virgin, which restore a sense of reality to a representation that is perhaps too geometric.
Other novel features of the work lie in the perfect balance of light and color, both very serene in their effect; in the rich coloring that brings out the golden backdrop of the VirginÆs dress; and finally in the artistÆs incomparable skill that is evident in the transparency of St. NicholasÆs crosier and the pearls and precious stones that adorn the figure of Mary Magdalen.
[113]
This painting is signed by Giovanni Bellini on the folded piece of paper in the lower right-hand corner, which also bears the date of the work in Roman numerals. We do not know for whom the work was painted, but its profane subject indicates a private client. In addition to the graceful beauty of the womanÆs body, the work stands out for its delicate use of color and shading.
[114]
Here Bellini takes up the Flemish motif of reflections in a mirror and interprets it in a limpid and classical style, typical of the last phase of his career.
The young womanÆs body is modeled by the delicate relationship between the light entering from the window, opening onto a serene landscape, and the semi-darkness of the interior.
The bright color and rigorous division of the surfaces, evident in the bare wall and the transparent vase on the windowsill, testify to the kind of research that was being carried out in Venetian painting at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
The mirror is not used to multiply the views, but to create geometric parallels, emphasizing refine details such as the pin in the womanÆs hair. The body is depicted in a modest fashion with softly defined outlines and a piece of cloth casually draped over her nudity.
The effect of the painting as a whole is based on variations in color intensity under the changing play of light. This is most evident in the relationship between the green meadow and the brocade wrapped around the womanÆs hair with its green embroidery standing out against the deep blue of the background. This in turn matches the color of the sky, which gradually lightens toward the horizon. A scroll bearing the painterÆs signature and the date of the work, 1515, is on the table covered by a cloth richly embroidered with geometric patterns that looks as if it has simply been dropped there.
[115]
Formerly part of the collection of Rudolf II, this painting represents a Flemish country festival, traditionally initiated by couples dancing. Bruegel depicts the dancers, musicians, men conversing around the table and landscape in the background with a keen eye. The different sizes of the figures help to convey an impression of depth.
[116]
The painting represents the highpoint of a village festival. On the left we see a number of drinkers, seated at a table and already intoxicated. Behind them two peasants, apparently casual lovers, are kissing as they enter the tavern.
In the background, everyone else is dancing with wild gestures. At the front of the group an old man, dressed more elegantly than the others, is cavorting with a young and clumsy peasant girl. On the left two heavily bundled little girls are imitating the grownupsÆ dance.
The expressions on the figuresÆ faces are empty, stupefied with food and wine, symbolizing a humanity so degraded that even the children are brutalized.
The sacred has been pushed into the background: there is a small religious image fixed to a tree on the right, venerated by the presence of flowers but ignored by everyone; a church can be seen, but it is remote from the profanity evident in the foreground. The sense of total abandonment of high ideals is underlined by the fact that the man with the tankard in his hand, seated alongside the bagpipe player, has a peacockÆs feather on his hat, a symbol of vanity. The presence of a clown in the background is a further reference to this vain glory. The impression of vulgarity which the painter deliberately sets out to create is emphasized by the strongly contrasting colors. A few sharp notes of red against the dirty brown that dominates the scene as a whole draw the observerÆs eyes to the most significant parts of the painting.
[117]
Caravaggio painted this work in Naples. Intended for a Dominican community where the theme of the Madonna with the rosary was particularly venerated, the painting was sent to the Dominican church in Antwerp in 1620 through the good offices of the painters Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Bruegel.
[118]
This canvas was painted at the beginning of CaravaggioÆs stay in Naples. While the soberly-dressed Dominicans distribute rosaries to the poor, kneeling at the door of the church, the human-like figure of the Virgin appears. She is unperceived by the crowd. Only the face of the imposing figure of the friar on the left, toward whom the Virgin is turned, is veiled with an expression of knowing. He seems to be sharing in the mystery of her apparition.
Light is always the force of CaravaggioÆs paintings and is used here to pick out every detail, from the noblest to the most banal. Thus it plays over the solid musculature of the young man in the foreground, the dirty feet of the two kneeling figures û recalling their long pilgrimage û and the yellow clothes of the praying boy.
The hands that emerge from the darkness and are the dominant features of the painting may be raised in entreaty or folded in prayer.
The faces, portrayed from life, display a variety of emotions: most expressive is the serene and realistic depiction of the young woman called on to play the role of the Virgin.
Particular attention has been devoted to the monksÆ portraits that are all visible. A red drape looms over all the figures. It was included to balance the dark and illuminated areas and to renew the Renaissance concept of spatiality and realistic perspective.
[119]
This work is one of a series of paintings of mythological subjects, depicting the loves of Jupiter, that was commissioned from Correggio by Federico II Gonzaga in 1530, on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Charles V in Bologna. The picture was acquired by Emperor Rudolf II in the seventeenth century.
[120]
This painting belongs to the series of JupiterÆs loves painted by Correggio toward the end of his career and based on the tale in OvidÆs Metamorphoses.
However Correggio did not limit his painting to a pictorial transposition of OvidÆs tale.
His original interpretation is daring: in a pure natural landscape, in which the only sign of civilization is an abandoned amphora, the huge gray cloud in which the king of the gods and the lord of the universe has taken on material shape enfolds the body of Io in its deformity. The nymph, with a very feminine face, appears to delight in the godÆs attentions, to which she responds with an embrace.
IoÆs body is characterized by a musical, undulating, darting and sinuous line. Transparent shadows play over the flesh tones, mirroring the way that JupiterÆs cloud shifts in color from gray to violet. The enchantment and immateriality of their union contrasts with the dark and barren solidity of the earth, whose coarseness is kept away from IoÆs body by the white sheet laid softly on the ground.
[121]
This work must have been painted for one of GiorgioneÆs cultivated Venetian patrons, for whose private residences the great artist executed the majority of his works. As in many of his paintings, the subject is not very clear. The representation of the landscape and the blending of figures and atmosphere are highly suggestive.
[122]
This painting has been subject to a wide range of interpretations. In recent years, following the workÆs restoration, the tendency has been to identify the three figures in the foreground as the Three Magi. According to a medieval legend, the Magi stand in front of a cave û here shown with a fig tree and an ivy shoot next to it, alluding to the wood of the cross û near a spring, while they study the stars for clues about the coming of the Messiah.
Giorgione has deliberately concealed the identity of the Three Magi, presenting them as philosophers and making any interpretation of the image extremely difficult.
As the sun sets in the west, bathing the hilltops in the distance with a warm and suffuse light, a glow coming from the east illuminates the figures, so that their clothes gleam in the reflected light, and betokens the coming Redemption.
The paintingÆs colors are surrounded by sharp and elegant outlines, imparting a sculptural effect to the bodies of the three figures and revealing their psychological subtlety at the same time. There is a transition from the beautiful face of the young man with the sextant who is absorbed in thought to the more reflective faces of the older Magi, who stand out in greater contrast against the dark backdrop of trees. Every detail is represented with the precision of a miniature: from the splendid sandals on the MagiÆs feet to the arid ground on which they are standing and the natural depiction of different tree species.
[123]
This composition devised by Lorenzo Lotto is a charming one, bestowing an extremely informal atmosphere on the theme of the Sacra Conversazione. The Virgin is seated in an attractive landscape, showing the Child to St. Catherine and St. James the Greater, who are kneeling in front of them. The dress of the princess saint is characterized by a touch of frivolous vanity.
[124]
This painting dates from Lorenzo LottoÆs later years. The elegant and harmonious composition brings together the open space, painted in a serene blue that conjures up springtime, and the clothing of the figures, in particular the iridescent dress of the Virgin and the refined garment worn by St. Catherine, whose portrait may have been painted from a model.
The little gold chain with a cross that gleams on the green dress is an extremely subtle detail. The figures appear to be linked not only by their corresponding gestures but also by the intensity of their facial expressions, which convey a serene awareness of the encounter between the human and the divine.
The impetus of the agile angel, his pink robes stirred by the wind, and of the Virgin, serenely holding up the lively Child, contrast with the composed air of St. Joseph, absorbed in prayer. The painting seems to be centered on St. Joseph, not just through the gestures of the figures, but also through the colors: from the light and brilliant tones used to evoke his sanctity to the darker and more opaque ones that serve to convey his human nature. The landscape, which is usually dark or even absent in LottoÆs paintings, is dominated by the large tree in the middle. Lit from behind, the tree fits in well with the calm atmosphere of the composition, underlined by the clarity of the background.
[125]
This work was painted by Parmigianino at the age of twenty-one and donated to Pope Clement VII. After a series of vicissitudes it was acquired by Emperor Rudolf II. The artist has portrayed himself reflected in a convex mirror, which distorts his features. It is a clear indication of ParmigianinoÆs interest in optics and science.
[126]
This portrait was presented by Parmigianino to Clement VII as an example of his abilities, and the pope was greatly impressed by the extraordinary virtuosity and originality of the work. The painting also epitomizes the elitist and intellectualistic concept of art that Parmigianino was developing. Here he presents his own image reflected in a convex mirror. His hand in the foreground is distorted by the curvature of the glass, and his ambiguous, youthful features appear to loom out of an elusive distance. Vasari states that to obtain these effects the painter used a barberÆs mirror, which allowed him to reproduce everything that he saw, just as he saw it.
Vasari also praised the extraordinarily realistic representation of the hand in the foreground: a ring is clearly visible, as is the soft material of the white shirt and the different texture of the dark garment covering it. The almost effeminate face stares out at us with a distracted expression. His contemporaries were particularly struck by this angelic face and the way in which light and color accentuate the almost divine immateriality of the representation.
The painter has also shown great subtlety in his depiction of the coffered vaults of the ceiling, in which a window is set, echoing the position of the mirror and illuminating the whole room with a golden light.
[127]
In the pyramidal construction of the group formed by the Madonna, Child and infant St. John, Raphael demonstrates that he has learned from Leonardo da Vinci, whose works the painter from Urbino admired by during the years he spent in Florence. The figures are set in front of a pleasant landscape.
[128]
Raphael painted this work for his friend Taddeo Taddei. He was inspired by the cartoon of LeonardoÆs Saint Anne, which the young painter saw in the Florentine church of the Santissima Annunziata.
Raphael derived the pyramidal structure of the composition from the older artist, placing the Virgin at the center and extending the base by the long form of her partially revealed foot.
A minor composition, based on the relationship between the two children, is concealed within the overall composition, creating a smaller triangle whose vertex lies in the cross that Jesus is pointing out.
The rosy flesh tones of JesusÆ figure, along with those of the infant St. John, are enhanced by the VirginÆs dark blue clothing and the green meadow. The painterÆs desire to create an effect of contemplation is evident in the VirginÆs expression, tinged with sadness. Her perfect oval face is mirrored in the one formed by her arms cradling Jesus, who is playing with the symbol of the Passion, offered to him by the unknowing and light-hearted St. John.
The three figures stand out in monumental fashion against the surrounding landscape, stretching evenly and placidly into the distance. The Leonardesque backdrop emerges from the mist, and the red strawberries and poppies in the foreground symbolize the Incarnation and Passion of Christ.
Raphael set the date of the work, MDVI, or 1506, on the hem of the VirginÆs dress.
[129]
This work may have been a preparatory sketch for a large-scale work. The late date of the painting is evident from the blurred brushwork, made up of rapid touches of color in which reds, pinks and browns predominate. The work looks astonishingly modern and demonstrates the continuous process of stylistic renewal that characterized TitianÆs career as a whole.
[130]
This painting is a work from TitianÆs later years. It illustrates the story of Lucretia, a Roman patrician considered the wisest of the cityÆs women, who was raped by Tarquin and subsequently killed herself. Titian chooses to depict the climax of the story: Tarquin is threatening Lucretia with a knife, while the woman struggles, in a final attempt to defend herself.
The scene is set in an enclosed space, decorated with heavily shaded red drapery that helps to accentuate the drama of the event.
Like all of TitianÆs later works, the color appears to scatter in the light: the paint is applied in rapid and broken strokes that perforate the outlines of the figures and objects. The moving light, which plays chiefly on the figure of Lucretia, and the fluid and impetuous brushwork soften the drawing and remove any trace of plasticity. The painting is reduced to the rough layer of paint applied to the canvas in clear strokes.
The rich coloring and patterns of light and shade effectively convey the upheaval of the protagonistsÆ emotions: the darkness and density of the pigment used to give Tarquin a negative connotation is countered by the diaphanous light that renders the innocent figure of Lucretia immaterial.
[132]
Painted for Emperor Ferdinand I together with another panel representing Winter, also in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, this painting was brought to Vienna from Prague in 1722. The work is an example of the creative imagination of the Lombard painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo and of the taste for unusual works of art that characterized the imperial court in the sixteenth century.
[133]
In this painting Jacopo Bassano, one of the most important representatives of Mannerism in the Veneto region, interprets the theme of the Adoration of the Magi û the Magi are kneeling awkwardly in front of the Child û into popular language. Great significance is given to the landscape, while the colors are an unnatural range of acid tones, a characteristic that would later be adopted and taken to an extreme by El Greco.
[134]
This painting is one of a series of thirteen views painted by Bernardo Bellotto during his stay at the Viennese court from 1759 to 1760. The image is clear thanks to the use of a diffuse, but not dazzling light. The artist adds small, imaginary figures to his detailed and realistic description of the building which serve to bring the royal palace to life.
[135]
This painting is the first in a series of six panels depicting various times of year, represented through changes in the landscape and human activity. The year is not divided up on the basis of the usual scheme of seasons or months.
Before entering the imperial collections in 1594, the paintings were in the house of the merchant Nicolaas Jongelinck at Antwerp.
[136]
The subject of this work is one that Caravaggio illustrated several times. The size of the work and the close-up view of the figures suggest that it was originally intended for a private collection. The realistic representation of GoliathÆs head is very striking, conveying a sense of pity as well as terror.
[137]
The biblical theme is removed from its original, historical context and placed in a modern setting in this painting.
The heroine Judith is dressed in the fashionable clothing of a lady at a Renaissance court. The painstaking realism with which the fabrics and jewelry are depicted extends to the terrible head of Holofernes as well, so that the contrast between the two figures is accentuated.
[138]
This work may have been inspired by GluckÆs opera Orfeo ed Euridice, which Feuerbach had seen at the theater a few years earlier. The painting is characterized by a great rigor of composition and a profound knowledge of classical art.
[139]
This work was acquired in 1762 by Maria Theresa of Austria from Jean Etienne Liotard himself, while the artist was on a visit to Vienna. It is a portrait of Suzanne Curchod, a young noblewoman from Geneva. The work is characterized by its delicate coloring and a rapidity of line that confers grace and liveliness on the figure.
[140]
This relief depicts an aristocratic married couple in the guise of the god Bacchus and his bride Ariadne. The composition betrays Tullio LombardoÆs long study of classical art, recalling as it does the portraits that were often inserted into the reliefs on marble sarcophagi from the Roman era. The figuresÆ ample forms are an interpretation of GiorgioneÆs models into sculpture.
[141]
A marvelous example of Lorenzo LottoÆs portraiture, this work was painted during the artistÆs first stay in Bergamo. The limpid representation of the material, achieved through the use of meticulous line and brilliant light, is combined with a shrewd study of the young manÆs psychology, clearly apparent in his suspicious and penetrating gaze.
[142]
This work shows the artistÆs young son busy reading, demonstrating RembrandtÆs high level of culture and prosperity. The figure does not stand out clearly against the neutral background due to the even tone of the colors adopted. The light draws our attention to the face and to the hands holding the book.
[143]
The subject of this work is not clear, though it is probably an episode from history or mythology. The impending drama is conveyed through the angry expression of the man under attack, while the other grips the dagger firmly behind his back. The startled expression of the young man as he turns around confers dynamism on the scene, which has been reduced to its essential components.
[144]
Formerly part of the Gonzaga collection in Mantua, this painting passed into the collection of Archduke Leopold William, where it was entitled the Queen of Cyprus.
It is a formal portrait in which great importance is given to the womanÆs dress and hairstyle. The clothing shows Oriental influences, which were fashionable in the sixteenth century.
[145]
The iconography of this painting, with the Virgin depicted half-length against a landscape, derives from the works of Giovanni Bellini. This allows us to date the painting as one of TitianÆs earlier works. The landscape in the background is depicted with great beauty, and it has been suggested that it was painted by his master Giorgione.
[146]
The identification of the man in this painting as the well-known Humanist Benedetto Varchi is not certain. The portraitÆs scheme of composition is typical of sixteenth-century portraiture, with the figure depicted half-length and leaning on a pillar. The dark tones of the clothing and the background bring out the manÆs face and hands.
[147]
This painting used to belong to Archduke Leopold William. It depicts the collector Jacopo Strada together with the most precious objects in his collection: a statue, several medals and his books. It is one of the finest examples of TitianÆs portraiture in his maturity.
[148]
This panel is part of a diptych intended for private devotion. The Lamentation over the Dead Christ is represented on the other leaf. The coupling of the two subjects is intended to celebrate the sacrifice made by Christ, the Redeemer of humankind. The naturalism that characterizes the anatomical structure of the two figures is also evident in the beautiful landscape in the background.
[149]
Jacob van Ruisdael is celebrated for his landscapes, a genre that earned him great esteem even among his contemporaries. With naturalism, the painter shows us the ruts made by the wheels of carts in the muddy road, the only sign of human presence apart from the tiny figure of a wayfarer taking a rest.
[150]
As if on the stage of a theater, a curtain is pulled aside to reveal a painter at work on a painting of the muse Clio, for whom a model is posing. Vermeer achieved the perfect structure of the space through the use of a camera obscura, which allowed him to depict the interior in which the scene is set with extraordinary realism.
[151]
The Kunsthistorisches Museum was set up in 1781, when Empress Maria Theresa decided to open to the public the large collection that had been formed by bringing together the many works of art accumulated by the Habsburgs, and by Maximilian I, Rudolf II and Archduke Leopold William, in particular.
Maximilian (1459-1519), the first of the Habsburg rulers to develop a passion for art, was driven by his political interests to show a preference for portraits, which he often chose for the person represented rather than for the quality of the work.
Rudolf (1552-1612), the most versatile of the Habsburg collectors, brought all the familyÆs collections under the direct control of the emperor, including the wonderful group of paintings by the Bruegels that his brother Ernst had assembled when he was governor of the Low Countries and which is now the pride of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. A refined and introverted personality, Rudolf was fond of unusual subjects, as found in ParmigianinoÆs work, and erotic paintings, like CorreggioÆs Loves of Jupiter.
The true founder of the museum in the seventeenth century was Leopold William (1614-1662). As governor of the Low Countries he made important acquisitions, such as paintings by Giorgione, Titian, Antonello da Messina, Bellini and Flemish painters like Jan van Eyck and van der Goes.
The purchases made over the course of the nineteenth century helped to expand the Italian section with such works as Lorenzo LottoÆs Young Man in His Study. The main additions in the twentieth century have been to the collection of eighteenth-century works, including VermeerÆs Allegory of Painting.
Even today, the museumÆs rooms bear the mark of the spirit and taste of the Habsburgs, with their love of perfection and completeness, of harmony and natural elegance.
[152]
The Orsay Railway Station (Gare dÆOrsay) was designed exclusively for use by passenger trains and was particularly comfortable and luxurious in appearance. The complex originally also comprised a large and refined hotel. Constructed in less than two years, the building was inaugurated on July 14, 1900, on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition. Following the definitive closure of the railroad line, LalouxÆs imposing architecture changed its function several times, and even risked demolition.
In 1973, when the government led by Georges Pompidou approved the project for a museum that would exhibit a complete collection of nineteenth century art, the Gare dÆOrsay was chosen as the obvious location for this ambitious plan. Thanks to the work of restructuring and interior design carried out by Gae Aulenti in 1980, the MusΘe dÆOrsay was inaugurated in 1986. The collection of Impressionist paintings lies at the heart of the museum.
[154]
Exhibited at the 1863 Salon, this painting proved a great success and was purchased by Napoleon III. Both in its choice of subject û a mythological theme û and in its style, the work belongs to the official artistic tradition in the classical mold, linked to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Cabanel has depicted an idealized female nude that is also charged with sensuality.
[155]
This painting was exhibited at the 1863 Salon and proved an enormous success.
Emile Zola described the painting as follows: ôThe goddess, drowned in a river of milk, has the air of a delightful and flirtatious young woman, not made of flesh and blood, which would have been indecent, but out of a sort of pink and white almond paste.ö
Venus is represented lying on the waves of the sea, whose water has a milky consistency, and seems to have been caught waking up.
The nude is idealized and shows the influence of Ingres in the harmonious and sinuous curves of her body.
Her long and flaming red hair runs the length of her body and spreads out in the water, creating an effect of abandonment.
The figures of the putti fluttering in the sky are handled with a very lively and light touch. The pair blowing into the shell look curious while the others that are approaching Venus have mischievous appearances.
The artistÆs palette is made up of shades of pale blue and white, imparting a sense of serenity and peace.
[156]
Over the course of his career, CΘzanne painted four other versions of this subject. He appears to have used the composition as a pretext for continuing his investigation of the representation of bodies and volume.
[157]
The self-enclosed world of The Card Players, whose iconography is derived from the scenes painted by followers of Caravaggio in the seventeenth century, serves as a pretext for a study of line and volume.
The setting is contemporary. In fact the two card players are wearing modern clothes and are seated inside a room, probably in a bar.
CΘzanneÆs representation of the human figures he has taken a nonacademic approach to their anatomies. The proportions of the menÆs bodies no longer conform to the canons of classical beauty. For example, the man on the left looks unnaturally tall.
This impression is reinforced by the optical illusion created by his hat.
The workÆs planes are made up of broad sweeps of color that fill the space of the composition with their energy. In fact CΘzanneÆs use of color is characterized by this force.
The painting is dominated by a warm shade of brown that fades into softer and grayish tones in the clothing of the player on the right, but takes on a more brilliant hue in the tablecloth.
[158]
This painting was shown by Degas at the last Impressionist exhibition, along with other pastels of similar subjects. In them the artist returns to the academic tradition by choosing to represent the female nude, but placing it in a modern and everyday setting. He also uses unusual points of view that allow him to construct daring perspectives.
[159]
Here Degas has chosen to paint a nude in a nonacademic manner, not posed for the observer.
In fact the woman is depicted in a moment of intimacy, while she is washing her back in a bathtub set in one corner of her bedroom.
A series of bath items are set out on the shelf: a ceramic jug decorated with yellow flowers, a copper pot that reflects a warm and reddish light and a hair brush poised on the edge.
The use of pastel results in areas of blended and blurred color that are very effective at conveying the womanÆs shapely forms.
Her hair piled up on her head, in an arrangement from which a few locks manage to escape, is a wonderful Titian red.
Note the detail of the light falling on the womanÆs hand and arm, an effect achieved by adding touches of white lead on top of the pastel.
The artistÆs primary interest lies in the act that is taking place and in the representation of color. He pays little attention, conversely, to the three-dimensional spatial setting, as is clear from the summary manner in which he handles the perspective of the shelf.
[160]
This was one of the first works painted by Gauguin after his departure for Tahiti, where he arrived in 1891, in search of a place where he could devote himself to art and rediscover the simple and fundamental values of life.
The local women are one of GauguinÆs most frequent subjects in the works dating from these years. The images are built up from full but simplified forms, set against stylized backdrops that are devoid of depth.
[161]
In 1891 Gauguin left France for the remote island of Tahiti where he hoped to rediscover the purity of primitive art.
Women of Tahiti was the first work that he painted after his arrival in the South Seas, where the artist was fascinated by the indolent charm of local beauties.
The large and severe forms of the composition are set against a backdrop that is reduced to a few planes painted in deep and overlaid tones.
The vivid and brilliant colors of the two womenÆs dresses bring out their complexion and their firm and smooth skin and stand out strongly against the golden yellow of the sand.
The woman dressed in pink is represented in an almost frontal position but is looking to one side, as if her attention has been caught by something outside the frame of the painting.
The other girl is lying languidly on the sand and gazing downward, with a sad and gloomy expression.
The highly stylized floral pattern on her red sarong is a good example of GauguinÆs decorative research.
[162]
This painting is the culmination of a long elaboration process that Ingres began during his stay in Florence in 1820. The figure epitomizes the ideal of perfection that the artist pursued in his works: a synthesis of tradition and nature.
[163]
The artist took a very long time over this picture: he started it during his visit to Florence in 1820 and finished it upon his return to Paris in 1856.
The allegorical figure of a woman, represented standing naked and in a manner consistent with the classical canon is at the center of the elongated vertical panel.
The smooth and pearly surface of her body reflects the light as if it were made of wax.
The softness of her flesh is emphasized by the contrasting rough rock that surrounds the opening of the cave and that is only attenuated by two small flowers.
The gently curving lines of the figure create a pattern of refined elegance and harmonious grace that counter the rounded forms of the terra-cotta jug.
The water that flows from the jug looks like a ribbon of silver that twists around itself before meeting the calm surface of the pool.
The painting was greeted with enthusiasm from the moment it was first shown and became a model and source of inspiration for such great writers, poets and artists as Courbet, Seurat, Picasso and Magritte.
[164]
Shown at the 1865 Salon, this painting caused a great scandal because of the realism of the nude and the subjectÆs everyday and contemporary setting, which deprived the image of any possible allegorical or mythological justification. However, the work was greatly appreciated by the writer Emile Zola. It was purchased by the State in 1890.
[165]
This painting, now considered ManetÆs greatest masterpiece, is one of the cornerstones of modern painting, but in 1865 it was rejected at the Salon, causing a huge scandal.
The nude is presented in all her imperfection, far from the ideal beauties that were proposed by classical painters. She is displaying her nakedness in a brazen manner, which is emphasized by details that are intended as a malicious mockery of academic culture: the flower in her hair, the ribbon tied around her neck, the bracelet on her wrist and the charming little slippers.
Olympia is staring shamelessly into our eyes and seems to be proudly challenging us to see who will be the first to look away.
The composition is based on strong combinations of color, obtained through shades or contrasts of tone.
The paleness of OlympiaÆs naked body stands out against the dazzling white of the silk sheet.
The figure of the servant, on the other hand, is constructed out of the contrasts between her pale pink dress and dark-colored skin and the bright tints of the bunch of flowers.
The black kitten is outlined against the creamy white of the fan on which it is standing and the dark green of the drape that forms the backdrop.
[166]
This painting belongs to a series of views of Rouen Cathedral that Monet painted in 1892 and 1893. From a room facing onto the cathedral square that he had rented for the purpose, the artist depicted the building under different weather conditions and at different times of day. The result was a series of canvases that represented the same subject but were totally different in their tones of color and patterns of light and shade, giving each of the paintings the quality of a unique masterpiece.
[167]
The series of paintings of Rouen Cathedral dates from the period in which Monet devoted himself to the representation of a single subject, but at different seasons and times of day and under ever-changing conditions of weather and lighting.
The facade of the cathedral is an example of richly adorned Gothic architecture, with three deeply splayed portals and a tower on each side. However, Monet makes no attempt at a faithful reproduction of the architecture, simply seeing it as a basis for his research.
In fact the artistÆs brushwork breaks down the forms and the solidity of the marble into a kaleidoscope of light and color.
The intricate tracing of the pinnacles becomes a single molten and fluid pattern.
The angle from which the cathedral is observed changes imperceptibly in the series, so that each picture presents a slightly different view.
Harmony in Blue shows us the building on a long and tedious rainy day, steeped in gray and gloom.
Harmony in Blue and Gold, on the contrary, is the view of a warm and sunny summerÆs day, on which the sunlight floods the architecture with such energy that it creates deep contrasts of light and shade.
Harmony in White transports us into the midst of a hard winter, on a frozen morning in which the dazzling white of the snow is reflected off all the forms, making the cathedral look like an ice palace.
[168]
This painting, which Renoir painted en plein air, represents the scene at a well-known outdoor dance hall in the vicinity of Montmartre, the Moulin de la Galette.
The work is one of the finest achievements of RenoirÆs career, in which he shows great skill in the orchestration of a complicated scene with a large number of figures, whose forms blend with the mutable and quivering light.
[169]
Painted from life at one of the cafΘs known as guinguettes on the hill of Montmartre, the Dance at the Moulin de la Galette shocked critics because of its dissolution of forms and vibrancy of colors.
In fact the true force of this painting by Renoir is the social occasion presented by the dance.
The composition is very crowded and the artistÆs interest centers on an attempt to convey a sense of dynamism, as well as to depict figures in the open air.
The foreground is taken up by a scene of discreet flirtation between the group of young men seated at a table and two girls leaning nonchalantly on a bench.
The painter follows the action with amused and indulgent interest, but his attention is also caught by the effect of the sunlight filtering through the branches of the trees and creating flitting patterns on the figuresÆ clothing.
The clothes worn by the dancing couples are rendered with long and summary brushstrokes that help to a create an impression of movement.
ôThe ground on which the figures are dancing looks like the purple clouds that darken the sky on a stormy day.ö This comment, made at the time and intended as a criticism of the picture, is actually an apt observation that brings out its intrinsic poetry.
[170]
This is George SeuratÆs last work, and it was left unfinished. The painting is an application of studies in vision and color perception that were carried out in the nineteenth century. Seurat applies pure colors in tiny brushstrokes, a technique known as Divisionism or pointillism. It is the observerÆs vision that transforms the image into a coherent whole, fusing the colors into different shades.
[171]
The Circus was the last work Seurat painted and was left unfinished owing to the artistÆs premature death at the early age of thirty-two.
In the foreground we see a clown dressed in red and with a very peculiar hairstyle. He is pulling aside a yellow curtain as if to start the performance.
An acrobat and a dancer on a horse are performing in the circus ring. They are both dressed in yellow and are making gestures.
With an air of controlled detachment the ringmaster, sheathed in a smart black suit, is watching the elegant white horse circle the ring.
The marked sense of dynamism that distinguishes the foreground contrasts with the restrained and static poses of the spectators. The colors of the audienceÆs clothes are all tones of pale yellow and violet, conveying an impression of calm and stability.
The theory of divisionism is extremely complicated and remarkable for its fascinating effect and direct emotional impact on the observer.
[172]
This work was painted during van GoghÆs period of voluntary confinement in the mental asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, at Saint-RΘmy-de-Provence, a few months after a fit of madness in which the painter had cut off one of his ears. In this interior the use of perspective to construct the space is not clear and the image is dominated by color.
[173]
This painting was not actually painted in Arles, but during the period the artist spent as an inmate of the asylum at Saint-RΘmy.
The painter takes us straight into his room in Arles, showing us a setting of great simplicity but one whose details have remained firmly fixed in his mind.
We see the wooden floor, worn and peeling off in places.
Dishes and bath items are neatly arranged on the little table, presenting us with an unusual still life.
Various pictures hang on the walls, along with a large towel and a mirror that glints in the light but does not reflect any part of the room.
Van GoghÆs blue jackets and a straw hat hang from the clothes pegs behind the wooden bed.
The space of the composition is subordinate to the expressive power of the color in an unbound undulating perspective.
The objects appear to float in the air without touching the ground, creating an unreal effect.
[175]
Shown at the 1868 Salon, this painting is one of the most famous works by this unfortunate artist, who was killed in battle at the age of twenty-nine. The work seems to partake of ManetÆs ideas with regard to the rigorous composition, the use of light and the spontaneous informality that characterizes this group portrait. Bazille offers us a glimpse of bourgeois life, rendered with vivid realism.
[176]
This painting can be considered a significant example of the art that was most popular at the official exhibitions of the Paris Salon in the second half of the nineteenth century. Mythological and historical themes prevailed and there was an abundance of paintings with attractive female nudes. BouguereauÆs painting also centers on the figure of Venus, whose beauty derives from an ideal of perfection that is modeled on the work of Ingres and Raphael.
[177]
This painting still appears to have links with the current of Realism and reveals CaillebotteÆs interest in the depiction of scenes from daily life, which he went on to combine with a passion for the landscape after forming a close friendship with Monet and the other Impressionist painters.
The artist is also famous for the important collection of paintings that he bequeathed to the French State, including numerous works by his Impressionist friends.
[178]
Along with landscapes and portraits, still lifes were CΘzanneÆs favorite subjects as they allowed the artist to experiment with new ways of representing reality. Painted in his maturity, this work has simplified forms, constructed by the force of color, while the composition does not adhere to the strict rules of perspective.
[179]
This work was probably painted during CΘzanneÆs stay at Auvers-sur-Oise, where the artist met Pissarro and came into contact with the Impressionists. This was the time when CΘzanne came to understand the importance of light and color, starting to devote his attention to the landscape and painting en plein air.
[180]
This painting demonstrates the evolution that took place in CΘzanneÆs artistic style as he abandoned the superficial representation of the reality of the moment typical of the Impressionists and strove to probe the basic structure of things. To do this the painter carries out a simplification of forms, reducing them to geometric solids and wedges of thick color.
[181]
This painting is one of numerous landscapes, seascapes and hunting scenes that Courbet painted in his later years. The work displays a great sensitivity to color, bringing Courbet close to the Impressionist painters.
[182]
One of DegasÆs masterpieces, this scene is set in a low-life cafΘ in which a woman is seated in front of a glass of absinthe, a strong but cheap liquor.
Degas shows his sensitivity to social problems, illustrating the alienation of industrial society in tones that are parallel to Emile ZolaÆs novels.
[183]
This work can be dated to the early phase of DegasÆs career and precedes the development of the Impressionist style by several years. The French artist painted the picture under the influence of the Italian Renaissance paintings that he had seen during a stay in Florence from 1859 to 1860.
[184]
This group portrait represents some of the masters of Impressionism, to whom Fantin-Latour was linked by ties of friendship and esteem. Manet is seated in front of the easel, and the man in the black hat is Renoir. On the far right we see Monet and alongside him, in profile, the figure of Bazille. Although the telling representation of the faces and the informal setting shows that the artist shared some of the ideas of the Impressionists, the technique of painting he has used appears far more traditional.
[185]
Gauguin wrote the title of this work on the canvas, which was painted during one of the artistÆs stays at Pont-Aven, in Brittany. The work was bought by Paul Degas.
Influences of Oriental and primitive art are evident in the composition, which has no logical spatial structure, as well as in the insertion of a ceramic figure resembling an idol in the background.
[186]
The picture was shown in 1863 at the Salon des RefusΘs, an exhibition of works that had been rejected by the jury of the official Salon. In it Manet reinterprets a Renaissance painting û TitianÆs Country Concert û in a modern key, combining subjects and settings from the classical tradition with realistic figures in modern dress. Like MonetÆs Wild Poppies, it was donated to the Louvre by Moreau-NΘlanton before being transferred to the MusΘe dÆOrsay.
[187]
A much esteemed portraitist, Manet here painted a picture of his friend, the novelist Emile Zola, who greatly admired all the Impressionists. On several occasions Zola came to ManetÆs defense after his work was criticized at official exhibitions. The painting is distinguished by the way that it effectively conveys the writerÆs character and moral qualities.
[188]
This painting represents two peasants, who are taking time out from work to pray. Work in the fields is a recurrent motif in the painting of Millet, an ideologically engaged artist. The realistic style gives great emphasis to the representation of nature, but this takes nothing away from the monumentality of the figures.
[189]
The choice of the Gothic monument as a subject for this work is connected with the rediscovery of the medieval world and the popularity of Gothic art in the nineteenth century. Under the light, the buildingÆs solid and imposing forms disintegrate into minute touches of color. The accentuated shadows indicate the depth of the portals and of the projections and indentations on the faτade.
[190]
The Impressionist painters were fascinated by the urban landscape as well as the countryside, drawn to the bustle of the streets, cafΘs and theaters. The painting is one of a series of seven views of Saint-Lazare station that demonstrate MonetÆs interest in the variations in light caused by the steam of the locomotives and in the ever-changing crowd milling around the trains.
[191]
This painting used to belong to the painter Moreau-NΘlanton and was donated to the MusΘe du Louvre in 1906 before being transferred to the MusΘe dÆOrsay. It is one of MonetÆs best-known works and a cornerstone of Impressionism.
All the principal components of Impressionism are to be found in it: the outdoor setting, the absence of any drawing, the emphasis on light and color and the choice of an almost random subject.
[192]
This painting attests to MonetÆs growing interest in the representation of light and the effects that it produces on forms and colors. It comes from a period when his palette was growing progressively lighter and his brushwork more fragmentary and blurred.
These were the years in which Monet began to paint repeated versions of the same subject under constantly changing atmospheric conditions.
[193]
This work was rejected by the committee of the 1867 Salon, which was not yet able to appreciate the revolutionary modernity of MonetÆs artistic language.
The subject of the painting is a pretext for experimenting with the patterns of light and shade on the womenÆs white dresses, while the painter has attached very little importance to the figuresÆ faces.
[194]
This painting was shown at the first Impressionist exhibition held in the studio of the photographer FΘlix Nadar in 1874. Interiors and the world of affections and childhood were among the painter Berthe MorisotÆs favorite themes. Along with the other exponents of Impressionism, she was fascinated by the representation of light and color.
[195]
This painting was donated to the French State by Gustave Caillebotte, along with numerous other works by Impressionist artists. Like the other exponents of the movement, Pissarro devoted himself to landscape painting, depicting suggestive views of the French countryside in which colors play a dominant role and emphasis is placed on the powerful effect of light.
[196]
This work created a great sensation and was admired by artists like Gauguin, Denis and Picasso for its deft and successful blend of classicism and symbolism. The feelings aroused by the image are echoed by the desolate landscape, where a uniform and dull range of colors predominates.
[197]
This work marks the climax of RenoirÆs research into the theme of the female nude, in which he showed an increasing interest in his maturity. The artist succeeds in creating a perfect harmony between the figures and nature through the distribution of light and color which renders the material uniform.
[198]
This painting was commissioned by the director of the department of Fine Arts and was put on show at the MusΘe du Luxembourg. Thus the work is a mark of official institutionsÆ recognition of Renoir.
[199]
This is one of Henri RousseauÆs last works, painted when the artist was at last beginning to establish a reputation through his pictures of exotic subjects, like this one. The originality of RousseauÆs painting lies in his use of a simplified, almost elementary style and the visionary force of his imagination.
[200]
This is one of the many paintings and drawings by Toulouse-Lautrec depicting dancers and actresses from Parisian circuses and revues. As if in a snapshot, the artist catches the woman as she is getting ready in her dressing room, unaware that she is being observed. The work is characterized by its rich coloring.
[201]
La Goulue, a famous dancer at the Moulin Rouge, commissioned this painting from Toulouse-Lautrec to decorate the pavilion where the soubrette performed her Moorish dance.
The artist rapidly and effectively sketched the figures as they moved on stage and around the theater, accentuating their traits to the point of caricature. Before being acquired by the French State, the canvas was cut into several pieces.
[202]
Toulouse-LautrecÆs forceful and dynamic drawing delineates the slender figure of a woman viewed from behind in this work. Rejecting the stilted poses of official art, the painter presents us with the image of a living figure, caught in an informal attitude. The work is enriched by the way the paint is laid in thick, contrasting patches of color, which are used to model the forms and convey the texture of the fabrics.
[203]
One of van GoghÆs best-known works was painted at Auvers-sur-Oise, while the artist was a guest of Dr. Paul Gachet. The obsessive undulating lines out of which the landscape is constructed, the funereal black outlines and the threatening sky transform an attractive subject into an image filled with a sense of anguish.
[204]
This painting is a portrait of the doctor with whom van Gogh stayed at Auvers- sur-Oise in the months preceding his suicide, at a time when his mental balance was seriously disturbed. An admirer of Impressionist painting, Paul Gachet appreciated the art of van Gogh. His collection included some of the Dutch painterÆs finest works, which were later donated to the MusΘe du Louvre before being transferred to the MusΘe dÆOrsay.
[205]
The MusΘe dÆOrsayÆs collection has been housed in several different locations. Initially it was installed in the Luxembourg Museum, and then it was transferred to the Jeu de Paume, a pavilion in the Tuileries Gardens. It finally found its place in the Gare dÆOrsay, a gigantic iron and steel construction surmounted by a glass dome located on the left bank of the Seine. It was built as a railroad station at the time of the 1900 Universal Exhibition. Unused since the sixties, it was restructured and laid out as a museum by Gae Aulenti and inaugurated in 1986.
The core of the museum is its collection of Impressionist paintings. This was initiated with Claude MonetÆs acquisition of ManetÆs Olympia on behalf of the Luxembourg Museum, where works of modern art were housed. Yet this did not suffice to break down institutionsÆ and many criticsÆ indifference to the Impressionists, and when Caillebotte bequeathed his collection of works by Manet, Renoir and CΘzanne to the State, only about half of them were accepted. Later on a number of other important donations enlarged the collection of modern art, such as the bequest of ManetÆs Le DΘjeuner sur lÆherbe from a private individual in 1906 and that of a valuable collection of paintings by Degas, Monet, CΘzanne and the young van Gogh in 1911. The museum was further enriched by legacies from the families of artists, such as Toulouse-Lautrec in 1902, Bazille in 1904, Renoir in 1923 and Monet in 1927, and private collectors, as well as by acquisitions made by the Amis du MusΘe du Luxembourg.
[206]
The Rijksmuseum is one of the few buildings, and one of the earliest in Europe, to have been built expressly to house works of art. In 1862, a competition was held for the design of a building in which all Dutch works of art could be assembled. The competition was won by the architect P. J. H. Cuypers, and the museum was inaugurated on July 13, 1885. Cuypers designed a building in Neo-Gothic style, trying to make use of the forms and decorative motifs typical of all the major periods of Dutch art. This is why he chose red brick as the basic material, used as in medieval architecture but with the innovations of the Renaissance grafted onto it. The decorative elements blend in well with the architecture and are set underneath the windows on the faτade, or between them, to mark the openings and impart rhythm to the surfaces. Statues, bas-reliefs, ceramic tiles and windows with leaded panes of glass evoke the different eras of Dutch art. The two entrances are symbolically marked by carvings personifying architecture and sculpture on one side and painting and engraving on the other. Inside the building, art and artists are glorified by mosaic floors, decorated pillars, vaults of different kinds of stone, inscriptions and murals. On the inside as well as the outside, the building was intended to serve as a shrine to art and to appease the nationalist sentiments of part of the Dutch population.
[208]
This is one of the best-known works of Frans Hals, who signed his initials in the background on the right. The man, in contemporary dress, is holding a half-full glass, possibly in allusion to the Latin motto in vino veritas. The painting is characterized by its rapid and blurred brushwork, which is well-suited to the liveliness of the portrait.
[209]
This work is part of a series of pictures of similar composition, painted by the artist in the nid-1630s under the influence of Caravaggio's style that was spreading through Northern Europe at that time. The figure of the merry drinker winks at us from a neutral but mellow background. The artist's extremely rapid brushstrokes do not neglect a single detail, from the lace ruff of the shirt to the golden belt buckle. The brushwork alone seems to impart a continuos sense of movement to the figure. This is evident in the depiction of the face, in particular the beard and hair, which look as if they are ruffled by the wind. His expression also looks befludded, his gaze directed at an indeterminate point outside the canvas. The liveliness of the sitter is accentuated by his position in the foreground, with a palm raised as if to invite someone to join him and to take glass of wine in his other hand, represented with just a few brushstrokes. The artist prefers pale tones and contrasts of color, as is apparent from the dark and uniform patch formed by the hat. The painter's monogram is visible o the rigth.
[210]
This painting was part of the donation made to the city of Amsterdam by the collector van der Roop. The subject depicted, a water mill, often appears in HobbemaÆs landscapes. The picture is characterized by a meticulous and realistic description of the scenery, presented in its most distinctive aspects.
[211]
This work has a longitudinal shape, emphasized by the large tree on the right, which places the rest of the scene in proportion. Gradually, the mill draws the observerÆs eye, and before the look plunges into the seething water, it lingers over the solid wooden paling, turned silvery by the light. The most conspicuous part of the mill is the large mass of its reddish roof, made up of many individual tiles. It stands out even more strongly in contrast with the thick woodland in the background. Brilliant light enhances the scene of daily life, with a woman doing housework and two men, probably returning from work in the fields. The red of the womanÆs dress and the youthÆs hat is used to catch the observerÆs eye even though the figures are on an almost miniature scale. As in many of HobbemaÆs paintings, the sky is covered with a dense layer of cloud, through which a faint ray of sunlight breaks and casts a silvery sheen over the entire work. The subdued tone of the painting creates the impression that it evokes a familiar place.
[212]
A well-known painter of genre scenes, Nicolaes Maes here renounces the customary domestic interior to depict a young woman leaning out of a window, apparently lost in her dreams. The image is reminiscent of several compositions by another Dutch painter, Gerrit Dou. Maes inserts plants and fruit into the picture, displaying a certain awkwardness in still life representation.
[213]
The perfect oval of the girlÆs face in this painting is illuminated by the light in the foreground and framed by the window with its open shutter of solid wood. The wall of the house is enlivened by a peach tree that forms a splendid setting with its ripe, untouched, velvety fruit. The tree looks like it is naturally and gently embracing a young and equally delightful girl. Using his great mimetic skill, the artist is able to capture the simplicity of the girlÆs dress with its subdued pattern of white and brown, the splendid form of her hat and the softness of both her pose and the cushion covered with an elaborately decorated fabric upon which she rests her arms. Above all, though, he succeeds in conveying the girlÆs mood. The character of the image seems to allude to the girlÆs dream world, which the light, an indiscreet witness, reveals to the observer. The open window through which the girl is gazing is a further invitation to peer into her private world.
[214]
This painting illustrates the theme of illness that Metsu tackled several times. The representation of the Calvary at the back of the room permeates the work with allegorical meanings and creates a parallel between the mother contemplating her sick child and MaryÆs lamentation over the dead Christ.
[215]
This work has a strict geometric layout. The main group is set in the foreground and the objects arranged around it are almost all foreshortened, to provide a further definition of the space. The rigid shapes of the map and the picture in the background block any extension of the perspective. The forward tilt of the motherÆs head, enhanced by the light, stands out strongly against these objects. They seem to serve as the geometrical canon against which the two principal figures, disposed in opposite directions, are measured. The anxious pose of the mother, whose face is strongly shaded, contrasts with the total abandonment of the child. His suffering face, turned toward the source of light, becomes the center of the scene. These figuresÆ roles are underlined by the colors as well. The figure of the mother is dominated by the brown of her clothing, enlivened only by the bright red of the skirt which provides a deliberate contrast to the white and bright yellow in which the child is dressed. The everyday nature of the scene is conveyed through the careful untidiness with which the objects, from the jacket to the bonnet, are thrown on the chair, and given a solid appearance by the way the light falls on them.
[216]
Known as the Night Watch, this painting actually depicts the militia company commanded by Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburgh. Originally somewhat larger in size, the picture used to hang in the headquarters of the Company of Harquebusiers. The left side of the painting was substantially trimmed in 1715, when it was transferred to the City Hall of Amsterdam.
[217]
This painting represents the militia company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburgh. The Night Watch was commissioned as a group portrait, which traditionally took the form of a static succession of figures. Breaking with this tradition, Rembrandt presented the company in action, about to set off on a ceremonial parade. The figures that make up the group are strongly characterized, but not isolated, multiplying the points of view and accentuating the narrative character of the scene, in which the figures of the children, the dog barking and, on the right, the drum major are all equally important. The liveliness of the event is underlined by the presence of different directions: from the central group under the arch all the way to the figures in the foreground, everything indicates a different direction, accentuating an impression of movement that opens the space up to the observer. The host of actors are arranged as if they stood on the front of a stage, with the clearly defined wings of the classical tradition. The single element around which the symmetry of the painting once turned, the right foot of Captain Cocq, which served as a stabilizing point for the entire composition, has lost its function since the left-hand side of the picture was removed. This has distorted its effect to some extent, but has not impaired the emotional force that the work still transmits today.
[218]
In this painting Jan Steen continues the tradition of earlier painters of genre scenes, even though he worked in the second half of the seventeenth century. The Saint Nicholas festival and the distribution of presents to the children are described in minute detail in a setting filled with life and family warmth.
[219]
In this painting, Jan Steen has chosen to represent the feast of Saint Nicholas, traditionally a celebration for children. In a room filled with their tumultuous antics, Steen sets out to describe their moods. Some, like the little girl in the foreground, appear to be happy with the gifts they have received, which the artist depicts in meticulous detail: the small and charming doll that represents St. Nicholas, or Santa Claus as he is sometimes called, the pail filled with flowers, the tasty sweets scattered here and there. Others, punished for their bad behavior, have given way to desperate tears. The familiar scene is caught at a moment of great vivacity, when the most genuine feelings cannot fail to be revealed. The focus on the setting and the objects is very precise: the windows in the background convey a clear impression of a winterÆs day, contrasting with the warmth inside the room. The character of the latter is conveyed through the presence of individual objects and the muddle of everyday life, as represented for example by the worn out shoe lying in the foreground. The adultsÆ mood is affected by that of the children, who rejoice in their smiles. The familiarity of the composition is emphasized by the extraordinary sequence of faces, which bestow a reassuring tone on the scene and convey the atmosphere of a party to which just about everyone seems to have been invited.
[220]
This work is an example of a type of landscape painting, with snow-clad trees and frozen rivers, that originated in the works of the Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel and was much appreciated in the Netherlands. Like many small-scale paintings of the Dutch landscape, van der NeerÆs pictures were not executed to order, but produced for sale on the art market.
[221]
This painting represents a typical winter landscape in the Netherlands, stretching away toward an indefinite horizon on which Van der Neer focuses.
The bare trees provide a setting for a scene from everyday life, where each aspect depicted has a character all its own.
In the foreground we see members of the upper middle class playing a game of hockey.
The vast frozen expanse is animated by small figures in movement, chiefly young people skating along cheerfully and families out for a stroll, dragging sleds behind them. In the mist we can make out the city, which looks on like an empty ghost town as its inhabitants indulge in their traditional amusements. A few wretched houses loom out of the mist along the course of the river, along with a typical windmill standing by itself on the left.
The work is an example of a genre that was very widely-practiced in seventeenth-century Netherlands.
Many other painters chose to represent the theme of frozen rivers, their banks dotted with villages, mills and woods and thronged with tiny figures in characteristic attitudes. In this case the work of art also serves the function of an invaluable record of past customs.
[222]
This painting depicts a woman working in a kitchen. Notwithstanding the realistic representation of the light, objects and space, VermeerÆs works convey a sense of mysterious silence, as if that very reality concealed hidden meanings. VermeerÆs painting was greatly appreciated even by his contemporaries, who were prepared to pay very high sums for such works.
[223]
This painting is constructed around the balance between the objects in the foreground and the foreshortened representation of the setting, although the perspective is attenuated by the fact that the figure is placed slightly further back.
The view opens with the striking solidity of the still life on the table, accentuated by the soft texture of the cloth on which the objects are set. These are made to stand out by thicker brushstrokes and tiny speckles of gold that cover them. The artist displays extraordinary skill in evoking the intimate nature of things, such as the milk pouring from the lip of the jug. The womanÆs attitude is particularly significant, and her bowed head appears to echo the slow trickle of the milk. The absence of any decorative elements imparts a solid structure to the figure, rendering it imposing. The apron softly folded over the skirt, the bodice in the shade of bright yellow of which the painter was so fond and the white camisole and cap draw the onlookerÆs attention. The way the light enters from behind is enhanced even more by the monochrome background, against which are set such everyday objects as the wicker basket and brass container hanging on the wall and the wooden box lying on the floor.
[224]
This painting, which entered the van der Roop collection after passing through many hands, was donated to the city of Amsterdam by the collector in 1854. The subject and dimensions of the canvas indicate that it was executed for a private client, like all the other known works by the Dutch master. The clarity of the image is the fruit of an extremely precise technique.
[225]
This painting is very likely a portrait of VermeerÆs wife, Catharina, painted when she was pregnant. The canvas is characterized by the clear and geometrical simplicity with which individual objects are defined: the tall chairs upholstered in blue and brought to life by the light glinting off their golden studs; the books; the pearl necklace lying almost forgotten on the table, along with the cloth that introduces a note of haphazard into an otherwise perfectly arranged setting.
A large map hangs on the wall in the background; its texture is enhanced by the play of light which comes from the left of the painting, apparently entering through a window. In fact the work is made up of a series of foreshortened views of the objects within it, so that each is presented from a particular aspect and never in its totality, forming a precise line of perspective.
The light falls on the table and is reflected onto the bust of the young woman, gently revealing her swollen belly. It molds the blues of her smock and emphasizes the possessive way in which she clasps the letter, as well as the perfection of her face.
The color tones range from the lemon yellow of the womanÆs skirt to a pearl gray with slightly emphasized accents, and then shade into contrasts of black and white. This harmony of coloring, typical of the artistÆs mature work, tells us that the early light of morning illuminates the scene.
[226]
This refined portrait can be dated to the early 1640s, the culminating phase in VerspronckÆs career. Now free of the influence of his teacher Frans Hals, the artist has shifted to a denser style of painting and more static compositions. Ample space is given to the background, illuminated by the light entering from the right.
[227]
The artist was one of the greatest portraitists of the upper middle class in Amsterdam around the middle of the seventeenth century. The girl is shown in a traditional pose, turned from profile all the way through three-quarters to front in a way that makes it possible to see the whole of her physiognomy. The light, coming from a single source on the left, bathes the entire figure, giving it a disquieting appearance. The light picks out the fabric of her clothing, from the blue brocade to the white silk, lends substance to the refined strings of pearls around her wrist and neck and glints on the blond hair, as well as lingering on the feather she is holding. The principal subject of VerspronckÆs analysis is the childish face of this little girl dressed as a woman. Her high forehead, her fleshy nose and above all her large dark eyes are presented to the observer. The girl also smiles sweetly, hinting at her childish dreams, to which the feather in her hands also appears to be an allusion. Rather than the girl herself, it is the light that is the force of the painting, progressively revealing the intimate nature of the sitter.
[229]
The work, altered and damaged by clumsy restorations carried out in the past, dates from the artistÆs later period. In this picture Botticelli effectively contrasts the beauty of the figure of Judith with the savage appearance of Holofernes, as a metaphor for the victory of freedom and faith over tyranny.
[230]
Due to Jan BruegelÆs refined style and his paintingsÆ sumptuous appearance, the artist was nicknamed ôVelvet Bruegel.ö This splendid still life demonstrates the painstaking nature of the painterÆs technique, used here to depict a range of flowers worthy of a herbal. The transparency of the glass vase is another touch of great sophistication.
[231]
The complex articulation of this work fully demonstrates the skill of Pieter Claeszoon, one of the greatest still life painters of the seventeenth century. The objects set on the table and scattered untidily on the ground allude to the transience of life. The fusion of chromatic values, made up of soft tones of brown and gray, accentuates the sense of gloom produced by the composition.
[232]
This work was probably painted between 1652 and 1660, during the period the artist spent in Delft. The view of an interior, which celebrates the domestic virtues and simple and genuine feelings of the bourgeoisie, conveys an impression of calm and serenity. The meticulous setting is described in great detail. The sense of space is expanded with openings onto other rooms.
[233]
The identification of the elderly woman in this painting, holding a lectionary, as RembrandtÆs mother, Neeltgen Willemsdr. van Zuijdtbroeck, is not at all certain. Gerrit Dou lingers over the representation of the soft clothing, the hat and the pages of the book, displaying a marked propensity for observation from life.
[234]
Jordaens sets the mythological theme of this work on an earthly and concrete plane, using an expressive and sensual style. The painting is characterized by its dense brushwork, made up of broad strokes of vivid color. It is an excellent example of Flemish baroque painting.
[235]
This canvas is a copy of a work by Frans Hals probably painted by Judith Leyster. The subject is one of the series of drinkers, musicians and buffoons that the Flemish artist portrayed with pitiless realism. The strong light that illuminates the figure is a late derivation of CaravaggioÆs style that was widespread among Northern European painters.
[236]
LonghiÆs charming scenes of interiors illustrate the life of the wealthy Venetian merchant class, with its pastimes, virtues and vices. LonghiÆs choice of subjects, structure of compositions and narrative tone are evidence of his interest in theater. A number of his works are even considered to be transpositions of the comedies of Carlo Goldoni.
[237]
This painting, also known as the Endless Prayer, is an early work by Maes, in which the choice of subject shows RembrandtÆs influence on the artist. The artist depicts this scene of daily life in a realistic manner, with the table set and illuminated by a direct light.
[238]
This painting represents a characteristic older woman often depicted by Rembrandt and identifiable as the artistÆs mother. The womanÆs unusual clothing and the importance given to the book, picked out by the light, suggests that the work has a religious significance and portrays the prophetess Anna.
[239]
This painting represents the prophet Jeremiah meditating on the burning of the temple in Jerusalem and the imminent destruction of the city. Flames can be seen in the background, on the left. In this early work, Rembrandt relates the historical episode through the depiction of a single figure, a device that the artist employed in several paintings.
[240]
This is one of the earliest landscapes painted by Rembrandt. The view of the Dutch countryside is given an innovative look through the cunning distribution of light. It is possible to see the detail of the bridge and the boatmen crossing the river as an allusion to humanity finding salvation beyond death.
[241]
This painting, originally in located in the headquarters of the Cloth Makers Guild in Amsterdam, portrays its sampling officers, the men responsible for examining the various kinds of fabric produced and giving them their seal of approval. Without undermining the formal tone required by such a commission, Rembrandt varies the position of the figures, playing with the light and the contrasts of color to produce one of his best group portraits.
[242]
Rembrandt painted many self-portraits, which often have peculiar details and obscure significance. In this picture the artist presents himself as the apostle Paul, treated with devout veneration and recognizable by the sword hilt, book and headgear resembling a turban.
[243]
This painting is by Andrea Schiavone, one of the main exponents of Venetian Mannerism. The mythological subject, Europa carried off by Zeus in the form of a bull, is set in a broad seascape, with two women in the background waving their arms in desperation.
[244]
The mythological subject of this painting is pared down to its essential elements and centers on the figures of the two protagonists. Under the amused gaze of Mercury, the god Vulcan is chaining Prometheus as a punishment for having stolen fire from the gods and given it to humanity. The cunning distribution of light used to create highly suggestive effects reveals the artistÆs links with a culture based on a Caravaggio style.
[245]
This view of the city of Haarlem, RuisdaelÆs birthplace, is emphasized by the presence of the cloud-streaked sky, taking up a considerable proportion of the painting. The natural elements are depicted with great realism and the skillful distribution of light creates chiaroscuro effects.
[246]
The title of this work was attributed to it in modern times and derives from a romantic interpretation of the subject, a genre scene. The strict spatial representation, structured by the diamond-patterned floor, was probably achieved through use of the camera obscura. An abbreviation of the artistÆs name, the monogram IVMeer, is written on the wall.
[247]
This painting combines the genre of still life with that of landscape. In the background we see the palace of Rijksdorp, owned by the man who commissioned the work, Jacob Emmery van Wassenaer. WeenixÆs increasingly complex compositions, in which exotic animals also appear, testify to changes in his style.
[248]
One of the most important museums in Europe, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is most famous for its extensive collection of Dutch and Flemish art. It also houses significant works of art from the rest of Europe, the fruit of a shrewd policy of exchanges and acquisitions. The original nucleus of the collection was formed in 1808 by Louis Bonaparte, king of Holand, who wanted to create a large royal museum. Initially housed in the cityÆs town hall, it was expanded by adding works from the National Museum in The Hague and the collection of William IV. Under the guidance of its director Cornelis Apostool, the museum acquired a number of important private collections, such as works by Metsu, Bruegel and Steen. At the same time two masterpieces by Rembrandt (Night Watch and Sampling Officers of the Cloth Makers Guild), which belonged to the city of Amsterdam, were displayed with the collection. Thus the museum took on the dual character of a national collection and a civic museum that it retains to this day. Made a State Museum (Rijksmuseum) in 1815, it was transferred to the Trippenhuis and opened to the public in 1817. Over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, the collection was enriched by major donations and was transferred to its present location in 1885. Donations included the series of watercolors by Liotard that were given to the museum by one of the artistÆs descendants and important works of Dutch painting from the Van de Poel Collection. Fundamental acquisitions, including a number of works by Rembrandt and Vermeer, have been made since 1883 with the support of the Vereenigung Rembrandt.
[249]
The Tate Gallery is one of the most important museums in England. It is divided into two distinct sections: one is devoted to British painting, the other contains modern and contemporary works of art.
The museum was inaugurated in 1897, in order to provide a new home for the paintings by British artists formerly housed in the National Gallery of London. The collection was progressively enlarged through donations, purchases and the transfer of paintings and sculptures from the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Today the museum houses an exhaustive collection documenting the evolution of art in Great Britain from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The sections devoted to Hogarth, Constable and Turner are particularly significant. The collection of works by Pre-Raphaelite painters is also of considerable artistic interest.
The section on modern art contains works from the main artistic styles, including Impressionism, Cubism and Fauvism.
More recent developments are represented by works of Pop Art, Action Painting and Conceptual Art. Periodical shows and displays are staged alongside the permanent exhibition, which always makes visiting the museum a new and stimulating experience.
[251]
This painting is the work of one of the main representatives of the academic current in British painting. The artist devotes a great deal of attention to reconstruction of the setting, showing that he kept in touch with developments in archeology.
[252]
This painting depicts a scene of daily life set in the baths of ancient Rome. The workÆs title refers to the two women, immersed in the pool, who are splashing each other with water.
In the background various female figures are undressing or drying themselves, assisted by their handmaids.
In this picture Alma-Tadema, an outstanding exponent of British academic painting, reveals his in-depth research of ancient customs, so as to be able to reconstruct the setting accurately.
The impression of a large space is obtained through a construction of perspective that places the vanishing point high up, at the open door in the background.
The painting is characterized by its painstakingly accurate brushwork, which effectively reproduces the tesserae of the mosaic on the floor and the transparency of the water.
[253]
This composition seems to repeat the portrait of the same sitter, BaconÆs friend George Dyer, who had died several years before the work was painted. The indistinct forms, symbols of a reality that is never fully comprehensible and always changing, suggest a comparison with certain techniques in photography.
[254]
This painting appears to be a homage to George Dyer, a friend of Francis BaconÆs who had committed suicide several years before the painting was completed. The manÆs portrait can be recognized in the upside-down face of the figure on the left, as well as in the portrait hanging on the wall.
The scene is dominated by the vague and fluid figures arranged in a triangle. They are constructed out of blurred brushstrokes that produce evanescent images.
The scene is set in a room that is round in shape, and the pieces of furniture in the room also have circular shapes.
Two large suspended circles act as optical lenses, bringing the details behind them into focus.
The circle is contrasted by the rectangle, a geometric form that recurs in the portrait hanging on the wall, the stool depicted in the foreground and the section of pink wall.
[255]
The Futurist painter and sculptor Umberto Boccioni executed several versions of this work. This sculpture is the outcome of his research into the representation of the dynamism of bodies, attained through the breakdown of their forms, like in a sequence of stills from a film.
[256]
This sculpture was executed in 1913 by Umberto Boccioni, an Italian painter and sculptor who produced several other versions of this subject over the same period, now in various Western museums.
The sculpture represents a man walking, a theme that Boccioni tackles by representing the movement through a sequence of surfaces.
The sense of dynamism is provided by the way the body leans forward, while the leg in front bends to take a step.
The shoulder above the trailing leg is set slightly lower and suggests the shifting of weight that occurs naturally in a walking figure.
The figure is made up of a succession of solids and voids that allude to the simultaneous appearance and disappearance of a body moving through space.
The structure is fragmented into solid parts that split up and animate the bodyÆs anatomy.
The form is subject to a marked deconstruction, apparent in the structure of the head as well as in the bust, where the arms are not distinguishable.
[257]
A fantastic theme derived from ShakespeareÆs plays, this work is distinguished by its painstaking, almost obsessive execution. It was painted by Dadd during his confinement in a mental asylum, after having killed his father. Like the strophes of a poem, the painting is made up of a succession of figures û led by the gnome at the center of the picture û who are watching the ôfairy fellerö splitting a nut, which will be used to build a new carriage for the queen of the fairies.
[258]
This painting depicts a woodcutter with his back turned to us, in the act of splitting a nut with his axe.
The scene is observed by a crowd of fairies, elves and strange insects.
A little gnome with a white beard is seated in front of the woodcutter.
Higher up we see a royal couple, Titania and Oberon, rulers of the world of elves and fairies.
Among the bystanders are several musicians, located in the upper left-hand corner.
The tiny size of the figures is depicted in their comparison with the surrounding, larger plants.
The painter has accurately represented the daisies, blades of grass, nuts and beads as large as stones.
There is no sense of perspective in the scene, which is arranged vertically, and an impression of distance is created by the diminishing size of the figures set further back.
[259]
A leading exponent of British Pop Art, Hockney is famous for his portraits and for his pictures of domestic interiors. He often makes use of the camera to achieve effects of even greater realism.
[260]
This portrait is of the famous fashion designer Percy Clark with his wife and their cat Percy, seated with its back to us on its masterÆs knee.
The naturalness of the manÆs pose, depicted slouching in the chair and with bare feet, suggests that the artist used a photograph to paint the portrait.
Mrs. Clark is also standing in a realistic attitude with her hands on her hips and dressed in a housecoat.
The light that enters through the window emphasizes the rotundity of the womanÆs face.
The few objects in the room convey the impression of a fashionably decorated house: the deep-piled carpet, the low table with a vase of lilies, the modern-style chair.
The painting is dominated by a soft and cool range of colors, which convey a sensation of peaceful intimacy.
[261]
This work is a biting satire on French people that clearly demonstrates the English artistÆs predilection for scenes from daily life, often presented with ironic overtones. Known as O the Roast Beef of Old England, the painting depicts the customs house in Calais and a number of people wandering hungrily around a side of beef.
[262]
Hogarth painted this work to record what happened to him in the French city of Calais, where he was accused of being a spy.
Hogarth portrays himself on the left of the painting in the figure busy drawing. An officer is placing a hand on his shoulder to arrest him.
The focal point of the composition is the side of beef that has just been unloaded from a British ship and is intended for English hotel guests, as printed by words on the piece of paper in which the meat is wrapped.
A friar and two soldiers are staring at it hungrily as they eat a not very appetizing meal from their bowls, brought to them by two cooks in a large copper pot.
The scene is framed on the left by a group of women who are admiring a skate and on the right by a man dressed in Scottish costume looking sadly at his own wretched meal of bread and onion.
The painting is intended as a satire on arrogant soldiers and a condemnation of the ordinary peopleÆs poverty and of religious bigotry, a theme alluded to by the scene of a last sacrament being offered in the background, outside the gate of the city.
[263]
One of MillaisÆs most celebrated works, this painting illustrates a scene from JesusÆ childhood. Religious painting was characteristic of the art of the Pre-Raphaelites, who were committed to returning to the artistic tradition and mysticism of the Middle Ages.
[264]
This painting illustrates a scene from JesusÆ childhood, set in the workshop of his father Joseph. It was painted in 1850 by John Everett Millais, one of the best-known members of the group called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
The protagonist of the scene is Jesus, placed at the center of the composition together with his mother Mary.
The vertical axis formed by the two figures is intersected by the horizontal wooden bench top behind them, forming a cross alluding to ChristÆs sacrifice.
The bench, set in the middle of the room, measures the space in which the figures are arranged.
Joseph is portrayed at work, on the right.
The figure of the boy dressed in an animal skin is John the Baptist, carrying a basin of water that refers to baptism.
In the background, behind the table, we can see his elderly mother, Elizabeth.
The carpenterÆs shop is described in meticulous detail. Work tools hang on the rear wall, while the floor is covered with wood shavings.
The painting is rich in metaphor, such as the presence of a ladder and a nail remover, instruments used to remove ChristÆs dead body from the cross.
[265]
The subject of this painting, drawn from the legend of the knights of the Round Table, attests to MorrisÆs interest in the Middle Ages, stimulated by his discovery of Thomas MaloryÆs late medieval text Morte dÆArthur. His fondness for the figure of Guinevere, ArthurÆs wife and the lover of Lancelot, is evident from the poem The Defense of Guinevere, written by Morris in the same year.
[266]
This is the only oil painting by William Morris known to us today. Inspired by the legend of the knights of the Round Table, the work is actually a portrait of Jane Burden in medieval costume; the woman whom the artist married in 1859.
She is represented in the guise of King ArthurÆs wife Guenevere and is about to do up her girdle, considered a symbol of marriage in the Middle Ages.
The unmade bed and the copper jug used for washing tell us that the woman has just woken up.
Her awakening is accompanied by a troubadour, playing music at the back of the room.
The bedchamber, similar in its furnishings to the one that Morris was shortly to set up in his own home, is dominated by the four-poster bed, enclosed by embroidered curtains.
Various objects are set on the chest next to it, including a bowl of oranges and a precious illuminated book.
The care that the painter lavishes on the depiction of the fabrics, utensils and furniture is a sign of his interest in the applied arts.
The composition is laid out on parallel planes. An impression of depth is created by the representation of the chest in perspective.
[267]
Here Proserpine, goddess of the underworld, resembles a melancholic bride, prisoner of her fate.
She is holding a pomegranate, which is a symbol of resurrection and alludes to the return of the goddess to earth in spring, as related in the myth. Proserpine has the face of Jane Morris, a woman portrayed in many of RossettiÆs late works and who played an important part in the last years of his life.
[268]
The melancholic woman in this painting is Proserpine, or Persephone, the wife of Hades and queen of the underworld. She is holding the pomegranate which, according to Greek myth, bound her forever to the realm of Hades when she ate its seeds.
The ray of light that illuminates the rear wall refers to ProserpineÆs annual return to her mother Demeter, in the world of the living.
According to Rossetti himself, the ivy on the left symbolizes binding memory.
The censer underneath alludes to Proserpine herself.
The balustrade, in addition to measuring the scanty depth of the painting through its parallel sequence of planes, appears to separate the world of the living from that of the dead.
The composition has a markedly vertical structure, emphasized by the womanÆs sinuous figure.
In the manner of Renaissance painters, Rossetti has signed and dated the painting on the scroll at the bottom.
Another inscription at the top recounts the story of Proserpine in a few lines.
[269]
The very large size of this work obliged Spencer to stand on a box set on top of a table to paint the upper part of the canvas. The Resurrection is a theme that the artist tackled several times, succeeding in skillfully combining a realistic style with a mystical tension.
[270]
In this painting, the religious theme of the Resurrection is set outside the church at Cookham, the center of SpencerÆs spiritual life and a place that he considered paradise on earth.
Men and women are emerging from the tombs with slow movements, imparting a sense of calm and serenity.
In the middle, under a shrine covered with roses, we see the figures of God the Father and Jesus Christ, to whom the painter gives the semblance of a mother cradling her children.
Prophets and other figures from the Old Testament, recognizable by their white clothes, surround them.
The painter includes his self-portrait in the painting twice: in the naked figure standing at the center and in the one lying on the book-shaped tomb.
Spencer has also inserted portraits of several people dear to him, such as his wife Hilda, who is smelling a rose.
Among those risen from the dead, different traits show the universality of the event.
In the upper left-hand corner, there is a glimpse of the river Thames, a metaphorical allusion to the river of life.
[272]
This watercolor illustrates a scene from William ShakespeareÆs A Midsummer NightÆs Dream. It is an example of BlakeÆs output of watercolors and engravings inspired by both sacred and profane texts. The fantastic subject prompts the artist to paint graceful figures and choose a delicate range of colors.
[273]
Still life was the theme that Braque used to develop and experiment with Cubist expression. This work, painted in 1911, belongs to the phase of ôAnalytical Cubismö: the objects are broken down into intersecting planes and represented in an almost monochromatic range of colors that allows Braque to bring out the structure of things.
[274]
The original title of this work, Scene on a Navigable River, reveals that ConstableÆs intention was to depict a scene of country life rather than a particular view. Yet the artist has not idealized the landscape, but built it up rationally from elements taken from life.
[275]
This painting is inspired by William ShakespeareÆs A Midsummer NightÆs Dream and illustrates the mad passion of Titania, queen of the fairies, for Bottom, a man who has been given the head of a donkey by a magic spell. The subject provides Fuseli with the opportunity to release his own visionary fantasy, which made him a precursor of Romanticism.
[276]
This is one of the best-known works by the painter Arthur Hughes, who had ties with the Pre-Raphaelite movement. The painting celebrates the dreams of adolescence and the fragility of love, in much the same way as the poetry of Tennyson. The sensitive handling of color that is characteristic of HughesÆs painting is evident here in the refined harmonies of greens and blues.
[277]
This painting represents the redemption from sin of a woman, whose conscience is awakened by the beauty of music. The theme finds extensive parallels in Victorian literature, even though Hunt, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, attributes a mystical and religious significance to the subject.
[278]
Based on ShakespeareÆs tragedy Hamlet, this painting represents the suicide of Ophelia. It was painted by John Everett Millais during the period when he belonged to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a movement that set out to revive the artistic tradition of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance.
[279]
This sculpture is a preparatory study for the marble monument Moore carved for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The horizontal structure of the figure is intended to harmonize with the surrounding landscape. The fluid and open forms emphasize the three-dimensional character of the work and the way that it fully occupies the space around it.
[280]
The theme of illness and death was deeply-rooted in MunchÆs consciousness and had recurred in his work ever since the 1880s. However, the blurred and animated brushwork of this painting is an indication of the workÆs late date.
[281]
In this painting the famous English artist Reynolds tries his hand at a triple portrait, probably of three sisters. The women are depicted in the act of adorning a term of Hymen, the ancient god of marriage. Nature and the classical tradition are fused in melodious harmony.
[282]
Beatrice, DanteÆs inspiring muse, is represented here in the guise of Elizabeth Siddal, RossettiÆs model and sweetheart. The red dove next to the woman alludes both to the Holy Spirit and to love. The blurred effects in the painting derive from some photographic experiments that the artist was carrying out around this time.
[283]
This is one of Henri RousseauÆs last works, painted the year of his death. It is an example of the artistÆs ability to find new meaning in the everyday, as a symbol of a higher truth that only he was able to perceive.
[284]
Although painted after the breakup of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, this work is an authentic example of the movementÆs aesthetic canons and ideology. Naturalistic elements are laid over a historical subject or an intimate image, enriching it with poetic and literary references.
[285]
StubbsÆs capacity for observing nature made the English artist a much esteemed animal portraitist. In this work he tackles the theme of work in the fields, demonstrating an acute interest in everyday life and representation of the landscape.
[286]
This canvas is a portrait of the painter Emile Bernard, whom Toulouse-Lautrec had met in CormonÆs studio in Paris. Bernard had to pose a total of twenty times before the painting was finished. The work used to belong to the French collector Ambrose Vollard.
[287]
This work, painted by Turner toward the end of his career, testifies to the artistÆs interest in experimentation with light and the effects that it has on colors. The spatial depth is canceled out in favor of the representation of increasingly evanescent forms, made up of nothing but color.
[288]
According to tradition, Turner had himself tied to the mast of a ship in order to observe the violence of natural phenomena at firsthand. The fury of the storm is conveyed through a free handling of color in which the outline of the boat is barely recognizable.
[289]
First exhibited in 1843, this painting has been described as the finest of TurnerÆs views of Venice. A number of preparatory watercolors for the painting exist, executed by Turner in 1840. A work from his later years, the view is characterized by the way that the impalpable atmosphere of the lagoon has been rendered almost tangible.
[290]
This is the painting that made Henry Wallis famous. He revealed in this work his ability to combine a manner derived from the Pre-Raphaelite movement with the poetics of realism. The painting illustrates the suicide of the young poet Thomas Chatterton, at the young age of eighteen. The painter lingers over every detail, transforming a historical event into a genre scene.
[291]
Whistler shared an extraordinary sensitivity for color and a refusal to attach great importance to the subject with French Impressionists. The series of Symphonies is characterized by subtle variations in tone that evoke WagnerÆs music.
[292]
Opened to the public in 1897 on the Millbank in Westminster, the Tate Gallery was born from the idea proposed by the directors of the National Gallery that a separate gallery devoted entirely to British art be created. After the bequest from the painter Turner and Henry TateÆs donation of sixty-seven paintings and three modern bronzes in 1890, the State was persuaded to acquire the building and set up the gallery. At the beginning it housed the Tate collection and eighteen pictures by G. F. Watts, donated by the artist himself. Though conceived as an independent museum, it remained under the control of the National Gallery for a long time and soon came to be known as the Gallery of Modern British Art.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, with the creation of a Committee of Trustees, one wing was devoted to foreign modern art, as well, and in 1917 a new extension was inaugurated.
The acquisitions made covered a wide range, from the French Impressionists to Matisse, Picasso, Boccioni, Dalφ, Ernst and the whole of Surrealism, but national art was not neglected either, with the purchase of works by such British painters as Millais, Sickert, Spencer and, more recently, Hockney.
[293]
In 1560 the grand duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I deÆ Medici, decided to construct the new building of the uffizi, or offices, for the magistracies of the Florentine government. In 1581, when the building was complete, Grand Duke Francis I deÆ Medici decided to house the familyÆs art collections in the upper gallery. In 1591 the Uffizi Gallery was opened to visits by request, making it the first museum in the world. Over the course of time its collections have been enriched with new works of art and archeological finds. In the mid-twentieth century the museumÆs rooms were organized on a chronological basis. This allowed paintings of the same period but from different geographical regions to be shown alongside one another and fully convey the artistic spirit of a particular historical period.
[295]
Commissioned by the Medici family, this work was probably painted to mark the wedding of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and Semiramide Appiani, which took place in 1482. Painted in honor of the bride, the work is a celebration of love and marriage.
[296]
In the dim light of a grove of orange trees and laurel bushes, numerous figures stand on a meadow that is strewn with flowers.
On the right Zephyr, the west wind that ushers in the spring, is represented as a bluish winged figure. He seems to have just caught up with Chloris, the nymph who will be transformed by this encounter into Flora, the figure standing next to her who presides over the regeneration of nature and scatters flowers as she walks.
In the middle stands Venus, the goddess of love and fertility, who is framed by the halo formed by the grove of myrtle trees behind her. Her body is partially wrapped in a vermilion cloak and she is moving forward, possibly with the intention of dancing.
Above her flies the blindfolded Cupid, who is about to shoot an arrow at the three Graces, who are dancing in a ring.
The last figure is Mercury, who is raising his caduceus, a symbol of prosperity and peace, to dissipate the clouds.
The painting, which is characterized by an extremely complicated iconography that is constantly being reinterpreted, is traditionally considered a representation of spring owing to its explicit references to the reawakening of nature.
[297]
One of the finest examples of Agnolo BronzinoÆs portraiture, this painting is characterized by the haughty beauty of the figures, the cold and lucid color used to construct the bodies and the attention devoted to the fabrics and jewelry in which the grand duchess is attired.
[298]
Eleonora of Toledo, the Spanish wife of Cosimo I, is portrayed sitting down, with her right arm resting on her sonÆs back to underline her role as mother, to which the pomegranate woven into her clothing also alludes.
Bronzino has highly idealized the figure of the duchess, eliminating all ordinary and transitory aspects along with every imperfection to give her the dignity that her rank commands.
The polished forms, alabaster-colored flesh and impassive expressions make Eleonora and her son look as if they are frozen into the unnatural poses of a formal portrait.
Even the dark landscape behind them seems almost to vanish, turning into a flat backdrop like a slab of marble that frames the womanÆs face.
The sole elements of reality in the painting seem to be provided by the painstaking depiction of inanimate objects, such as the designs on the precious fabrics, the lace, the necklaces and the gold hairnet studded with pearls.
When EleonoraÆs body was exhumed in the middle of the last century, she turned out to be have been buried in the very same dress. As a consequence, it has been suggested that the portrait was painted ôpost mortem.ö
[299]
In this painting, attention to detail and propensity for description, typical of the Northern European tradition, coexist in delicate harmony with the figuresÆ monumentality and the clear definition of space, elements derived from the Italian Renaissance.
[300]
The monumental figures are set against a backdrop of architectural ruins, which echo and accentuate their forms. Their representation is a mark of the influence that the artistÆs visit to Italy had on his work.
The group of the Virgin and Child, presented in profile and inscribed within an imaginary pyramid, is made to look larger by the sloping roof of the stable and the pillar behind it. Another fragment of wall serves to emphasize the central figure and the Moorish king is framed by two heavily foreshortened arches.
The picture displays a new economy of color, based on a simplification of the palette and the stress placed on contrasts: the blue of MaryÆs dress and the reds, green and slate gray of the clothing worn by the Three Kings stand out against the uniform and neutral backdrop of the ground and walls, with its shades of light brown.
In the background we see a fantastic landscape, which is dominated by the fortified town on the hill and a distant view of the sea, while natural scenery is predominant in the foreground.
The butterfly and stag beetle on the left are undoubtedly the products of careful study of life, but they are also symbols of the salvation of humankind through ChristÆs sacrifice.
[301]
This painting is a work from GiottoÆs maturity and is known as the Ognissanti Maestα after the Florentine church in which it was originally located. A supreme example of GiottoÆs art, the composition is striking for its lucid handling of space and the dignified humanity of its figures.
[302]
In the Ognissanti Maestα, named after the church in which it was originally located, Giotto places a Gothic throne in the form of a shrine at the center of the composition. The pointed top of the throne is slightly offset from that of the pentagonal panel, so as to avoid an effect of rigidity.
The Madonna is seated a little to the left within her sacred space, with her torso twisted slightly to the right in order to have a better view of the Child, who is seated on her left knee giving his blessing.
The clothing emphasizes the monumentality of the central group by the way it is draped over their bodies and emphasizes their forms. The absorbed expressions on their faces, which is softened by the use of chiaroscuro, conveys a new image of the sacred.
The angels and saints huddled around the throne, forming a sort of sacred court, appear almost crushed by the severe architecture, whose slender structures, decorated with polychrome inlays, seem to break through the golden wall of the background and protrude beyond the frame of the picture.
The gold ground and hierarchical proportions represent a link with the medieval tradition, although a realistic effect is produced by the arrangement of the figures on staggered planes and the use of foreshortening in the faces that can be glimpsed through the architecture.
[303]
This work was painted for the church of San Bartolomeo at Monteoliveto, near Florence. The sacred theme of the Annunciation is set in the courtyard of a noble Florentine palace. The landscape is illuminated by a faint twilight, which bestows grace on the elegant figures of the Virgin and the angel Raphael. Their faces and attitudes express their serene acceptance of the will of God.
[304]
This episode from the Gospels is set in the open air, in the garden of a Renaissance villa in Tuscany.
The sacred space is defined by a low stone wall, with a row of plants running along it, while the Virgin is seated in front of a richly carved book rest on the threshold of her house.
From the shady nook that is formed by the curve of the building behind her, she stares in wonder at the miraculous appearance of Gabriel.
Her astonishment is conveyed by her raised left hand, while her right hand rests on the prayer book to stop it from closing.
The angel, whose profile stands out sharply against the dark trunk of the tree behind, has only just arrived and his wings are still spread.
Behind him a break in the parapet offers a view of the countryside, where a winding path leads the observerÆs gaze toward a breathtaking horizon. Here seemingly translucent mountains and the numerous towers of a city are reflected in a large body of water, where boats are sailing around a lighthouse.
[305]
One of MichelangeloÆs most celebrated works, this painting was executed for the Doni family. The great sculptural force of the figures is accentuated by their twisting, tense muscles. The sculptural rendering of the bodies is accompanied by an intense and vibrant coloring that would later be imitated by the Mannerists.
[306]
The Holy Family, which is seated in the foreground, is treated by Michelangelo as if it were a sculptural group whose muscular forms are arranged in a spiral, with a rich pattern of contrasting movements.
A continuous tension runs through the bodies, while the light imparts an iridescence to the abstract colors of their clothing.
The figures are all turned to emphasize the ceremonious presentation of the Child to Mary. This rotational movement extends into the surrounding space and is maintained first in the low wall that delimits the foreground and then in the concave ridge of rock, against which the nude figures are leaning.
The half-concealed landscape behind is made up of roughly-sketched and compact masses of color.
In this work the traditional theme of the Holy Family is renewed by the inclusion of the nude figures in the background, in whose attitudes scholars have recognized precise references to ancient statuary.
They appear to represent pagan humanity, still ignorant of the Christian message embodied by the Infant Jesus.
The young St. John, who is peering over the low wall and looking at the divine group, symbolizes the passage between paganism and the Judeo-Christian world.
[307]
In this work Piero della Francesca displays his talents as a portraitist, reproducing the features of the Duke of Urbino. The meticulous depiction of his hair and face and the landscape in the background are signs of the painterÆs debt to Flemish art, which was much appreciated by Federico da Montefeltro himself.
[308]
The portrait of Federico, together with that of his wife Battista, formed a diptych which was probably capable of folding like a book along a central hinge.
The duke is represented in profile, a device that not only made it possible to conceal the right side of his face, which was disfigured during a tournament, but also ennobled and idealized his features, making them resemble those of the rulers portrayed on ancient medals.
Yet a comparison with other pictures of Federico reveals the extent to which the artist sought to produce a true likeness, even lingering over the description of such less attractive details such as his hooked nose, wrinkles, warts and thick neck.
The head-and-shoulders portrait, with its geometrical forms, stands out forcefully against a broad panorama, a landscape viewed from above which is a metaphor for FedericoÆs actual domains.
[309]
RaphaelÆs brilliance in portraiture and composition is evident in this complex picture, in which the three figuresÆ gazes never quite meet. The painting is all in shades of red and brown, demonstrating the artistÆs great feeling for color.
[310]
In this triple portrait, which Leo X sent to Florence as a token of his goodwill for the marriage of his nephew Lorenzo, the composition appears to be laid out on a diagonal.
Following the imaginary line that runs along the edge of the table and then down the left arms of the pope and the cardinal behind him, the observer is led into the scene, which extends beyond the confines of the picture.
Even the figure of Cardinal deÆ Rossi, who is gazing distractedly past the edge of the frame, contributes to the viewerÆs feeling of involvement.
There is also a silent exchange between the other figure and Leo X, who has stopped reading the codex lying open on the table in front of him and turned his eyes toward Cardinal deÆ Medici.
The figures seem to emerge out of the gloom, while the reflections on the knob of the armchair, in which it is possible to make out the shape of a window, suggest their actual surroundings.
Great care has been taken in depicting the objects and details, so that the painting is able to capture the richness of the damasks, silks and ermines, the illuminated letters of the book and the silver bell decorated with a classical plant motif.
[311]
This painting was acquired in 1538 by the Duke of Urbino, Guidobaldo II della Rovere, and in 1631 it entered the Medici collections. The mythological theme is set in a contemporary aristocratic mansion. The female figure, who looks like a Venus Pudica, is wearing pearl earrings, which denote that she is the wife of a man of high rank.
[312]
The composition is split in two diagonally by the line that runs along the upper edge of VenusÆs body.
Her bust is silhouetted against a drape of green velvet, which marks the division between the foreground and the scene in the background, where the firmly constructed perspective of the room is animated by the figures of two maidservants, who are busy looking for their mistressÆs clothes in a painted chest.
TitianÆs subject was derived from one of GiorgioneÆs paintings, but he changed it so that Venus lifts her head to look at the observer, fully conscious of her own nudity and beauty. Here the prototype is given a decidedly human touch, so that the goddess becomes a young woman, lying on an unmade bed in her luxurious home as she waits to get dressed.
In place of the soft subdued tones adopted by his teacher, Titian uses bright contrasting colors: the green of the heavy drape brings out the luminous gold of the nude and the auburn color of the hair spilling onto her shoulders; the red covering of the mattresses contrasts with the white of the sheets and cushions, while the sky visible though the window is tinged with shades of gray and yellow.
[313]
Paolo UccelloÆs interest in perspective is evident in this composition, in which the figures and objects are portrayed from a variety of angles. The scene is the illustration of a real event, but the unnatural coloring of the horses, the forms as sharp and clearly-defined as geometric solids and the artificial illumination impart an extremely unreal tone to the battle.
[314]
According to the inventory that Palazzo Medici made in 1492, the room belonging to Lorenzo contained three panels devoted to the battle of San Romano, which had been fought fifty years earlier between the armies of Florence and Siena.
This panel represents the moment when the Sienese commander Bernardino della Ciarda, is speared by an enemy lance, which throws him from his horse.
The drama appears frozen in time, as if held fast within the rigorous structure of perspective formed by the broken lances lying on the ground, which converge in a central vanishing point.
The geometrical framework immobilizes the figures in a pattern of lines, evident in the triangle that is formed in the foreground by BernardinoÆs leg and two lances.
The war does not seem to have disturbed the surrounding countryside, where hedges separate the plowed fields, a small group of peasants lingers among the vines and hares flee from the hounds and crossbowmen who prepare for the hunt.
The entire scene is dominated by a feeling of unreality, which transforms the figures into foreshortened shapes and spreads a metallic sheen over the details of the crests, the headgear and the trappings of the horses.
[316]
This is one of Andrea del SartoÆs best-known works. Andrea del Sarto harmoniously combined the lesson of Leonardo and the refined manner of Michelangelo. The painting is named after the carvings on the marble base on which the Madonna is placed. St. Francis and St. John the Evangelist are depicted next to her.
[317]
Although the meaning of this sacred subject is obscure, and the splendid landscape in which the scene is set make this work of Giovanni BelliniÆs a particularly fascinating one. The marble floor structures the space of the terrace above the pool of water, while a golden light models the heroic bodies.
[318]
This is one of the most significant images in Italian Renaissance painting. Pure and precious as a pearl, Venus is born out of the foam of the sea and floats to the shore on a shell. While the goddessÆs pale flesh tones echo the marble of Greek statues, the details of her hair stirred by the wind are extremely natural.
[319]
Painted in 1495 for Antonio Segni, this work takes its inspiration from LucianÆs De Calumnia and descriptions of a composition by the Greek artist Apelles, painted in protest against the lies told about him to King Ptolemy Philadelphus by his rival Antiphilus. King Midas, on the advice of Ignorance and Suspicion, holds out his hand to Rancor and welcomes Calumny, who is being dressed by Deceit and Fraud. Only Repentance is looking at Truth, naked and forgotten.
[320]
In this painting Canaletto, a well-known artist of the eighteenth century, depicts one of the most famous views of Venice. Gondoliers and boatmen move busily through the mist that rises from the Grand Canal, and their presence evokes the political, cultural and economic greatness the city had attained in the past.
[321]
Originally part of the collection of Grand Duke Ferdinando I deÆ Medici, this painting reproduces a ceremonial shield, decorated with an effigy of the MedusaÆs head, which according to myth was capable of turning anyone who looked at it to stone. Caravaggio makes the image look as monstrous as possible by the intense pattern of light and shade and a detailed depiction of the snakes that make up her hair.
[322]
Here the god Bacchus is presented in the guise of a drunk apprentice in a workshop. CaravaggioÆs interest in representing reality is evident in the depiction of the basket of fruit and the transparency of the glassware.
[323]
Adam is depicted in the Garden of Eden, standing next to the tree of knowledge. The great elegance of the portrait does not prevent the artist from carefully depicting anatomical details. A companion piece depicting Eve accompanies the painting.
[324]
In this painting, the theme of the Sacra Conversazione is set inside a majestic work of architecture, the cloister of a monastery. Saints Francis, John the Baptist, Zenobius and Lucy are placed alongside the Virgin. The composition is structured according to the strict rules of central perspective, evident in the representation of the marble floor. The bodies cast shadows in the natural light, rendering them solid and concrete.
[325]
A sumptuous example of an altarpiece from the late Gothic period, this work was commissioned by the Strozzi family for the Florentine church of Santa Trinita. The world of medieval courts is reflected in the rich decorations of the MagiÆs clothing, in the abundant use of gold leaf and in the description of a luxuriant natural setting, teeming with exotic animals.
[326]
In this painting, Giorgione sets the sacred subject in a calm landscape on which he places more importance than the narration of the biblical story. The scene is flooded with the golden light of sunset, demonstrated by the long shadows cast by the figures.
[327]
The Countess of Chinch≤n is portrayed full length in this portrait. Goya combines a scrupulous description of the womanÆs clothing and hairstyle with a skillful representation of her expression and penetrating gaze.
[328]
This work was painted for the Franciscan church of Santa Croce in Florence, as is suggested by the presence of St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua. Next to the Virgin we see Saints Cosmas and Damian, patrons of the Medici family, who commissioned the work.
[329]
This work, painted by Lorenzo Lotto during his long stay in Bergamo, is characterized by a particularly domestic interpretation of the landscape, typical of Lombard art. The lively way in which the episode is presented produces a remarkable pictorial effect.
[330]
This painting is now part of a triptych that was only recently assembled, from this panel and two more panels by Mantegna: Circumcision and Ascension. In the Adoration of the Magi the scene is set in a rocky and barren landscape. A procession winds along the road leading to the cave where the Virgin and Child are seated, surrounded by cherubim. The careful depiction of the clothing, whose drapery adheres closely to the bodies, is a mark of MantegnaÆs long study of classical sculpture.
[331]
This work is the fruit of a collaboration between Masolino and the young Masaccio, who painted the group of the Madonna and Child and the figure of the angel in the upper right-hand corner. MasaccioÆs figures are characterized by the solidity of their bodies, constructed out of strong contrasts of light and shade, and their concreteness. However, MasolinoÆs figures are more graceful, demonstrating his late Gothic background.
[332]
In this painting, originally in the Servite church in Parma, the Madonna gazes at Jesus as he lies sleeping in her lap, an iconographic motif that anticipates the theme of the Pietα. The sophisticated elegance of the figure of the Madonna, achieved through an unnatural elongation of its proportions, has earned the work the title of the Madonna with the Long Neck.
[333]
This painting is the companion to the portrait of Federico da Montefeltro (Uffizi, Florence), with which it is hinged to form a diptych. It depicts Battista Sforza, wife of the Duke of Urbino. The pallor of the womanÆs flesh suggests that the portrait may have been painted from the duchessÆs funeral mask, following her death in 1472.
[334]
The dogma of the Incarnation is represented through the image of the Madonna, her hand placed on her stomach, while the dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit, descends on her from above. Saints Dominic, John the Evangelist and Catherine of Alexandria on the left, and Margaret, Peter and Antonino on the right witness the event. An animated landscape, with the Nativity of Christ and the Flight into Egypt, is set in the background.
[335]
As if it were a comic strip, this painting represents various moments in the story of PerseusÆ rescue of Andromeda. According to the legend, the hero killed the sea monster and saved the girl, at the same time freeing the local population from the beastÆs tyranny. The choice of subject may be a reference to the Medici family, which had returned to Florence in 1512 after many years of exile.
[336]
This portrait, painted many years after the death of Cosimo the Elder, celebrates the founder of the senior branch of the Medici family. The inscription on the back of the armchair alludes to the epithet pater patriae, by which Cosimo was known in Florence. Pontormo handles the light and shade with great skill, bringing CosimoÆs face to life and giving the paint an impression of softness.
[337]
This work was painted for the marriage of Lorenzo Nasi and Sandra Canigiani, while Raphael was living in Florence. The sacred theme is given an intimate and domestic setting. The figuresÆ attitudes and affectionate exchange of glances establish a mute dialogue between them.
[338]
Painted when Raphael was about twenty-three, this self-portrait is characterized by a great simplicity of composition and coloring. The dark background and black clothing brings out the luminosity of the artistÆs face, framed by his long hair.
[339]
The biblical theme in this painting is a pretext for representing heroic male nudes. The anatomical structure of the figures is subject to geometrical simplification, accentuated by the distribution of light and shade and the choice of bright and unnatural colors. The drama of the scene is evident in the sense of movement and in exaggerated facial expressions.
[340]
Painted after Sebastiano del PiomboÆs departure from Venice, this painting reconciles Venetian feeling for color with the classical monumentality typical of Roman art. The mythological theme is set in a landscape with a view of Venice in the background.
[341]
This work is named after the roses that the woman is holding in her right hand. The figure embodies TitianÆs ideal of physical and sensual beauty. The painting is dominated by shades of white and pink, colors that blend in well with the warm and golden light.
[342]
Painted in Bruges for Tommaso Portinari, this large triptych was brought to Florence in 1483, where it aroused the interest of Florentine painters in Flemish art. The naturalistic way in which the shepherds adoring the Infant Jesus are depicted, the meticulous representation of the landscape and the extraordinary description of the fabrics are very original. The clientÆs family is portrayed in the wings of the triptych, accompanied by their patron saints Anthony Abbot, Thomas, Margaret and Mary Magdalene.
[343]
This work may have been painted in Florence, during a stopover on van der WeydenÆs journey to Rome for the 1450 Jubilee. The uncompromising realism and drama of the scene are emphasized by the bleeding wounds in ChristÆs body. The crosses on Mount Golgotha are visible in the background, while we see the figures of the Holy Women walking along a path toward the tomb on the left.
[344]
Painted for Duke Alessandro deÆ Medici, this portrait now hangs in the Tribuna of the Uffizi, along with other pictures of the family. Many such portraits were commissioned from Giorgio Vasari by the rulers of Florence, who intended to strengthen their position by celebrating their most famous forbearers.
[345]
Verrocchio was probably assisted by Leonardo da Vinci, a pupil in his workshop, with this painting. In fact the landscape and the angel on the left are attributed to Leonardo. The perfect anatomies of the figures of Christ and the Baptist reveal VerrocchioÆs great artistic ability; he headed one of the most important Florentine workshops of the fifteenth century.
[346]
The Uffizi art collection is located on the third floor of the stately building designed by Vasari. Commissioned by Cosimo I deÆ Medici, the building was intended to house the cityÆs principal magistracies and the most prestigious works of art owned by the family, to be displayed to the greater glory of the Medici family and Florence. In fact ten years after the collection was displayed it was already possible to visit the museum, some two centuries before the collections owned by other European monarchies were opened to the public.
The most valuable works in the collection were placed in an octagonal room known as the ôTribuna,ö designed by Buontalenti. Today the Tribuna houses portraits of the family, including those of Eleonora of Toledo with Her Son Giovanni and Lucrezia Panciatichi, both by Bronzino, and PontormoÆs Portrait of Cosimo the Elder, as well as such little gems as RossoÆs Angel Playing Music. When Ferdinando I, the brother of Francesco I, became a cardinal, he acquired a number of celebrated ancient statues, such as the Medici Venus and the group of the Niobe, on the antique market in Rome.
Conscious of the importance of the collection for the city, Anna Maria Luisa, the last descendant of the Medici, decided to bequeath it to Florence forever in order ôto ornament the state, serve the public and attract the curiosity of foreigners,ö as it was put in the magnanimous princessÆs decree.
In the eighteenth century, under Peter Leopold of Lorraine, the gallery was enlarged and reorganized on the basis of schools, as was the practice in the Age of Enlightenment. A number of masterpieces were acquired to fill the gaps in this classification. However, the Uffizi Gallery remains the museum of the Italian Renaissance par excellence.
[348]
At the end of the sixteenth century artists began to show a leaning for scenes drawn from daily life, used to celebrate the comfortable existence of the middle classes, for whom such works were often intended.
This type of painting, usually small in size, is normally referred to as genre painting, to distinguish it from other styles.
The apparent ease with which the subject could be relayed made these works highly attractive, though at times they had complex hidden meanings, intelligible only to a minority of the public.
Characterized by meticulous description and extremely realistic representation such paintings offer us priceless glimpses of what life was like in the past.
[349]
Before the industrial revolution the rhythm of human life was determined by the seasons. Peasants' lives were most closely based on this rhythm, but all activities were conditioned by variations in the length of the day and the climate. Craftsmen were often organized into guilds, subdivided according to the type of activity carried out, whose role it was to protect and assist their members. Our knowledge of how work was done in the past often comes to us from paintings depicting religious or mythological scenes. It was not until the seventeenth century that artists began to illustrate peopleÆs daily lives, representing the most ordinary activities with great realism. The social changes that occurred in the nineteenth century led some artists to make use of their work to denounce the exploitation and alienation of the working class in industrial society.
[350]
Religious feast days provided people with an opportunity to rest and to hold celebrations and festivals. The sacred and profane were mixed in the popular tradition, resulting in games and spectacles that involved every level of society. A common figure at noble courts was the jester or buffoon, who sometimes received substantial rewards for his services. One of his roles was to provide entertainment at the sumptuous banquets that were held to celebrate an event or in honor of a guest. Drama was also highly appreciated by the nobility, who attended private performances at the court theater. Meanwhile, public theaters became more widespread, and were used to stage shows catering to more popular tastes. A favorite amusement in every social class and every part of the world was dancing, an instinctive expression of joy. It was closely connected with music, which was an integral part of the education of the better-off classes in the nineteenth century.
[351]
As a place for family intimacy, affections and repose, the home was often the setting artists preferred to represent scenes from daily life. The theme became a pretext for the detailed depiction of furnishings and objects, with innovative and skillful perspectives that focus on the scene. In contrast to formal history painting, an intimate and subdued tone held sway and was used to recount events of minor importance. Instead of grand passions and heroic virtues, these paintings set out to illustrate simple and genuine feelings such as maternal love, or the thrill of a secret kiss. The undisputed protagonists of these intimate and secluded worlds were women and children, who spent more of their time within the home than did men. The representation of everyday life also characterized the work of academic artists, who chose to set similar scenes in the Greco-Roman world.
[352]
The most direct and conspicuous manifestation of wealth and power, the clothing worn by the more prosperous classes was characterized by a display of luxury and refinement up until the nineteenth century.
In the Middle Ages war and a general regression in civilization attained in classical times had curbed evolution in the art of dress.
Fifteenth-century Italy saw a resurgence in the art of silk and wool production, with the appearance of workshops capable of making costly fabrics that were in demand all over Europe.
Up until the nineteenth century trends in fashion were determined by the taste of sovereigns, whose dress was emulated by the nobility and by the less prestigious and powerful courts. From the nineteenth century onward dressmakers and fashion designers played an ever more significant role. Around the middle of the century Paris established its position as the fashion capital of the world.
[353]
The greatest emphasis of the artistic expression of fashion was placed on the clothes worn by men, especially those who held public positions. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the garments worn by men were characterized by bright colors.
The typical color of the clothing worn by the nobility was scarlet, a special shade of red obtained with a dye extracted from an insect. Older men dressed in long robes known as sacche, over which the nobility wore elegant cloaks, sometimes lined with fur.
Headgear was widely used, some it in fantastic shapes like the peculiar hat called the mazzocchio.
When hose were no longer worn, sixteenth-century men preferred soft, loose and short-legged pants, which they wore with short jackets. Often padded and with full sleeves, these jackets gave their wearers an imposing and regal air.
In winter men wore capes or cloaks, made out of precious materials and often lined with ermine, vair or sable, depending on the ownerÆs rank. During the seventeenth century, especially in the countries of Northern Europe, large white ruffs that stuck out from under jackets were in style. Dark colors were typical of city dress, made up of cassocks and knee-length breeches. The emergence of the principles of both hygiene and democracy during the Age of Enlightenment, culminating in the French Revolution, led to a substantial change in menswear, with emphasis placed on practicality.
[354]
Opulence and luxury were the chief characteristics of the dresses worn by Renaissance noblewomen. The dresses were made from the most costly stuffs, brocades interwoven with gold and silver thread and decorated with plant motifs such as pinecones, thistles or pomegranates, symbols of immortality and fertility. In the sixteenth century women were given a more regal appearance through the use of the corset, a French invention, which became highly fashionable in spite of its unnatural compression of the belly which could be detrimental to the wearerÆs health.
In the seventeenth century garments were characterized by their soft and often bizarre lines. Chemises made of fine fabric peeped out from under the heavy overgarment: they were bordered with lace and adjusted by elaborate ties.
Lace and embroidered collars grew larger and larger. In the eighteenth century the dresses worn by women were characterized by panniers, which stretched their skirts sideways and hampered their movements.
With the arrival of neoclassicism, fashion adapted to the new style, too, and women began to wear the classical tunic known as α la romaine or α la vestale.
By the mid-nineteenth century Paris had become the capital of fashion. Dresses were characterized by the crinoline, or hoop petticoat, a cage of metal hoops that made the skirt spread out from the waist and was typical of womanÆs fashion from the 1830s to the 1860s.
Crinolines were widely used for both evening and daytime wear. A popular accessory throughout the century was the parasol or ladyÆs umbrella, carried on walks.
[355]
The emergence of fashion for children dates from the modern era and was linked to a greater interest in their world. In previous centuries the years of childhood had been heavily conditioned by the early entry of children into the world of work and the practice of young marriages.
Apart from the first few months of life when they were dressed in swaddling clothes, there were no substantial differences between childrenÆs and adultsÆ garments. Among the wealthier classes, children wore heavy garments, made of precious fabrics, in keeping with their social rank.
Girls wore long, ankle-length dresses and often wore their hair gathered up in a bonnet. Children of peasants and the poorer classes wore far simpler clothing. This consisted of a tunic and later of a shirt over knee-length breeches and clogs, the only footwear used by people in the country. Little girls wore long dresses that could be tied at the waist so as not to obstruct their movements when working or walking.
[356]
The representation of landscapes first started appearing in European painting in the fifteenth century, in the wake of the renewal of interest in humanity and its world.
The artists of Northern Europe showed the greatest interest in observing nature and produced compositions as early as the sixteenth century in which the historical subject appeared to be a mere pretext for sweeping views of the landscape. However, it was not until the eighteenth century that landscape painting became an independent genre that was appreciated in its own right. While eighteenth-century artists undertook meticulous and realistic descriptions of cities that fitted in well with the scientific interests of the Age of Enlightenment, in the Romantic period paintersÆ emotions were stirred by grander scenes of nature prompting them to represent the savage force of elements in their works. When artists began leaving their studios and painting en plein air over the course of the nineteenth century, they discovered the light and colors of the countryside, the principal sources of inspiration for the masters of Impressionism.
[357]
Since ancient times nature has been perceived as a material, and therefore flawed and incomplete expression of a higher and perfect ideal, a manifestation of the divine. In the Christian world the model of perfection was represented by the Garden of Eden, or Earthly Paradise, which was depicted by artists as a green and luxuriant place. Art was often assigned the task of correcting the imperfections of nature, eliminating unsightly details in paintings of landscapes and selecting only the best parts. This evoked ideal landscapes, representations of a beautiful and pure nature in which the artists of the Renaissance set their scenes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary.
The landscape was gradually transformed from a mere backdrop to the focal point of the painting, with a consequent reduction in the size of the figures represented in it.
For the most part these figures were shepherds, boatmen, nymphs or fishermen, a population of tiny individuals who inhabited a hospitable and innocuous landscape.
With the emergence of the interest in ancient art and the birth of archeology in the eighteenth century, painters began to insert ruined temples, statues from the classical era and other vestiges of the past into their ideal views, turning natural landscapes into archeological gardens that resembled the parks of stately homes.
[358]
Views, or vedute as they were called in Italian, were detailed representations of cities or other locations that fulfilled the documentary function that photography represents today. This pictorial genre was originally associated with the desire to celebrate historic events or the deeds of famous people. By painting broad perspectives from a birdÆs-eye view, exalting the conquests of military commanders or providing meticulous descriptions of battlefields artists lent credibility and verisimilitude to the events illustrated. Through paintings of cities, ports and castles rulers celebrated their power, showing off their possessions to their guests.
The genre of the veduta became extremely popular over the course of the eighteenth century. In fact numerous travelers who came to Italy would return from their trips with small views of the most intimate corners of the cities they had visited. A taste for the picturesque also seems to characterize the lively landscapes painted by the Impressionists but in their works the subject lost its importance, becoming no more than a means of depicting patterns of light and color .
[359]
From the seventeenth century onward a love of nature drove artists to depict landscapes, whether in the midst of a forest or along the banks of a river. Landscape paintings were often produced in series and illustrated months and seasons, as well as the activities of humankind.
Much appreciated by the wealthy bourgeoisie, which liked to see the familiar places of the surrounding countryside commemorated in attractive works, landscape paintings carefully reproduced the irregular shapes of trees, muddy lanes and cloudy skies, without ever reducing the grandeur of the composition.
With the emergence of Romantic sensibility, the landscape and nature became sources of emotion, transfiguring reality under the impetus of powerful feelings. Horizons grew more distant, the sky dominated the picture and the works of humanity disappeared, overwhelmed by nature. The light and color potential offered by the French countryside and the shores of Provence was well understood by the Impressionist painters, who reached the peak of their creativity in the landscape genre.
[360]
Mythology has stimulated artistsÆ imaginations and aroused patronsÆ interests for centuries.
The popularity of works of art that represent myths is a mark of the profound fascination with the ancient world that has characterized European society ever since the time of Humanism, though in a discontinuous manner.
The myths of the classical era became an integral part of modern cultural heritage and were interpreted as complex allegories with moral significance.
HeroesÆ virtuous deeds provided an example for the ruling classes, while gods and demigods soon came to be seen as personifications of the sciences, arts and sentiments.
In the Middle Ages new legends took their place alongside classical mythology. Derived from the culture of Northern Europe, these legends were widely distributed through medieval troubadoursÆ songs.
[361]
Among the gods of Mount Olympus the splendid Venus, goddess of love, was undoubtedly one of the most popular subjects with artists. Her legendary beauty was well suited to the depiction of perfect and voluptuous nudes.
Born from the foam of the sea and pure as a pearl in a shell, the representation of the birth of Venus could even assume religious significance, conjuring up the image of the pure, baptized soul.
Venus is often depicted with her son Cupid, or Eros, a mischievous winged child who was able to make people fall in love by shooting his arrows at them.
Vulcan, the blacksmith god and husband of Venus, was infamous among the gods of Olympus for his ugliness. According to myth Vulcan, the custodian of fire, angrily punished Prometheus for stealing a spark from the gods and giving it to humanity.
Just like the birth of Venus, pictures of the god Bacchus û or Dionysus û could be assigned a Christian value, with the deity seen as a prefiguration of Christ. Dead and risen again like the Redeemer, DionysusÆ attributes include grapes, wine and the pomegranate, symbols that were adopted by the early Christians as metaphors for Christ.
Another myth that alludes to the themes of death and rebirth, in connection with the alternation of the seasons, is that of Proserpine, or Persephone, the daughter of Zeus who was abducted by Hades, god of the underworld. To alleviate her mother DemeterÆs sorrow, Persephone was allowed to return to the world of the living every year, at the onset of spring.
[362]
The gods have always been attributed human appearance and sentiments. In their love affairs the gods often found themselves in extreme and paradoxical situations, which resulted in extraordinary consequences that were quite extraneous to human nature.
One particularly moving myth is that of Adonis, the beautiful youth courted by both Venus û or Aphrodite û and Persephone. The myth tells how Adonis was killed by a wild boar, but brought back to life by the gods and allowed to spend six months with Aphrodite and the rest of the year in the underworld with Persephone, in correspondence with the seasons.
In the Golden Ass Apuleius tells the story of the passionate affair between Cupid, the god of love, and the young nymph Psyche, who adored him without ever having seen his face. The theme, with all its delight and yearning, was often chosen by artists to illustrate the tender love of two adolescents.
Other famous loves are those of Zeus, or Jupiter, celebrated by Ovid in the Metamorphoses. According to legend, Danaδ was locked up by her father in a tower but the god Jupiter was able to enter her room and unite with her in the form of a golden shower.
Infatuated with Io, a priestess of Juno, Jupiter avoided the jealousy of his wife by taking on the appearance of a cloud.
In the Ars Amatoria Ovid recounts the story of Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, whose love for Theseus led her to help him rid the city of the Minotaur, the terrible monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Fleeing with the hero, Ariadne was abandoned on the island of Naxos, where she met Dionysus, the god of wine, and married him.
[363]
The heroic exploits of historical or legendary figures of antiquity were often represented in painting as courageous and virtuous, intended to serve as an admonition or guide.
Perseus proved his courage by killing the terrible Medusa, a monster who had snakes instead of hair and whose gaze turned people to stone. Due to her capacity to immobilize the enemy, the effigy of Medusa was often placed on warriorsÆ shields.
The story of PerseusÆ defeat of the sea monster, saving the sacrificial victim Andromeda and freeing her people from its tyranny, was frequently interpreted as a political allegory.
The power of poetry and music is celebrated in the myth of Orpheus, the legendary poet who charmed Persephone, custodian of the underworld, with the beauty of his song, persuading her to let him take his bride Eurydice back to the world of the living. However, the joy of the young couple was brief, as it was EurydiceÆs destiny to remain forever in the land of the dead.
Another celebration of poetry is found in the tale of Sappho, the unhappy poetess of the island of Lesbos who dedicated her agonizing songs of love to Phaon.
Among female virtues, faithfulness and chastity are the ones most frequently illustrated in works of art. One example is the story of Lucretia, the Roman noblewoman who preferred death to living in the dishonor of having been raped by Tarquin.
[364]
Many of the paintings from the past had religious subjects, such as scenes from the Bible, the lives of Christ and the Virgin and the lives of the saints.
Images played a fundamental role in the diffusion of Christian doctrine; they were an effective means of communication and a useful support for priestsÆ sermons.
The fact that they have survived in far larger numbers than paintings with secular themes can be explained by the devotion shown to sacred images and the miraculous powers that were attributed to them as effigies of the divine.
Initially produced for churches, works of art representing religious subjects soon entered the homes of lay people as well, where they were used as objects of private devotion.
From the Renaissance onward, scenes from the lives of saints and personages from the Bible became emblems of virtue and were used to decorate noblemenÆs studies or picture galleries in palaces and townhouses.
[365]
Among episodes from the Bible, those drawn from Genesis were seen as the most representative of the Christian tradition. The story of Adam and Eve was often depicted alongside scenes from the New Testament, to indicate that original sin had been effaced by JesusÆ sacrifice.
The prophets often appear in altarpieces as well, to announce the coming of the Messiah.
Scenes involving Moses were taken from the book of Exodus and were interpreted as a manifestation of the incontestable will of God.
During the Counter Reformation stories from the Bible became a source of inspiration for paintings for private clients. These works of art celebrated the deeds of figures like Joseph or Susanna who symbolize virtue and chastity, in particular.
One of the most popular biblical heroines was Judith, the woman who beheaded the Assyrian commander Holofernes and thereby saved the Jewish people from oppression. The theme sometimes took on political implications, symbolizing the struggle for freedom in a broader sense. A similar signification was attributed to DavidÆs victory over the giant Goliath, whom he killed with his sling.
[366]
The desire to spread knowledge of Christ is what lay at the heart of the diffusion of religious art, a genre that was extensively practiced by artists in the past yet much less so in the contemporary era.
Alongside images intended for prayer and worship, works of a more narrative character have been produced ever since the Middle Ages. These works illustrated the principal episodes of the Gospels, such as the incarnation and childhood of Christ that is depicted in detail in the Gospel according to Luke and the Apocrypha.
Scenes of the Passion were frequently depicted and intended to draw attention to the human nature of Christ as well as his sacrifice. From the Last Supper to the Crucifixion, artists have illustrated the final events of ChristÆs life with great dramatic force.
Individual episodes of the Passion became the subjects of altarpieces, transforming a narrative scene into an image for contemplation.
Placing a representation of the Crucifixion or the Lamentation on the altar served to reinforce the Catholic doctrine of consubstantiality, the principle that the body of Christ is present in the consecrated Host.
[367]
The cult of the saints was a phenomenon connected with the affirmation of Christianity. It was rejected in the sixteenth century by that branch of the Church that gave rise to the Protestant Reformation. Devotion to saints was widespread in medieval times and was linked to the cult of relics that was adopted from Eastern Christendom. The apostles were objects of particular veneration and were traditionally represented in ancient costume and with clearly characterized and easily recognizable physiognomies. The Fathers of the Church, the eminent and learned men who helped to form Christian doctrine, were depicted as sages, dressed in the robes of a cardinal or bishop. Martyrs were usually characterized by the attributes of their martyrdom, such as St. SebastianÆs arrows and St. Catherine of AlexandriaÆs wheel. The stories about the saints were often written, and they were collected in the thirteenth century by Jacobus de Voragine in the Legenda aurea, or Golden Legend. A number of popular legends were also widespread, including the story of St. Luke painting the VirginÆs portrait, for which he was assigned the role of the patron of artists.
[368]
The term still life, or stilleven in Dutch, first appeared in the seventeenth century, when it was used to criticize compositions made up of inanimate objects, as opposed to paintings with human figures in them.The still life became an independent genre of painting in the second half of the sixteenth century, when growing interest in reality and everyday life prompted artists to turn their attention to objects in their surroundings. Much appreciated by collectors, pictures of still lifes often took on complex allegorical meanings that were understood only by a small circle of the elite. The accurate depiction of flowers fruit and animals turned these works into scientific illustrations of considerable value to early naturalists.
Eighteenth-century baroque induced artists to simplify their compositions, setting the objects in a rigorous spatial structure. Moralizing aspects gradually disappeared from the paintings, which simply became works of a decorative nature, intended to embellish bourgeois homes.
The predominance of landscape and figure painting in the nineteenth century soon led to a decline in the still life genre, which was reduced to a compositional exercise and a device for experimenting with new form of expression.
[369]
The desire to render sacred episodes credible and realistic led painters to set these scenes in everyday contexts, filled with familiar objects. Northern European artists were the first to try out this approach and to insert extraordinary pieces of still life into religious paintings, often assigning them allegorical meanings.
Even the depiction of a saint, with the distinctive attributes of the iconographic tradition, frequently provided the artist with an opportunity to display his skill in depicting a book, a piece of jewelry or the marks of a saintÆs martyrdom.
Baskets of bruised or worm-eaten fruit that appear in sacred or mythological paintings are intended to prompt reflection on the transience of life. Such images often included bunches of grapes and vine shoots, symbols of Christ and his sacrifice that emerged in the late classical age.
Other allusions to the transience of life and material possessions are to be found in still lifes made up of objects, known as Vanitas, in which the presence of clocks, hourglasses, pipes and extinguished candles refers to the passing of time, the fading of human pleasures and death. In the same way, paintings of set tables, with half-empty tankards and the leftovers of a meal, are an invitation to meditate on the brief span of life on earth and the salvation of the soul.
The rhythm of the seasons was often represented through compositions that depicted seasonal vegetables. In these compositions nature and artifice were fused, producing results that were highly appreciated even by the most cultivated patrons.
[370]
The genre of still life was always popular with the wealthy merchant class, which liked to see its own tranquil and secure way of life reflected in the representation of objects of everyday use.
Intended to decorate the walls of bourgeois homes, still lifes often included household objects and utensils, celebrating the achievements of contemporary society. The accurate description of precious objects, symbols of social rank, often accompanied portraits of members of the nobility and bourgeoisie. The cups and pot of a coffee service help to underline the domestic intimacy of a family reunion, evoking a ritual that still plays an important part in todayÆs society.
The freedom of expression attained by artists over the course of the nineteenth century and the progressive shift in emphasis away from the object represented induced many painters to experiment with new figurative languages and to take the reality of their surroundings as their subject. The masters of Cubism tried out their own revolutionary approach in still lifes, breaking up the objects and bringing bits of reality into their pictures through the insertion of letters, pieces of wallpaper, newspaper cuttings and other materials.
[371]
The ability to represent plants and fruit with painstaking realism was a mark of Flemish painters, masters of the genre of still life. Their splendid compositions of flowers look like transpositions of the meticulous drawings of plants to be found in scientific documents.
The skill shown by Flemish artists stemmed from their dedication to the genre of still life. As a consequence, whenever it proved necessary to include additional subjects, the still-life painters turned for assistant to other artists, specialized in the reproduction of figures. Accurate descriptions of fruit, vegetables and other kinds of food were characteristic of paintings used for the decoration of kitchens in bourgeois homes, as well as in food stores and taverns.
The meticulous depiction of flowers and fruit in still lifes, typical during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, later gave way to a more immediate representation of light and color.
Subject to a process of stylization, pieces of fruit were turned into solid volumes that occupied and measured the space of the composition.
[373]
Dutch painter.
Alma-Tadema studied at the Antwerp Academy, collaborating with Leys on the frescoes in the town hall (1859). He achieved his first success with paintings of medieval subjects in a Romantic tone, such as Destruction of the Abbey of Doest, exhibited in Brussels in 1857. In 1863, following a trip to Italy, he devoted himself to evoking classical antiquity. From 1865 to 1869 he lived in Brussels, and moved to England in 1870, becoming a British citizen in 1873 and a member of the Royal Academy in 1879. He specialized in an anecdotal style of painting, illustrating scenes of daily life set in the Egyptian, Greek and Roman worlds, which he represented with archeological accuracy and precision that made him famous and earned him many commissions. Among his numerous works, it is worth mentioning the Pyrrhic Dance (1869, Guildhall Art Gallery, London), Sappho and Alcaeus (1881, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore) and The Favorite Custom (1909, Tate Gallery, London), in addition to various paintings found in numerous American and European museums. His reputation among his contemporaries earned him the honor of being buried in St. PaulÆs Cathedral.
[374]
German painter, engraver, and architect.
The son of an illuminator, he became a citizen of Regensburg in 1505, spending the rest of his life in the city and holding several high public posts. His landscape paintings, of small format, reveal the influence of the Alpine and Danubian region (View of the Danube near Regensburg, Munich, Alte Pinakothek; Landscape with Bridge, London, National Gallery). His works on a larger scale are based chiefly on the models of Dⁿrer (Crucifixion, Kassel, GemΣldegalerie) and the structuring of space to be found in the pictures of Pacher (The Story of Susanna, Munich, Alte Pinakothek). The Saint Florian Altarpiece (now divided among Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Florence, Uffizi, and others) and AlexanderÆs Victory over Darius at Issus, painted for William of Bavaria in the year 1529, are regarded as masterpieces of German Renaissance painting.
[375]
Italian painter.
He received his training under Piero di Cosimo in Florence. He painted cycles of frescoes for the cloisters of the Annunziata and the Scalzi. In the former he depicted Scenes from the Life of Saint Philip Benizzi (ca. 1510) and from the Life of Mary (ca. 1514), as well as the lunette with the Madonna del Sacco (1525). In the latter he depicted Scenes from the Life of Saint John and the Visitation (1524). His numerous panel paintings include the Holy Family (Paris, Louvre), Madonna of the Harpies (Florence, Uffizi), and Portrait of a Sculptor (1524, London, National Gallery).
[376]
Italian painter
Active as a painter in 1417, he entered the monastery of San Domenico in Fiesole shortly afterward. The works assigned to the early part of his artistic career, such as the San Domenico Triptych (Florence, Museo di San Marco), still show the strong influence of late Gothic painting, and in particular the work of Lorenzo Monaco and Gentile da Fabriano. In 1433, with the Linaioli Madonna, Fra Angelico demonstrated that he was aware of the innovations brought in by Masaccio, but it was only in a more advanced phase that his pictures displayed a full maturity in the definition of space. The figures in the Coronation of the Virgin painted around 1435 (Paris, Louvre) are in fact strongly structured and the work shows a complete mastery of perspective. In these years Fra Angelico was considered the greatest Florentine painter, capable of laying the foundations for a modern form of sacred art, Renaissance in style but genuinely religious in tone. This is how the critics have always viewed the numerous images that he frescoed inside the monastery of San Marco in Florence, where he was in charge of the decoration from 1438 to 1446 (the Annunciation and Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saints). Here we see a growing simplification of form that, in intimate harmony with the well-defined architecture of Michelozzo, achieves a serene monastic austerity. In 1446 Fra Angelico went to Rome to fresco Scenes from the Life of Saint Stephen, Saint Lawrence, and Saint Louis in the chapel of Nicholas V in the Vatican. It was his last masterpiece, in which the story unfolds with great serenity amidst an architectural setting that recalls the classical models he had encountered firstly in the papal city. Fra AngelicoÆs painting, which is based on a conception of space defined by light, set an important example for many painters of the following generation, including Piero della Francesca.
[377]
Italian painter.
Antonello da Messina received his initial training in Naples around 1450, in the workshop of Colantonio and against the background of a culture open to Flemish, Spanish, and Provenτal influences. His early works, such as the Salting Madonna (London, National Gallery) and the Crucifixion (Bucharest, Art Museum of Romania), have a spatial solidity that stems from his interest in the art of Central Italy. This resulted in a synthesis between Italian spatiality and Flemish keenness of vision that places AntonelloÆs work at the height of Piero della Francesca and Jean Fouquet. These efforts were materialized in the 1460s with such works as the Portrait of a Man in Cefal∙ and two small panels in the Museo di Reggio Calabria. Our Lady of the Annunciation in Munich dates from shortly afterward. Apart from a number of other journeys that have been suggested by art historians, we are certain that he stayed in Venice from 1474 to 1476. Here the Sicilian artist painted several masterpieces such as the San Cassiano Altarpiece, the Saint Sebastian in Dresden, and the Saint Jerome in his Study (London, National Gallery), in which the luminous splendor of the color is enriched with a mellowness derived from Giovanni Bellini.
[378]
Italian painter.
He made the designs for the stained-glass window in Milan Cathedral depicting Scenes from the Life of Saint Catherine of Alexandria (dating from between 1548 and 1557). In 1562 he became the favorite painter of Emperor Maximilian and Rudolf II in Prague. He painted caricatural portraits and allegorical figures (Water, Fire, Summer and Winter, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), creating human faces out of flowers, fruit, vegetables, and animals: an illusionistic, fantastic, and meticulous style of painting, with links to both Mannerism and the allegorical painting of the late sixteenth century.
[379]
British painter.
Born in Dublin to English parents, Francis Bacon started out as an interior decorator and did not begin to paint until 1929, after a visit to Paris and a stay in Berlin where he had gotten to know the work of the exponents of German realism, Grosz, Dix and Beckmann. The lack of success that marked the early part of the artistÆs career led Bacon to move away from painting, which he did not take up again seriously until 1942. In 1944 he painted the Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (Tate Gallery, London), whose monstrous figures created a sensation. These were followed by numerous portraits and pictures inspired by works of the past, all characterized by the distortion of image at which the artist arrived through study of the photographs of Eadweard Muybridge and stills from the films of Bu±uel and Eisenstein. The influence of earlier painters like Munch or van Gogh can be discerned in the expressionistic characteristics of his figures, which speak to us of ostracism, loneliness and the existential anguish of humanity. Among his works, it is worth mentioning his studies after VelßzquezÆs portrait of Innocent X (1953, private collection, New York; 1962, Marlborough Fine Art, London) and the famous interiors in which he set his portraits (Self-portrait, 1973, Marlborough Gallery, New York; George Dyer, 1968, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid; The Wrestlers, 1980, Tokyo, private collection).
[380]
German painter and engraver.
From 1493 to 1506 he studied under Dⁿrer in Nuremberg and illustrated U. PinderÆs treatise Hortus conclusus. Between 1510 and 1514 he engraved various versions of the Witches, developing his taste for complex compositions and fantastic effects. In 1511 he painted the main altarpiece for Freiburg Cathedral. In 1517 he settled in Strasbourg, where, influenced by the climate of the Counter Reformation, he painted female nudes separately or in allegorical compositions that show similarities with the work of Cranach.
[381]
Italian painter.
He was one of the leading figures in the renewal of Venetian painting in the second half of the sixteenth century. Attracted by the art of Titian, in the Road to Calvary (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum) and Beheading of the Baptist (Copenhagen, Museum) the artist used motifs from the Tuscan-Roman manner, adopting cold and iridescent colors that broke away from the unitary character of GiorgioneÆs tonality (The Baptist, Bassano, Museum; Crucifixion, Treviso, Museum). In the Good Samaritan (Rome, Galleria Capitolina) and Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana), the religious subject is turned into a representation of rural themes set in vast landscapes, verging on truly pastoral scenes.
[382]
French painter.
Born at Montpellier in 1841, FrΘdΘric BazilleÆs initiation into painting came through study of the works of EugΦne Delacroix and Gustave Courbet in the collection of Alfred Bruyas. Right from the outset he showed a predilection for a realistic style of painting based on color. Moving to Paris in 1862, Bazille soon got to know many of the painters who were later to form the Impressionist movement, such as Monet, Renoir and Sisley. Edouard Manet was to choose FrΘdΘric Bazille as a model for one of the male figures in his painting Le DΘjeuner sur lÆherbe. His interest in nature and light induced the artist to go and paint in the open air, choosing first the forest of Fontainebleau and then Honfleur as his favorite locations. In his simplification of figures and use of bright colors, it is also possible to detect the influence of Gauguin and the Barbizon group of painters. However, the academic training he received during the years of his apprenticeship in the studio of Charles Gleyre led Bazille to prefer compositions with figures, such as the Nude in the MusΘe Fabre at Montpellier, dating from 1864, and the Woman Dressed in Pink in the MusΘe dÆOrsay at Paris, painted the following year. Influenced by the exoticism of DelacroixÆs pictures as well as by the vogue for the Orient in the French painting of the mid century, Bazille used black models several times for his paintings. One of the most successful examples of this kind of picture is the one entitled La Toilette, painted in 1870. The young white woman seated naked on the couch luxuriously covered with fur is attended by a young black woman pictured from behind. In addition to the chromatic contrast between the dark flesh tones of the maidservant, depicted bare-backed, and the white of the other figureÆs skin, Bazille compares the vigorous beauty of the black womanÆs body with the soft and abundant consistency of the white womanÆs. The realistic intent is evident in the anatomical representation of the two figures, for whom two well-known Parisian models posed, costing Bazille a large sum of money. With respect to the fanciful exoticism of the works of the previous generation of painters, the picture is given a modern and realistic tone through the insertion of the third female figure, probably a portrait of the painterÆs companion, dressed in contemporary European clothing. It was this simple fact that placed the scene in the conventional world of the observer and disturbed the judges at the Salon of 1870 and led them to reject the painting. La Toilette was one of FrΘdΘric BazilleÆs last works. He was killed at the front during the Franco-Prussian War the same year.
[383]
Italian painter.
The son of the painter Jacopo Bellini, Giovanni began his artistic career in his fatherÆs workshop, along with his brother Gentile. In the paintings of his youth until around 1460, Giovanni used the late Gothic style of his father, but he soon came under the influence of his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna, especially in works like the Transfiguration (Venice, Museo Correr) or the Pesaro Crucifixion. However, BelliniÆs style is different from the epic one of Mantegna. He portrays a more intimate relationship between his figures and landscape has a softer tone and shading. These elements can be seen in the Pietα (Milan, Brera) and the Saint Vincent Ferreri Polyptych (Venice, church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo), works in which the painter had fully developed his style. At the beginning of the 1470s Bellini painted the Pesaro altarpiece depicting the Coronation of the Virgin, whose majestic and limpid spatial structure reveals an awareness of Piero della Francesca as well as the contemporary Flemish masters. These influences were also to have an effect on later works, such as the Transfiguration in Naples or the Saint Jerome (Florence, Palazzo Pitti), even the solemn compositions of the San Giobbe Altarpiece (Venice, Galleria dellÆAccademia) and the Triptych in the church of the Frari in Venice, dating from 1488. Another important factor in BelliniÆs development was his contact with Antonello da Messina, in Venice from 1474 to 1476, with whom a relationship of mutual influence was established û the Sicilian learned from the grand Venetian altarpieces while Bellini acquired a greater sensitivity in the handling of light and the painting of portraits, such as that of Jacopo Marcello (Washington, National Gallery). The early years of the sixteenth century brought a profound renewal in the art of Bellini, who did not hesitate to accept the challenge of the new generation, that of Giorgione and the young Titian. In the San Zaccaria Altarpiece, in fact, we find an extraordinary equilibrium of form and a richness of color that seems to be a response to the altarpiece painted by Giorgione for Castelfranco Cathedral. In the last years of his life Bellini not only took a new look at the theme of the Madonna and Child in 1510 (Milan, Brera), but also began to produce paintings of profane and mythological subjects, like the Feast of the Gods (Washington, National Gallery) in which the narrative idea is exploited to give the maximum of emphasis to the atmospheric landscape. Throughout his long career Bellini remained true to precise formal values, while displaying a great openness toward his contemporaries: thus he can be said to be the true founder of the Venetian Renaissance.
[384]
Italian painter and engraver.
A pupil of Canaletto, he worked in Rome and elsewhere in Italy, painting views that differ from those of his teacher in their less distinct overall vision paying greater attention to detail (Vaprio dÆAdda, Metropolitan Museum of New York; Royal Palace in Turin and The Old Bridge over the Po, Turin, Galleria Sabauda). He worked in Dresden, Vienna, Munich, and then Warsaw, first in the service of Augustus III, then Maria Theresa of Austria, and finally the king of Poland. His Northern European patrons commissioned pictures of their own cities from him, including The Moat of the Zwinger (ca. 1745, Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen) and Vienna from the Belvedere (1759-60, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum).
[385]
English poet, painter, and engraver.
Sensitive, like Fⁿssli and Flaxman, to the influences of a cultural climate in which eighteenth-century classical myth and early Romantic ferments were closely interwoven, he illustrated his own books, using new engraving and printing techniques (Songs of Innocence, 1789; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1793), as well as works by other writers, from E. YoungÆs Night Thoughts (1797) to the Divine Comedy (1826). He also produced paintings, prints, and watercolors of Biblical subjects (JacobÆs Ladder, ca. 1800, London, British Museum; The Vision of Ezekiel, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts).
[386]
Italian painter and sculptor.
A student at the Libera Scuola di Nudo in Rome from 1899, Umberto Boccioni frequented the studio of Umberto Balla over the same period. Balla stimulated the young artistÆs interest in French painting and Divisionism, as well as the Symbolism of Giulio Aristide Sartorio. In 1906, suffocated by the narrow-mindedness of Italian culture, Boccioni set off on a journey through Europe that took him to Paris, Russia and Vienna. On his return to Italy, the artist moved to Milan, a lively and stimulating city where he worked as an illustrator for several magazines. Sensitive to the problems of space and light, the painter seems to have been interested in representing industrial society and investigating the mood and psychology of the people whose portraits he painted. Outstanding among these are the self-portrait of 1908 (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan) and the portrait of his mother (1907, Galleria dÆArte Moderna, Milan). A fundamental turning point came in 1909, with his meeting with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and subsequent adhesion to the Futurist movement. Boccioni was one of the signatories of the Technical Manifesto of Painting. Rejecting the past, Boccioni glorified progress, technology, speed and the industrial city, all themes which appear in The City Rises, painted in 1910 (Museum of Modern Art, New York). The artist continued to investigate the problems of space, working on the interpenetration of planes and the dynamism of figures. This research found expression in works like The Laugh (Museum of Modern Art, New York) and three pictures representing Moods (Galleria dÆArte Moderna, Milan). At the same time Boccioni devoted himself to sculpture, realizing the Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (Galleria dÆArte Moderna, Milan) in 1913. Boccioni alternated his activity as an artist with theoretical work, publishing the Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture in 1912. Called up to fight in the war, the artist met a premature death in Verona in 1916.
[387]
French painter.
While studying law, Pierre Bonnard also launched himself on a career in art by attending courses at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the AcadΘmie Julian. Here he met SΘrusier, Denis and Vuillard, with whom he formed the Nabis group in the last decade of the century. Influenced by the work of Gauguin, the Nabis moved away from Impressionism to develop a more considered style of painting, symbolic in content and characterized by the use of flat and uniform areas of color, yielding results similar to those obtained with enamel. The desire to bring beauty into peopleÆs daily lives led Bonnard and the other Nabis painters to devote themselves to the applied arts, producing posters, wallpaper and book illustrations. It was during this period that Bonnard painted pictures like The Croquet Game (1892, MusΘe d'Orsay, Paris), Les Grands Boulevards (1900, London, private collection) and The Passerby (1894, Montreux, private collection). At the beginning of the twentieth century BonnardÆs interest in Impressionist painting was rekindled and he started to produce portraits, pictures of interiors, and sunlit landscapes like The Bandstand (1908 Paris, private collection), Movement in the Street (1905, Washington, Phillips Collection) and the Portrait of Misia Godebska (1908, Madrid, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection). Indifferent to the rapid changes taking place in French and European art during the first half of the twentieth century, the painter spent the last part of his life in the South of France, surrounded by his family and the domestic world that he continued to represent in his pictures (The Table, 1925, Tate Gallery, London; Nude at the Mirror, 1933, CaÆ Pesaro, Venice).
[388]
Italian painter.
The beginnings of Sandro BotticelliÆs career are linked to the prestigious workshop of Filippo Lippi, but by 1467 he was already working in that of Andrea Verrocchio, where the most brilliant of the new generation of Florentine Renaissance painters received their training. However, the artistÆs long career was characterized by a constant link with the Medici family. He painted a standard for Giuliano to use at the tournament of 1475, an event immortalized by the poet Politian, but it was chiefly from the refined humanistic climate created around Lorenzo the Magnificent that the painter drew his inspiration. It was during these years that he painted a series of beautiful portraits (of Giuliano deÆ Medici, the Man with a Medal, and others, as well as the Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi, in which he portrayed several members of the Medici family). These were the same clients who ordered La Primavera, or The Spring, from him in 1478, with its refined symbolism linked to the culture promoted by the Florentine court. In 1481 Botticelli went to Rome to participate in the frescoing of the Sistine Chapel. He painted three scenes, representing Moses and the Daughters of Jethro, The Punishment of Korah, and The Temptation of Christ, as well as a number of figures of popes. In this work the artistÆs style reached the peak of its classicism, achieving a perfect balance between naturalistic inspiration and a tendency toward formal abstraction. This same equilibrium can be found in works painted after 1480, such as the Adoration of the Magi in Washington or the Madonna del Libro (Milan, Museo Poldi Pezzoli). In the Birth of Venus (Florence, Uffizi), on the other hand, there is a tauter rhythm and a new quest for expressiveness that parallels the painterÆs deep religious feelings. The growing sense of disquiet is related to the collapse of humanistic certainties, and this found expression in the complex altarpiece that Botticelli painted for San Marco, around 1490, or in the later Calumny of Apelles (both in Florence, Uffizi). This last work, with the broken rhythm of its lines and its complicated symbology, reflects the feeling of alienation that isolated Botticelli from contemporary culture at the end of his career.
[389]
French painter.
Born in Paris in 1703, Franτois Boucher trained in the studio of the decorative painter Lemoyne, from whom he derived his taste for large-scale, late baroque decorations. He started his career making engravings, some of them after paintings and drawings by Watteau. In 1727 he went to Italy, where he studied Correggio and the great baroque decorators. Returning to Paris in 1731, the painter received important commissions from the court and the aristocracy (decoration of the H⌠tel de Soubise, in collaboration with Natoire, 1737-40). In 1737 the pictures of pastoral subjects he showed at the Salon proved very popular with the public. The SΦvres pottery produced several pieces of porcelain based on the painterÆs inventions. In the meantime the artist began to paint numerous cartoons for the Beauvais tapestry factory, becoming its director in 1753. He gained the prestigious post through the patronage of Madame de Pompadour, of whom Boucher painted a well-known portrait, exhibited in 1757. In the meantime the painterÆs fame grew, based chiefly on his pictures of mythological subjects and sensual scΦnes galantes, much appreciated by the aristocracy. The canvas entitled the Breakfast, almost a genre scene, dates from 1739, while the picture of Diana Bathing was painted in 1742; both are in the MusΘe du Louvre. The painter became director of the Gobelins factory and was responsible for the sets and costumes of the Paris OpΘra. The artistÆs celebrity reached its peak in 1765, when he was appointed first painter of the king, in spite of the criticisms made of him by Diderot and other representatives of the Enlightenment who did not share the aesthetic ideals of the Versailles court. The painter died in Paris in 1770. An eclectic artist, Boucher was a penetrating interpreter of the rococo style and the society that created it.
[390]
French painter.
A painter greatly appreciated by nineteenth-century collectors in Europe and America, William Bouguereau was one of the fiercest defenders of the refined and idealized style of painting taught in the academies, in open controversy with the work that was being produced by Impressionist artists in the same years. Born in 1825, Bouguereau attended the Academy of France in Rome, where he stayed from 1850 to 1854. As well as by classical art, the painter was influenced by Giotto and the masters of the Renaissance. The fruit of these experiences can be seen in the picture of Saint Cecilia in the Catacomb, painted in 1854 and now in the LunΘville Museum. Paintings of religious subjects in a classicist style make up much of the artistÆs output, and he also decorated a number of churches in Paris, including St. Augustine and Ste. Clotilde. However, Bouguereau also proved to be a skillful narrator of episodes from contemporary history, such as the picture of Napoleon Visiting the Victims at Tarascon (Tarascon, H⌠tel-de-Ville), dating from 1856. The solemn tone of his early paintings grew lighter and more cheerful in his mature works, which often depict mythological themes. The canvas depicting the Nymph and the Satyr, in Williamstown, dates from 1873, while the Youth of Bacchus was painted in 1884. The compositions, pretexts for the representation of idealized and sensual nudes well-suited to the restrained tastes of his bourgeois clientele, are given a light-hearted and playful air through the frequent insertion of cherubs and cupids. An example of this genre is the painting of The Birth of Venus, one of the most popular subjects among the academic painters of the second half of the century. Bouguereau painted the picture in 1879. The harmonious nude of the figure of Venus appears to be a reinterpretation of the models of ancient sculpture in terms of the teachings of Ingres and the Italian Renaissance painters. Bouguereau treats the mythological subject in a fairly original manner, picturing the goddess emerging from the sea in the company of a group of dancing Tritons and Nereids. The grace of BouguereauÆs figures, the harmony of his compositions and the charm of his subjects earned the artist the post of professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which he held until 1888. He died in 1905.
[391]
French painter.
After a decade spent in Le Havre, he went to Paris in 1900, where he began his artistic research, at first devoting himself to painting in the Impressionist style and then moving toward the Fauves. The discovery of CΘzanne led him in the direction of Cubism, which he founded together with Picasso. Still lifes were his preferred theme in both the first phase of Analytical Cubism and the later one of Synthetic Cubism, which introduced several new techniques into painting. For Braque, Cubism represented a period of extraordinary inventive richness, but it did not mark the end of his expressive and formal research, which he continued after the interruption of the First World War, tackling new subjects. After 1940 his work was dominated by new motifs that found expression in the marvelous series of pictures that he produced over the Studio period, followed by the period of the Birds. In addition to painting, Braque also worked as a sculptor. BraqueÆs work played a fundamental part in the history of contemporary art, making a decisive contribution to the formulation of the new problem of the representation of the object in space and laying the foundations for the birth of abstract art.
[392]
Italian painter.
Born in Florence in 1503, Agnolo entered the workshop of the painter Pontormo at a young age. His earliest known works date from 1523-1525, when he frescoed two lunettes in the Galluzzo Charterhouse.
Summoned by the Montefeltro family, who ruled Urbino, he worked on the decoration of the Villa Imperiale in Pesaro in 1530. He also painted numerous portraits for the Montefeltro, including one of Guidobaldo della Rovere (Florence, Uffizi). On his return to Florence in 1532, he continued to collaborate with Pontormo.
During this period, he launched his successful career as a portraitist, working chiefly for the Florentine aristocracy.
Between 1540 and 1543 he was busy working on the decoration of the chapel of Grand Duchess Eleonora in Palazzo Vecchio. He painted the fresco the Crossing of the Red Sea on one of its walls between 1541 and 1542. During that period he also painted several portraits of the grand duke and duchess and their children, such as the Portrait of Eleonora da Toledo with Her Son Giovanni (Florence, Uffizi), which dates around 1545.
In addition, he supplied cartoons for the Medici tapestry factory. In 1548 the painter spent a brief period of time in Rome. Upon his return to Florence, he painted numerous portraits, including one of the poetess Laura Battiferri. He also painted many religious works for Florentine churches, such as the Resurrection for the church of Santissima Annunziata and the fresco depicting the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence in Santa Maria Novella.
An example of his mythological works character is the Allegory of Happiness in the Uffizi (1567-70).
[393]
Flemish painter.
Son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Jan Bruegel the Elder is considered one of the greatest innovators in Flemish landscape painting. He devoted himself chiefly to the representation of complex views of the countryside framing the figures of hermits, allegorical and mythological motifs or episodes from the bible. In his later work he also painted fine floral compositions.
[394]
Flemish painter.
Originally from northern Brabant, Pieter Bruegel served his apprenticeship in Antwerp, where he enrolled, in 1551, in the cityÆs association of artists, the Guild of St. Luke. The following year he was on his way to Italy: he traveled as far as Naples and Sicily, while his stay in Rome is documented by engravings made from his drawings. The production of drawings for engravers remained his main activity even after his return to Antwerp in 1554, and there is no record of his work as a painter until the fifties. It was during this period that he painted the Flemish Proverbs (Berlin, Staatliches Museum) and the Contrast of Carnival and Lent (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), executed in 1559. In his paintings of religious subjects, such as the Tower of Babel (two versions, in Vienna and Siena) or the Adoration of the Magi in London, a greater solidity of composition emerges, especially in the representation of the landscape. In his last works, such as the Nuptial Dance in Detroit, the Parable of the Blind (Naples, Galleria di Capodimonte), the Peasant Wedding in Pommersfelden, and the Land of Cockaigne, he displays great freedom and stylistic originality. Here his brushwork grows broader and livelier with a surprising use of foreshortening and results of extraordinary narrative vivacity, which make Bruegel one of the great painters of the late Flemish Renaissance.
[395]
French painter.
Painter of women was the epithet given to Alexandre Cabanel, one of the best-known of l'art pompier artists. Born in Montpellier in 1823, Cabanel entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1840. His painting of ChristÆs Agony in the Garden, fruit of the academic teaching he had received, shows that the artist was influenced by the religious mysticism of many contemporary painters in his early years. Subsequently, a fundamental visit to Italy induced him to study Mannerism: under this influence Cabanel painted various pictures of tragic heroines, such as Albayde and Chiaruccia, now in the Montpellier Museum. Returning to France, Cabanel received public commissions of considerable prestige, such as the decoration of the H⌠tel de Ville and the Cabinet des Dessins in the Louvre, where his representation of the Triumph of Flora can still be seen. CabanelÆs painting is a harmonious blend of the distinct and polished drawing of Ingres with the coloring of rococo painting. His artistic talents earned him the Legion of Honor and the post of professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he taught from 1863 onward, exercising a decisive influence over the next generation of painters. His reputation as a portraitist spread beyond the borders of France: in 1867 Ludwig II of Bavaria commissioned from him the painting entitled Paradise Lost, now in the Pinakothek in Munich. While he developed a style dominated by academic virtuosity, his output also included a number of intensely sentimental works, such as the Death of Paolo and Francesca, painted in 1870 and now in the MusΘe dÆOrsay.
[396]
French painter.
Discovered by Monet, Caillebotte was officially invited to join the group of Impressionists after the success of his painting, Floor-Scrapers. Between 1876 and 1882 he took part in several of the groupÆs exhibitions. His early training in the realist mold was to remain with him throughout his career, overlaid by the vivid sense of color and light he learned from the Impressionists. This brilliant and sensitive artistÆs favorite themes were linked to the life of the working class, more for the elements of movement and dynamism that it offered than out of any commitment to social change.
On his death, he left his entire collection of Impressionist works to the State, but it was only accepted in part after years of argument, a mark of the gulf that still separated official art and new art at the time. The paintings were not put on show at the Louvre until 1928.
[397]
Italian painter.
He served an apprenticeship as a scene-painter under the guidance of his father, but soon decided to devote himself to the painting of pictures. He started by creating imaginary landscapes with classical ruins and then went on to paint more realistic views (along the lines of Carlevarijs and van Wittel) which proved successful both in Italy and abroad. His early views like the Grand Canal Looking toward Rialto and the Rio dei Mendicanti (Milan, Crespi Collection), the Campo dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo (Dresden, GemΣldegalerie), and the Church of the Caritα from the StonemasonÆs Yard at San Vitale (London, National Gallery) are characterized by strong contrasts of light and shade and a skillful handling of perspective derived from his training as a scene-painter. Canaletto placed more and more emphasis on the effects of natural light and weather conditions, creating broad and crystal-clear scenes bathed in an intense and diffuse luminosity, as in his representations of the Grand Canal, the Venetian campi, and places on the Venetian mainland or along the river Brenta. For the illustrious English collector Joseph Smith, the British consul in Venice, he executed six large views of Piazza San Marco and the Piazzetta (1727-28, Windsor Castle) and twelve small views of the Grand Canal (1729-34, Windsor Castle), as well as a collection of thirty-one etchings with views of the lagoon, the banks of the Brenta, and Padua, engraved around 1740. In 1746 Canaletto moved to London, where he painted numerous views, especially of the Thames and the English countryside, including The Thames and Whitehall from the Terrace of Richmond House (Goodwood, Duke of Richmond Collection), Badminton House (Duke of Beaufort Collection), Wannin Castle (Earl of Warwick Collection), and Northumberland House.
[398]
Italian sculptor and painter.
Considered the greatest exponent of neoclassical sculpture, Antonio Canova was trained in Venice, where he executed his first works. These works still show the influence of Gianlorenzo Bernini. However, with the group of Daedalus and Icarus (1777-79, Venice, Museo Correr), he began to develop his own approach to composition. Moving to Rome where he spent most of his career, he studied classical antiquity and came into contact with artists who followed the neoclassical precepts of Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Inspired by classical models, the success of his Theseus Triumphing over the Minotaur (1781-83, London, Victoria and Albert Museum) earned him the important official commissions for the tombs of Clement XIV (1783-87, Rome, Santi Apostoli) and Clement XIII (1784-92, Rome, St. PeterÆs). The sculptor revolutionized the typology of the sepulchral monument in the mausoleum of Maria Christina (1798-1805, Vienna, Augustinerkirche) with its procession of mourners heading toward the dark door of the great pyramid. Yet the works by Canova that were most admired by his contemporaries were the mythological groups and figures with their refined elegance and extreme perfection of form, such as Cupid and Psyche (1787-93, Paris, Louvre), Venus and Adonis (1789-94, Geneva, Maison/Villa La Grange), Hebe (1796-99, Berlin, Staatliche Museen), the Italic Venus (1804-11, Florence, Palazzo Pitti), and The Three Graces (St. Petersburg, Hermitage). The Napoleonic era marked the peak of CanovaÆs international fame. He carved naked figures of Napoleon Bonaparte as Peacemaking Mars (1803-06, London, Aspley House) and his sister Pauline Bonaparte Borghese as Victorious Venus (1804-08, Rome, Galleria Borghese). Appointed Inspector of Antiquities and Fine Arts and Curator of the Vatican Museums by Pope Pius VII in 1802, Canova was sent on a diplomatic mission to Paris in 1815, where he negotiated the return of the works of art ceded to France following the treaty of Tolentino. In the same year he went to London, where he was able to admire PhidiasÆs marbles from the Parthenon and received a commission from the future King George IV of England for the group of Venus and Mars (1816-22, London, Buckingham Palace). A doleful piety pervades CanovaÆs rare representations of religious subjects, such as the large canvas depicting the Mourning of Christ (1821), set on the altar of the neoclassical temple in Possagno, which became the sculptorÆs mausoleum in 1830.
[399]
Italian painter.
After serving an apprenticeship with the Bergamask painter Simone Peterzano in Milan, Caravaggio moved to Rome around 1593. Here he began to work in the studio of Cavalier dÆArpino, where he painted pictures of flowers and fruit in addition to a number of genre scenes with figures of adolescents, like the Boy with a Basket of Fruit (1593, Rome, Galleria Borghese) or the Boy Bitten by a Green Lizard (1593, Florence, Uffizi). The following year he entered the service of his first powerful Roman patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, who commissioned from him the decoration of the alchemistÆs study in his residence (Casino Ludovisi) and a number of paintings, including the Concert of Youths (New York, Metropolitan Museum), Fortune Teller (Rome, Musei Capitolini), Lute Player (St. Petersburg, Hermitage), Medusa and, probably, Bacchus (Florence, Uffizi), and Basket of Fruit (Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana) between 1594 and 1599. Through his patron, Caravaggio came into contact with prestigious and illustrious Roman families who commissioned other important paintings from him, such as the Victorious Cupid (Berlin) and Supper at Emmaus (London, National Gallery and Milan, Brera). Between 1599 and 1600 he received two public commissions of great significanceûthe cycle of canvases for the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi (1599-1601) and a similar cycle for the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo (1600-01). In these mature works Caravaggio achieved a lucid and accurate representation of nature in monumental scenes modeled and defined by means of a strong chiaroscuro. Among the works he produced during his stay in Rome it is worth mentioning the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphili) which shows the influence of the Lombard-Venetian culture where Caravaggio received his training, the Deposition (ca. 1603, Rome, Vatican Galleries), the Madonna della Serpe (Rome, Galleria Borghese), and The Death of the Virgin (ca. 1605, Paris, Louvre). After killing a man in a brawl, he was forced to flee from Rome and went to Naples in 1607. Here he painted numerous pictures, including the Seven Works of Mercy (church of the Pio Monte della Misericordia) and the Madonna del Rosario (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). In 1608 he moved to Malta, but after painting Saint Jerome, the Decollation of Saint John the Baptist (La Valletta, Cathedral), and Cupid Sleeping (Florence, Uffizi), fled once again after a fight with a Knight Justiciary of the Order of St. John. He was overtaken and assaulted by emissaries of the Order in Naples. Hoping to receive a pardon from the pope, he decided to return to Rome and took a ship to Porto Ercole. On landing, he was arrested by mistake. Released two days later in a delirious state, he died on the beach on July 18, 1610.
[400]
French painter.
The son of a banker, he studied at the CollΦge Bourbon in Aix-en-Provence, where he became friendly with the writer Emile Zola. Developing an interest in painting at the university, he went to Paris in 1861, where he attended the AcadΘmie Suisse and studied the works of Diego Velßzquez, Caravaggio, and the Venetian and Dutch painters at the Louvre. From 1862 to 1869 he divided his time between Aix and Paris. In the French capital he saw the work of EugΦne Delacroix and Gustave Courbet, visited the Salon des RefusΘs in 1864, and took part in the meetings at the CafΘ Guerbois, where he met the painter Camille Pissarro, who greatly influenced his work. His pictures were systematically rejected at the official Salons in Paris. In 1866, embittered by the attitude of the critics, he wrote a letter to the Superintendent of Fine Arts expressing his violent disagreement with official artistic culture. In 1872-73 he went to stay with Pissarro at Auvers-sur-Oise. Here his fellow artist persuaded him to abandon the literary and dramatic themes of his early period and devote himself to painting in the open air. CΘzanne began to study the landscape, dropping the dark tones of his previous works (The House of the Hanged Man, 1873, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). At the urging of Pissarro, the painter took part in the first exhibition of Impressionist painters in 1874.
In 1878 he went to LÆEstaque, a village at the end of the gulf of Marseilles, where he led an increasingly isolated existence and continued to send pictures to the Paris Salons, which unfailingly rejected them. In 1886, following the publication of ZolaÆs book The Work, in which the character of the failed painter Claude Lautier was based on CΘzanne, he broke off relations with the writer.
Though still little known, his work influenced a number of post-Impressionist painters like Emile Bernard, Paul SΘrusier, Maurice Denis, and the other artists of the Nabis group. Interest in his work began to emerge at the Salon des IndΘpendents in 1899. In 1904 the Salon dÆAutomne set aside an entire room for his work and in 1907 a major retrospective was staged that put the final seal on his reputation.
The structural concreteness of Courbet and the coloring of Delacroix played an important role in the formation of CΘzanne, and just as great an influence was exercised by HonorΘ Daumier, who synthesized the artistic qualities of the other two great masters. These influences are evident in his early paintings, such as the Autopsy (1867-69, Lecomte Collection); The Luncheon on the Grass (1870-71, private collection); and the Temptations of Saint Anthony (ca. 1870, private collection). His portraits and still lifes were more restrained, but still had great vigor and intensity (Still Life with Teapot, 1869, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; Portrait of Antoine ValabrΦgue, ca. 1871, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum; The Black Clock, 1869-70, Paris, private collection). In the works following his meeting with Pissarro, characterized by pale tones and a rigorous compositional structure, the distance between CΘzanne and the Impressionist painters is already clear. CΘzanne claimed that he wanted to ôsolidifyö Impressionism, aiming at a synthesis of greatly simplified form and using color to construct forms by bringing out their volume. The formal and structural control of his representation of nature grew increasingly strict during the period in Aix from 1883 to 1887. In those years CΘzanne tenaciously pursued a mental order that could be expressed in firm pictorial forms modeled by color. It is no accident that the artist returned incessantly to the same subjects û views of LÆEstaque (Chicago, Art Institute; Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay), the Black Castle (Washington, National Gallery), and the Mont Sainte-Victoire (Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; Zurich, Kunsthaus). His intention was to move away from the actual appearance of nature and represent it ôthrough the cylinder and the sphere.ö
In the beginning of 1890 he painted a series of magnificent still lifes (Paris, Basel, New York, Zurich), portraits of his wife, and several versions of the Card Players (Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; London, Courtauld Institute; New York, Metropolitan Museum). In the final period of his prolific career he painted many pictures of Bathers. Already tackled in 1885-87 (Basel, Kunstmuseum), the subject was now depicted on a much larger scale and with increasing abstraction.
CΘzanneÆs work was of fundamental importance to subsequent developments in modern painting. The Cubists considered him a precursor of their movement, but his influence extended far beyond Cubism. In fact he was the first to assign a new function to painting û that of constructing its own reality, based on laws independent of natural or emotional factors, a principle that lies behind all the developments in modern painting.
[401]
French painter.
Born in Paris in 1699, he attended the Academy of St. Luke, where he was awarded a professional degree. The works he painted in the early years of his career were mostly still lifes, a genre on which the artist happened almost by chance, having decided to paint the game which he had been given.
In 1728 he was admitted to the AcadΘmie Royale de Peinture as a ôpainter of animals and fruitö on the strength of The Skate and the Buffet (Paris, Louvre), which show the interest in representing reality that was to characterize the whole of his work. In 1733, with the Woman Sealing a Letter (Berlin, Charlottenburg), he began a new phase in his career, painting scenes of interiors with figures and portraits that gained him the favor of Louis XV. Chardin looked back to the models of Dutch seventeenth-century art and the French paintings of the Le Nain brothers. He imparted an atmosphere of particular tenderness and warmth to the life of the bourgeoisie, especially in his pictures of children (Child with Spinning Top, Berlin, Charlottenburg), displaying a moral attitude molded by the Enlightenment. In 1738 the artist made his first engraving, after the picture of the Woman Sealing a Letter. Through this artistic genre ChardinÆs fame spread all over Europe, earning him foreign commissions from such people as Louise Ulrica of Sweden, the sister of Frederick of Prussia. At the Salon of 1740 Chardin exhibited the paintings entitled Saying Grace and the Diligent Mother (Paris, Louvre). In 1748 he painted the Still Life in the Frankfurt Museum, which marks the artistÆs return to the genre. The prestige that Chardin had gained in the meantime led to him being given important official posts within the Academy. The painter died in 1779 in the apartment that he had been assigned in the Louvre.
[402]
Dutch painter of German birth.
In 1617 he moved to Haarlem, where he painted numerous still lifes representing laid tables: in them the food and objects were arranged apparently at random, but in reality on the basis of compositional schemes of rigorous simplicity.
[403]
English painter.
The son of a miller, he was raised in Suffolk on the banks of the river Stour, where he was born and spent most of his life. In 1799 he went to London to attend courses at the Royal Academy, making a particularly keen study of classical landscape painters like Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin, as well as the seventeenth-century Dutch artists and, among British painters, Richard Wilson and Thomas Gainsborough. In 1820, spurred on by his desire to break with the classical tradition and develop a new approach to landscape painting, he returned to his native village to paint nature from life with the aim of representing it as objectively as possible. By doing this Constable took a decisive step toward a naturalistic depiction of the landscape, which would be taken further with the artists of the Barbizon School a few decades later.
From this moment on Constable devoted himself assiduously to painting the English countryside, representing it as it appeared under different conditions of weather and light. In 1804 he started to paint in watercolor as well as oil, obtaining effects of great naturalness in his rendering of atmospheric phenomena. In 1806 he went back to Suffolk, carrying on his intense activity of painting from life and making vain attempts to get his work recognized by the Royal Academy in London. He often painted pictures of the same places, returning to a subject after many years. He produced numerous views of Hampstead Heath and Salisbury Cathedral (Salisbury Cathedral, 1820, London, National Gallery). His native Suffolk was a particularly fertile source of inspiration to which some of his best paintings are devoted û Flatford Mill (1817, Tate Gallery), The Haywain (1821, London, National Gallery), Jumping Horse (1825, London, Royal Academy), or Dedham Vale (1802, London, Victoria and Albert Museum, replicated in 1828, Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland). These pictures were almost always the fruit of a long process of preparation, starting out with small sketches and moving on to full-scale ones before the careful execution of the painting itself. Between 1821 and 1822 he made a series of studies of clouds, noting the time and date of execution and, sometimes, the weather and wind conditions on the back of each. In 1828 Constable was at last admitted to the Royal Academy, but the death of his wife in the same year cast him into a state of deep depression from which he never fully recovered. The crisis he went through in the last years of his life is reflected in the dark tones of the works from that period (The Valley Farm, 1835, London, Tate Gallery). From 1833 onward Constable taught at the Royal Academy: the texts of the lectures he gave on the history of landscape painting are an invaluable aid to an understanding of his conception of the genre.
Unlike that of Joseph Mallord William Turner, ConstableÆs work encountered resistance and perplexity in Britain. In France, however, it exercised a profound influence on EugΦne Delacroix and other Romantic artists, inducing them to paint in a freer manner, and was a fundamental point of reference for the painters of the Barbizon School.
[404]
Italian painter.
Apart from a brief period in Parma, Correggio spent the whole of his life in his native city. Art historians have hypothesized, however, that he made a number of journeys in order to explain the extraordinary course taken by the development of his style. He received his first important commission in 1514, the Madonna of San Francesco for the Franciscans of Correggio (now in Dresden, GemΣldegalerie). In this early work, the painter produced a synthesis between the classicism proposed by Andrea Mantegna in Mantua and the new developments in Veneto and Emilia. A journey to Rome, made around 1518, would explain his familiarity with RaphaelÆs painting. CorreggioÆs reflection on the principal artistic currents of the early sixteenth century in Italy found definitive expression in the decoration of the chamber of the Abbess Giovanna Piacenza in the convent of San Paolo at Parma (1519). Here, Correggio painted a pergola of flowers that arches above monochrome lunettes. In 1520 he commenced the frescoed decoration of the dome of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma, surpassing the examples he had seen in Rome through the elimination of any architectural support. Correggio gave a second extraordinary demonstration of his mastery of these illusory effects in the Assumption of the Virgin painted on the ceiling of the central dome of Parma Cathedral. The representation is based on a mock marble parapet and expands into a swirl of foreshortened bodies, set amidst concentric circles of clouds. The monumental fresco was executed between 1526 and 1530 and in the same years Correggio painted the Madonna and Child with Saints (Parma, Galleria Nazionale). This is almost contemporary with the suggestive night piece of the Adoration of the Shepherds in Dresden. The most important undertaking of CorreggioÆs last years was the series of canvases depicting the Loves of Jupiter commissioned by the duke of Mantua as a gift for Emperor Charles V. In these paintings the artist brings a language based on a canon of purity to a maturity that was to set an example for the whole of the sixteenth century, and even influence baroque painting.
[405]
French painter.
Born to a family of well-to-do farmers at Ornans, a town in Franche-ComtΘ, he moved to Paris in 1839 to devote himself to painting. In keeping with his revolutionary ideas, Courbet participated in the Paris Commune (1870) and was elected delegate for the Fine Arts. Arrested after the fall of the Commune and falsely accused of having taken part in the demolition of the Vend⌠me Column, he was sentenced to pay over 300,000 francs for its restoration. Faced with ruin, he fled to Switzerland in 1873, settling at La Tour de Seilz near Vevey. He died there in 1877, a month after all his works had been auctioned off by the French government. Rather than his attendance at the AcadΘmie Suisse in Paris as a young man, the crucial influence on his development as an artist came from his careful study of the masterpieces of the Flemish, Venetian, and Dutch painting of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which he copied at the Louvre. In 1847 a journey to the Low Countries reinforced his admiration for the great seventeenth-century Dutch masters, Rembrandt and Frans Hals. After his first controversial appearances at the Salons around 1845 with works of Romantic inspiration (Self-portrait with Black Dog, 1842, Paris, Petit Palais), the decisive moment for his adherence to Realism came between 1848 and 1857. One of the factors that contributed to this choice was the revolution of February 1848, without which, as the artist himself later declared, ôperhaps my painting would never have been seen.ö The first works in which the artist gave expression to his new realistic vision (After Dinner at Ornans, Lille Museum, and Burial at Ornans, Paris, Louvre, painted between 1848 and 1850) are on such a huge scale that the figures are life size, giving them the same suggestive power as the ones in RembrandtÆs Nightwatch. In these pictures, Courbet represented peasants and burghers of his hometown in a manner that transformed what then would have been considered a genre scene into a historical painting, scandalizing his contemporaries. Another characteristic of these works, distinguishing them from the artistÆs later style of painting, is the sharp-edged clarity of the figures, free of any hint of romanticism or academicism. The Painter in his Studio, (1855, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay), is an example of this. The same realistic clarity characterized the Stonebreakers (1849, formerly in the Dresden Museum, now destroyed), in which he depicted the grueling labor of two stonebreakers without the sentimental intonation of Jean-Franτois Millet. This realistic intent is also to be found in his numerous portraits of women, which have a sensual and exuberant physicality. An example of this is the painting Young Women by the Seine (Paris, Petit Palais), which caused a scandal at the Paris Salon of 1857 and foreshadowed the painting en plein air of the Impressionists.
[406]
German painter and engraver.
He left his fatherÆs workshop in 1498 and went to Vienna, where he painted a number of portraits of Humanists, in the form of diptychs linked by the landscape. Even his religious paintings of this period (Crucifixion, 1503, Munich, Alte Pinakothek) have fairy-tale scenery, anticipating the manner of the so-called Danube School. Summoned to Wittenberg in 1505, he remained there for the rest of his life as artist to the prince-electors of Saxony, for whom he painted Madonnas and other pictures of sacred subjects with dignified and measured forms (Martyrdom of Saint Catherine, 1506, Dresden, GemΣldegalerie). He also painted delicate pictures of profane subjects, in particular nudes of suggestive and sensual grace (Venus and Cupid, Rome, Galleria Borghese). The founder of a large workshop, he placed himself at the service of the ideas of the Reformation, painting numerous portraits of Luther and the Protestant princes (Luther and his Wife Katherine von Bora, Florence, Uffizi) and sacred pictures with a Lutheran message (Altar of the Last Supper, Wittenberg, cathedral). He also decorated the hunting lodges of Coburg, Lochau, and Torgau with scenes in a fictitious and archaic style. His many engravings of biblical and profane themes are also of great importance.
[407]
British painter and illustrator.
Initially Dadd worked as a genre painter. Confined to Bedlam asylum after murdering his father in 1843, he went on painting strange and disquieting works for the remaining forty years of his life.
[408]
French painter.
Jacques-Louis David was one of the main protagonists of European neoclassicism and the master for a series of young pupils, including Franτois GΘrard, Antoine-Jean Gros, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. During his early period in Paris, he painted pictures of mythological and historical subjects. His stay in Rome from 1775 to 1780 was decisive. While there he studied Renaissance and seventeenth-century classicism, and, above all, ancient sculpture, and was influenced by the new neoclassical theories of Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Anton Raphael Mengs. Back in France, he devoted himself to representations of episodes from classical history and legend presented as examples of virtues, as in The Grief of Andromache, (1783, Paris, Ecole des Beaux-Arts). The civil and political implications of DavidÆs classicism were demonstrated in the large picture that established his reputation, painted during a later visit to Rome from 1784 to 1785 û The Oath of the Horatii (1784, Paris, Louvre). David played an active part in the Revolution, devoting numerous works, often of an intensely dramatic character, to events and figures of the time û The Palm Court Oath (1790-91, drawing and sketch for the never completed painting at Versailles), or Marat Assassinated (1793, Brussels, MusΘes Royaux des Beaux-Arts). The Sabine Women (1799, Paris, Louvre) was painted after his imprisonment following the fall of Robespierre. Fascinated by the figure of Napoleon, he became his official painter and produced a series of extraordinary portraits of the emperor, like Napoleon Crossing the Alps, (1800, Malmaison, MusΘe National du ChΓteau), as well as the enormous painting celebrating the Coronation of Napoleon I (1805-07, Paris, Louvre). In his very fine portraits, such as the one of Madame RΘcamier (ca. 1800, Paris, Louvre), David reveals a great capacity for psychological insight. With the Restoration, the painter went into exile in Brussels, where he returned to the mythological and historical subjects of his youth, as with Mars, Venus, and the Graces (1824, Brussels, MusΘes Royaux des Beaux-Arts).
[409]
Dutch painter.
His early works are genre scenes of a fairly traditional character. Later his style changed, with the anecdotal narratives of previous years giving way to limpid views of bourgeois interiors.
[410]
Italian painter.
Barbari was born and trained in Venice. It was there that he came to know Dⁿrer in 1494 and 1495. He met him again in Nuremberg in 1500, when he was summoned to the city by Emperor Maximilian. This was also the year in which he completed a woodcut reproducing a view of Venice, his earliest dated work. The Young WomanÆs Elderly Lover (Museum of Art, Philadelphia) is signed and dated 1503 and Still Life Hanging on the Wall (Alte Pinakothek, Munich) was painted the following year. He executed portraits and engravings for Emperor Maximilian, but the frescoes he painted in Wittenberg Castle have been lost. He died in 1516. The forms and ideas of the Italian Renaissance entered German culture thanks to Barbari.
[411]
French painter and sculptor.
The son of a banker, he received a regular classical education at the lycΘe. By 1853, however, he was already showing an interest in painting, making copies of drawings and paintings in the Louvre. In 1855 he entered the studio of the painter Lamothe, a follower of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and then enrolled in the ╔cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His earliest works are self-portraits or family portraits. In 1859-60 Degas visited Italy, where he discovered the painting of such great masters of the Renaissance as Luca Signorelli, Botticelli, and Raphael. Back in Paris, he painted various pictures of historical subjects and a series of remarkable portraits of friends and families, which still show the influence of Ingres (The Belleli Family, 1860-62 and Head of a Young Woman, 1867, both in Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). During this period the artist began to frequent the cafΘs, coming into contact with nonacademic painters like Edouard Manet. He also discovered Japanese prints and photography, which induced him to experiment with new forms and compositions. Abandoning traditional subjects, Degas devoted himself to scenes of contemporary life. The horse races (At the Races, 1869-72, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay), opera, and ballet are some of the most recurrent themes in the artistÆs work. Above all he liked to paint ballerinas, portrayed in their dressing rooms or during exercises (The Dancing Lesson, 1873-76, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay) with the aim of catching a fleeting movement as if in a snapshot. Another subject of which the artist was very fond was the female nude, represented without any idealization or sensuality in the midst of such intimate and everyday acts as bathing (Woman Combing her Hair from the Back, 1865, St. Petersburg, Hermitage; Woman Sponging Herself in the Tub, or Le tub, 1886, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). As well as nudes and dancers, Degas painted washerwomen (Women Ironing, 1884, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay) and milliners. Absinthe Drinker (Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay), one of DegasÆs most celebrated and fiercely criticized works, dates from 1876. In 1874 the artist showed his work at the first Impressionist exhibition, held in the studio of the photographer Nadar in Paris. In spite of his participation in the Impressionist exhibitions, Degas did not share the aims of the new group of painters, preferring, like Manet, the human figure to the landscape and more interested in the representation of movement than in the study of changes in atmosphere and light. An indefatigable experimenter with different means of expression, Degas devoted himself to oil painting, pastel, sculpture, and engraving. The most frequent subjects of his sculptures are female nudes at their toilette and ballerinas. One of the most famous is the Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (Fourteen-year-old Dancer, 1880, New York, Metropolitan Museum). During the closing years of his career he produced a series of monotypes of valleys and meadows, inspired by landscapes he had seen on a visit to Burgundy (circa 1890). His last pastels depicting women at their toilette are characterized by bright and unnatural colors. His work had a profound influence on his contemporaries, especially Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec who shared the same taste for subjects and drawing.
[412]
French painter.
Born to a bourgeois family, he had to overcome his fatherÆs resistance in order to devote himself to painting. He studied at the AcadΘmie CarriΦre where he met Matisse and Vlaminck. Initially working in the style of the Fauves, on the eve of the First World War the influence of the French primitives and African sculpture led him to move in a new direction, adopting a dry and monumental archaism. In the postwar years, his rejection of Dadaism and Surrealism caused him to shift to a realistic style, mediated by ancient Roman art, Caravaggio and Courbet, yet conducting research that in some ways parallels that of the Italian painters of the Novecento movement.
[413]
Italian painter.
In Florence he was enthralled by the art of Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, and Ghiberti. In 1439 he frescoed Scenes from the Life of the Virgin in the chancel of the church of SantÆEgidio, with the assistance of the young Piero della Francesca and Bicci di Lorenzo. The tondo of the Adoration of the Magi (Berlin, Staatliche Museen) is an earlier, but already mature work in which the restraint and solid structure of Tuscan painting is blended with late Gothic iconographic motifs. His altarpiece for the church of Santa Lucia dei Magnoli (1445-48) depicting the Madonna and Child with Saints Lucy, John the Baptist, and Zenobius (Florence, Uffizi) has a calm solemnity and symmetrical composition.
[414]
Dutch painter.
He was a pupil of Rembrandt. He initiated the long tradition of the school of Leiden, which was known for its small-scale paintings, precise in their details and refined in their technique. He devoted himself chiefly to the production of portraits, still lifes, and genre and religious scenes.
[415]
German painter.
The son of a goldsmith, Albrecht Dⁿrer served his first apprenticeship in his fatherÆs workshop, where he learned how to use the burin or graving tool. From 1486 to 1490 he was employed in the workshop of Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, which specialized in the production of woodcuts. A first visit to Venice and Northern Italy between 1494 and 1495 allowed him to deepen his understanding of classical and Renaissance art, in particular that of Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini. This inspired him to produce works in a clearly Italian manner on his return home, such as the triptych for the elector of Saxony (Dresden, GemΣldegalerie) and the Madonna in Washington (National Gallery). The artist opened his own workshop at Nuremberg in 1495, achieving considerable fame with the series of woodcuts dedicated to the Apocalypse (1498) and shortly afterward the Great Passion. The influence of the great engraver Martin Schongauer is clearly visible in these works. Over this period Dⁿrer painted a series of portraits and Self-portraits in which he showed a proud awareness of his own standing as an artist û portraits from 1493 (Paris, Louvre), 1498 (Madrid, Prado), and 1500 (Munich, Alte Pinakothek). The interest in the problems of representation in space that he had developed in Italy found expression chiefly in paintings of religious subjects such as the Paumgartner Triptych and the Adoration of the Magi in Florence (Uffizi), although still handled in a typically Northern European manner. In 1505 and 1506 the artist was in Venice again, where he received the prestigious commission for the Madonna of the Rose Garlands, intended for the church of San Bartolomeo and ordered by the community of German merchants in Venice (now in the Prague Picture Gallery). After his return to Nuremberg, he painted works that were still influenced by Italian art, making extensive use of sfumato in the landscape, such as the altarpiece of the Ten Thousand Saints or the Adoration of the Trinity (both in Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). During the same period he produced celebrated engravings of allegorical significance û the Knight, Death, and the Devil, and Melencolia I. In 1512 he entered the service of Emperor Maximilian I, for whom he painted two portraits (now in Vienna and Nuremberg). After the death of the emperor, Dⁿrer made a journey to the Netherlands to obtain a ratification of his post from Charles V and came into direct contact with contemporary Flemish painting, coming under the influence of Lucas van Leyden in particular. On his death, the artist bequeathed to his native city the monumental Four Apostles of 1526 (Munich, Alte Pinakothek), which represents the peak of his stylistic evolution and a testimony to his deep religious feelings. His art is a happy fusion of the Northern European element, with its great meticulousness and imagination, and the color and forms typical of Italian painting.
[416]
French painter and printmaker.
First taught by his father, Fantin-Latour went on to study with Lecoq de Boisbaudran. Acquainted with the best-known painters, writers and musicians of the time, he painted many group portraits of them, like Corner of a Table (1872) and Around the Piano (1876), which are among his finest works. He was an admirer of Manet, to whom he paid explicit homage in A Studio at Batignolles (1870). He was not a member of the Impressionist group, although he shared their rejection of official painting. He remained faithful to his lyrical realism and insisted on the constructive character of the composition. His main interest was in the handling of paint, modeled after such great masters as Veronese and Rembrandt. He also produced many still lifes with flowers, demonstrating that he was a precise observer of reality.
[417]
German painter.
His art was decisively influenced by the years he spent in Antwerp (1850-51), where he was particularly drawn to Rubens and van Dyck, and in Paris, where he studied the work of Courbet and Couture. After a stay in Venice, he moved to Rome, where he remained until 1873. During this period he painted evocative portraits of women inspired by the ancient world (Iphigenia, 1871, Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie) and the Renaissance (Lucrezia Borgia, Frankfurt, StΣdelsches Kunstinstitut).
[418]
French painter.
He had a deep knowledge of figurative culture. With unbounded faith in painting as a medium, he developed a virtuosity that was also a limitation. After 1760 he devoted himself to lively and racy scenes of surprising modernity, intended for the bourgeoisie and nobility, in which the erotic component is translated into pictorial sensuality.
[419]
Swiss-born British painter and art critic.
In 1763 he moved to London, where Reynolds encouraged him to take up painting. During a long stay in Italy (1770-78) he studied classical antiquity ôwith dismayö, interpreted in The ArtistÆs Despair before the Grandeur of Ancient Ruins (1778-80, Zurich, Kunsthaus) and was entranced by the art of Michelangelo. Back in England, he pursued a prolific career in the fields of literature and painting, based on a pre-Romantic, visionary, and hallucinatory inspiration that influenced Blake and British Romantic culture.
[420]
English painter.
Thomas Gainsborough, the son of a well-to-do cloth merchant, was born at Sudbury (Suffolk) in 1727. The familyÆs relative prosperity allowed him to pursue the artistic bent that he had shown ever since his childhood, so that, at the age of thirteen, he went to study in London where he remained until 1748, assimilating the fashionable tendencies of the day. His early works are chiefly landscapes, inspired by his study of seventeenth-century Dutch painters (Cornard Wood, 1748, London, National Gallery). It was the revival of the Flemish style of the seventeenth century and the charming French rococo of Fragonard and Watteau that took him away from his beloved landscape and made him take up portraiture, a genre that he cultivated with great success and which was far more remunerative. One of the artistÆs best-known portraits, the painting of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Andrews (London, National Gallery), dates from the period he spent in Ipswich, the town where the painter had settled in the middle of the century. In 1759 Gainsborough moved to Bath, a famous watering place, where it was easier to meet rich and ôfashionableö clients. It was at this time that he started to paint life-size portraits of aristocrats and wealthy members of the gentry, in a rich and warm palette derived from Van Dyck. His fame grew rapidly and gained him ever closer ties with London society, so that by 1774 Gainsborough had gone to live in the capital, where his works were shown at the Royal Academy. Among the portraits he painted in those years, it is worth mentioning the one of Ann Ford (Cincinnati, Museum of Art), and those of her daughters (London, National Gallery), refined and aristocratic works. The portraits he painted for the royal family made him the only true rival to the celebrated artist Joshua Reynolds. However, the painterÆs interest in the landscape remained strong, and Gainsborough introduced it in idealized form as a backdrop to many of his portraits. In 1784, a disagreement with the Academy led him to withdraw all his works from that institution. From then on, and until his death in 1788, he only held private shows in his residence on Pall Mall, Schomberg House.
[421]
French painter and sculptor.
He spent his early childhood at Lima, in Peru. Back in France, he studied in OrlΘans and Paris and in 1865 enrolled as a cadet in the navy. Returning to Paris after five years at sea, he took a job as a stockbroker and began to paint and sculpt in his spare time. He came into contact with the Impressionist painters, making friends with Camille Pissarro and exhibiting with the group between 1879 and 1886. In 1883 he gave up his job to devote all his time to painting. The following years were marked by severe economic hardship which led to him separating from his family and leaving Paris. In 1885 he went to Pont-Aven for the first time, where he met Emile Bernard and Laval. In 1887 he accompanied the latter to Martinique. The following year he was back in Pont-Aven and made a visit to Arles, where his friendship with Vincent van Gogh was brought to a dramatic end. In these years, crucial for the evolution of his approach to art, Gauguin abandoned Impressionism and developed a new non-naturalistic and Symbolist style, Synthetism. The work that marked the establishment of this new style was the Vision after the Sermon, painted in 1888 (Edinburgh, National Gallery). A fundamental role in the development of Synthetism was played by the revival of primitive Breton art, the study of Japanese prints, and the investigation of the symbolic value of color carried out by Gauguin and his friends Bernard and Anquetin. The unprecedented formal solutions worked out by Gauguin were to have a decisive influence on subsequent developments in Symbolism, of which the artist is considered one of the founders.
During the period he spent in Brittany, first at Pont-Aven and then from 1890 on at Le Pouldu, the artist portrayed local people (At the CafΘ. Madame Ginoux, 1888, Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts; La belle angΦle, 1889, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay) and painted a series of pictures of a distinctly mystical character (Yellow Christ, 1889, Buffalo, New York, Albright-Knox Art Gallery). Over the same period, Gauguin experimented with other techniques, such as woodcarving, which he used to re-create forms typical of primitive art (You are Mysterious, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). The so-called ôschool of Pont-Avenö formed around Gauguin in Brittany and included Bernard, SΘguin, and SΘrusier, among others.
After a short stay in Paris, when he played a prominent role at literary meetings in the CafΘ Voltaire, the artist set off for Tahiti in 1891, in search of a pure and uncorrupted civilization. Enchanted by the beauty of the place and its people, he undertook an almost ethnological study of the natives and their customs, portraying the Polynesians in their everyday activities and recording his impressions in a number of journals (The Ancient Maori Cult, Noa Noa). Among the more celebrated works from his first stay in Tahiti, it is worth mentioning Women on the Beach (1891, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay), Te matete (Basel, Kunstmuseum), and Hail Mary (La Orana Maria, New York, Metropolitan Museum). Returning to Paris in 1893, he went through a period of deep crisis, marked by a growing rejection of Western civilization. During this time he painted a number of pictures inspired by his Tahitian experience (Mahana no Atua, Chicago, Art Institute) and a series of woodcarvings that have the magical fascination of the Polynesian idols. Back in Tahiti in 1895 and more and more alone, in debt, and depressed, he painted vast allegories of human destiny, such as Where do we come from, what are we, where are we going? (1897, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts), considered the artistÆs pictorial testament. The women of Tahiti remained one of his favorite subjects (Rupe Rupe, 1899, Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts; Two Tahitian Women, 1899 and Breasts with Red Flowers, both in New York, Metropolitan Museum).
[422]
Italian painter.
He spent his life wandering around the main centers of Central and Northern Italy, painting panels and frescoes for patrons of the highest rank. Not many of his works survive. The Coronation of the Virgin with Saints (early 15th century, Milan, Brera) and the Quaratesi Altarpiece (1425, split between London, Royal Collection, Florence, Uffizi, Rome, Vatican Art Gallery, and Washington, National Gallery) reveal his adherence to International Gothic, along with a full comprehension of the problems of volume and perspective. Other works include his Madonnas (Pisa, Museum Naz. and Washington, National Gallery) and the famous Adoration of the Magi, painted for the Palla Strozzi Chapel in FlorenceÆs Santa Trinita (signed and dated 1423, now in the Uffizi).
[423]
French painter and sculptor.
GΘr⌠me was born at Vesoul in 1824. Initiated into painting by his teacher Paul Delaroche, a journey to Italy in 1843 had a great influence on his development. The colors of the Mediterranean stirred his interest in the study of nature, which became the main source of inspiration in his work together with the archeological ideas he gained from a visit to Pompeii. A synthesis of these two elements can be found in the painting of the Combat of the Gauls, now in the Louvre, which attracted the publicÆs attention at the Salon of 1847. Defined as a Neo-Greek painter, GΘr⌠me continued to look to ancient art for inspiration, but also drew on more exotic sources, such as Muslim art and Egyptian culture: he went to Constantinople in 1853 and to Egypt in 1856.
Alongside the decoration of the palace of Prince Napoleon Bonaparte in a neo-Pompeian style, executed in 1858, GΘr⌠me began to paint pictures of historical and religious subjects in exotic settings, the earliest of which was the picture of Thebes now in the Nantes museum. There are also hints of the religious spirit that permeates the work of the followers of Ingres and that induced GΘr⌠me to seek inspiration in medieval art, as can be seen in the choice of a gold ground for his decoration of the chapel of St. JΘr⌠me in the Parisian church of St. Severin.
His studio, called the Boεte α ThΘ (ôTea Caddyö) and inaugurated in 1853, rapidly became a meeting place for artists and writers.
[424]
Italian painter, architect and art historian.
The scarcity of information about GiorgioneÆs life fostered the air of mystery in which his work was soon cloaked. He was probably a pupil of Giovanni Bellini and studied the works of Antonello da Messina. Another important contact was with Leonardo, when the Florentine artist went to Venice in 1500. The extraordinary novelty of his painting is evident in the altarpiece depicting the Madonna and Child with Saints Liberale and Francis in Castelfranco Cathedral, in which the solid framework of perspective opens onto a broad landscape. In 1508 Giorgione worked on the frescoes in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, along with the young Titian: among the few fragments to have survived is the one depicting a Nude Girl (Venice, Galleria dellÆAccademia). The Venetian man of letters Marcantonio Michiel, writing in the 1520s, recorded a series of works by the painter in the noble houses of Venice. Among them were some of GiorgioneÆs greatest masterpieces, including the Three Philosophers (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) and The Tempest (Venice, Galleria dell'Accademia). These works, with often ambiguous allegorical meanings, remind us that the artist frequented the principal intellectual circles of Venice. In the later stages of his career it becomes difficult to distinguish GiorgioneÆs work from that of Titian. Paintings of disputed attribution include the Sleeping Venus (Dresden, GemΣldegalerie), the Country Concert (Paris, Louvre), and the Madonna with Saint Anthony and Saint Rock (Madrid, Prado). Already regarded by his contemporaries as one of the greatest artists of his day, Giorgione is the finest exponent of a style of painting based on the use of color steeped in light, without any drawing.
[425]
Italian painter and architect.
Giotto is one of the greatest exponents of European Gothic and the man responsible for the renewal of Italian figurative art in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, together with the sculptors Nicola and Giovanni Pisano and Arnolfo di Cambio. This historic role was recognized by his contemporaries, from Dante to the fourteenth-century writer Cennino Cennini, who believed that Giotto ôtranslated the art of painting from Greek to Latin,ö taking it to the ômodern.ö By this he meant that Giotto abandoned Byzantine pictorial language (Greek) and created a new figurative culture (modern) whose roots lay in the Gothic language of the West (Latin).
A painter of great fame, he worked in many places in Italy, but only a very small part of his vast output has survived. His frescoes in Rome, Rimini, Bologna, Naples, and Milan are known to us either from written sources, or indirectly, through the influence they had on the local pictorial schools that emerged after his visit. Other works by Giotto are fragmentary or only attributable in part to the artist himself, and so the group of paintings that can be said without doubt to be his own work is indeed small.
GiottoÆs beginnings and youthful activity are obscure and the subject of dispute. He probably served his apprenticeship in CimabueÆs workshop. In the following years he may have gone to Rome and before 1290 he was in Assisi, where he had the opportunity to study the classical orientations of contemporary Roman painting, which had a significant influence on his development. The Scenes from the Life of Saint Francis painted in the upper basilica of Assisi are considered the most important example of his early work, while only part of the art world attributes some of the scenes from the Old and New Testament in the upper rows to Giotto. Several of the scenes in the St. Francis cycle are almost identical to the ones in the panel depicting the Stigmata of Saint Francis (Paris, Louvre), which comes from the church of San Francesco in Pisa and is signed ôOpus Iocti Florentini.ö
In the jubilee year of 1300 the artist was summoned to Rome by Boniface VIII. Unfortunately very few traces of GiottoÆs activity in Rome have survived, but his works made a deep impression on the cityÆs painters. By the early fourteenth century Giotto was already a wealthy artist and ran a large workshop in Florence. It is likely that, before being called to Rimini and Padua, he returned to the Tuscan city, where he painted a number of works including the Badia Polyptych (Florence, Uffizi) and the Madonna Enthroned in San Giorgio alla Costa. All that survives in Rimini is a beautiful Crucifix in the church of San Francesco, but his activity there led to the birth of an important local school of painting. From 1303 to 1305 he was in Padua, where he painted the frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel, considered his masterpiece and one of the most important works of Gothic painting in Europe.
By 1311 he was back in Florence. Two other masterpieces by Giotto were probably painted around this time: the Madonna in Glory for the church of Ognissanti (now in the Uffizi, Florence) and the Crucifix in Santa Maria Novella at Florence, which marks his abandonment of the accentuated pathos of the Byzantine tradition, still present in crucifixes by Cimabue (Crucifix in San Domenico, Arezzo).
The frescoes in the chapel of the Magdalen and in the transept of the lower basilica in Assisi, much of them painted by assistants, are dated to the first and second decade of the fourteenth century. Immediately after his second stay in Padua (1317), during which time he painted the Crucifix of the Scrovegni Chapel, Giotto started to fresco the Scenes from the Lives of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist in the Peruzzi Chapel in Santa Croce, at Florence. The Dormitio Virginis (Berlin-Dahlem, from the Florentine church of Ognissanti), which is almost entirely his own work, also belongs to this period. The frescoes depicting Scenes from the Life of Saint Francis in the Bardi Chapel in Santa Croce at Florence and again almost all by GiottoÆs own hand were painted no later than 1328. From 1328 to 1333 the Florentine artist worked with numerous collaborators at Naples, in the service of King Robert of Anjou, but almost nothing remains his work there. The signed polyptych in the Bologna Pinacoteca (only partly his own work) and the Baroncelli Polyptych in Santa Croce at Florence, much of which was probably painted by Taddeo Gaddi, must date from shortly afterward.
In 1334 Giotto was appointed supervisor of the construction of Florence Cathedral and commenced the building of the campanile, which was finished by others. In 1335 he was summoned to Milan, where he painted works that have now vanished, and he died in the palace of Azzone Visconti.
[426]
Spanish painter and engraver.
Francisco JosΘ de Goya y Lucientes got his training in Saragossa from the painter JosΘ Luzßn. In 1771, on his return from a journey to Italy, he received his first important commission for the frescoes in the church of Nuestra Se±ora del Pilar at Saragossa, which are still based on baroque models. In 1774 he moved to Madrid, where he was given the job of producing sketches for the Royal Tapestry Manufactory of Santa Barbara. Including The Parasol (1777, Madrid, Prado), the more than sixty paintings he produced for the manufactory over the course of eighteen years met with the favor of the court, and in 1789 he was appointed pintor de cßmara, or court painter, to King Charles IV. During the last two decades of the century he painted many portraits of members of high society, represented with disconcerning psychological penetration and in a brilliant range of colors. Examples of this include the Family of the Infante Don Luis (1783, Corte di Mamiano, Parma, Fondazione Magnani-Rocca), The Duke and Duchess of Osuna with their Children (1788, Madrid, Prado), Ferdinand Guillemardet (1798, Paris, Louvre), and La Tirana (1799, Madrid, Academia de San Fernando). After a serious illness in 1792, which deprived him of his hearing, Goya painted the extraordinary frescoes in the shrine of San Antonio de la Florida at Madrid (1798). At the same time, he devoted more and more of his energy to small pictures representing scenes of madness, fanaticism, and witchcraft. In the etchings of the Caprichos (1799) he made an imaginative attack on all kinds of superstition, wickedness, and oppression. Appointed principal painter to the king in 1799, Goya painted the celebrated Family of Charles IV (1800-01, Madrid, Prado) and several splendid portraits of women, like Do±a Isabel Cobos de Porcel (1806, London, National Gallery) and the Maja desnuda and Maja vestida (1803-06, Madrid, Prado). His etchings of the Disasters of War and the canvas representing The Execution of May 3, 1808 (1814, Madrid, Prado) dramatically evoke the struggle against NapoleonÆs troops and the martyrdom of the Spanish people, in a condemnation of all war and violence. During the years of the Restoration, the artist withdrew to his country house called the ôQuinta del sordo,ö near Manzanarre, where he painted the walls with the tragic and obsessive images of his ôblack paintingsö (now in Madrid, Prado), a reflection of the visions of an anguished mind. In 1824 he moved to Bordeaux, where he painted the delicate Milkmaid of Bordeaux (Madrid, Prado).
[427]
Spanish painter originally from Crete.
Born in Crete, El Greco spent the years from 1566 to 1570 in Venice, where he came into contact with Titian and above all Tintoretto, whose dramatically intense painting exercised a decisive influence on him. This can be seen, for instance, in the Healing of the Blind Man (Parma, Galleria Nazionale). He is recorded as having been in Rome in 1570, and this visit allowed him to recapitulate the principal developments of Italian art in the sixteenth century, painting works like the Portrait of Giulio Clovio (Naples, Capodimonte). He returned to Venice in 1573 and stayed there until, perhaps in the hope of participating in the decoration of the Escorial, he decided to go to Spain. Thus in 1577 El Greco moved to Toledo, where he was to remain until his death. In that city, still an extremely lively artistic and cultural center, he reached the peak of his creativity, rising to meet the demands of the austere culture of the Counter-Reformation. The Spanish works of this period include The Trinity and the Baptism of Christ (both in Madrid, Prado), while one of the finest examples of the painterÆs visionary fantasy, the Burial of Count Orgaz, dates from a later phase, around 1586. In the latter part of his career El Greco went further in his rejection of Renaissance culture, producing images that were no longer constructed rationally but created out of violent clashes of color and light. Examples of this style are works like the Adoration of the Shepherds in the Prado, the Assumption (Toledo, Museo de Santa Cruz), or the gloomy and nocturnal View of Toledo (New York, Metropolitan Museum), emblematic of the artistÆs visionary force.
[428]
French painter.
He soon abandoned traditional allegorical and mythological themes to devote himself to a domestic and bourgeois genre painting with moralizing tones that is not immune from sentimentalism. His reputation remained high thanks to his choice of popular themes, with a mixture of false morality and languid sensuality, until he was overshadowed by David.
[429]
French painter.
He entered DavidÆs studio as an adolescent. In Genoa he enlisted in the army and became a member of the General Staff. Over the course of NapoleonÆs Italian campaign he continued to paint, completing the large ôDavidianö picture of Napoleon Crossing the Bridge of Arcole (1799, Versailles, ChΓteau Royal). When he left the army he devoted himself entirely to historical paintings on a large scale: The Battle of Nazareth (1801, Paris, Louvre) and Napoleon Visiting the Plague-stricken at Jaffa (1804, Paris, Louvre). The two paintings Marat at the Battle of Aboukir (1806, Versailles, ChΓteau Royal) and the Battlefield of Eylau (1808, Paris, Louvre) laid the foundations for a profound renewal of French and European painting. After the fall of Napoleon and return of the Bourbons, Gros painted the Allegory of Charles in the Louvre, thus demonstrating his renunciation of revolutionary ideals.
[430]
German painter.
The scarcity of documentary information on Mathis Grⁿnewald makes it difficult to reconstruct his youthful work in particular. The Mocking of Christ (Munich, Alte Pinakothek) is usually assigned to this early period. Employed as a hydraulic engineer on the chapterhouse of Mainz Cathedral in 1510, Grⁿnewald then became court painter to the archbishop of that city. In these years the artist painted works like The Saints, originally part of the Heller Altar (now split between Karlsruhe and Frankfurt), in which the monumental style of the figures contrasts with the central panel, painted by Albrecht Dⁿrer. Between 1511 and 1516 Grⁿnewald was at work on his most important masterpiece, the Isenheim Altar (Colmar, MusΘe Unterlinden), in whose panels monumental figures are set alongside disquieting representations, in a combination of luministic effects and lively accords of color, typical of the German late Gothic. The visionary power and high spirituality of the artist are still expressed in the late phase of his production, documented by works like the Crucifixion and the Road to Calvary (Karlsruhe, Kunsthalle) or the Meeting of Saint Erasmus and Saint Maurice (Munich, Alte Pinakothek).
[431]
Dutch painter.
Around 1590, Hals moved with his family to Haarlem, where he served his apprenticeship under a Dutch artist. In 1610 he enrolled in the guild of painters, initially specializing in genre pictures. He then went on to establish a reputation as a portraitist. The most common subjects in the early part of his career were vivacious and charming figures of youths, women, drinkers, and old people. Examples include The Merry Drinker (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum); La Bohemienne (Paris, Louvre); The Laughing Cavalier (London, Wallace Collection); and Two Youths Singing (Kassel, Museum). The paintings of this period are characterized by their homogeneous style based on a terse and irregular brushstroke, a rich range of colors, and brilliant luministic effects that denote his familiarity with Caravaggio through Caravaggio's followers in the Utrecht School. In addition, even in his earliest works Hans displayed a facility in portraying people and capturing their characteristic expressions and gestures. For example, the Gypsy Woman (1628-30, Paris, Louvre) belongs to his series of portraits of common people. The celebrated group portrait Banquet of the Officers of the Saint George Militia (1616) is particularly spirited and spontaneous. It was followed by six other paintings of the same subject, now in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. Reaching the height of his popularity in 1640, Hals also received numerous commissions from members of the Haarlem bourgeoisie. In these portraits his brushwork is more precise and the outlines sharper, as in The Van Hasselaers (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). During the final part of his career, Hals replaced the vivid tonality of his early paintings with a narrow range of dark tones and showed a growing interest in the inner character of the individual, as seen in the Portrait of Willem Croes (Munich, Alte Pinakothek). His last masterpieces are the two famous group portraits of The Governors of the Almshouse and Lady Regents of the Almshouse (1664, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum). HalsÆs art, which was only rediscovered in the nineteenth century, exercised a fundamental influence on the work of Courbet and, above all, Manet.
[432]
Dutch painter.
The majority of his views of rivers, mills, and woodland paths, characterized by a forceful and lively handling of effects of light and shade and a continual quest for chromatic contrasts, were painted between 1663 and 1668.
[433]
British painter.
Hockney trained at Bradford Art College, going on to study at the Royal College of Art, where he became friends with Jasper Johns and Ronald Kitaj, two of the founders of British Pop Art, of which Hockney himself became a leading exponent. In 1961 he won the Guinness Prize for engraving and visited New York, which left a deep mark on him. The following year he spent time in Berlin and traveled in Egypt, doing a series of illustrations for the Sunday Times. In 1963 he taught at the American universities of Iowa, Colorado and California. He is one of the most influential representatives of the British figurative school. His early work was characterized by a deliberately clumsy and na∩ve style, which led to the simplified realism of his later years, in which he has shown a preference for still lifes, landscapes and scenes of daily life in London and Los Angeles. His ôdomestic interiorsö use images taken from popular magazines, mixed with graffiti, lettering and childish scribbles. HockneyÆs figures are placed in aseptic settings and seem to regard their surroundings with amused detachment, as is apparent in pictures like the Wedding Night (1962) and Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy (1970-71), both in the Tate Gallery in London. One of the painterÆs favorite subjects is the Californian swimming pool, which appears in pictures like A Bigger Splash (Tate Gallery, London). In his graphic work he shows a preference for classical portraits, like Henry Geldzahler Reading (1973, private collection, London), associated with the use of photographs. In 1970 the Whitechapel Gallery in London and in 1974 the MusΘe des Arts DΘcoratifs in Paris devoted significant retrospectives to HockneyÆs work. In recent years the artist has developed a strong interest in theater and photography: his assemblies of various shots taken from slightly varied angles create images that combine different points of view.
[434]
English painter and engraver.
After starting his career as an engraver of coats of arms, William Hogarth devoted himself to painting, the engraving of satirical prints, and the illustration of books. One undoubtedly important aspect of his work was the painting of portraits, both of individuals and groups, which gave a considerable impetus to British portraiture and earned him a modest reputation. Among the portraits he painted in his maturity were The Graham Children and the Self-portrait with a Dog. However, HogarthÆs success with the public emerged with his popular series of paintings of contemporary subjects, interpreted in a satirical or moralizing key. These cycles of paintings (from which Hogarth also made many engravings) of various subjects commenced with the series A HarlotÆs Progress (1732), followed by those of the RakeÆs Progress (1735) and the Marriage α la Mode (1744). It is remarkable that Hogarth attained such wide-spread popularity, including not only intellectuals and the middle class, but also members of the lowest classes. His success was due to his ability to fuse an unquestionably thorough grasp of figurative culture with elements of a totally non-academic style (as in his popular prints and caricatures). To this was added his lucid and unprejudiced capacity for observation of the society of his day and for subtle psychological insight. In this he displayed a markedly theatrical style, devising lively scenes of dramatic effect and rich in details, influenced by contemporary drama. Quite apart from the importance of his work, Hogarth should also be remembered for contributing to the creation of a new role for the artist, closer to that of the modern freelance than to that of the court painter. In fact he no longer worked with precise commissions, but was free to choose his own subject and style, running the risk of failing to please the public. Another element symptomatic of HogarthÆs modernity was his extensive use of engraving. This method made his work available to a broader section of the public, and no longer confined it to the official outlets of museums, art galleries, collectors, and aristocrats. Another of Hogarth's contributions in this sphere was his draft bill on copyright (never approved) thats intended to protect works of art from unauthorized copying.
[435]
German painter.
A leading exponent of the transition from the late Gothic to the Renaissance in Southern Germany, he painted in a style of great formal clarity, brought to life by the incisive force of his drawing. The triptychs of Saint Paul and Saint Mary the Greater (Augsburg, Staatsgalerie) reveal the influence of Flemish models. His portraits show acute insight (Portrait of a Young Woman, Lugano, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection). A considerable change can be discerned in the Saint Catherine Altarpiece (1512, Augsburg, Staatsgalerie), denoting the emergence of a style of Italian derivation, also visible in the Saint Sebastian Altarpiece (Munich, Alte Pinakothek).
[436]
British painter.
Hughes took courses at the Royal Academy in 1847, along with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, who made a strong impression on him. In 1850 he established links with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, adopting the style of its older members. It was during these years of direct contact with the group that Hughes painted the most significant works of his career: Ophelia (1852, City Museum, Manchester), Feast of Saint Agnes and April Love (1856, Tate Gallery, London), Nativity (c. 1856, City Museum, Birmingham) and Home from the Sea (1862, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). His paintings are characterized by their preciosity, particularly evident in the harmonies of color and the predilection for sentimental subjects, used to evoke the dreams of childhood and adolescence. His approach to landscape was highly personal, with a tendency to impart an emotional tone to the subject represented. In 1857 he worked alongside Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Morris on the decoration of the Oxford Union debating chamber, collaborating on the Death of Arthur. Rossetti exercised a fundamental influence on HughesÆs later work, in particular his paintings of religious subjects, whose mystical symbolism is reminiscent of Blake.
[437]
English painter.
He was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. A determined advocate of fidelity to nature, he often set landscapes of meticulous realism as backdrops to his paintings. In his pictures of religious subjects this painstaking adherence to reality was charged with an arcane and allegorical atmosphere (The Light of the World, 1853-56; The Scapegoat, 1854). Like all the Pre-Raphaelites, Hunt also depicted literary subjects (Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1867, from a short story by Boccaccio), scenes of contemporary life, and moralistic tales (The Awakening of Conscience, 1853, London, Tate Gallery; The Lady of Shalott, 1896-1905, Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum).
[438]
French painter.
After studying at the Toulouse Academy, from 1797 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was Jacques-Louis DavidÆs pupil in Paris, where he painted a number of portraits, including that of Mademoiselle RiviΦre (1805, Paris, Louvre), and obtained official commissions (First Consul Napoleon, 1804, LiΦge, MusΘe des Beaux-Arts). In 1806 he set off for Rome until 1820, when he moved to Florence for four years. During his stay in Italy Ingres became the portraitist of members of the French community û Franτois-Marius-Granet (1807, Aix-en-Provence, MusΘe Granet) and Joseph-Antoine de Moltedo (1810, New York, Metropolitan Museum). Returning to Paris, he showed the Vow of Louis XIII (Montauban, cathedral of Notre-Dame) at the 1824 Salon, attracting great praise. Elected to the AcadΘmie des Beaux-Arts in 1825, he opened a highly successful studio and became one of the greatest French artists of the time. He worked as a portraitist of high society and received important official commissions, such as that for the Apotheosis of Homer (1827, Paris, Louvre). The painter returned many times to his favorite theme of the female nude, including La Grande Baigneuse (1808), La Grande Odalisque (1814), and The Turkish Bath (1862), all now in the Louvre. Ingres did not restrict himself to an evocation of the art of the past, but shared fully in the literary myths of his age. Along with the Oedipus and the Sphinx (1808, Paris, Louvre) and Jupiter and Tethys (1811, Aix-en-Provence, MusΘe Granet), he painted pictures of Romantic subjects (The Dream of Ossian, 1813, Montauban, MusΘe Ingres; Ruggero freeing Angelica, 1819, Paris, Louvre) or of a sentimental character, influenced by the fashion of the troubadours (Paolo and Francesca, 1814, Chantilly, MusΘe CondΘ). In the painterÆs vast output, his numerous portraits hold a prominent place (The Comtesse de Haussonville, 1845, New York, Frick Collection; Madame Moitessier, 1856, London, National Gallery). With a freedom that went far beyond the limits of neoclassicism, Ingres drew on the work of John Flaxman, on Greek archaism, on Hellenistic, Byzantine, and Gothic art, on Raphael, and on the primitives and Mannerists.
[439]
Flemish painter.
Beginning with his earliest works he drew on a wide variety of figurative styles from the Roman classicist current to Michelangelo and from the late Venetian sixteenth century to Caravaggio, developing a dense manner of painting with bright and violently clashing colors, heavy drawing, and strong contrasts of light and shade. He handles his subjects in a sensual manner, placing sacred and mythological themes in an earthly and bourgeois dimension.
His paintings include the Peasant with Satyr (Munich, Alte Pinakothek), The King Drinks, Pan and Syrinx (both in Brussels, MusΘes Royaux des Beaux-Arts), and the Fertility of the Earth (1630, Brussels, MusΘes Royaux des Beaux-Arts), considered his masterpiece.
[440]
Russian painter.
Founder of the ôBlaue Reiterö in Munich together with Marc and Macke, he was one of the fathers of abstract painting. With the Improvisations series he arrived at abstraction through a total renunciation of representation of the object. His analysis of forms and colors and of abstract meanings was conducted in parallel with a theoretical reflection that culminated in the publication of Concerning the Spiritual in Art in Munich in 1912. The title was in itself an indication of his leaning toward an abstract art shot through with a vein of lyricism and symbolism. Point, Line and Surface, published in 1926, can be taken as a symbol of his teaching and of the new rules that governed creative freedom. His work on language was carried out in distinctly avant-garde terms, ascribing full autonomy to signs and colors.
[441]
English painter.
After a precocious debut as a painter of pastel portraits, the artist started attending courses at the Royal Academy in London in 1786, and later became a member (1792) and finally president (1820) of the institution. Very soon, due to the elegance of his approach to the composition and the liveliness of his execution, Lawrence became the favorite portraitist of the British aristocracy, and a worthy heir to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Between 1818 and 1819, he paid official visits to various countries in Europe, with the aim of painting the portraits of those leaders such as the pope, sovereigns and generals who had been allies in the war against Napoleon. These paintings, which earned Lawrence the reputation of the finest portrait painter in Europe, are now on show in the Waterloo Chamber of Windsor Castle. Yet it was in his informal portraits that the artist displayed his most convincing and authentic style; the best examples of which are Richard Payne Knight (Manchester) and the Self-Portrait of 1795 (London).
[442]
Italian painter.
The illegitimate son of the notary Ser Piero da Vinci, he was raised in the home of his paternal grandfather until 1469, when he followed his father to Florence and entered the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio. He was still employed in this workshop in 1472, when he enrolled in the guild of Florentine painters known as the Compagnia di San Luca. During this period he rapidly acquired a thorough understanding of a wide variety of artistic techniques, collaborating directly with his master on works like the Baptism of Christ (Florence, Uffizi). Painting pictures like the Annunciation in the Uffizi and the Portrait of Ginevra deÆ Benci (Washington, National Gallery), Leonardo was already part of the current of Florentine art that embraced Pollaiolo and the young Sandro Botticelli among others. The Adoration of the Magi (Florence, Uffizi) was commissioned from him in 1481 by the monks of San Donato a Scopeto, but was left unfinished on his departure for Milan. This is a work in which the young artistÆs vision emerges in all its complexity and originality, as he detaches himself from the tradition of Tuscan painting. Leonardo arrived in Milan in 1482, summoned by Ludovico il Moro. He was to remain in service at his court for almost twenty years. His first commission in Milan, however, was for the Virgin of the Rocks, the central panel of a polyptych ordered by the Confraternity of the Conception. One of his principal assignments on behalf of Ludovico il Moro was the realization of an equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, a project that was to drag out for a long time without ever reaching a definitive conclusion. But the artist also worked for the court as a military engineer, and on projects of hydraulic engineering and city planning, as well as the preparation of decorations for festivals, tournaments, and entertainments. The 1490s were also the times in which the Last Supper went through its long period of gestation. Painted in the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, the work was destined to have an extraordinary impact on Renaissance art through the solemn monumental stance of the composition and its reworking of the traditional subject. The cultural environment in Lombardy favored LeonardoÆs incessant and restless experimentation in the most diverse fields of art and science. Fleeing Milan at the time of the fall of Ludovico il Moro, the artist entered the service of Cesare Borgia as a military engineer. In 1503 he returned to Florence where he began, that same year, the portrait of a woman known as the Mona Lisa and was commissioned to paint the lost Battle of Anghiari in the Salone del Cinquecento of the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence. Although the painting showed signs of deterioration even before it was finished, it appears to have served as a model for a whole generation of Florentine artists. Leonardo returned to Milan in 1506, only to move to Rome in 1513. There, however, he found himself isolated from the sumptuous environment of the papal court, dominated by Raphael and Michelangelo. Later the artist chose to accept the splendid hospitality offered him by King Francis I of France, who set him up in the castle of Cloux at Amboise, covering him with honors. Leonardo died there in 1519.
[443]
Dutch painter.
After the early part of LeysterÆs career, in which she was strongly influenced by Terbrugghen and the Northern style derived from Caravaggio, she went to work in the studio of Frans Hals in 1629, adapting her style to that of her new teacher. In 1636 she married the painter Jan Meinse Molenaer. The chronology of her work is fairly vague. There are dated pictures covering the period from 1629 to 1652, most of them genre paintings. They include The Boy and Girl with a Cat (National Gallery, London), the Merry Company (Louvre, Paris) and above all a series of paintings of musical subjects, many of them now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Her works are derived, especially in their style, from Frans Hals. Leyster also painted extremely faithful copies of HalsÆs paintings which are hard to distinguish from the originals.
[444]
Swiss painter.
Trained in Paris as an enamelist and miniaturist, Liotard was influenced by Chardin and went on to become one of the best-known portraitists of his time. He specialized in the technique of pastel painting and was active at the principal courts of Europe. From 1738 to 1742 he lived in Constantinople, which explains the Turkish setting of many of his pastels. He favored a dense, firmly objective style of painting, which avoided chiaroscuro and resorted to a uniformly diffused illumination.
[445]
Italian painter.
His documented activity commenced in Florence after 1437. His early work (Relaxation of the Carmelite Rule, ca. 1432, Florence, Carmine) was influenced by the painting of Masaccio, while the Corneto Tarquinia Madonna shows the influence of DonatelloÆs dynamic line. The splendid Annunciation in the Florentine church of San Lorenzo displays a fresh naturalism inspired by Fra Angelico, but has warmer and brighter colors. Later he toned down his initial plasticism in a quest for more fluid and linear elegance and a delicate transparency of color: Coronation of the Virgin (1441-47, Florence, Uffizi) and Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1442-45, New York, Metropolitan Museum). The extremely popular Madonna and Child with Two Angels in the Uffizi dates from his later work. The harmonious composition and freshness of color of the frescoes in the main chapel of Prato Cathedral (1452-64) make them his masterpiece.
[446]
Italian sculptor.
Lombardo was taught by his father Pietro, with whom he collaborated from the time of the construction of the monument to Doge Mocenigo onward. At the beginning of his career he worked closely with his brother Antonio. He soon started to receive independent commissions, commencing with the Coronation of Mary for the church of San Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice (1502). In this work he proves that he has fully assimilated the legacy of his fatherÆs workshop. Yet his style grew increasingly distinct, owing to its pronounced classical accents and in the treatment of the highly polished surfaces and the meticulous rendering of details. Examples of this can be seen in his reliefs representing Miracles of Saint Anthony, carved for the basilica of Il Santo in Padua (1520-25) and the monument to Matteo Bellati in Feltre Cathedral (1528). He was active in Venice (where it is still possible to see his Annunciation, in the oratory of the Seminary, and his Assumption, in San Giovanni Crisostomo), at Belluno and Treviso in the Veneto, and at Mantua and Ferrara in the Po Valley. A number of freestanding sculptures, such as the Bacchus and Ariadne, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, are remarkable for their perfection of form and severe realism, inspired by Roman statuary. His greatest work, in which classicism and a taste for pathos are fused in an extraordinarily harmonious fashion, is the tombstone of Guidarello Guidarelli, now in the Museo Civico of Ravenna (1525).
[447]
Italian painter.
After a mediocre debut as a painter of altarpieces and historical and mythological scenes (frescoes of the Fall of the Giants, Palazzo Sagredo in Venice, 1734), a trip to Bologna induced him to take up the kind of genre painting practiced by Giuseppe Maria Crespi. He painted scenes of Venetian life with an acute spirit of observation and a subtle and gentle sense of irony. Among his most successful works are the Concert and the Dancing Lesson (Venice, Galleria dell'Accademia), the Presentation (Paris, Louvre), the Swooning, and Blind-manÆs-buff (Washington, National Gallery).
[448]
French painter.
Moving to Rome from his native Lorraine around 1620, Claude entered the studio of Agostino Tassi, a painter of quadrature and landscapes. The artist would spend almost all of his life in Rome, where he moved in a circle of Northern European painters. His style blends the meticulous realism of the North with the classicism of Annibale Carracci, whose conception of the ideal landscape exercised a fundamental influence on Claude. From 1636 onward, the artist kept a record of his work in the Liber Veritas (London, British Museum), made up of 195 drawings, each an accurate copy of each of his paintings. In his seascapes and landscapes inspired by the Roman Campagna, Claude turned his studies and sketches into solemn scenes framed by vistas of buildings and trees or boats that create an impression of endless space and a temporal remoteness. These views are characterized by an intense luminosity and enlivened by tiny figures at work or engaged in concerts, dances, and processions (Departure of Saint Paula, 1639, Madrid, Prado; Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, 1648, London, National Gallery; View of a Harbor at Dawn, Paris, Louvre; Mill, 1648; and Mercury Stealing ApolloÆs Cattle and View of Delphi with a Procession, 1650, Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphili). His work was extremely popular with his contemporaries, especially British collectors, and became a model for the landscape painting of the nineteenth century.
[449]
Italian painter.
Although he probably trained under Giovanni Bellini, some of his early works show the influence of Antonello da MessinaÆs meditation on light and the Venetian activity of Dⁿrer. The works following a visit to Rome display an abrupt change in style inspired by Raphael (Transfiguration, Recanati, Pinacoteca Comunale; Deposition, Jesi, Pinacoteca). The dominant figure on the Bergamask scene until around 1525, Lotto developed a non-courtly, psychologically subtle language, leaning toward the Lombard tradition of naturalism (large altarpieces with the Madonna and Saints, Bergamo, Santo Spirito and San Bernardino). After trying in vain to establish a reputation in his native Venice, he directed his attention toward the Marche (Annunciation in Santa Maria sopra Mercanti at Recanati; Crucifixion at Monte San Giusto, Fermo). LottoÆs work, little known and appreciated in the past, has been reappraised by modern critics, who have recognized it as a genuine alternative to the courtly style of sixteenth-century classicism.
[450]
Flemish painter.
This Flemish painter worked for the rulers of Flanders on several occasions. In his art, the Northern European tradition, the influences of DⁿrerÆs graphic work and the discovery of the Italian Renaissance are blended to produce one of the earliest manifestations of Flemish Mannerism. He painted numerous extremely fanciful and improbable pictures of mythological subjects.
[451]
Dutch painter.
A pupil of Rembrandt from 1648 to 1650, he was also inspired by the art of Pieter de Hooch and by Flemish painting, which he was able to study during a stay in Antwerp around 1665. He specialized in genre scenes, chiefly peaceful interiors with female figures, but was perhaps more original and vigorous in his single and group portraits.
[452]
French painter.
Born into a wealthy middle-class family, he pursued classical studies at Rollin College in Paris, where he formed a friendship with the future writer Antonin Proust, who has provided us with invaluable information about his life and activity in Souvenirs. At the age of sixteen he abandoned his studies to enroll as an officer in the navy, but failed the admission exams. He then took a post as an apprentice navigation officer on a merchant ship sailing for Rio de Janeiro. During the voyage he started to draw, making caricatures of members of the crew. After another attempt to enter the Ecole Navale met with rejection, he persuaded his father to let him study art. In 1850 he entered the studio of the academic painter Thomas Couture, where he stayed for six years in spite of violent disagreements with his teacher. Convinced that the renewal of painting could only take place within tradition, he studied the works of the old masters in the Louvre and made numerous journeys to the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Italy between 1852 and 1856. He took a particular interest in artists like Giorgione, Titian, and the seventeenth-century Dutch painters, who made color the center of their pictorial research. A fundamental role in his formation was played by great Spanish painters like Francisco JosΘ de Goya y Lucientes and Diego Velßzquez. Manet was able to study their work more closely on his visit to Spain in 1865. His first important works depict scenes of Parisian life, inspired in part by his friend, the writer Charles Baudelaire (The Absinthe Drinker, 1858, Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glypotek; Music at the Tuileries, 1860, London, National Gallery). The Absinthe Drinker was rejected at the Paris Salon of 1859, despite the favorable opinion of EugΦne Delacroix. Two years later he obtained one of the very few tokens of official recognition of his career with the Spanish Guitar Player (New York, Metropolitan Museum). After a series of pictures of a company of Spanish dancers in 1862, Manet painted two of his most celebrated works in 1863. The DΘjeuner sur lÆHerbe and Olympia (Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay) were destined to become a fundamental point of reference for Impressionist and post-Impressionist painting. The two paintings caused one of the biggest scandals in the history of modern art, due to both their subjects and the anti-academic style in which they were painted. Manet did away with volumes, perspective, chiaroscuro, and sfumato, and laid on the paint in a flat way, within well-defined outlines, setting dark and light tones alongside one another so as to create bold contrasts of color. The absence of spatial depth derives from his study of Japanese prints, while the range of colors and some elements of the composition can be traced to the influence of Spanish painting. Over the following years, Manet painted a series of still lifes and, after his trip to Spain in 1865, produced works inspired by the painting of Goya and Velßzquez, such as The Fifer (1866, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay), various versions of the Execution of Maximilian (1867, the most interesting being in Mannheim, Kunsthalle), the Luncheon in the Studio (1868, Munich, Bayerische Staatsgalerie), and the Balcony (1868, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). From 1863 onward he took part in the meetings of young painters at the CafΘ Guerbois and CafΘ de la Nouvelle AthΦnes that would give rise to the Impressionist group. Despite his brief adherence to Impressionism, testified by works like Boating (1874, New York, Metropolitan Museum) and The Artist and his Wife (1874, Munich, Neue Pinakothek), Manet deliberately kept out of the group, refusing to take part in joint exhibitions. Unlike the young Impressionist painters, he preferred figures to landscape and used colors and harmonies that did not follow the rules of complementarity proper to Impressionist painting. His principal interlocutors remained his friends Baudelaire, Zola, and MallarmΘ, writers who inspired him to paint a series of works with naturalistic settings such as The Bar at the Folies BergΦres (1882, London, Courtauld Institute Galleries) and Nana (1877, Hamburg, Kunsthalle), which shortly preceded the publication of the novel of the same name by Zola. Throughout his long career Manet painted portraits of friends or acquaintances, always depicting his subjects with immediacy and rare psychological insight (Portrait of Emile Zola, 1867-68, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay).
[453]
Italian painter.
The earliest records of Andrea Mantegna date from the time when he was an apprentice in the Paduan workshop of Francesco Squarcione. There, a great many pupils learned the rudiments of technique and acquired an interest in decorative elements drawn from antiquity. In 1448 Andrea left his master, to whom he had been bound by a very rigid contract, and for the first time accepted a commission in his own right, though he shared it with Nicol≥ Pizzolo. It was the decoration of the Ovetari family chapel in the Eremitani Church at Padua. Following the death of Pizzolo, Andrea completed the work, which comprised scenes from the life of St. James, with the Assumption of the Virgin on the rear wall. Only part of the frescoes survived the bombing in 1944. Over the course of the work on this chapel, the artist painted other pictures, including Saint Luke Polyptych. In 1453 Andrea married Nicolosia, the daughter of Jacopo and sister of Giovanni Bellini, thereby establishing ties with the most important Venetian workshop of the period. During these years he painted the Madonna and Saints, with its extraordinary structure of perspective, intended as an altarpiece for the basilica of San Zeno in Verona.
In 1459, after repeated pressure on the part of Duke Ludovico Gonzaga, Mantegna moved to Mantua, where he assumed the prestigious post of court painter. With a wide variety of responsibilities in the figurative field, the artist produced some of the fundamental works of his career here. In addition to the Funeral of the Virgin and the panels now in the Uffizi (perhaps painted for the dukeÆs chapel in the castle), he worked on the frescoes of the Camera degli Sposi in the Ducal Palace up until 1474. During the years in Mantua, and through visits to Florence and Rome (where in 1489 he decorated a chapel for Pope Innocent III, now lost), Mantegna developed his style further through study of the classical world. Testimony to this is provided by the series of canvases depicting the Triumphs of Caesar (royal palace of Hampton Court, London), which were praised, even during the long period it took for their realization, as the most important work in the collections of the Mantuan court. Mantegna retained his position at court under the new duke and duchess, Francesco Gonzaga and his wife Isabella dÆEste. In 1496 he painted the Madonna della Vittoria (Paris, Louvre). For the private study of the duchess, who came from the refined court of Ferrara, Mantegna painted the canvas representing Mars and Venus on Parnassus in 1497, and the Triumph of Virtue in 1502 (both now in the Louvre). In these works, Mantegna responded to the challenge presented by the new generation of Italian painters, though he retained in their eyes the authority of an old master, always celebrated as the man who had laid down the terms of an encounter with classical antiquity.
[454]
Italian architect, painter, sculptor, and military engineer.
Not much is known about his training. He was mainly interested in civil architecture and military engineering, an activity for which the period he spent at Urbino in the service of Federico da Montefeltro (1477-89) was fundamental. During this time he planned a system of strongholds and fortifications scattered over the territory of the duchy. Many have been destroyed, but the ones at Sassocorvaro (1476-78), San Leo (1479), Cagli (1481), and Mondavio (began in 1482) are still standing. In Milan in 1490, he met Leonardo and gave advice on the lantern of the cathedral, as well as on Pavia Cathedral. He worked as a military engineer in Naples (1494-95) and in the Marche, in the service of Giovanni della Rovere (1501). A many-sided talent, and more of an engineer than an artist, he was practically self-taught. Francesco had similar cultural orientations to Leonardo, though without his depth of analysis and breadth of interests.
[455]
Italian painter.
Born in a small town with political ties to Florence, Masaccio (ôHulking Tomö) moved at a very early age to the regional capital, where he was already recorded as a painter in 1417, continuing the education he had received in his birthplace. In 1422 he joined the Arte dei Medici e Speziali, the guild of doctors and apothecaries that also accepted some artists, allowing him to gain a degree of recognition in city society. The same year appears on the triptych for the church of San Giovenale at Cascia (Arezzo). Recognized as one of the young painterÆs earliest works, it already shows a full acceptance of the principles of the Renaissance. The Virgin with Saint Anne dates from around 1424 and documents his collaboration with the older Masolino (who in fact painted part of the panel, in particular the figure of St. Anne). In 1425 Masolino and Masaccio worked together on the Polyptych of the Snow, destined for the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. While the following year, Masaccio alone received the commission for a polyptych for the Carmelite Church in Pisa. The polyptychÆs central panel, representing the Madonna and Child (London, National Gallery) shows a mastery of the principles of perspective worked out in Florence by Filippo Brunelleschi and Donatello, especially in the robust physique of the Virgin and the architectural structure of the throne. In these same years (although the date is still controversial) he painted the frescoes with Scenes from the Life of Saint Peter in the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmelite Church in Florence in collaboration with Masolino. Here MasaccioÆs new and powerful emphasis on narrative is set alongside MasolinoÆs still late Gothic style of painting, creating a work that has been admired for centuries by artists. Immediately after finishing the Brancacci frescoes, Masaccio painted the Trinity in the church of Santa Maria Novella. Here he reached new heights in the spatial arrangement of the figures, setting them inside a mock chapel that closely resembles contemporary Florentine works of architecture. In 1428 Masaccio and Masolino were in Rome, painting frescoes for the chapel of Cardinal Branda Castiglione in San Clemente, when the younger of the two artists died, at the age of twenty-seven.
[456]
French painter.
Henry Matisse was born at Le Cateau on December 31, 1869, to a family of shopkeepers. Launched on a legal career, Matisse came to painting almost by chance and it was not until 1891 that he decided to devote his life to art. The apprenticeship he served in the studio of the painter Gustave Moreau was fundamental. Moreau persuaded Matisse to study the works of the great schools of the past in the Louvre. Fascinated by the painting of the Impressionists, Matisse traveled in the south of France, discovering its light and color. Under the influence of the Divisionist painters, with whom he became friends, he painted the picture Luxe, calme et voluptΘ in 1904. Forceful color gained the upper hand in the works shown by Matisse at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1905. The effect this caused led the art critic Louis Vauxcelles to use the term Fauves, wild beasts, to define the type of painting proposed by the French artist, together with Derain, Marquet and Vlaminck. The painter spent the years 1906 and 1907 traveling in Africa and Italy, countries which made a deep impression on him. In these years he painted the Still Life with Red Carpet, Blue Nude and Luxury. Between 1909 and 1911 Matisse painted two large canvases, Dance and Music, commissioned by the Russian collector Shchukin; the painterÆs imagination was caught by the Byzantine icons he saw on the trip that he made to Moscow to install the two pictures. The works he painted during the years of the First World War, many of them spent in Nice, reveal a state of anxiety that led the painter to accentuate the geometricization of his figures and to adopt less brilliant colors. However, the light and color of the Mediterranean, as well as the luxurious life of the C⌠te dÆAzur, were reflected in his later works, depicting bourgeois interiors and sensual female nudes. These were years of intense work for Matisse, who was engaged in staging exhibitions in various parts of the world and in the production of lithographs and book illustrations. In the beginning of the thirties, the artist painted the decoration for the Barnes Museum at Merion, once again centered on the theme of dance. Here the human figure was reduced to an almost abstract symbol, in a rapid succession of curvilinear rhythms. After the troubled years of the Second World War, Matisse enthusiastically took on the decoration of the Chapel of the Rosary at Vence between 1948 and 1951. Over the same period he also painted the works entitled Interior with Egyptian Drape, The Pineapple and Large Red Interior. The painter, celebrated and admired all over the world, died in Nice in 1954.
[457]
Flemish painter.
The earliest records of Hans MemlingÆs activity place him in Bruges in 1465. He was active in this city for a long time, establishing relations with a number of members of Italian banking families who were looking after their interests there. One of these was the Florentine Tommaso Portinari, for whom Memling painted a portrait of him and his wife (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), as well as the panel depicting Scenes of the Passion now in the Galleria Sabauda at Turin. Another Florentine, connected like Portinari with the Medici Bank in Bruges, was Angelo Tani, who commissioned from Memling the triptych with the Last Judgment (Gdansk), in which the painter took his inspiration directly from the painting of the same subject by Roger van der Weyden, usually considered his master. Memling undoubtedly achieved extraordinary success, for he was admitted to the cityÆs most important confraternity in 1474 and had become one of the wealthiest burghers of Bruges by the end of his career. His brilliant and measured style, splendid colors, and sure handling of space are evident in the works of his maturity, such as the triptych representing the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, the Reins Triptych, or the Moreel Triptych dated 1484 (all in Bruges, Memling Museum). In his portraiture above all, Memling shows himself to be the heir of the extraordinary painting techniques of the previous generation, especially van der Weyden or Jan van Eyck, who are his most direct sources of inspiration. An example is the Diptych of Martin van Nieuwenhove, painted in 1487, in which the portrait of the client is particularly refined. His activity on behalf of Florentine clients led to the artistÆs fame spreading to Italy, where his portraits were compared with those of the generation of Sandro Botticelli and Antonello da Messina. However, MemlingÆs greatest achievements were in the field of devotional art, with works like the Lament over the Dead Christ (Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphili) or with lively and fascinating narratives like the ones that appear on the Shrine of Saint Ursula.
[458]
Dutch painter.
He refined his qualities under the influence of Rembrandt. A painter of genre, allegorical, or religious scenes, he is famous above all for his pictures of gallant subjects, vegetable- or fish-market scenes, and sick people.
[459]
Italian painter and sculptor.
The illegitimate son of the notary Ser Piero da Vinci, he was raised in the home of his paternal grandfather until 1469, when he followed his father to Florence and entered the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio. He was still employed in this workshop in 1472, when he enrolled in the guild of Florentine painters known as the Compagnia di San Luca. During this period he rapidly acquired a thorough understanding of a wide variety of artistic techniques, collaborating directly with his master on works like the Baptism of Christ (Florence, Uffizi). Painting pictures like the Annunciation in the Uffizi and the Portrait of Ginevra deÆ Benci (Washington, National Gallery), Leonardo was already part of the current of Florentine art that embraced Pollaiolo and the young Sandro Botticelli among others. The Adoration of the Magi (Florence, Uffizi) was commissioned from him in 1481 by the monks of San Donato a Scopeto, but was left unfinished on his departure for Milan. This is a work in which the young artistÆs vision emerges in all its complexity and originality, as he detaches himself from the tradition of Tuscan painting. Leonardo arrived in Milan in 1482, summoned by Ludovico il Moro. He was to remain in service at his court for almost twenty years. His first commission in Milan, however, was for the Virgin of the Rocks, the central panel of a polyptych ordered by the Confraternity of the Conception. One of his principal assignments on behalf of Ludovico il Moro was the realization of an equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, a project that was to drag out for a long time without ever reaching a definitive conclusion. But the artist also worked for the court as a military engineer, and on projects of hydraulic engineering and city planning, as well as the preparation of decorations for festivals, tournaments, and entertainments. The 1490s were also the times in which the Last Supper went through its long period of gestation. Painted in the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, the work was destined to have an extraordinary impact on Renaissance art through the solemn monumental stance of the composition and its reworking of the traditional subject. The cultural environment in Lombardy favored LeonardoÆs incessant and restless experimentation in the most diverse fields of art and science. Fleeing Milan at the time of the fall of Ludovico il Moro, the artist entered the service of Cesare Borgia as a military engineer. In 1503 he returned to Florence where he began, that same year, the portrait of a woman known as the Mona Lisa and was commissioned to paint the lost Battle of Anghiari in the Salone del Cinquecento of the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence. Although the painting showed signs of deterioration even before it was finished, it appears to have served as a model for a whole generation of Florentine artists. Leonardo returned to Milan in 1506, only to move to Rome in 1513. There, however, he found himself isolated from the sumptuous environment of the papal court, dominated by Raphael and Michelangelo. Later the artist chose to accept the splendid hospitality offered him by King Francis I of France, who set him up in the castle of Cloux at Amboise, covering him with honors. Leonardo died there in 1519.
[460]
English painter.
Together with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt, he founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. It was in the fertile environment of this association that he painted his best works, including Christ in the House of His Parents, 1850, and Ophelia, 1852 (London, Tate Gallery). MillaisÆs painting took on naturalistic tones, at times verging on the pathetic and sentimental, but redeemed by its great dignity of style and constant moral tension. In his later work this equilibrium seems to break down, resulting in a more facile and academic style (Childhood of Raleigh, 1870, London, Tate Gallery). His production of woodcuts was also important.
[461]
French painter.
The son of prosperous peasants, Jean-Franτois Millet commenced his artistic studies at Cherbourg in 1833. In 1837 he won a scholarship and went to Paris, where he was a pupil of Paul Delaroche and studied the old masters in the Louvre. He moved to the capital in 1845. In these early years of his activity, until 1848, he painted chiefly portraits and pictures of pastoral and mythological subjects. In contact with HonorΘ Daumier, DuprΘ, and Troyon from 1847, he showed The Winnower at the Salon of 1848. This first painting of a peasant subject was greatly appreciated in revolutionary circles. In 1849 he moved to Barbizon, where he remained for the rest of his life, apart from brief journeys. The importance that Millet assigned to the human figure set him apart from the painters of the Barbizon School, although he spent a great deal of time with them and shared their interest in naturalism and rejection of chaotic city life. His exalting of the worker, the new hero that had emerged from the insurrections of 1848, combined with his deep understanding of peasant life, marked an important stage in the development of Realism, and had a direct influence on Courbet. His major works (The Sower, 1850, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; The Gleaners, 1857, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; Angelus, 1858-59, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay) are characterized by the powerfully sculptural modeling of the figures, a solemn atmosphere of ritual, and their sentimental, at times explicitly religious, late Romantic tones. After 1860 under the influence of his friend ThΘodore Rousseau, he devoted more attention to the landscape (GrΘville Church, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay) and started to use the pastel technique, as well (Primrose, 1868, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts). Recent studies have revealed the important part played in MilletÆs work by drawings, some of them superior in quality to the paintings with their luministic effects of great virtuosity and originality (Twilight, 1858-59, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts).
[462]
French painter.
Moving as a child to Le Havre with his family, it was here that he began to draw caricatures at a very early age between 1856 and 1858. Around 1858 he met with EugΦne Boudin, who persuaded him to become a landscape painter in the Dutch tradition. In 1859 he went to Paris to bring himself up-to-date by studying the works of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Charles-Franτois Daubigny at the Salon and to attend the AcadΘmie Suisse, where he met Camille Pissarro. He was called for military service in Algeria in 1861, and the following year he was in Le Havre and then Paris, where he came into contact with Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Jean-FrΘdΘric Bazille. He stayed in the Forest of Fontainebleau with the latter in 1863, painting landscapes from life in a style close to that of the Barbizon School and Daubigny. In 1865 he met Gustave Courbet, whose influence can be seen in paintings like Camille in a Green Dress from 1866 (Bremen, Kunsthalle). At the same time like other young artists, he was enthralled by Edouard ManetÆs picture Le DΘjeuner sur lÆHerbe, exhibited in 1863, which raised the problem of the representation of figures en plein air. MonetÆs interest in this fundamental aspect of Impressionist research is demonstrated by a painting with the same title (The Luncheon on the Grass, 1865, fragments in Paris at the MusΘe dÆOrsay) and by Women in the Garden (1866-67, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). With their study of the reflections of light on water, the landscapes he painted during these years in Paris and along the Seine (La GrenouilliΦre, 1869, New York, Museum of Modern Art) a bathing establishment on the banks of the river, not far from Paris, that was highly popular at the time) may be considered the first Impressionist pictures. It was in fact a picture painted by Monet in 1872 and exhibited by the photographer Nadar in 1874, Impression : Soleil levant (Impression: Sunrise), that suggested the derogatory name of the Impressionists to a hostile critic. This was later adopted as the official denomination of the group. In the meantime, a visit to London in 1870 allowed him to make a closer study of John Constable and Joseph Mallord William Turner. His growing interest in the representation of light at various times of day and under different weather conditions led Monet to paint several series of pictures of a single subject. The first example was the series of paintings from 1877 devoted to Saint Lazare Station, in which the painter concentrated his efforts on rendering the effect on light produced by smoke from the locomotives. The series dedicated to Rouen Cathedral, painted during the years prior to 1894, consists of about fifty canvases and depicts the church at different times of day and under varying light conditions. In 1893 he had a small lake constructed in the garden of his house at Giverny, a village near Paris where he had moved in 1883, and filled the lake with water lilies. Between 1909 and 1926, the year of his death, Monet painted innumerable pictures of these Water Lilies, taking his investigation of the effects of light to the borders of abstraction. Part of this series, which he donated to the French State, is now on show in the rooms of the Orangerie in Paris.
[463]
British sculptor.
Moore moved to London to attend the Royal College after an initial training at the Leeds School of Art. Here he was able to study the works of archaic and classical sculpture on show in the British Museum.
He was awarded a scholarship in 1925 and went to France, Italy and Spain, returning home with a cultural experience that ranged from Renaissance art to the avant-garde. It was from this that he developed his unique style. The sculptures from this period, such as Reclining Figure (1930, National Gallery, Ottawa) and the Mother and Child (1932, Sainsbury Collection, London), are characterized by an archaic style.
After a brief diversion in Surrealism, he turned to abstractionism, often combining elements of the two avant-garde movements.
From 1940 on his sculpture was characterized by holes, which assumed the same importance as the solid masses. The forms and their surrounding space interpenetrate and complete one another, both in the small works, chiefly reclining figures and groups in which the human figure is subjected to a highly suggestive process of deformation, and in the monumental ones, intended for open spaces.
[464]
French painter.
Born in Bourges, where her father was prefect of the dΘpartement du Cher, she moved with her family to Paris, where she began to study painting from an early age.
In Paris she frequented artistic circles and met Corot and Manet, the two painters who had the greatest influence on her work.
A pupil of Manet, for whom she sat as a model and whose brother she married, she eventually joined the group of the Impressionists, taking part in all their exhibitions and organizing the one held in 1888 together with her husband. She specialized in portraits of women and interiors, full of charm and joie de vivre, using a light palette and a free and vigorous style of execution in the Impressionist mold.
[465]
English painter, writer, and designer.
Though a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the English writer and designer William Morris immediately distinguished himself from other exponents of the movement by his greater social engagement, in which his aims were political as well as artistic. The inspiration he drew from the Middle Ages and the legends of King Arthur in the only painting that can be reliably attributed to him (Queen Guinevere, 1858, London, Tate Gallery) and in his poetry was matched by his desire to use technical and stylistic bases from that world as well. In MorrisÆs view, artists had to turn their attention to the applied arts in an effort to bring about a comprehensive renewal of aesthetics.
In 1861 William Morris founded Morris, Marshall & Faulkner, a firm that produced wallpaper, furnishing fabrics, and stained glass. Rossetti, Brown, and Burne-Jones were also involved in the venture. In these years Morris built a home for himself, the Red House, in collaboration with the architect Philip Webb: in a sober version of the style known as the Gothic Revival, the building was a genuine manifesto of his architectural and decorative theories.
Through his firm and the exhibitions staged by the Arts & Crafts Society from 1888 onward, Morris popularized his decorative designs throughout Great Britain and the Continent. Dominated by the floral arabesque, the designs were derived from the Pre-Raphaelites and from a fictitious vision of the Middle Ages, and they had an important influence on the development of art nouveau. Morris drew on the same models for his renovation of the art of printing, founding the Kelmscott Press at Merton Abbey in 1890 for the production of refined hand-printed editions.
[466]
Norwegian painter and engraver.
Edvard MunchÆs childhood was marred by the tragic deaths of his mother and sister, which left a deep mark on his feelings toward existence. These psychological factors only served to increase the communality of interests between Munch and the Scandinavian literary world, dominated by the playwrights Ibsen and Strindberg. Thus the artist became a leading figure in European Symbolist circles, where madness was treated as an experimental patient and people wrote ôin the fuming blood of human beings.ö
He was trained at the Royal School of Drawing in Oslo and at the same time came into contact with the naturalistic painter Fritz Thaulow, a man of progressive and humanitarian ideals, and the anarchist writer Hans Jaeger. His cultural horizons were broadened by frequent visits to Paris and Berlin, which the artist alternated with long stays in Norway throughout his life. He put aside the naturalism of his early paintings as a consequence of the influence of French art. In particular, he adopted the large areas of color with allusive resonance used by Paul Gauguin, though MunchÆs painting differs from the latterÆs in its personal sense of existential angst (cf. The Scream, 1893, Oslo, Nasjonalgalleriet; Puberty, 1895, Oslo, Nasjonalgalleriet). The undulating, surging lines of his painting are those of art nouveau, but Munch uses them to create an intensity and an expressive force that make him one of the principal forerunners of Expressionism, along with Vincent van Gogh.
[467]
Spanish painter.
Trained under Juan de Castillo, Murillo did not begin to work on his own until 1639. A few years later he achieved his first major success with the cycle of paintings in the small cloister of the Franciscans in Seville (1646). A journey to Madrid allowed him to make a closer study of the paintings by great masters in the royal collection. This brought about a change in his style, which grew softer and more refined. Murillo specialized in sacred subjects, interpreted with sincere religious piety, but he also painted portraits and genre pictures. A well-known example of this is the Children Eating Grapes and a Melon, 1645-55. Even in his profane paintings, Murillo, though more realistic in his approach, tended to bring out the ideal beauty of the subject. One of the works of his maturity is the canvas depicting Jesus and the Young Saint John the Baptist (ca. 1760), which is a fine example of his poetics, with a charming range of colors based on tones of mellow and delicate luminosity and a skillfully balanced composition. The founder of an Academy of Fine Arts, he left Seville only around 1680, to decorate the church of the Capuchins in Cadiz. He died two years later in Seville, amidst general esteem and admiration for the high quality of his work.
[468]
Tyrolean painter and sculptor.
Trained in an extremely lively artistic environment, he came into contact with Paduan figurative culture at a very early age, in particular the works of Donatello, Filippo Lippi, and Mantegna. This wide range of influence found an audacious synthesis in the altar he painted and carved for the parish church of San Lorenzo near Brunico (ca. 1465). The masterpieces of his maturity are the altar of the Coronation of the Virgin in the parish church of Gries (Bolzano) and the altar of the shrine of Sankt Wolfgang in Northern Austria. In Salzburg from 1494, he painted and carved his last great work, an altar for the cityÆs Franciscan church that demonstrates a shift toward more severe and calm forms, an evident prelude to the art of the High Renaissance.
[469]
Italian painter.
He received his training in direct contact with Correggio. Diverging from the model provided by the decorator of the Camera di San Paolo, he asserted his own personality, demonstrating great sensitivity and elegance enriched by a first-hand knowledge of early Tuscan Mannerism. Escaping from the Sack of Rome (1527), he worked in Parma on the frescoes of the church of Santa Maria della Steccata, left incomplete in 1539. His most significant works are the Conversion of Saint Paul (1527/28, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), the Madonna della Rosa (1529-30, Dresden, GemΣldegalerie) and the Madonna with the Long Neck (ca. 1535, Florence, Uffizi), the Self-portrait in the Mirror (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), and the so-called Turkish Slave (Parma, Pinacoteca). He embodies the more sensually inclined ideal of international Mannerism.
[470]
Spanish painter.
Born in Malaga in 1881, Pablo Picasso began to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona in 1894. After dividing his time between Barcelona, Horta de Hebro and Paris, the painter finally settled in the French capital in 1904. In Paris Picasso led a busy social life that led to a friendship with the poets Max Jacob and Apollinaire and the painter Matisse. The name ôBlue Periodö is used to designate the stylistic phase of his work between 1901 and 1904, characterized chiefly by pictures of poor people, acrobats and family affections, in which bluish tones prevailed (Woman in Blue, Madrid, Museu Reina Sofia). This was followed by his ôRose Periodö (1905-06), marked by a particular sensitivity to color (Acrobats, G÷teborg, Konstmuseum). However, the painter was most concerned with the problem of the representation of reality and the disposition of masses, as was already evident in the portrait of Gertrude Stein he painted in 1906 (New York, Metropolitan Museum). His encounter with the simplification of forms in primitive art and study of the work of CΘzanne led him to paint the picture entitled Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (New York, Museum of Modern Art) in 1907, regarded as the first Cubist painting. His meeting with Georges Braque led Picasso to probe the potential of this new language more deeply, giving rise to the period of Analytical Cubism, which saw the Spanish artist engaged in painting portraits, landscapes and still lifes (1908-1910). These are the years of his Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (Moscow, Pushkin Museum) and the Factory at Horta de Hebro (St. Petersburg, Hermitage), works characterized by the analysis and breakdown of the plastic components that define the object. The later shift to Synthetic Cubism marked the complete autonomy of the work of art, which was no longer an expression of appearances. Consequently, the painter was unrestricted in his elaboration of images, free even to use different materials like sand, newsprint and string (Guitar, Oslo, National Gallery). The complex and articulated forms of the analytical phase gave way to constructions composed of simplified planes, assembled in a totally free way with associations that confer a surreal aspect on the works (The Three Musicians, Philadelphia, Museum of Art; Fishing at Antibes, New York, Museum of Modern Art). A supreme example of PicassoÆs mature language is the colossal Guernica (Madrid, Museo Reina Sofia), dated 1937. The many studies that preceded the execution of this work have been preserved. The painting illustrates the bombing of the Spanish town during the Civil War, when Picasso was director of the Museo del Prado. Yet the artist also made ventures back into the realm of figurative art, as can be seen from the ôneoclassicalö works that he produced at the beginning of the twenties after a long visit to Italy in the company of the choreographer Sergei Diaghilev and a study of IngresÆs painting (Three Women at the Fountain, New York, Museum of Modern Art; Harlequin, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). Politically committed to world peace, Picasso devoted himself in the years of his maturity to the creation of a ceramics workshop at Vallauris, an activity that he carried out in parallel with that of his graphic work. Considered the greatest artist of the twentieth century, PicassoÆs work, which embraced sculpture as well (Glass and Knife, London, Tate Gallery; Goat, Paris, MusΘe Picasso), has set an example for many contemporary European and American artists.
[471]
Italian painter.
Piero della FrancescaÆs first known works show a profound knowledge of the Tuscan art of the early fifteenth century and lead us to presume that he had spent time in Florence. His presence in the chief city of Tuscany is documented in 1439, when he collaborated with Domenico Veneziano on a lost cycle of frescoes in the church of SantÆEgidio. In Florence the young artist was attracted not only by the frescoes of Masaccio but also by the limpid spatial structures and use of color in the works of Fra Angelico. At the same time, Piero continued his study of the rules of perspective proposed by Leon Battista Alberti. Between 1440 and 1445, the artist painted the Baptism of Christ (London, National Gallery), drawing on his experiences in Florence. The powerful impact of the painting derives from very sharp contrasts of light and shade. In 1451 Piero painted a votive fresco for Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, in the Tempio Malatestiano at Rimini, whose composition is characterized by an abstract and ceremonial fixity. The following year, on the death of Bicci di Lorenzo, he took over the decoration of the church of San Francesco at Arezzo with frescoes depicting the Legend of the True Cross. Around the same time he painted the Flagellation (Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche), the Madonna del Parto in Monterchi, and the Resurrection in Sansepolcro, in which the triumphal image of Christ seems to be echoed in the luxury of the natural setting. From the 1460s onward the artist developed ever closer ties with the court of Urbino, drawing inspiration for his mathematical and rational approach to painting from what was the center of the intellectual art of the day. Here Piero painted the Portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino and the Madonna with the Duke of Urbino as Donor (Milan, Brera), known as the Brera Madonna. These works reflect the influence of Flemish art and a new sensitivity for the richness of chromatic relationships. In Urbino, moreover, Piero wrote a treatise on painting, De perspectiva pingendi, in which the artist explained how to achieve a harmony of forms and space in scientific terms, in a manner that complements the concrete results of these ideas that can be seen in his paintings.
[472]
Italian painter.
A singular figure in the troubled period through which Florence passed at the turn of the fifteenth century, he had little contact with official circles. He collaborated with Cosimo Rosselli on the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, but soon was influenced by Flemish realism (Visitation, Washington, National Gallery). He proposed an unusual conception of antiquity, in which the classical myth was used to evoke a primitive and savage period in history (Scenes of Primitive Humanity, New York, Metropolitan Museum and Oxford, Ashmolean Museum). In the last phase of his career he adopted some of the teachings of Leonardo (Madonna and Child with Angels, Venice, Collection Cini), Fra Bartolomeo, and Raphael.
[473]
French painter. His earliest works show the influence of Corot and Daubigny. In a break with official academicism, he exhibited his work at the Salon des RefusΘs in 1863, alongside Manet and CΘzanne. Later he moved to Pontoise, Louveciennes (The Louveciennes Stagecoach, 1870, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay), and then to London in 1870, to escape the Prussian invasion. Fascinated by Impressionist theories, he adopted the technique of Divisionism only to return later to his earlier style (Boulevard des Italiens at Night, 1897, London, National Gallery). His work is characterized by its great consistency, with a special interest in modern life as the industrial landscapes he painted between 1868 and 1873 testify. His Neo-Impressionist phase introduced more color into a balanced and assured structure of composition that left its mark on the work of CΘzanne.
[474]
Italian painter.
Left an orphan, in 1508 Jacopo Carucci, known as Pontormo after the village where he was born, went to Florence, where he frequented the workshops of Leonardo da Vinci, Mariotto Albertinelli and Piero di Cosimo. However, it was chiefly under Andrea del Sarto that the painter received his training, entering his workshop in 1512. Right from his earliest works (Scene in the Hospital of San Matteo, Florence, Accademia; Visitation, Florence, Annunziata), in which the artist reinterpreted the classicism of Andrea del Sarto in personal tones, the sense of disquiet that characterizes PontormoÆs work is evident. Between 1513 and 1514 Pontormo contributed to the decorations set up to celebrate the entry of Pope Leo X into Florence, establishing a tie with the Medici family that would last for the rest of his life. In 1518, with the Pucci Altarpiece in San Michele Visdomini, PontormoÆs style reached a decisive turning point: the painting is filled with tension. The Scenes from the Life of Joseph (London, National Gallery), dating from the same years, show the influence of Northern European painting, known to him through engravings. Between 1519 and 1521 Pontormo frescoed the lunette representing Vertumnus and Pomona in the villa of Poggio a Caiano, belonging to the family Medici. The outbreak of plague in Florence drove the painter to seek refuge at the Galluzzo Charterhouse, just outside Florence, where in 1523 Pontormo painted the frescoes with Scenes from the Passion in the cloister, rich in Northern European influences. For the same monastery the artist painted the Supper at Emmaus (Florence, Uffizi) in which realistic characteristics are blended with a tendency toward mysticism. The masterpieces of his maturity are the decoration of the Capponi Chapel in Santa Felicita at Florence and the Visitation in the parish church of Carmignano, among the finest examples of early Florentine Mannerism and expression of an intellectual and visionary approach to painting. PontormoÆs final years, spent painting the now lost frescoes in the church of San Lorenzo at Florence, are characterized by the melancholy sense of isolation that is also recorded in the artistÆs diary. It is also worth recalling the intense portraits painted by Pontormo, including the Youth (Lucca, Museo Nazionale di Villa Guinigi) and the Halberdier (New York, Frick Collection).
[475]
French painter.
Poussin was trained in Paris, where he was able to study Italian painting from the examples in the royal collections, the Mannerists of the School of Fontainebleau, and the engravings of Raphael and Giulio Romano. He then decided to visit Italy and after a stay in Venice arrived in Rome in 1624, where he was to stay for the rest of his life. PoussinÆs early work in Italy shows the influence of Titian. In particular Titian's Bacchanalia inspired Poussin to paint several pictures of mythological subjects characterized by a range of pale and luminous colors. Examples of this include the Triumph of Flora, Inspiration of the Poet, Bacchanal with Lute Player (Paris, MusΘe du Louvre), and Death of Germanicus (Minneapolis, Institute of Arts). The artist showed a growing interest in and nostalgia for the ancient world, as seen in subjects drawn from history or from the Graeco-Roman repertoire depicted in compositions of great formal balance, rigor, and necessity (Rape of the Sabines, 1637, New York, Metropolitan Museum and the first set of the Seven Sacraments, 1636-40). Another central theme of PoussinÆs work is the landscape. Following in the footsteps of Annibale Carracci, Poussin too interpreted the landscape in terms of a classical ideal of harmony and perfection (Landscape with the Funeral of Phocion, 1648, Oakley Park, Shropshire, Earl of Plymouth Collection and Four Seasons, from 1660, Paris, Louvre).
[476]
French painter.
He came under the influence of ChassΘriau, who proposed a revival of the art of the primitives filtered through IngresÆs classicism. His two journeys to Italy, where he had an opportunity to study the works of the Florentine artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Venetians of the sixteenth century, and the Bolognese of the seventeenth century, were influential in his development. His interest in the art of the past is revealed by the cycle of pictures painted between 1880 and 1882 for the Amiens Museum (Pietα, Moscow, Pushkin Museum). Even his individual canvases favor an allegorical language and themes of a universal character (The Poor Fisherman, 1881, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). PuvisÆs work considerably influenced the emerging current of Symbolism and was studied with interest by the Nabis, Hodler, and Picasso.
[477]
Italian painter.
Raphael was the son of the painter Giovanni Santi, author of a celebrated Chronicle and the head of a flourishing workshop, where the young man received his first artistic training. He is recorded as being present in Cittα di Castello in 1500. He worked there until 1504, the year in which he painted the Betrothal of the Virgin (Milan, Brera), showing a close affinity with Perugino, as well as with the artistic circles of Urbino. In 1504 Raphael went to Florence to learn, as he himself declared in a letter, and his contact with the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo in that city was to prove highly stimulating. The Deposition (Rome, Galleria Borghese), in particular, appears to be influenced by Michelangelo, while the impact of LeonardoÆs subtle handling of atmosphere is evident in the Madonna del Prato (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) and the Portrait of Maddalena Doni (Florence, Palazzo Pitti). At the end of 1508, Raphael moved to Rome, where he had been summoned, along with artists from many other places, to take part in the decoration of Pope Julius IIÆs new apartments. He was soon given complete responsibility for the room known as the Stanza della Segnatura, on whose walls he painted the Disputation concerning the Blessed Sacrament, the School of Athens, Parnassus, and the Cardinal Virtues, all based on an iconographic program inspired by abstract doctrinal teachings. Subsequently, at the head of a large team of artists, Raphael decorated the second room, called the Stanza di Eliodoro, with scenes linked to the history of the papacy and the Church, including the Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, the Liberation of Saint Peter from Prison, Attila and Leo the Great, and the Miracle of the Mass at Bolsena. During these years he painted some of his most significant portraits, including those of Julius II (London, National Gallery) and Baldassare Castiglione (Paris, Louvre). At the same time his sacred pictures attained new heights of idealization and quality of execution, as in the Sistine Madonna (Dresden, GemΣldegalerie) or the Saint Cecilia (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale). In Rome the artistÆs interests also turned to architecture and the study of classical antiquity. After the death of Donato Bramante he assumed, among other official posts, that of chief architect of St. PeterÆs, modifying his predecessorÆs design for the great basilica. In the last years of his activity as a painter, increasingly relying on the assistance of his workshop, he painted the Portrait of Leo X with Two Cardinals and the Transfiguration (Rome, Vatican Galleries), a work that represents the final outcome of the development of his poetics, that later exercised a fundamental influence on entire generations of artists.
[478]
Dutch painter.
The son of a miller, he began to work as an independent painter in 1625. His early output was largely devoted to sacred subjects and characterized by dynamic schemes of composition and violent luministic effects that reveal the influence of Caravaggio filtered through the School of Utrecht (Christ and the Pilgrims of Emmaus, Paris, MusΘe Jacquemart-AndrΘ). Over the same period Rembrandt made numerous studies of heads and painted self-portraits of great expressiveness. In 1613 he moved to Amsterdam, where he built up a reputation as a portrait painter, and in 1634 he married Saskia, the niece or granddaughter of a wealthy art merchant. The cityÆs guild of surgeons commissioned him to paint the celebrated Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Tulp (1632, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) in which the scene is rendered dramatic by the use of strong contrasts of light and shade. In this group portrait and his individual portraits, such as Saskia Laughing (Dresden, GemΣldegalerie), Johannes Elison and Mary Bockemolle (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts), or Man in Oriental Costume (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), the artist demonstrates a capacity for deep psychological insight and a mastery of technique. In addition to his portraits and paintings of religious or mythological subjects, Rembrandt is famous for his drawings and engravings, and outstanding among them is the so-called ôHundred Guilder Printö (Christ Healing the Sick, 1642-45). With the Night Watch, one of his most celebrated masterpieces, he reached the pinnacle of his success. After the death of three children and his wife, Rembrandt abandoned his activity as a formal portraitist of the bourgeoisie and from 1650 onward, carried out a profound investigation of the inner nature of the individual and the emotional and spiritual aspects of human existence. In the paintings from this period his brushwork becomes freer (Bathsheba, The Holy Family; The Supper at Emmaus, Paris, Louvre; Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer, New York, Metropolitan Museum; Young Man Bathing in a Stream, London, National Gallery; Young Man on a Horse, New York, Frick Collection). One should not forget his numerous self-portraits of great emotional intensity that, together with the ones he painted in his youth, make up a sort of lucid autobiography of the artist (Self-portrait, 1660, Madrid, Prado).
[479]
French painter.
Born into a family of craftsmen, at the age of thirteen he entered the Parisian china factory of the Levy brothers as an apprentice, remaining there until 1858. In 1862 he enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, while frequenting the studio of the painter Charles Gleyre, where he made friends with Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley. In 1864 he accompanied them on a visit to the area around Fontainebleau where he began to make studies of the landscape following in the footsteps of the painters of the Barbizon School. It was during this period that he met the landscape painter Diaz de la Pe±a, who encouraged him to lighten his palette and paint en plein air. The first works he painted after his return to Paris show the influence of the Realist painter Gustave Courbet (At MΦre AntonyÆs Inn, 1866, Stockholm, National Museum). In 1874 at the first Impressionist exhibition, he showed one of his masterpieces, The Stage (London, Courtauld Institute Galleries), which demonstrates his twofold interest in scenes of Parisian life and the study of light. Two years later he produced one of the supreme works of Impressionist painting, the Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (1876, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). The large canvas Mme Charpentier and her Children (1878, New York, Metropolitan Museum) firmly established RenoirÆs reputation. In 1881 he made a series of journeys in search of new stimuli that could reinvigorate an Impressionism now drained of inspiration. After a brief and disappointing visit to North Africa, he went to Italy, where he studied Renaissance painting and the ancient frescoes of Pompeii with particular interest. The great masters of the Italian Renaissance enthralled him, inducing him to shift direction in his painting. Out of this came the manner that Renoir himself called aigre, or ôtart,ö but which the critics more appropriately defined as ôIngresque,ö as it was clearly influenced by the neoclassical artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, as well as by the painting of the Italian Renaissance (The Bathers, Philadelphia, Museum Of Art). The works of the aigre period are characterized by precise and essential forms, extremely careful drawing, and sober and austere colors. Toward the end of the century Renoir was struck by a severe form of rheumatoid arthritis that confined him to a wheelchair within a few years. Despite his illness, the painter continued to work, painting chiefly portraits and female nudes in which the influence of the coloring of Titian and Peter Paul Rubens is evident. From 1900 onward he spent long periods on the C⌠te dÆAzur and settled at Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1903. The exclusive subjects of his last works were monumental female nudes, painted with a soft and fluid brushstroke that perfectly harmonizes figures with setting (Bathers, 1918-19, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay).
[480]
English painter.
After an initial period working in Devonshire and London from 1740 to 1749, Joshua Reynolds set off for Rome, where he stayed for several years from 1750 to 1752, stopping in Florence, Parma, Bologna, Venice, and Paris on his return. The painter adopted many ideas during his time in Italy which helped him to develop a personal style. This is most evident in his brilliant portraits, which established ReynoldsÆs reputation with both the critics and the public. He painted a celebrated portrait of the courtesan Nelly OÆBrien in 1763. A sign of the great esteem in which Reynolds was held in London is provided by his appointment as president of the newly formed Royal Academy of Arts in 1768, which also gave him the opportunity to make a public exposition of his conception of art in a series of fifteen lectures that were later published. Unlike the well-known series of portraits by Anthony van Dyck, the subjects of ReynoldsÆs portraits were extremely varied; in addition to aristocrats, they included actors and intellectuals. An important innovation was the iconography he used for the portraits that frequently took their inspiration from the models of classical statuary, which had made a great impression on Reynolds during his visit to Italy. On the other hand, his palette shows a profound knowledge of the Italian masters, especially Guido Reni and Titian, as well as of the Dutch painter Rembrandt (Self-portrait, 1780). The arrival of the landscape painter and portraitist Gainsborough in London in 1774 had an influence on ReynoldsÆs style, which acquired greater immediacy and psychological insight, as in the portrait of Master Hare, for instance. During a profitable journey to the Netherlands and Flanders in 1781, Reynolds deepened his understanding of the works of the painters Franz Hals, Rembrandt, and Rubens, as is apparent in his subsequent work, such as the portrait of Lord Heathfield, 1787. The great fame achieved by Reynolds is due to his undoubted ability to capture the essence and psychology of his subjects, at the same time as he ennobled them by placing them in the classical poses of ancient statuary.
[481]
French painter and engraver.
He spent twelve years in Rome, specializing in the painting of ruins and in architectural caprices with figures of small size. His vast output helped to establish his reputation in court circles. He was given the post of official designer of the royal gardens and curator of the royal collections.
[482]
English poet and painter.
The son of an Italian patriot exiled to London, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, along with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Young students at the Royal Academy in London, the Pre-Raphaelites attacked the English art system for its lack of vigor, seriousness, and sincerity û qualities they found in fifteenth century painting that had flowered in Italy and Northern Europe, before the High Renaissance of Raphael. They did not set out to imitate the style of these artists, but admired their ability to ôgo toward nature,ö as the critic John Ruskin put it, and to ôtackle serious and loftyö subjects.
The same attitude had been taken earlier by the Nazarenes, German artists who had rebelled against classicist academicism at the beginning of the century in an attempt to bring art back ôonto the road of truth,ö basing their painting on religious and patriotic foundations.
The most influential exponent of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, thanks in part to his poetry, Rossetti developed a deep admiration for the ôprimitiveö Italian painters and poets, for BlakeÆs visionary reinterpretations of Dante, and subsequently for the medieval world of the Arthurian legends. His early works û The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849) and Ecce ancilla Domini (1850, London, Tate Gallery) û are typically Pre-Raphaelite attempts to reinterpret the mystical candor of painters like Fra Angelico.
Yet RossettiÆs religious fervor remained a largely aesthetic attitude, evident above all in the later developments of his painting. Even his style quickly turned from the Pre-Raphaelite aspiration to the faithful representation of nature and toward its transformation into decorative elements.
The ambiguity of RossettiÆs inspiration û a combination of the spiritual, aesthetic, and morbid û anticipated Decadence and found concrete expression in the series of female figures depicted in his paintings, halfway between idealized women and disturbing, tormented creatures (The Blessed Damozel, 1875-79, Port Sunlight, Lady Lever Art Gallery).
[483]
Italian painter.
A native of Florence, the painter owed his nickname to the red color of his hair. Trained in the workshop of Andrea del Sarto, his study of MichelangeloÆs cartoons for the Battle of Cascina played a fundamental role in the artistÆs development. In 1517 he painted the fresco with the Assumption of the Virgin in the cloister of Santissima Annunziata at Florence, where the artist worked with Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo. A year later he received the commission for the altarpiece representing the Madonna with Saints for the church of Ognissanti (Florence, Uffizi), a work which already displays the bizarre and expressive characteristics of his style, derived from a meditation on the art of Northern Europe and the sculpture of Donatello. The Deposition in Volterra dates from 1521: here the violent and surreal colors and the citations of Michelangelo seem to suggest that the painter may have already seen the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. From 1524 to 1527 the painter was in Rome, where he painted the frescoes in the church of Santa Maria della Pace. Fleeing the city following its sack by a section of the imperial army, the painter traveled around Tuscany and Umbria, leaving the suggestive and disturbing Lamentation over the Dead Christ at Borgo San Sepolcro. Moving to France in 1530, Rosso and a number of other Italian artists were commissioned to decorate the palace of Fontainebleau by King Francis I. Rosso was entrusted with the decoration of the pavilion of Pomona and the gallery of Francis I, in collaboration with Primaticcio. The presence in France of the restless Florentine artist, one of the greatest painters of the sixteenth century, played an important role in the diffusion of Mannerism in Europe.
[484]
French painter.
Employed in the municipal Customs service of Paris after the Franco-German war of 1870, he was given permission to copy pictures in the Louvre in 1884 and started to work as a self-taught painter. In 1886, having come into contact with Paul Signac, he exhibited at the second Salon des IndΘpendants. In 1893 he left his job as a customs official to devote himself to painting. His early landscapes and still lifes are meticulous reproductions of reality, devoid of any traditional perspective. In the Portrait he painted of his first wife in 1890 (Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay), RousseauÆs original style reached its maturity. But the work that attracted the publicÆs and the criticsÆ attention was War, painted in 1894 (Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). In this painting Rousseau adopted a na∩ve and ôprimitiveö language that had no parallels in the work of his contemporaries, although some aspects of his style, such as the adoption of a two-dimensional space and the symbolic use of color, are features that he shared with Paul Gauguin and the Symbolists.
Made up chiefly of works painted after 1900, his work covers a variety of themes: landscapes, portraits, patriotic and military subjects, scenes of popular life, and views of Paris. His pictures of scenes from everyday life and urban landscapes strongly influenced later painting (PΦre JunietÆs Cart, 1908, Paris, Collection Walter; The Volleyball Players, 1908, New York, Guggenheim Museum). However RousseauÆs fame is due mostly to his pictures of exotic subjects, such as the Snake Charmer (1907, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay), Virgin Forest at Sunset (1907, Basel, Kunstmuseum), and Waterfall (1910, Chicago, Art Institute), in which an exotic and fantastic world becomes a dreamlike vision û the symbol of a joyful and unfettered life of the mind.
Apparently an ingenuous and uncultured painter, Rousseau nevertheless played a part in the new ferments of his time, though without fully adhering to any movement in particular. Greatly esteemed by Symbolists like Gauguin and Odilon Redon and the exponents of the historical avant-garde, his work represents an original current within the figurative culture of progressive French art. In 1908, Pablo Picasso, fascinated by RousseauÆs primitive and exotic pictures, staged a famous banquet in his honor in his studio at Bateau-Lavoir, and Apollinaire wrote a famous epitaph for him, later carved on his tombstone by Brancusi.
[485]
Flemish painter.
Born into a family of Calvinists, he received his artistic training in Antwerp where he enrolled in the guild of painters of St. Luke in 1598. Between 1600 and 1608 he visited various cities in Italy. In Venice he made copies of paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto; in Mantua he worked for Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga; and in Genoa and Rome he studied the artists of the Renaissance, in particular his contemporaries Carracci and Caravaggio. While in Rome he painted several canvases of sacred subjects for the basilica of Santa Croce in Jerusalem (Exaltation of the Cross, Jesus Crowned with Thorns and Raising of the Cross, 1602, now in Grasse, H⌠pital de Petit Paris). These early works, together with his canvases for the church of the Trinitα in Mantua (now split between the Ducal Palace in Mantua and the museums of Vienna, Antwerp, and Nancy) and the Circumcision (1605, Genoa, SantÆAmbrogio), are characterized by complex and imposing compositions that denote his adoption of the new baroque style. During his stay in Italy Rubens also painted the Adoration of the Shepherds (1608, Fermo, San Filippo Neri) which shows a strong influence of Italian art from the Venetians to Correggio and the Roman baroque of the early part of the century. On his return to Antwerp and with the help of the rulers of the Low Countries, Alberto and Isabella, Rubens set up his famous house cum studio where van Dyck among others worked. In 1609 he married Isabella Brant and painted his famous Portrait of the Artist with his Wife (Munich, Alte Pinakothek). At the height of his fame he received important public commissions in his home city. In particular the Raising of the Cross (1610) and the Descent from the Cross (1610-14), in Antwerp Cathedral, along with the paintings for the Jesuit Church (1620-25), show the influence of CaravaggioÆs realism. Over the same period he executed the grandiose cycle of allegories of the Life of Maria deÆ Medici (Paris, Louvre). Rubens also painted a number of landscapes that are described in great detail and characterized by a solemn atmosphere (Landscape with Philemon and Baucis, 1630, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum and Autumnal Landscape with the Castle of Steen, 1635, London, National Gallery). Rubens alternated his work as a painter with diplomatic missions that took him to Madrid and then to the court of Charles I of England (1628-30). After these journeys, Rubens adopted warmer and more luminous tones in his pictures, evoking atmospheres of peace and quiet and denoting the influence of the works by Titian he had seen in Madrid (see in particular, HΘlΦne Fourment with her Son [1635, Munich, Alte Pinakothek] and the Garden of Love [Madrid, Prado]).
[486]
Italian painter and engraver.
Trained in Titianesque circles, he was one of the first artists in Venice to adopt the innovations made by Tuscan and Roman figurative culture and develop them in a highly original manner. These influences are clearly apparent in both his engravings and in the paintings Pietα (Dresden, GemΣldegalerie), Judgment of Midas (London, Hampton Court), and Adoration of the Magi (Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana). These works show an increasingly marked tendency to transform the representation into a two-dimensional pattern of colors, contracting the planes of depth by means of soft dissolving effects. The hostility with which this was received by some sectors of Venetian figurative culture was probably the reason why the artist fell back on a more traditional style. His numerous fresco decorations in Venetian palaces and villas on the mainland have been lost. In addition to the three backgrounds he painted for the ceiling of St. MarkÆs Library in 1556, the surviving works from the last period of SchiavoneÆs career include several canvases of high quality that are an extremely original reworking of Titianesque motifs: the Annunciation, Adoration of the Shepherds, and Adoration of the Magi in the Singing Gallery of Santa Maria del Carmine in Venice, and the Announcing Angel and Our Lady of the Annunciation on the organ doors of the church of San Pietro at Belluno.
[487]
Italian painter.
After an initial apprenticeship with Giovanni Bellini, whose influence can be seen in the Madonna and Child with Two Saints (1504-05, Venice, Galleria dell'Accademia), he was influenced by Giorgione. He adopted the latterÆs delicately shaded coloring, but already showed an inclination toward monumentality of composition. His works from this period include the organ doors of San Bartolomeo in Venice (ca. 1508) and the altarpiece of San Giovanni Crisostomo, also in Venice (1510). Moving to Rome in 1511, he decorated a room in the Villa Farnesina with frescoes based on OvidÆs Metamorphoses. Among the masterpieces of his Roman period are two pictures of the Pietα (ca. 1516, Viterbo, Museum Civico and 1516 St. Petersburg, Hermitage) and the decoration of the Borgherini Chapel in San Pietro in Montorio. His portraits are particularly significant, and independent of the style of both Michelangelo and Raphael. They include the Portrait of Cardinal Sauli (Washington, National Gallery) and that of Clement VII (1526, Naples, Capodimonte).
[488]
French painter.
Considered the leader of the Neo-Impressionist movement, Seurat started to draw at a very early age and in 1878 enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. From the outset of his training, he showed a keen interest in the scientific problem of perception, which induced him to study a number of theoretical writings, including the Treatise on the Law of the Simultaneous Contrast of Colors (1839) by the physicist M.-E. Chevreul. In 1879 he visited the third exhibition of the Impressionist group, which greatly influenced him. His early works were also strongly influenced by Jean-Franτois Millet, who inspired him to paint a series of views of the countryside and peasants at work between 1881 and 1883. In 1884 he exhibited his first significant work at the Salon des IndΘpendants, Bathers at AsniΦres (London, National Gallery), after it had been rejected by the official Paris Salon. The multiple influences on SeuratÆs work are already apparent in this painting: from Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Camille Pissarro to the principles derived from the study of theoretical texts and the coloring of EugΦne Delacroix. At the exhibition in 1884 he met Paul Signac, with whom he formed a close friendship. Over the next few years a group of painters interested in the new Divisionist technique (including Camille Pissarro), gathered around Seurat and Signac.
SeuratÆs research reached maturity in the painting Sunday Afternoon at the Island of la Grande Jatte (1886, Chicago, Art Institute), considered the manifesto of Divisionism, also known as Pointillism. This painting was followed by a few, highly elaborate masterpieces, for which he made studies and sketches from life: in 1888, The Models (Merion, Pennsylvania, Barnes Collection) and Circus Parade (New York, Metropolitan Museum); in 1890, Le Chahut (Otterlo, Museum Kr÷ller-Mⁿller); in 1890-91, The Circus (Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). The method of working adopted by Seurat, which started with observation from life and ended with the execution of the painting in his studio, is indicative of the distance that separated him from the Impressionists. SeuratÆs aim was to develop a ôscientificö language that would replace the ôempiricalö approach of the Impressionists. The new technique of Divisionism used by the painter was based on the application of pure colors in tiny brushstrokes in accordance with the laws of simultaneous contrast formulated by Chevreul. To achieve his goal of a ôscientificö painting, Seurat conducted a twofold line of research: on the one hand, he experimented with a new method of applying the color, and on the other hand, he adopted a rigorous structure of composition, based on traditional geometric and proportional rules of perspective. His research was also influenced by the studies of C. Henry, who argued in his Scientific Aesthetics that ôevery direction is symbolicö and established associations between the expressive value of colors and lines. Following HenryÆs indications, Seurat emphasizes horizontal lines in the Parade so as to convey a sense of tranquillity, while he uses diagonal lines in Le Chahut and Circus to enhance the impression of movement and vitality in these compositions.
In 1891, a few days after the presentation of the Circus at the Salon des IndΘpendants, Seurat died unexpectedly at the age of thirty-two, leaving a great void in the French world of art. In 1899 Signac dedicated his book From Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism to his deceased friend, acknowledging SeuratÆs role as leader of the movement.
His work is of fundamental importance to the history of modern painting, as it marked the surpassing of Impressionism and laid the foundations for the birth of the historical avant-garde movements that were to emerge in the first decade of the twentieth century.
[489]
British painter.
A pupil at the Slade School in London, where he studied from 1908 to 1912, Spencer took part in the second exhibition of Post-Impressionists organized in 1912 by Roger Fry. From 1919 to 1927 he was a member of the New English Art Club. He fought in the war, serving in Macedonia, which proved a fundamental influence on the development of his painting. For a while he abandoned representing scenes from the New Testament, set in modern and familiar surroundings, to paint large-scale works that were inspired by the horrors of war. These works included the decoration of the Sandham Memorial Chapel, in Burghclere, Hampshire, painted between 1923 and 1932. In later years he returned to sacred subjects, tackling them with an energetic simplicity, and began to paint landscapes of his birthplace that transformed it into a heavenly Jerusalem. In 1930 he executed his Beatitudes of Love, which was rejected by the Royal Academy, prompting his resignation. His visionary art, comparable with that of William Blake, is considered an extreme offshoot of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, although he deviated from the religious ideas of the brotherhood into a sort of pan-sexual mysticism that was to characterize all of his works in the thirties, like Double Nude Portrait, (1936, Tate Gallery), London. The artist displayed works at the Venice Biennale in 1932 and 1937, and the Tate Gallery devoted a major retrospective to his work in 1955, followed by one at the Royal Academy in 1980. The Tate Gallery now has a large collection of his work, illustrating every stage in his artistic development, from the Self-Portrait of 1913 to the Lunch at the Lawn Hotel of 1956-57.
[490]
British painter.
A pupil of G. F. Watts, Stanhope began to exhibit in London in 1859. He painted the frescoes in the Anglican church at Florence.
[491]
Dutch painter.
He was influenced by van Goyen, whose daughter he married, and was also familiar with the Venetian painting of the sixteenth century (through prints). In 1649 he moved to The Hague and then to Delft, where he leased a brewery. From 1661 to 1670 he was in Haarlem, where he painted his best works. His output was vast: almost seven hundred paintings are attributed to him, without the help of assistants. Famous even in his youth, he handled all the genres of the time brilliantly, including religious, mythological, and allegorical subjects. His qualities as a lively painter are most fully revealed in his genre scenes, sometimes inspired by theatrical performances: The Tooth Drawer (1651, The Hague, Mauritshuis), The Patient and The Feast of Santa Claus (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), The Feast at the Tavern (1674, Paris, Louvre), The World Turned Upside Down (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), The Sleeping Courtesan and The Prayer before the Meal (London, National Gallery). Characteristic of SteenÆs painting is his acute observation of the life of the Dutch people, represented at times with irony, at others from a moralistic, amused, or compassionate point of view.
[492]
British painter.
Stubbs began his artistic career as a portraitist, but after moving to London and publishing his treatise The Anatomy of the Horse, became famous as an animal portraitist. Later he also experimented with painting in enamel on earthenware.
[493]
Italian painter.
His earliest paintings are clearly influenced by the contemporary works of Piazzetta. The diagonal layout of the composition, the vivid palette, and a dramatic contrast of light and shade are characteristic of the juvenile Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (1722), for example. His shift to a more rococo style took place between 1720 and 1730, and culminated in the masterpiece of his early periodûthe frescoes in the ArchbishopÆs Palace at Udine. Here Tiepolo painted the first examples of his trompe-l'oeil decoration of large spaces, while his range of colors grew paler, moving toward delicate pastel shades. Paolo Veronese was the model of reference for Tiepolo, who admired the majesty of the sixteenth-century painterÆs compositions and his delicate and precious use of light which harmonized the figures with their surroundings. From 1730 to 1750 Tiepolo worked at a hectic pace, producing huge decorative cycles of both canvases and frescoes, first in Bergamo, then Vicenza, Milan, and Venice. To paint the vast blue backgrounds for the majestic mythological, historical, and religious figures that he depicted, Tiepolo often relied on the collaboration of the famous quadraturista Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna. For example, this is seen in Palazzo Labia in Venice with the cycle of frescoes representing the story of Antony and Cleopatra (1747-50). In 1750 Tiepolo went with his sons to Franconia, to decorate several rooms in the BishopÆs Residenz at Wⁿrzburg built by Johann Balthasar Neumann. The historical paintings celebrating the ruling house of Franconia are couched in even more lavish, refined, and triumphant style from the airiness of the scheme of composition to the delicate and precious combinations of color and the skillful and generous use of light. Back in Italy, Tiepolo maintained his prolific output. Among other things, he painted the frescoes in Villa Valmarana (1757) near Vicenza in which the triumphant tone gives way to a greater sense of intimacy and poetry. In 1762 he left for Madrid, where he spent the last eight years of his life on the prestigious task of frescoing the rooms of Charles IIIÆs royal palace.
[494]
Italian painter.
Titian commenced his artistic training in Venice, studying under Giovanni Bellini. But, at the age of eighteen he moved to the school of Giorgione, where he felt more in tune with the style of tonality and poetics. In 1508 he collaborated with Giorgione on the decoration of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. The frescoes have been lost but a few surviving fragments (such as the Justice in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice) suggest that he had already developed a personality of his own and was capable of handling perspective in a solemn manner. In 1511 Titian decorated the Scuola del Santo in Padua with a series of frescoes depicting the Miracles of Saint Anthony set in peaceful landscapes. In the years following the work in Padua, he painted canvases on a monumental scale such as the Saint Peter and Bishop Pesaro (Antwerp, MusΘe des Beaux-Arts) or ones which display the lasting influence of Giorgione, thus critics are still uncertain to which of the two artists the Country Concert (Paris, Louvre) should be attributed. Titian rapidly established a reputation as the greatest artist of the Venetian Republic with the Assumption of the Virgin in the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, finished in 1518. The artistÆs propensity for the grandiose triumphed in an extremely spectacular scene that was to make a deep impression on his contemporaries. TitianÆs painting gradually took the form of research in the use of color, a predominant aspect even in the first canvases of the series of Bacchanalia (1518-19, Madrid, Museo del Prado). There is also an element derived from his knowledge of the works of Michelangelo, who also played a decisive part in the Averoldi Polyptych of 1522 (Brescia, Santi Nazzaro e Celso). At the same time, Titian was developing his own approach to portraiture in which, as in the Man with a Glove (ca. 1520, Paris, Louvre), the subject is depicted half-length and with the hands visible. The profound psychological insight of his portraits found a synthesis in the grand Pesaro Altar, where the clients play a primary role alongside the sacred scene. Titian gradually acquired a role of extraordinary importance in the panorama of contemporary painting and received a series of commissions from the courts of Mantua, Ferrara, and Urbino, while starting to work for the rulers of Spain and France as well. Around 1540 came a crucial turning point in the painterÆs artistic development, through his encounter with the Mannerist culture that made its way to Venice from Rome, Tuscany, and Emilia. Titian abandoned the expressive force of color to seek a greater emphasis on plastic form in drawing and composition. This change, of which the Christ Crowned with Thorns of 1543 (Paris, Louvre) provides a fine example, was to exert a decisive influence on Tintoretto, Veronese, and Bassano. Between 1545 and 1546 he made a journey to Rome that seems to have contributed to a reappraisal of his interest in Mannerism. Instead he returned to a liberal and sumptuous use of color, evident in masterpieces like the Portrait of Paul III with his Nephews or the Portrait of Charles V on Horseback. In his late works, Titian uses a palette lit up with unexpected glows, in which the drawing grows looser and anatomical forms seem to dissolve in the atmosphere. Examples among the artistÆs dramatic last works are the Europa and the Bull (Boston) or the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence (El Escorial). His long and prestigious career made him one of the most influential figures in sixteenth-century painting, whose importance was to remain constant for centuries.
[495]
French painter.
Belonging to a noble family of ancient lineage, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec started to draw at the age of four, showing a precocious aptitude for art. Fragile in constitution, he broke both his legs during his adolescence and this stunted the growth of his lower limbs and led to permanent physical deformity. From 1822 to 1884 he frequented the Paris studios of the academic painters Bonnat and Cormon, and began to study the works of the Impressionists, especially of Edgar Degas. He also made friends with Vincent van Gogh in 1886. Toward the end of the decade he started to spend a great deal of time in the nightclubs of Montmartre, the most famous of which is the Moulin-Rouge, opened in 1889. The favorite subject of his works was the varied and colorful throng of people who hung around the dance halls, brothels, and theaters (Dance at the Moulin de la Galette, 1889, Chicago, Art Institute; Jane Avril Dancing, ca. 1892, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; At the Salon on Rue des Moulins, ca. 1894, Albi, MusΘe Toulouse-Lautrec). Famous singers and dancers like Jane Avril, Yvette Guilbert, and La Goulue were portrayed several times by the painter, who also made advertising posters for their performances (Yvette Guilbert Greeting her Public, 1894, Albi, MusΘe Toulouse-Lautrec; Dance at the Moulin Rouge and La Goulue and Valentin le DΘsossΘ, 1895, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). Derived from Impressionism, the rapid brushwork is used with great freedom to lay on flat areas of brilliant color with forceful outlines defining the figures. Toulouse-LautrecÆs interest in Japanese art influenced all his work, and this is particularly evident in the posters, with their strong stylization and uniform spreading of color. Together with the painterÆs predilection for an incisive outline, these elements reveal his affinity with the emerging art nouveau style (design for Tiffany stained-glass window, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay).
[496]
English painter.
Considered one of the most significant exponents of Romantic painting, Joseph Mallord William Turner displayed a precocious talent and was admitted to the Royal Academy in 1789. His dazzling career owed much to the academic institution, where his work, unlike that of John Constable, received numerous prizes and awards. Initially devoting himself to engraving and watercolor, he turned to oils in 1796. During the early part of his career he followed the topographical tradition, reproducing the places he visited on his wanderings through the English countryside. It was this passion for travel that remained with him throughout his life and led to his predilection for the landscape and to the large number of sketches and watercolors he painted from nature, used to produce engravings or oil paintings. A cultured and curious artist, Turner deeply admired the classical painting of Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain, but studied with equal interest RembrandtÆs research into light and GoetheÆs Theory of Colors, which constituted an important presupposition for his own investigation of light. Other evidence for TurnerÆs links with the philosophical and figurative culture of the eighteenth century comes from his interest in the poetics of the picturesque and the work of Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and other British painters of their generation. A decisive influence on his research came from his study of the watercolors of the landscape painter J.R. Cozens, from whom Turner learned to go beyond the accurate reproduction of nature to produce a freer and more lyrical vision of the landscape. His fondness for the representation of natural cataclysms, evident in his early work, reflects the painterÆs adherence to the poetics of the sublime (The Shipwreck, London, Tate Gallery; The Saint Gothard Pass, 1803, London, British Museum) as theorized by the philosopher Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgment of 1790.
Over the following years, while not forgetting the lesson of the old masters, Turner gradually developed a style of his own, concentrating on the representation of the effects of weather and light. Even in his historical and mythological paintings, his interest centers on the landscape, on the rendering of atmosphere, and, frequently, the more dramatic and ôsublimeö aspects of nature (Snowstorm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, 1812, London, Tate Gallery). His first visit to Italy in 1819, when he went to Venice, Rome, and Naples, revealed to him the intense luminosity of the Italian atmosphere, exercising a decisive influence on the evolution of his style. Over the next few years he visited Scotland, France, and Switzerland. During his stays in Italy, he returned to Venice, immortalizing the city in magnificent views (Venice from the Giudecca Canal, 1840, London, British Museum; San Benedetto: View toward Fusina, 1843, London, Tate Gallery). In this period his investigation of light and color became increasingly central: the space of the composition was freed from any traditional perspective structure and forms lost their substance and outlines, while light and pure colors became the true protagonists of the picture. Out of this came masterpieces like the Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835, Cleveland, Museum of Art), Interior at Petworth, circa 1827, London, Tate Gallery), and Snowstorm (1842, London, National Gallery). Perhaps the work that best suggests the artistÆs achievement of an intensely modern vision is Rain, Steam, and Speed (1844, London, National Gallery), the first important pictorial representation of a train. The almost abstract results produced by Turner in the works of his maturity caused perplexity among the public and the critics of the specialist press. Almost the only encouragement came from the young poet John Ruskin, whose Modern Painters (1834-60) offers an acute analysis of TurnerÆs work. The lack of realism and the ôlyricalö component of his painting would be criticized by the Impressionists, who preferred the objectivity of ConstableÆs vision.
[497]
Italian painter.
In 1407, Paolo Uccello was one of Lorenzo GhibertiÆs assistants in the casting of the door of Florence Baptistery. Later, in 1425, we know that he made a visit to Venice, where he worked on the mosaics in St MarkÆs Basilica. None of the works from this period that are mentioned in the sources have survived, but after his return to Tuscany, in 1431, he painted a picture of the Creation in a lunette of the Chiostro Verde in FlorenceÆs Santa Maria Novella. In 1436 he produced his first great masterpiece, the frescoed imitation of an equestrian monument to Sir John Hawkwood in the cityÆs cathedral. In this work he made some attempt to use perspective, although it is likely that his knowledge was based more on medieval optical science than on contemporary theories. His typical handling of perspective was used to achieve fabulous effects in the Saint George and the Dragon (London, National Gallery). The Scenes from the Story of Noah in Santa Maria Novella date from around 1450. The large lunette with the Deluge, in particular, is an intense and tragic image characterized by a powerful use of perspective. However, the most significant examples of Paolo UccelloÆs painting are the three large panels he executed for a room in Palazzo Vecchio celebrating the Battle of San Romano (now divided among Florence, London, and Paris). In 1469 he painted an altarpiece for a confraternity in Urbino, of which only the predella representing the Miracle of the Host has been preserved (Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche). Its charming little scenes of interiors reveal a marked interest in the anecdotal. In his closing years Paolo is believed to have painted the Hunt by Night (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum), whose framework of perspective is enlivened by numerous figures of animals and huntsmen, in a courtly vision that is reminiscent of the work of Pisanello. Over the course fo his career Paolo Uccello painted with extremely varied results. His effects were highly dramatic and yet abstract; some of his pictures were monumental and others more fairy tale-like in their atmosphere.
[498]
Dutch painter.
Van Baburen probably moved to Rome as early as 1612 and stayed there until around 1620 or 1621, studying the works of Caravaggio with the help of Terbrugghen. In the closing years of his life he modeled his paintings on the latterÆs work, accentuating the characterization of the faces and the gestures of the figures in representations of religious subjects, as well as genre scenes.
[499]
Flemish painter.
The first definite information we have about the painter places him in Bruges in 1468, where he collaborated on the decorations for the wedding of the duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold. Between 1475 and 1477 he painted his most important work, commissioned from him by Tommaso Portinari, the MediciÆs representative in Bruges û the Portinari Altarpiece (Florence, Uffizi), whose large size is very unusual for paintings of the time. Stylistic analysis allows a few other paintings to be placed alongside this work whose attribution is certain. They show that the artist was influenced by the work of Jan van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden and include the Vienna diptych (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Later on, Hugo van der Goes undoubtedly came into contact with some contemporary Italian paintings, and this induced him to handle space in a more monumental manner, as can be seen in the Adoration of the Magi (Berlin, GemΣldegalerie). In 1477, suffering from mental illness, the artist joined a monastery near Brussels as a lay brother, but did not completely cease his activity. It was during this period, in fact, that he painted the Death of the Virgin (Bruges, Groeningenmuseum), which displays a more acute dramatic tension expressed through the irrepressible animation of the figures.
[500]
Dutch painter.
There are few records of this artistÆs activity, especially his earlier career. His earliest known painting, On the Ice in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, dates from 1635. We have no idea who his teachers were but it is known that he ran a wineshop in Amsterdam, which went bankrupt in 1662. He is best known for his nocturnal pictures, often painted by moonlight. In these works he made use of an unusual sort of chiaroscuro, in which the deep blue of the night is illuminated by a light whose hue varies from white to red. Among his best-known works are the River Scene by Moonlight (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and Dawn (Mauritshuis, The Hague). The artist also produced a number of unconventional pictures, including several winter landscapes and Fires at Night (MusΘes Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and Pushkin Museum, Moscow).
[501]
Flemish painter.
The painter is very probably the same man as the one named Rogier, or Rogelet, de la Pasture, a pupil of Robert Campin in 1427. The link with the master from Tournai is supported by the stylistic elements of his early works, such as the Deposition (Madrid, Museo del Prado). Later he moved to Brussels, where he is recorded as the City Painter in 1435. The artistÆs style was also influenced by the works of Jan van Eyck. The Last Judgment (Beaune, H⌠tel-Dieu), in particular, is strongly reminiscent of the polyptych of the Adoration of the Lamb by the painter from Bruges. In 1450 he went to Rome for the celebrations of the Jubilee Year. The journey to Italy gave him an opportunity to see paintings in important centers like Ferrara (where he worked for Leonello dÆEste), Florence, and Milan. The Italian influence on Rogier van der Weyden can be discerned in the more subdued drama and refined spatial conception of his works in these years. In the Transport of Christ to the Tomb (Florence, Uffizi), for instance, there are elements that suggest a familiarity with Fra Angelico and Masaccio. In works like the polyptych of The Seven Sacraments (Antwerp, MusΘes Royaux des Beaux-Arts) or the St. Columba triptych with the Adoration of the Magi, the artist focuses his attention on the human component, on the monumentality of the figures in the sacred scenes. He is also famous for his production of portraits û the Young Women (Berlin) and Francesco dÆEste (New York, Metropolitan Museum) display the naturalism of van Eyck, but with a greater psychological intensity. Taken as a whole, the work of the painter, whose influence extended all over Europe, shows him to have been one of the founders of the great Flemish school of painting of the fifteenth century.
[502]
Dutch painter.
Van Dongen moved to Paris as a young man, in 1897 and was influenced by the Nabis painter Vuillard and GauguinÆs Synthetism. He held his first one-man show in 1904 and went on to exhibit with the Fauves at the Salon of the following year. The recurrent themes of his paintings û the circus, the cabaret, the dance hall û were depicted in bright and sensual colors that had an influence on the Expressionist artists of the Die Brⁿcke group, following expositions of van DongenÆs work in Germany.
[503]
Flemish painter.
Van Dyck began his artistic career at a very early age; in 1615 he opened his own studio in Antwerp and within just three years had become a member of the guild of painters and an assistant of Rubens. The works of this early period, such as Wild Boar Hunt, (1617-18, Munich, Alte Pinakothek) or Saint Martin and the Beggar, (1621, Saventhem Church), show the strong influence of the Ruben's art. From 1621 to 1627 he was in Italy, and spent most of his time in Genoa though he also visited Rome, Florence, Bologna, Venice, and Palermo. This gave the artist an opportunity to study the great works of the Italian Renaissance which he reproduced in a notebook of sketches, now in the British Museum in London. The pictures he painted during his stay in Italy show the particularly strong influence of Titian, evident in the use of a palette of soft and mellow tones and elegant compositions. In addition to numerous religious works, like Madonna of the Rosary, Palermo, oratory of the Rosario, van Dyck painted a series of portraits of the Genoese aristocracy, such as Portrait of Marchese Caterina Durazzo, (Genoa, Palazzo Reale), which show that his style had reached its full maturity. On his return to the Netherlands, he was appointed court painter by Archduchess Isabella and painted mostly portraits and altarpieces, like the Ecstasy of Saint Augustine, 1628, Antwerp, church of St. Augustine. Most remarkable among the pictures of mythological subjects is his masterpiece Rinaldo and Armida (ca. 1630-31, Paris, Louvre), whose smoothness of execution seems to foreshadow the rococo style. In 1632 he moved to England, where he worked as court painter to Charles I and was given a knighthood. Here the artist painted a large number of portraits that provide an important record of the world of the English aristocracy in the first half of the seventeenth century and influenced the great English portraitists of the eighteenth century, Gainsborough and Reynolds. He portrayed his subjects in sumptuous clothing, and set against landscapes painted in luminous tones. The most famous of these pictures are the Portraits of Charles I (London, National Gallery; Paris, Louvre; and Madrid, Prado).
[504]
Dutch painter.
The story of Vincent van GoghÆs life and art is widely known thanks to his frequent exchange of letters with his brother Theo. The son of a Protestant pastor from the Dutch region of Brabant, he finished his studies and was then employed from 1869 onward by the Goupil art dealers at their offices in The Hague, London, and Paris successively. In 1876 he was dismissed and returned to the Netherlands. After various attempts to find a job, he enrolled in a missionary school in Brussels. Appointed a preacher, he spent the years 1879 and 1880 as an evangelist in the Belgian coalmining region of Borinage, surrounded by poverty and suffering. In the fall, after months of solitude, he decided to devote himself to painting and at the age of almost thirty embarked on an artistic career, producing drawings and watercolors over the following two years. At the end of 1883 he went to Neunen, a country town in the Dutch part of Brabant to which his parents had moved. The two years he spent at Neunen were decisive to his development as an artist. Mindful of his experience among the miners, he made many drawings and paintings of the place and its inhabitants, mostly poor peasants and weavers, depicting them at work or in their rare moments of rest (Bust of a Peasant Woman, 1884-85, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; The Potato-Eaters, 1885, Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kr÷ller-Mⁿller). In 1886 his move to Paris, where his brother Theo still lived, marked the beginning of the French period, interrupted only by a brief trip to Antwerp at the end of the same year. During his stay in Paris from 1886 to 1888 he discovered Impressionist painting and developed a growing interest in Japanese art and prints, of which he became a collector. He met Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and, later, Paul Gauguin, for whose paintings he had a particularly high regard. This was the time of his enthralling discovery of color, stimulated by the work of the Impressionists and his interest in the technique of Divisionism, which influenced his subsequent output. In 1888 he left Paris and moved to Arles in the South of France. Delighted with the light and the brilliant colors of Provence, he painted some of his most significant works there, including The ArtistÆs Room in Arles (1889, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay) and the series of Sunflowers (1888-89). At the end of 1888 Vincent had a furious argument with Gauguin, who had joined him in Arles, and tried to stab his friend. He then cut off his own ear (Self-portrait with Mutilated Ear, 1889, Chicago, private collection). Subject to fits of deep depression, he was repeatedly admitted to Arles Hospital, and then committed himself to the mental asylum of Saint-Paul, at Saint-RΘmy in Provence. Here, in moments of lucidity, he painted intensely, producing works of visionary power in ever more swirling brushstrokes and brighter colors (Starry Night over the Rh⌠ne, 1888, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). In the spring of 1890 he left the asylum and moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, where he was looked after by his brother and Dr. Gachet. In these last years of his life he still painted many pictures, mostly landscapes and portraits (Doctor Paul Gachet, 1890 and The Church of Auvers-sur-Oise, 1890, both in Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; View of the Auvers Plain, 1890, Munich, Neue Pinakothek; Wheatfield with Crows, 1890, Amsterdam, Museum Vincent van Gogh). At the end of July he shot himself and died after two days of agony.
[505]
Dutch painter.
His vast output consisted entirely of landscapes in all their variations, interpreted in an emotional fashion through the use of tonality, light effects, and animated masses. His free handling of reality was accentuated in his mature works, which convey an almost Romantic pathos.
[506]
Italian painter, architect and writer.
VasariÆs background in based on very early mannerism and the models of Raphael and Michelangelo. In the 1540s, in Rome, Vasari frequented a circle of writers who met under the patronage of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1468-1549), who became Pope Paul II in 1534. In Florence for Cosimo I deÆ Medici (1519-1574), Vasari designed and executed the Uffizi Gallery and a large number of other commissions, including renovation of the Palazzo Vecchio. He had many assistants in his great enterprises. So many, indeed, that a Vasari school was to grow up in Florence. Ingenious and magnificent in his works of decorative art in Florence, Vasari distinguished himself in particular for his architectural creations. Yet, he is probably best remembered for his ôVite deÆ pi∙ eccellenti architetti, scultori e pittoriö (Lives of the Most Excellent Architects, Sculptors and Painters), which he wrote before 1550 and then updated in 1568. This literary work offers the first history of Italian art from Cimabue to VasariÆs contemporaries with particular regard given to Michelangelo, who, for Vasari, represented the maximum and irreproducible point of Italian art. The Lives is appreciated for the breadth of its historical approach, its capacity of interpretation of art works, for the variety and novelty of the artistic terminology and the abundance of documentation.
[507]
Dutch painter.
Jan Vermeer originally worked as an innkeeper, devoting himself occasionally to dealing in works of art. In 1653 he enrolled in the guild of painters in Delft. His early work shows the influence of Caravaggio followers in Utrecht, as well as Rembrandt (The Procuress, 1656, Dresden, GemΣldegalerie; Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, Edinburgh, National Gallery; Diana and the Nymphs, The Hague, Mauritshuis; Drowsing Girl, New York, Metropolitan Museum). After these early paintings, Vermeer quickly defined the unique characteristics of his own style, evident in such celebrated pictures as the Girl Reading a Letter (Dresden, GemΣldegalerie), The Music Lesson (New York, Frick Collection), The Milkmaid (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), Woman Reading in Blue (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), and The Lacemaker (Paris, Louvre).
Called ôthe painter of the silent life of things,ö Vermeer used a clear and essential style to produce meticulous and sharp descriptions of reality, whether that of human figures or of objects. Vermeer is principally a painter of interiors. Most of his pictures are of women at work or reading in the setting of their homes. In these rooms the light creates a pattern of reflections, glowing, and shadows, conjuring up an enchanted atmosphere and a sense of expectation, or of suspension in time. The same atmosphere holds sway in his views of the outside world, like in Alleyway (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) and View of Delft (The Hague, Mauritshuis). The works of the later part of his career are characterized by more complex schemes of composition and stronger contrasts of light and color, in addition to containing elements of an allegorical characterûThe Painting Lesson (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), The Geographer (Frankfurt, StΣdelsches Kunstinstitut), and The Astronomer (1668, Paris, Louvre). Ignored for a long time, VermeerÆs work was reappraised by the exponents of French realism in the mid-nineteenth century and by critics and writers like ThΘophile Gautier, the Goncourt brothers, and Marcel Proust.
[508]
French painter.
The main influence on him was the work of C.Lorrain, which allowed him to capture the atmospheric and luministic qualities of the landscape from life. After a stay in Rome, he settled in Marseilles where he devoted himself to the painting of seascapes. Louis XV commissioned him to paint a series of twenty-two pictures of French ports.
[509]
0Italian painter and sculptor.
Working initially as a goldsmith, he came under the patronage of the Medici and, along with Pollaiolo, was one of the leading figures in the Florentine art of the second half of the fifteenth century, at the head of an important workshop with a number of illustrious pupils like Leonardo. In his sculptures Verrocchio toned down the sharp and marked line derived from Donatello to achieve pictorial effects of chiaroscuro: Lady with Nosegay and David (both in Florence, Bargello). The influence of Pollaiolo can be seen in the silver relief representing the Beheading of the Baptist for the altar of San Giovanni (Florence, Museo dellÆOpera del Duomo). Invited to make the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni (1479-88) by the republic of Venice, he used DonatelloÆs monument to Gattamelata as a model but transformed its measured harmony in an effort to produce effects of compressed energy and expressive power.
[510]
Dutch painter.
The son and pupil of Cornelis Engelszoon, he worked for a long time in the studio of Frans Hals at Haarlem. In 1632 he was enrolled in the guild of St. Luke. He painted nothing but portraits and, while these were modeled exclusively on his fatherÆs work in the beginning, he soon developed a style of his own, characterized by refined execution, a leaning for subtle shading and a fondness for monochrome backgrounds, veiled with a light and transparent glaze. His masterpieces include the Portrait of a Girl in Blue (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and Doctor Akersloot (Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem), along with paintings representing regents. The quantity and quality of his paintings make him one of the finest representatives of the Haarlem school of portraiture.
[511]
British painter.
In the early part of his career Wallis produced genre paintings and pictures of historical subjects. Yet he is reputed for his adoption of the Pre-Raphaelite style, which he blended with the influence of French painting. The Death of Chatterton (1856, Tate Gallery, London) proved popular with his contemporaries because of the way that the painter dealt, in an anecdotal and easily understandable manner, with the drama of the artist faced by societyÆs lack of understanding. In 1858 Wallis exhibited the Stonebreakers (City Museum, Birmingham) at the Royal Academy. The painting was accompanied by a long quotation from CarlyleÆs Sartor Resartus that emphasized WallisÆs pictorial representation of contemporary societyÆs accusations, which was more placid than CourbetÆs representations of the same subject in 1849. The artist continued along these lines, which led him to gradually move away from the calm atmospheres of the Pre-Raphaelites.
[512]
French painter.
He was influenced by Northern European painters, like Rembrandt and Rubens, very early on. In 1717, the belated presentation of the Embarkation for Cythera as his Diploma Work some five years after his admission to the Academy marked the official consecration of a new genre, that of the fΩtes galantes, created by Watteau himself. Characteristic of his work is his interest in the world of theater and masks (French Actors, Love at the French Theater; Love at the Italian Theater; Berlin, Staatliche Museen; Gilles, Paris, Louvre) and for scenes set against the backdrop of a mannered society (Rendezvous in a Park, Paris, Louvre; The Pleasures of the Dance, London, Dulwich Collection). WatteauÆs expression is a blend of the Northern European vein of realism with elements drawn freely from the history of coloring in art. His iconographic and stylistic repertory, which ranges from genre scenes to mythological pictures, nudes, and portraits, exercised a considerable influence on subsequent European painting.
[513]
Dutch painter.
Weenix painted works of various kinds, including history paintings, genre scenes, portraits, still lifes and landscapes. He was most appreciated, however, for his still life compositions with game, a genre that proved highly popular as a decorative element for houses.
[514]
American painter.
In Paris from 1855, he frequented Realist circles but his enthusiasm for Japanese prints and the painting of Velßzquez brought him closer to the work of the young Impressionists. In 1859 he moved to London, where he spent much of his life and soon came to be regarded as the doyen of British Impressionism (Nocturne in Blue and Gold, ca. 1877, Detroit, Institute of Arts). The objective of WhistlerÆs research was the development of a style of painting without a story to tell, a pure aesthetic experience above and beyond the values of representation, which brought him into comparison with the Symbolist culture of the 1880s and 1890s û contemporaries drew parallels between his nocturnes and symphonies and the music of Wagner.
