Foundations Of Western Art List #7
Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor)
Location: Time: 1656 Material: Oil on Canvas Patron: King Philip IV Significance: The young Infanta (Princess) Margarita appears in the foreground with her two maids-in-waiting, her favorite dwarfs, and a large dog. In the middle ground are a woman in widow's attire and a male escort. In the background, a chamberlain stands in a brightly lit open doorway. The room was the artist's studio in the palace of the Alcázar in Madrid. After the death of Prince Baltasar Carlos in 1646, Philip IV ordered part of the prince's chambers converted into a studio for Velázquez. Las Meninas is noteworthy for its visual and narrative complexity. Indeed, art historians have yet to agree on any particular reading or interpretation. Plausible interpretation: the presence of the king and queen in the viewer's space, outside the confines of the picture (they are viewing this image). More generally, Las Meninas is Velázquez's attempt to elevate both himself and his profession. The honor and dignity belonging to his profession as a painter. Throughout his career, Velázquez hoped to be ennobled by royal appointment to membership in the ancient and illustrious Order of Santiago. Because he lacked a sufficiently noble background, he gained entrance only with difficulty at the very end of his life, and then only through the pope's dispensation. In the painting, he wears the order's red cross on his doublet, painted there, legend says, by the king himself. In all likelihood, the artist painted it. Las Meninas hung in the personal office of Philip IV in another part of the palace. Thus, although occasional visitors admitted to the king's private quarters may have seen this painting, Philip IV was the primary audience. Each time he stood before the canvas, he again participated in the work as the probable subject of the painting within the painting and as the object of the figures' gazes. Las Meninas is extraordinarily complex visually.Velázquez's optical report of the event, authentic in every detail, pictorially summarizes the various kinds of images in their different levels and degrees of reality. Portrays the realities of image on canvas, of mirror image, of optical image, and of the two painted images. This work—with its cunning contrasts of mirrored spaces, "real" spaces, picture spaces, and pictures within pictures—itself appears to have been taken from a large mirror reflecting the whole scene. Las Meninas is a pictorial summary and a commentary on the essential mystery of the visual world, as well as on the ambiguity that results when different states or levels interact or are juxtaposed. Velázquez achieved these results in several ways. The extension of the composition's pictorial depth in both directions. The open doorway and its ascending staircase lead the eye beyond the artist's studio, and the mirror device and the outward glances of several of the figures incorporate the viewer's space into the picture as well. Velázquez also masterfully observed and represented form and shadow. Instead of putting lights abruptly beside darks, following Caravaggio, Velázquez allowed a great number of intermediate values of gray to come between the two extremes. His matching of tonal gradations approached effects that were later discovered in the photography age. The inclusion of the copies of two Rubens paintings hanging on the wall in Velázquez's studio is the Spanish master's tribute to the great Flemish painter, one of the towering figures who made the 17th century so important in the history of art in Northern Europe.
Caravaggio, Calling of St. Matthew
Location: Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi. Time: 1597 - 1601. Material: Oil on Canvas. Patron: Cardinal Matteo Contarelli. Significance: Large paiting, 7'6" x 5'9". In his art, Caravaggio had an outspoken disdain for the classical masters. He injected a naturalism into both religion and the classics, reducing them to human dramas played out in the harsh and dingy settings of his time and place. His unidealized figures selected from the fields and the streets of Italy, however, were effective precisely because of their familiarity. One of Caravaggio's early masterpieces, Calling of Saint Matthew (FIG. 19-18). It is one of two large canvases honoring Saint Matthew that the artist painted for the side walls of the Contarelli Chapel . The commonplace setting of the painting—a tavern with unadorned walls—is typical of Caravaggio. A piercing ray of light illuminating a world of darkness and bearing a spiritual message. Into this mundane environment, cloaked in mysterious shadow and almost unseen, Christ, identifiable initially only by his indistinct halo, enters from the right. With a commanding gesture that recalls the Lord's hand in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, he summons Levi, the Roman tax collector, to a higher calling. The astonished Levi—his face highlighted for the viewer by the beam of light emanating from an unspecified source above Christ's head and outside the picture—points to himself in disbelief.
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
Location: Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, Italy. Time: 1645 - 1652. Material: Marble. Patron: Cardinal Frederico Cornaro. Significance: The work displays the motion and emotion of Italian Baroque art and exemplifies Bernini's refusal to limit his statues to firmly defined spatial settings. Story: The marble sculpture that serves as the chapel's focus depicts Saint Teresa, a nun of the Carmelite order and one of the great mystical saints of the Spanish Counter-Reformation. Her conversion occurred after the death of her father, when she fell into a series of trances, saw visions, and heard voices. Feeling a persistent pain, she attributed it to the fire-tipped arrow of divine love that an angel had thrust repeatedly into her heart. In her writings, Saint Teresa described this experience as making her swoon in delightful anguish. In Bernini's hands, the entire Cornaro Chapel became a theater for the production of this mystical drama. Bernini depicted the saint in ecstasy, unmistakably a mingling of spiritual and physical passion, swooning back on a cloud, while the smiling angel aims his arrow. Influenced by ideas of Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), who founded the Jesuit order in 1534 and whom the Church canonized as Saint Ignatius in 1622. In his book Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius argued that the re-creation of spiritual experiences in artworks would do much to increase devotion and piety. Thus, theatricality and sensory impact were useful vehicles for achieving Counter-Reformation goals. Bernini was a devout Catholic.
Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting
Location: Hampton Court Palace, London Time: 1638 - 1639 Material: Oil on Canvas. Patron: Significance:
Claudio de Arciniega, Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary
Location: Mexico City, Mexico. Time: 1573 - 1817 Material: Marble and Stone Construction Patron: Significance:
Francisco de Zurbaran, Saint Serapion
Location: Wadsworth Antheneum, Hartford, Conneticut, USA Time: 1628. Material: Oil on Canvas. Patron: Order of the Mercedarian Friars for their funerary chapel) Significance: In the 17th century, Spain maintained its passionate commitment to Catholic orthodoxy, and as in Counter-Reformation Italy, Spanish Baroque artists sought ways to move viewers and to encourage greater devotion and piety. Particularly appealing in this regard were scenes of death and martyrdom, which provided Spanish artists with opportunities both to depict extreme feelings and to instill those feelings in viewers. Spain prided itself on its saints—Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Ignatius Loyola were both Spanish-born—and martyrdom scenes surfaced frequently in Spanish Baroque art. Zurbarán (1598-1664), primary patrons throughout his career were rich Spanish monastic orders. Many of his paintings are quiet and contemplative, appropriate for prayer and devotional purposes. The painting is a a devotional image for the funerary chapel of the monastic Order of Mercy in Seville. The saint, who participated in the Third Crusade of 1196, suffered martyrdom while preaching the Gospel to Muslims. According to one account, the monk's captors tied him to a tree and then tortured and decapitated him. The Order of Mercy dedicated itself to self-sacrifice, and Serapion's membership in this order amplified the resonance of Zurbarán's painting. In Saint Serapion the monk emerges from a dark background and fills the foreground.
Diego Velazquez, Surrender of Breda
Location: Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain Time: 1634 - 1635. Material: Oil on Canvas. Patron: King Philip IV Significance: The greatest Spanish painter of the Baroque age was Diego Velázquez (1599-1660). Velázquez, like many other Spanish artists, produced religious pictures as well as genre scenes, but his renown in his day rested primarily on the works he painted for his major patron, King Philip IV. After the king appointed Velázquez as court painter, the artist largely abandoned both religious and genre subjects in favor of royal portraits and canvases recording historical events. This painting is part of an extensive program of decoration for the Hall of Realms in Philip IV's Palace of Buen Retiro in Madrid. The huge canvas (more than 12 feet long and almost as tall) was one of 10 paintings celebrating recent Spanish military successes around the globe. It commemorates the Spanish victory over the Dutch at Breda in 1625. Determined to escape Spanish control, the northern Netherlands broke from the Spanish empire in the late 16th century. Skirmishes continued between northern (Dutch) and southern (Spanish) Netherlands. In 1625 Philip IV sent General Ambrogio di Spínola to Breda to reclaim the town for Spain. Velázquez depicted the victorious Spanish troops, organized and well armed, on the right side of the painting. In sharp contrast, the defeated Dutch on the left appear bedraggled and disorganized. In the center foreground, the mayor of Breda, Justinus of Nassau, hands the city's keys to the Spanish general—although no encounter of this kind ever occurred. Velázquez's fictional record of the event glorifies not only the strength of the Spanish military but the benevolence of Spínola as well. Velázquez portrayed the general standing and magnanimously stopping Justinus from kneeling, rather than astride his horse, lording over the vanquished Dutch.
Francesco Borromini, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane
Location: Rome. Time: 1638-1641. Material: Marble and Stone construction. Patron: Cardinal Francesco Barberini for the Spanish monastic order of Trinitarians). Significance: Artist took tradition a step further: Borromini set his facade in undulating motion, creating a dynamic counterpoint of concave and convex elements on two levels (for example, the sway of the cornices). Borromini went well beyond any of his predecessors or contemporaries in emphasizing a building's sculptural qualities. Although Maderno incorporated sculptural elements in his designs for the facades of Santa Susanna (FIG. 19-2) and Saint Peter's (FIG. 19-3), they still develop along relatively lateral planes. The interior is not only an ingenious response to an awkward site but also a provocative variation on the theme of the centrally planned church. In plan, San Carlo is a hybrid of a Greek cross (a cross with four arms of equal length) and an oval, with a long axis between entrance and apse. Oval dome that seems to float on the light entering through windows hidden in its base. Rich variations on the basic theme of the oval, dynamic relative to the static circle.
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Baldacchino
Location: St. Peter's Cathedral, Vatican City, Rome, Italy Time: 1624 - 1633 Material: Gilded bronze, wood, and brass. Patron: Pope Urban VIII (r. 1623 - 1644) Significance: Baldacco is Italian for "silk from Baghdad," such as for a cloth canopy. The canopy-like structure stands 100 feet high (the height of an average eight-story building). It marks the high altar and the tomb of Saint Peter, and it visually bridges human scale to the lofty vaults and dome above. Further, for worshipers entering the nave of the huge church, it provides a dramatic, compelling presence at the crossing. Its columns also create a visual frame for the elaborate sculpture representing the throne of Saint Peter at the far end of Saint Peter's. On a symbolic level, the structure's decorative elements speak to the power of the Catholic Church and of Pope Urban VIII: The Baldacchino's four spiral columns recall those of the ancient baldacchino over the same spot in Old Saint Peter's, thereby invoking the past to reinforce the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church in the l7th century. Since the time of Constantine (FIG. 7-81, right), the orb and the cross had served as symbols of the Church's triumph. The baldacchino also features numerous bees, symbols of Urban VIII's family, the Barberini. The structure effectively gives visual form to the triumph of Christianity and the papal claim to doctrinal supremacy. The enormous scale of the baldacchino required a considerable amount of bronze. On Urban VIII's orders, workers dismantled the portico of the Pantheon to acquire the bronze for the baldacchino—ideologically appropriate, given the Church's rejection of paganism. The whole structure simulates a great and solemn procession, the main axis of the complex traverses the piazza (marked by the central obelisk) and enters Maderno's nave. It comes to a temporary halt at the altar beneath Bernini's baldacchino, but it continues on toward its climactic destination at another great altar. Triumph of the Church
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Piazza and Colonnade
Location: St. Peter's Cathedral, Vatican City, Rome, Italy Time: 1656 - 1667 Material: Marble and Stone construction Patron: Pope Alexander VII (r. 1665 - 1667) Significance: Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) received the prestigious commission to construct a monumental colonnade-framed piazza in front of Maderno's facade (the outside decoration of the church facing into the square). Bernini's design had to accommodate two preexisting structures on the site—an ancient obelisk the Romans brought from Egypt and a fountain Maderno designed. Bernini co-opted these features to define the long axis of a vast oval embraced by two colonnades joined to Maderno's facade. Four rows of huge Tuscan columns make up the two colonnades, which terminate in classical temple fronts. Bernini himself referred to his colonnades as the welcoming arms of the church. The facade also served to reframe Maderno's facade. It brought it closer visually (because it created perspective lines towards it) and made it seem taller (to compensate for its width). The work represents a Baroque transformation expanded the compact central designs of Bramante and Michelangelo into a dynamic complex (of axially ordered elements that reach out and enclose spaces of vast dimension). By its sheer scale and theatricality, the completed Saint Peter's fulfilled the desire of the Counter-Reformation Catholic Church to present a welcoming but also aweinspiring, authoritative vision of itself.
Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofenes
Location: Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy Time: 1614 - 1620 Material: Oil on Canvas. Patron: Grand Duke Cosimo II de' Medici Significance: Artemisia Gentileschi was the most renowned woman painter in Europe during the first half of the 17th century and the first woman ever admitted to membership in Florence's Accademia del Disegno. Like other women who could not become apprentices in all-male studios she learned her craft from her father. Her father Orazio (1563-1639), her teacher, was himself strongly influenced by Caravaggio as was Artemisia. Gentileschi used the tenebrism and what might be called the "dark" subject matter Caravaggio favored. She chose a narrative involving a heroic female, a favorite theme of hers. The story, from the Old Testament Book of Judith, relates the delivery of Israel from its enemy, Holofernes. Having succumbed to Judith's charms, the Assyrian general Holofernes invited her to his tent for the night. When he fell asleep, Judith cut off his head. In this version of the scene (Gentileschi produced more than one painting of the subject), Judith and her maidservant behead Holofernes. Blood spurts everywhere as the two women summon all their strength to wield the heavy sword. The tension and strain are palpable. The controlled highlights on the action in the foreground recall Caravaggio's work and heighten the drama here as well.