The Art Thread

[stlukesguild]

I think the Baroque was the period that I first became truly enamored of... for much the same reasons as Mutatis: the absolute mastery of painting... of drawing, perspective, rendering of form and space and shadow and color. Truly there is no period in the whole of Western art that surpasses the Baroque in terms of the absolute technical skills of painters and sculptors in rendering the illusion of real form and space. I was also drawn to the absolute theatricality of the period... the energy, passion, and sheer sensuality. And the compositions? They are so "organic" in nature that one almost fails to recognize just how consciously constructed they are. Among my favorite artists and paintings of the Baroque I would include:

Bernini:

Surely Bernini stands shoulder to shoulder with Michelangelo as a sculptor. What can rival the absolute "miracle" of the Daphne and Apollo as Daphne metamorphoses into a tree... her fingers sprouting the most delicate leaves carved from marble so thin that they are transparent!



Or what of that other masterwork illuminating still another scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses: The Abduction of Persephone? Hard marble virtually breathes with life and warmth as the muscular God's fingers sink into the warm flesh of Persephone:





Or yet again... what of the Ecstasy of St. Theresa... the sculptural group set in an architectural stage:



Gilded rays carry light down from a stained-glass window above. Theresa's robe quivers and crackles with electricity. The beautiful angel thrusts his arrow into Theresa again and again... as she writhes in a spiritual/sexual ecstasy... her limbs limp, her head thrown back, eyes rolled, and mouth intoning a moan is a virtual portrayal of an orgasm.

"I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it..."



Diego Velazquez

The great Spaniard began his career as a masterful follower of Caravaggio. On the recommendation of Peter Paul Rubens, he was sent to study in Italy and returned having fully absorbed the lessons of Titian, Rubens, and others. His brushwork virtually dances like the swordplay of a master swordsman creating a scintillating surface... even to the most mundane of subjects:



The hands of the simple seamstress are a blur of motion... rendered in but a few rapid brush-strokes:



His brush dances with equal verve in portraying the ornate embroidery of the coat of the King of Spain:



Velazquez rose to fame and fortune under one of the most repressive and backward regimes in the whole of Europe. In spite of his reverence for Titian and Rubens... the great masters of the nude... Velazquez painted but a single nude... the Rokeby Venus...



...which remained in the private collection of a nephew of the Count-Duke of Olivares, the power behind the throne... and essentially the most feared man in Spain. The Rokeby Venus has long been acknowledged as having perhaps the "finest a.." in the whole of art history... something that was quite likely recognized by the suffragette Mary Richardson, who attacked the painting with a knife in 1914.

Yet another master who was profoundly influenced by the work of Peter Paul Rubens was Anthony van Dyck... Ruben's most talented assistant. Following his years under Rubens, Van Dyck studied in Italy and eventually moved to England where he became the favorite portraitist. Can one imagine a more exquisite portrait that the lovely Marie-Louise de Tassis?



Van Dyck's slightly elongated and elegant portrayals of the British aristocracy established the model for royal portraiture for a century or longer. Yet he was not one to avoid capturing the true nature of his sitters as well. Can one imagine a more telling portrayal of the smug arrogance of inherited wealth and power as seen in this portrait of the Stuart Brothers?





This famous portrait of Charles I is a masterful exercise in the key elements of royal portraiture. Charles is represented as a man of true power. He stands nonchalantly, his hand jauntily poised on his hip, giving but a slight sideways glance toward the viewer. This is a man for whom portraiture is no big deal. His clothes are expensive (the finest lambskin boots and gloves and the most exquisite, satin jacket)... yet convey the ease and indifference of which Robert Herrick speaks:

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly:
A winning wave (deserving note)
In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Perfection and precision are best left to those uncertain as to their position. Such is not Charles. He stands a head above his servants who attend to his steed... who is himself bowing before the king. Indeed the branches of the trees themselves echo this gesture as if nature itself were humbled.

More to come...

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I eagerly await the next post, StLukes!

Your post on Mannerism was fascinating . . . honestly, I've never even heard of it, and I didn't know things like they painting of the woman pinching the other's nipple and sketch of an hyperbolic Hercules were even done so long ago. If you posted them with no context, I would've assumed they were done within the last 50 years.

Those Bernini sculptures are amazing--the translucent leaves and the fingers sinking into the skin. Wow. While I'm more a fan of painting than sculpture, I'll always admire the skill of sculptors more. Painting I get--I have a little skill when it comes to drawing, so I can wrap my head around it. I can't say the same with sculpture. I wouldn't know where to begin. When I was at The Loucre, my favorite section was the ancient Greek sculpture, not so much because of the beauty, but because I was looking at pieces thousands of years old. I don't know, it just boggles my mind that art could survive so long . . . that there is still such a direct connection to such a distant past.

I'm curious, on a practical level, how did they get so much detail out of hard stone? How'd they get it so smooth? Where'd they even get pieces of marble that big?

[stlukesguild]

I'm curious, on a practical level, how did they get so much detail out of hard stone?

I'm a painter myself. My entire approach to art is accumulative... I'm adding to the canvas. Sculpture... when it involves carving from marble... is reductive. It involves removing what is already there. I cannot even begin to think in such a manner. Michelangelo spoke of marble block as already having a figure contained within. All that needed to be done was to remove all that wasn't the figure... like letting the water out of a bathtub in which a figure lies. Sounds easy enough, eh? What I really can't fathom is the inability to make mistakes. If I draw the head too big... I just erase it and draw it again. If the color isn't quite right... let it dry and paint over it. But if you slip and lop off a hand???!

How'd they get it so smooth?

They use a type of polish that contains a grit.

Where'd they even get pieces of marble that big?

Carrara:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrara_marble

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Thanks St. Lukes that’s what I call expounding. Bernini was the man!
Quite prolific throughout Rome under the patronage of Popes. A characteristic I’ve noticed that may be unique to Baroque, or at least common between Bernini, Carvaggio and I suppose Rosa, regards what I perceive to be a heavier handed use and articulation of garments. Notice the many layers and folds in The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, the blanket or mantle of hell that death emerges from in the Tomb of Pope Alexander (below), the flowing cape of Jason in Rosa’s painting above. Is that a correct perception or am I being too specific? maybe it is a small example of a braoder characteristic to that period.

quote St. Lukes: “Parmagianino-Madonna Enthroned (Note the bizarre proportions of the Mother, the leg of the figure to the left, and especially the child. Note the confusing spatial construction with the smaller figure in the distance seen lower down)”

^ this brought to mind a Le Sueur painting I posted on the name the painting where Christ is presented at the Temple. Note the odd proportion of Christ, even considering the fact that he was young (12 I believe) according the Bible…







A few more examples by Bernini that I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to see in the flesh include :

The Tomb of Pope Alexander the VII. (from 1988) The two women represent Charity and Truth, with the foot of “Truth” resting on Earth. A thorn pierces “Truth’s” toe representing the “thorn” of English Protestantism. Skeletal death floats into the tomb on wings beneath the mottled red marble holding an hour glass indicating Alexander’s time was up and reminding all who pass by, that our grains are numbered.







“Cathedra Petri”

Two in one shot (from 1988)
Cathedra Petri beyond as seen through the four twisted columns of Bernini’s Baldichino. Note the similarity in the golden rays to those illuminating St. Teresa’s Ecstasy. Clouds, Cherubs and Angels intertwined with the sun rays.





A much better shot from Wikipedia:





The Piazza at St. Peters Basillica including the open arms of the colonnades embracing the piazza. The inner parapets of the colonnades are lined with statues of saints.




From Wikipedia:





Influenced by Bernini

Bernini created the concept for the design of ten sculpted angels to line each side of Ponte Sant’Angelo (bridge) and actually completed two of the angels himself. The remaining angels were sculpted by other Baroque artists of the time. When I snapped the shot below, I assumed it, along with the others, was sculpted by Bernini. “Angel with Lance”, representing the lance used to pierce Christ while on the cross, was sculpted by Domenico Guidi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domenico_Guidi

[Lokasenna]

I've always loved Bernini - he's my favourite sculptor, and to be honest I think he's better at it than Michelangelo.

It's curious just how clearly his mark is stamped all over Rome. I'm speaking from the perspective of an interested but subjective layman here, but more than any other artist he seems to me to have spread himself over the city in a highly individual way.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I'm curious, on a practical level, how did they get so much detail out of hard stone?

I'm a painter myself. My entire approach to art is accumulative... I'm adding to the canvas. Sculpture... when it involves carving from marble... is reductive. It involves removing what is already there. I cannot even begin to think in such a manner. Michelangelo spoke of marble block as already having a figure contained within. All that needed to be done was to remove all that wasn't the figure... like letting the water out of a bathtub in which a figure lies. Sounds easy enough, eh? What I really can't fathom is the inability to make mistakes. If I draw the head too big... I just erase it and draw it again. If the color isn't quite right... let it dry and paint over it. But if you slip and lop off a hand???!

Exactly! I never thought of it that way, but that's exactly why sculpting seems so difficult, there's something very comforting by having that erasur.

While I've been collecting images of various paintings in my iPad, I haven't done so with sculptures. I just don't think pictures do sculptures enough justice. Not that I'm saying I don't like looking at pictures--all this is fascinating as usual--it just seems to lose something in the translation, understandably so.

[stlukesguild]

I've always loved Bernini - he's my favourite sculptor, and to be honest I think he's better at it than Michelangelo.

I love Bernini myself... but I would never underestimate Michelangelo.

Michelangelo was barely out of his teens when he produced the Drunken Bacchus...



...recognized as the most sophisticated and "realistic" work of sculpture since the ancient Greeks and Romans. Indeed, the work was reportedly intended to be marketed as a legitimate antique Roman sculpture... something from the Mannerist Antonine period ala the famous portrait of Commodus:



Already, Michelangelo is playing with the contrasts between the smooth simplicity of the naked body and the ornate detail of the hair, grapes, etc...

Another early work, the Bruges Madonna, rivals the elegant simplicity of the great Flemish and German sculptors of the period:





His next sculpture... the masterful Pieta, surpassed anything done since the ancient Greeks... and established Michelangelo as the greatest living sculptor of the Renaissance.



The sculpture is a masterpiece of unrivaled elegance and beauty. In spite of Michelangelo's reputation for "ugly" women based upon male models, the young Virgin is more than lovely:



The real "miracle" of the Pieta, however, is largely overlooked as a result of the apparent ease and naturalism of the work. The Pieta had long been a favorite subject matter of painters... but was largely avoided by sculptors for the simple reason that the portrayal of a full grown adult male laying across the lap of a woman would almost certainly look awkward. This was acceptable in the "expressionistic" works of the German Medieval sculptors...





... but such a solution was unacceptable to the Renaissance sculptors with their emphasis upon classicism and naturalism. Michelangelo, however, brilliantly solved the problem by employing a degree of abstraction or distortion that is all but invisible. The Virgin's voluminous robes billow out forming a substantial platform or cradle in which the limpid body of Christ lays. The swollen and expansive fabric effectively masks the fact that were Mary to stand, she would tower some several feet over the dead Christ in height. And yet in spite of the extreme abstraction, all appears natural and "realistic".

Michelangelo would repeatedly pull off such illusions of naturalism in spite of the extremes of distortion. The famous Libyan Sibyl, for example, is often cited as being one of the the most beautiful figures within the whole of the Sistine...



This is true in spite of the fact that this lovely woman was based upon the studies of a male model:



The pose itself is also physically impossible. The artist wanted to convey a sense of movement as the Sibyl turns away from us, places her heavy tome upon a dais, and steps away from her studies. He achieves this through an almost Cubist technique combining multiple view points: Her left foot is turned directly toward us, the big toe jutting out at the viewer in a foreshortened manner... and yet her back and arms are turned completely opposite... moving away from us... while at the same time, her right leg steps forth daintily... in spite of her precarious pose and the weight of her book. And yet as a whole, the figure appears completely natural and believable as the Pieta.

The Pieta drew crowds of spectators, and many speculated that the work most assuredly must have been the product of a Flemish master as a result of its high degree of polish and detail. There are several anecdotes concerning Michelangelo overhearing such slander leading him to carve his name in bold letters upon the Virgin's sash proclaiming authorship.







Perhaps Michelangelo's greatest achievement in sculpture, however, was the David. The David is undoubtedly the single iconic image best representative of the ideals of the Renaissance. As opposed to the drama and action portrayed in the David of Bernini, Michelangelo's David is a man of thought.



His brow is furrowed and his eyes glower (Michelangelo deeply undercut these) as he contemplates what lies before him. The weight of the trial or contest that lies before him can also be felt in the exaggerated scale of his hand in which he holds the stone that is his only defense against the vastly superior strength of Goliath.



The Florentines saw the tale of David and Goliath as a narrative akin to their own rise to grandeur. The scale of the David... some 17 feet high... reinforces the heroism of the subject matter.

Hell... even the David's penis has become an iconic image:



Not only does Michelangelo present one of the first representations of pubic hair in post-Classical European art... but he renders this with such loving care... almost as a swirl of fire. The question has often been asked concerning the diminutive size of the David's manhood... especially considering the artist's sexual preferences. There are at least two feasible explanations. Since Greco-Roman times a large penis was often seen as proof of bestiality... the triumph of the body and sexuality over the mind. Figures such as Priapus and Pan (or other Satyrs)...



... were commonly portrayed with comically over-sized appendages... and were seen as sad, vulgar, ridiculous... and forever frustrated.

On the other hand, some scholars have suggested that David's penis is yet another element of "realism" in Michelangelo's sculpture... accurate to the manner in which the genitals would contract in the face of fear and imminent danger.

*********

[stlukesguild]

One of the final sculptures to be rendered in a naturalistic manner was the marvelous Christ Carrying the Cross. One of Michelangelo's artist contemporaries Sebastiano del Piombo declared that the knees alone were worthy of more than the whole Rome... a comment similar to one made concerning the knees of Ruben's Venus from the painting of Venus and Adonis. The figure is indeed one of the most classical representations of Christ as a virile, muscular young God... in a manner not unlike Apollo.





Much of the remainder of Michelangelo's career as a sculptor was spent laboring upon two major commissions: the Medici Tombs and the Tomb of Pope Julius II. The Medici Tombs were completed with portraits of Lorenzo and Guillaume:





It is the flanking figures representing Day and Night, and Dawn and Dusk, however, that are far more important. The tombs themselves... like most Renaissance art... assumes a frontal view:





Yet the figures themselves break away from this limitation... inviting views from the sides:



The Sistine frescoes clearly informed Michelangelo's thinking in considering the appearance of the sculpture from various angles... something that will become a staple of Baroque sculpture.

The figures of the Medici Tombs point the way toward Mannerism with their distortions of anatomy and hyper-sensuality... even eroticism:





The Medici Tombs show the artist making a conscious effort to employ various degrees of finish to the surface... achieving an almost coloristic effect. The two female figures are especially smooth and polished:



The figure of Dusk, especially, is carved in a rougher manner over much of the body... with the head... furthest removed from the viewer... hacked in crudely



The technique almost suggests the manner in which Rembrandt (among others) blurs out less important details... or areas of the image removed from the area of central focus... such as the hands in this self-portrait:



Perhaps the most important figure in the Medici Tombs is that of Night.



Night was clearly modeled upon Michelangelo's lost painting of Leda and the Swan:



The pose of the nude with the raised leg would be influential upon artists for centuries. The poet Baudelaire enthused:

The Ideal

It's not with smirking beauties of vignettes,
The shopsoiled products of a worthless age,
With buskined feet and hands for castanets —
A heart like mine its longing could assuage.
I leave Gavarni, poet of chloroses,
His twittering flock, anaemic and unreal.
I could not find among such bloodless roses,
A flower to match my crimson-hued ideal.
To this heart deeper than the deepest canyon,
Lady Macbeth would be a fit companion,
Crime-puissant dream of Aeschylus; or you,
Daughter of Buonarroti, stately Night!
Whose charms to suit a Titan's appetite,
You twist, so strange, yet peaceful, to the view.

tr. Roy Campbell

*****

[stlukesguild]

The second major commission of Michelangelo's latter years... the Tomb of Pope Julius II has left us a "heap of broken images"... fragments that ironically became the most influential works upon artists centuries later. The final realization of the tomb was a poorly realized compromise involving sculptural figures mostly rendered by assistants.

The figure of Moses, the most finished sculpture of those initially intended as part of the tomb, ultimately wound up in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. This muscular, Old Testament visionary rivals the images of God on the Sistine Ceiling in conveying absolute strength and power.



Just as the Sistine Ceiling included a wealth of "ignudi"... male nudes flanking the narrative panels... so the Tomb of Pope Julius II was to include a good number of such sculptural nudes. These figures have been referred to as "slaves". The Louvre houses the most finished of the "slaves", the so-called Dying Slave:





It is the other "unfinished" figures who struggle to come into being... to break free from the living rock... like some distortion of the legend of Prometheus... who are clearly the most influential upon Modern art:









One cannot imagine the innovations of Rodin without these examples of "unfinished" figures by Michelangelo:







The last sculpture from the hand of Michelangelo, the so-called Rondanini Pieta is perhaps even more influential upon Modern art. For a great many years the work was dismissed as the sad efforts of an artist who had lost his abilities as the result of age. In actuality, the Rondanini Pieta shows an artist of incredible skill and vigor.



After having worked upon the sculpture for a good deal of time, Michelangelo made a sudden decision to completely re-work the composition... rapidly carving away much of the original Christ figure. Close inspection of his carving reveals the expertise and vitality of the artist as he rapidly blocked out the essential forms:



The resulting sculpture thrusts upwards in an arc that suggests Brancusi's Bird in Space:



The artist was clearly aiming toward an expressionism that was centuries away from the naturalism and classicism at which he began.

[stlukesguild]

Returning to the Baroque painters and some of my favorites...

Vermeer:

Johannes or Jan Vermeer is another of those linchpins of art history. As the Northern Protestant counties/states of the Netherlands broke away from the Catholic states that would eventually become Belgium, there was a drastic change in the art market. Where artists had long been seen as skilled craftsmen working for wealthy aristocrats and clergy, in Holland the arts became a commodity... a product like any other... bought and sold on the open market. Artists themselves became small businessmen. The audience and buyers for art were no longer wealthy and educated aristocrats and clergy... but rather the upper-middle class or Bourgeois. The Bourgeois buyers knew little or nothing of art and artists... but they knew what they liked. They wanted to be able to shop about and compare the product the same as they might any other. As a result, the middle-men sprouted up: art dealers who could show the potential buyer a range of finished paintings from which to choose. You want a landscape? Water of no water? Cows? Horses? Or perhaps you prefer winter scenes with skaters? The dealers had a ready stock of paintings and knew which artists produced what.

This rather mercenary shift in the market continues to impact the art market (for better or worse) to this day. On the positive side it led to opening up art to a vast array of subject matter long ignored. No longer was list of possible subjects in art limited to God and Kings, and grandiose mythologies. Of course the resulting work was not inherently better than what went before. It all depended upon the individual artist. The "Little Dutch Masters" produced an endless array of mundane and virtually identical paintings of the Dutch landscape, still-lifes, etc... for the market. But other artists could take the most mundane subject... the intimate, every-day scenes of life... and turn them into something truly "poetic". Vermeer was one such artist.

Vermeer will become virtually a role model for many Modern artists. He was able to infuse mundane, common, everyday scenes with a magic and intensity that virtually drowns out acres of canvases painted by others. Part of the power of his paintings lies in the time he spent with each canvas. They all speak of of care... order... silence. They are also immaculately realized. Vermeer applied endless layers of transparent oil paint until the surface of his paintings glowed like jewels. The analogy is apt in that Vermeer frequently employed the most expensive of pigments... including gemstones such as Lapis Lazuli. Vermeer also employed the latest optics... looking through a lens... and even utilizing the camera obscura. Looking through the lens, Vermeer saw images as a series of small pixel-like dots which would have a profound influence on Impressionism.









The full magic of Vermeer's paintings are something that must be seen in person. The clarity and richness of the colors is spectacular, while the surface... layered endlessly in transparent glazes into which flat dots of color have been worked... like refractions of light... can only be truly described as akin to liquid gems:

[Lokasenna]

A marvellous refutation, as always! :P

I don't know though - on a purely personal and subjective level, I still kind of prefer Bernini. Michelangelo certainly has his moments - Piéta is one of the finest sculptures in existence - I do think he's a little bit too totemised. If I'm honest, I don't really see what all the fuss is about David and the Sistine Chapel - neither really made that much impression on me.

Vermeer, though, is superb. No argument from me there!

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Interesting stuff, as always stlukes.

I'm not too crazy about those painting above (as in they're not going into my "favorite paintings" collection), but I get what you mean on making the mundane beautiful. I do find the use of light in those paintings quite beautiful. Interesting light effects are a staple when it comes to paintings I like, it seems--those pictures I posted show that.

The full magic of Vermeer's paintings are something that must be seen in person. The clarity and richness of the colors is spectacular, while the surface... layered endlessly in transparent glazes into which flat dots of color have been worked... like refractions of light... can only be truly described as akin to liquid gems:

My grandmother has a print this, actually. Before my grandparents moved, it was prominently displayed over the fire place in their living room (I was at that house a lot). My grandmother is an artist (casual, she just draws and never sells anything, but she's escellent) and art lover herself. She always has plenty of prints and pieces of art on the walls, but that one always struck me for a reason I can't determine. I'd always look at it. Even now, I'm not sure I'd say I like it, but it captivates me. Probably just a sign of how good it is.

[Petrarch's Love]

Hi St. Lukes! Glad when I check in after a long absence to find the art corner of Lit. Net in good shape with Vermeer. What reproductions can never convey, of course, is the luminosity of his work. I don't even know how to describe how the paint glows. I think part of the wonder of seeing his work in person is the way the painting is a noticeably smooth and completely flat surface--the impression is that the surface is as thin and one dimensional as a single piece of paper--while it simultaneously possesses a depth of light and color such that the viewer can easily get lost for hours in a square inch of canvas. The effect is something like looking through a fragile, thin sheet of fresh ice floating on the surface of a deep lake. From one angle all you can see is an almost invisibly thin shinning surface, and from another you are looking into endless luminous deeps, shot here and there with the fire of the sun. Anyway, though I adore other masters as much, I don't know that anyone--save perhaps Bellini--gets the same sort of jewel-like glow out of that little scrim of oils covering Vermeer's canvas.

[stlukesguild]

PL... Good to see you still alive. I agree that Vermeer is one of those artists whose work must be seen in person. I've seen nearly the whole of his oeuvre (New York has a good number and Washington has 3 or 4). I believe the only one I haven't seen is the great Allegory of Painting in Vienna:



You are right that Bellini has a similar glow. I would add Giorgione and Ingres as well. Other painters who only stunned me after I saw their work in person include Velazquez and Bonnard... both in a like manner. Blobs and swirls of paint that seemingly dance across the surface in a random manner fall together in the most magical manner as you back up.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Looking beyond the greatness of Vermeer, some random digging through the Dutch Baroque or Golden Age period, turned up Jacob van Campen; Architect, painter and member of the Guild of St. Luke. According to Wiki…”in Haarlem the architects and painters were both in the same guild, and many were both, such as Pieter Saenredam and Salomon de Bray), and studied painting under Frans de Grebber."




Campens architectural accomplishments include
The Royal Palace aka Town Hall in Amsterdam:


From Wikipedia


From Wikipedia



Interior relief sculptures by Artus Quellinus (from Web Gallery of Art):





Noordeinde Palace:






and Mauritshuis now art gallery which, coincidentally, is home for Girl With a Pearl Earring







Certainly not on par with Vermeer, but still holding some merit for an architect’s hand, a few examples of Jacob van Campen’s paintings include:


The Last Judgement (from web gallery of Art):





Mercury, Argos and Io (from web Gallery of Art)




Double portrait of Constantijn Huygens and wife Suzanna van Baerle