Ih
$45.00
u.s.a.
NDING
UNTINGS How did landscape painting develop from being become
the backdrop to religious painting to
the
exclusive focus of magnificent works by Turner
How have artists across
and Monet?
approached the issue of catching portraiture?
the centuries
a likeness in
Why do certain motifs such as flowers
or skulls recur in
still fife
painting?
Such questions can be hard
to
answer in a
conventional, chronological, treatment of art history.
book of — the — takes a new approach, discussing each
Understanding Paintings kind
first
its
type, or genre, of painting in turn. In doing so stresses the
enormous breadth of Western
chapters on religious painting,
myth and
it
with
art,
allegory,
the nude, history painting, portraiture, landscape,
genre (or everyday
fife
painting),
and
still life,
abstract painting.
Each chapter begins with an introduction providing an overview of that type of painting.
The
CO
following pages then explore different
subjects or themes that have absorbed artists over the centuries
— from self-portraits to the female
nude, and from society's vices
These
clear
you both
to spiritual visions.
CJ>
and approachable discussions allow
to discover the multiple
meanings of
individual images and to identify the important
currents that run through each genre, in order to
build
up
a
more complete understanding of the
history of painting.
CO
o
(XI The accompanying pictures show many most important examples of Western together here in
new and
of the
art.
Drawn
often surprising
combinations, they reveal intriguing parallels across countries
and periods of time, and
new insights into many traditions.
offer
the development of painting's
Written and edited by an international team of established art historians, this unique survey with its
fresh
approach
to
an absorbing and much-
loved subject, enables the regular gallery visitor to
museum and
understand familiar paintings
on new and deeper
levels.
For the newcomer,
Understanding Paintings forms an accessible
and superbly
illustrated introduction to the
subject, lending
you the confidence
to identify
and appreciate many different types of paintings, whether
a
Renaissance masteqiiece by
an exceptional
Botticelli
or
modern work by Francis Bacon.
—
;
understanding
paintings themes
in art
explored and explained
WATSON-GUPTILL PUBLICATIONS
/
NEW YORK
understandin
paintings themes in art explored and explained
General Editor
Alexander Sturgis
Consultant Editor Hollis Clayson
Mobile Library Service
380 Bunker Hill Street MA 02129
Chariestown,
Understanding Paintings Themes in art explored and explained General Editor Alexander Sturgis Consultant Editor Hollis Clayson
General Editor Alexander Sturgis Ph.D. studied for his doctorate at the Courtauld Institute. London, where he specialized in medieval art history. In 1991 he joined the National Gallery in London, where he worked for a number of years within the Gallery's highly regarded Education Department, and where he currently holds a curatorial post, supporting the Director of the Gallery'- In his roles at the Gallery he has lectured to a wide variety of
First published in the
United States in 2000
by Watson-Guptill Publications, a division of BPI Communications, Inc., 770 Broadway, New York. NY 10003 2000 by Mitchell Beazley. an imprint of Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, 2-4 Heron Quays, London, E14 4JP
audiences on
all
aspects of the Gallery's collection, and has written extensively on both
A contributor to both Tlie Grace Dictionary of Art (1996) and Tlie New Oxford Companion to Western Art (1999), his own publications include Introducing Rembrandt (1994). Magic in A>1 (1994). and Faces (1999). Alexander Sturgis is also the contributor for Portraiture. the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions.
First published in Great Britain in
Copyright
©
Octopus Publishing Group Ltd 2000
Consultant Editor Hollis Clayson Ph.D. has pursued a distinguished career as an art historian over the past
25 years. Associate Professor of art history at Northwestern I'niversity. Illinois at
Mark
Executive Editors
Fletcher, Alison Starling
Deputy Art Director Vivienne Brar Managing Editor Anthea Snow
Tim Brown John Jervis
Senior Art Editor
Editors Richard Dawes.
Roberts Page Design Lovelock & Co. Picture Research Jenny Faithfull Production Nancy Roberts Index Hilary" Bird Editorial Assistant Oliver
Contributing Editors Paul Holberton, Michael Ricketts
No part of this work may be reproduced or any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
Illinois,
since
1991, she has also held teaching posts at the University of Chicago: the University of
Chicago, Wichita State University, Schiller College in Strasbourg, and the
California Institute of the Arts. She has received
many awards
in recognition of
her
numerous articles, reviews, and exhibition catalogue essays as well as longer publications, which most notably include Painted Lore: Prostitution in French Art of the Impressionist Era (1991). She is a prolific lecturer across North America and in Europe, and has acted as both an advisor and a presenter on radio and television. outstanding abilities as a teacher, and
is
the author of
Contributors Rachel Barnes (The Nude, Abstract Painting) lectures and holds courses at the National Gallery-, Tate Britain and Tate Modern, and The Royal Academy in London. A regular contributor to the Independent and the Guardian, she is the author of several publications, including the series Artists by Themselves (1990-3) and Tlie Pre-Raphaelites and their World (1998).
All rights reserved. utilized in
retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 0-8230-5579-5 Library of Congress Card
Number
00-106572
Linda Bolton (Myth and Allegory. History Painting) lectures at Tate Britain. Tate Modern, and the National Gallery' in London, and also for the universities of Maryland and Denver. She is the author of three titles in the series Techniques of the Great Masters. on Gauguin (1986), Degas (1987), and Manet (1988), and of four titles in the series Art Revolutions: Impressionism, Cubism. Surrealism, and Pop Art (2000). Michael Douglas-Scott Ph.D. (Religious Painting) teaches on both the B.A. History of
and Frutiger Colour reproduction by Vimnice Printing Press Co. Ltd Produced by Toppan Printing Co., (HK) Ltd Printed and bound in China Set in ITC Century
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
/
MA.
Renaissance Studies course at Birkbeck College, I'niversity of Venetian Renaissance and Patronage, he has lectured widely at British universities, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and for the National Art Collections Fund. His written work includes articles for Tlte Burlington Magazine and the
Art course and the
London.
A specialist
in the
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00
Mari Griffith
(Still Life) is Assistant
Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Prior to officer at the National Gallery in
Curator of Exhibitions Programs at the National this, she worked for many years as an education
London. She has lectured and broadcast widely, and has
taught courses at both the National Gallery. London, and the Philadelphia
MOBILE ND50 .U54 2000
Museum
of Art.
Frances Homan (Timeline, Materials and techniques. Genre: Animal Painting and Sporting Painting) lives in San Francisco, USA, where she researches and writes for L'S galleries, including the Getty- Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts. Boston. She was formerly an education officer at London's National Gallery, and has also lectured at the National Portrait Gallery in London, as well as working extensively for the American Council for International Studies.
Rebecca Lyons (Genre) studied
at the
Courtauld
Institute, in
London, specializing
in
nineteenth-century art history. Following several years with the American Council for International Studies, both in Boston, USA, and in Europe, she now works as an education officer at the National Gallery in
London, where she regularly writes and lectures on the
Gallery's collection.
Valerie
Mainz
Ph.D. (Landscape)
University- of Leeds.
A
is
a lecturer in the Department of Fine Art at the and society of eighteenth-century
specialist in the art, culture,
France. she has curated exhibitions in Britain and France and has lectured widely, includand the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Her published
ing at the Tate Gallery
ei la Revolution fraucaise (1999), and contributions to The Grove Dictionary of Art (1996) and the Dictionary oj Women Artists (1997).
work includes L'Image du Travail
Contents 6 14
Introduction
192
Genre
Timeline
194
Introduction
196 The poor 198
Virtue
Religious Painting
200
Vice
20
Introduction
202
Food and
22
Sites
204
Leisure
24
Sacred spaces
18
and functions
206 Rural
life
208 Urban
26 The altarpiece
drink
life
28
Private devotions
210 Travel and the exotic
30
Creation and Fall
212 Music
32
Angels and devils
214 Animal painting
34
Heroes and heroines
216 Sporting painting
36
Prefiguration
38 Images of Mary 40
Images of Christ
42
The
44
The childhood of Christ
46
Fishing for souls
life
of
218 Still Life
Mary
220 Introduction 222 The independent still life
48 The Passion
224
Creating an illusion
50
The body of Christ
226 Flower painting
52
Triumph over death
228 Reminders of death
54
Images of saints
230 Symbolism and allegory
A feast for the eyes A new perspective
56
Martyrdom
58
Miracles
104
The Nude
148
60
Solitude
106
Introduction
150 Double portraits
62
Christianity
108
Gods and goddesses
152
Group
64
Christendom divided
human form
154
Ruler portraits
236 Abstract Painting
156
Swagger
238 Introduction
232
and the antique
110 The
The modern male nude
66 Alternative visions
112
68 The Last Judgement
114 The
modem female
nude
Self-portraiture
portraits
portraits
158 Intimate images
240 Shattering the image
160 Abstract portraits
242
162
The passage of time
70
Myth and Allegory
116 History Painting
72
Introduction
118
74
Search for the Classical past
120 The Classical past
76
The gods of Olympus
122
Other histories
166 Introduction
78
The loves of Jupiter
124
Scenes of virtue
168
126
Painting for the public
170 Topography
80 The painter's bible
Landscape
God
in nature
Demigods and heroes
128
Contemporary heroes
172
The Golden Age
The uses of myth
130
History in the making
174
Heroic landscapes
132
Painting as protest
176 Tovvnscapes
monsters
178
88
Norse and Arthurian myth
180 The transient world
90
Women and myth
92
Freud and mythology
94
Reinterpreting Classical
96
Modern mythology
140
Catching a likeness
myth
Portraiture
182
248 Minimalism
250
Op
252
New
Weather
136 Introduction
184 The seasons
138 The origins of portraiture
186 Times of the day
Art directions
254 Materials and techniques 254 Medieval and Renaissance
Seascapes
painting
256 Early 258
oil
painting
Modem painting
260 Glossary
and night
262
Wildness
267 Bibliography
Painting a message
142
Exploring poses
188
100
A darker message
144
Expression
190 Apocalyptic
102
Political allegory
146 The use of setting
98
abstraction
246 Abstract Expressionism 164
84
134
The invention of
244 Neo^lasticism
Introduction
82
86 Mythical beasts and
234
landscapes
List of paintings
268 Index 271
Acknowledgments
Introduction This
is
a
book about
painting - or rather Western
many
American pictures are grouped together; others
stress
of the most famous
chronology, placing fifteenth-century pictures near to
Europe and America over the past
one another wherever they were painted. There are
This painting records the
seven centuries. But although many of the paintings are
exceptions, but these are the twin principles by which
Albert and Isabella, Archduke
well known, they are presented here in unfamiliar and
curators normally arrange the pictures on their walls.
stimulating company.
The same approach
painting.
It
images produced
We
in
are used to looking at pictures and reading
about them
ums and
contains
in a particular way. In the
galleries of the
walls are not
major
art
muse-
world the paintings on the
hung randomly. Quite how they are
of
ait,
say,
taken in most published surveys
Ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance
day
policies for the
the
museums have
and different curators different
most part you expect
same time and
in the
different
priorities,
but
in a straightforward chronological
sequence. Here again the narrative
is
most often
to find pictures painted at
same place hanging
together.
Early Italian paintings will be in one part of the
arranged according to geographical "schools" of painting,
with chapters on "The Italian Renaissance" or the not on individual great
Dutch "Golden Age,"
if
This
new way
ing,
is
certainly not a
indeed
it is
Cornells van der Gheest. Cornells is
descended
artists.
of thinking about paint-
directly
from the
first
book
the bearded figure pointing to
the
Madonna and
Child, painted
by Quentin Massys,
in
foreground. As far as the paintings
the
we
know,
shown here
belonged to Cornells and they include works from the fifteenth
century as well as those by his
contemporaries such as Rubens,
who
described him as
"my
never-
failing patron."
museum, seventeenth-century Spanish paintings in other rooms. Some museums emphasize the importance of national school, so that
INTRODUCTION
all
Italian
or
all
on the history of Painters. Sculptors,
of
and Archduchess of the Southern
all
arranged varies: different
visit
Netherlands, to the house of is
which, depending on their scope, progress from,
to the present
Patronage
Lives of the Most Excellent and Architects, written in the mid-
art.
sixteenth century by the Italian Giorgio Vasari.
As the
Willem van Haecht, The Art Gallery of Cornells van der
Gheest, 1628.
time of war
In
Rubens sent
his
a letter describing
work's elaborate subject to
this
patron Justus Sustermans The
painting
War,
shows Mars personifying
who
shield
"rushes forth with
and blood-stained sword,
threatening the people with great disaster" while
to restrain him.
Venus In
vainly tries
the sky are
"monsters personifying Pestilence
and Famine, those inseparable partners of
War" On
the figure of Europe
The
picture
the
left is
in despair.
was painted during
the turbulent prelude of the Thirty Years War.
Peter Paul Rubens, The
Consequences of War,
makes
title
clear, Vasari's
c
1638.
approach was biographical,
but he also wrote about the history of art in terms of a
progression from the crude,
"Byzantine" painting of
flat
the thirteenth century to the triumphs of artists such as
Raphael and, more teenth.
He was
particularly,
Michelangelo in the
six-
also fiercely parochial in his judge-
ments, championing the painters of his native Florence
above those from elsewhere
in Italy
and Europe.
Alternative interpretations
We are so used to being told about pictures in terms of who painted them and as part of a historical progression in which one style of painting develops into the
next that art
it
is
easy to overlook other ways of explaining
works and
how odd
ways of
alternative
looking at pictures.
It
is
writing about and
also easy to
fail
to notice
the resulting juxtapositions sometimes are.
A
fifteenth-century visitor to the Louvre, the National
Gallery in London, or the Metropolitan
Museum in New
York today would be shocked and surprised to find altarpieces
from churches hanging next to pictures of
the naked gods of the Classical past just because they
happened
been painted
to have
such a viewer
this
would seem
lack of what in the fifteenth
same time. For show a disgraceful century was termed
at the
to
"decorum" and to miss the point of what paintings were actually
for.
We
might
now
look at a religious painting
Essential
One
painted to decorate the
by, say, Botticelli,
on the winding
knowledge
his
of a series of pictures
bedroom
and one of his mythological scenes, of Pierfrancesco Borgherini, this
as
if
they were the same kind of thing, but for the
and his patrons
it
would have been clear
artist
that these
painting
shows the
Joseph. Dressed
Paintings in private collections are organized
Joseph appears four times the right he
according to yet other priorities because few collectors chariot
art"
when
they
display their pictures. In the paintings of collections
sits
On
on Pharaoh's
and on the
left
he
staircase with
sons, in green,
he then presents to
his
whom dying
father for blessing, above.
Deciphering
story of
gold tunic,
lavender cloak, and red hat,
pictures fulfilled completely different roles.
worry about presenting a "history of
in
two
painting
this
complex
depends on knowledge
of the story
it
depicts
Jacopo Carucci Pontormo Joseph with Jacob c
in
Egypt,
1518
presents his old father, Jacob, to Pharaoh.
He appears again
INTRODUCTION
Symbols of a This
is
one of
that the painter
life
Gogh
shoes which van during his stay
in Paris
painted
shoes are clearly evocative
between
objects, standing in
1886 and 1888. The subject
for the people
was
and the
and
deliberately innovatory
earthy - there are very
knew them. As
well as providing pictorial interest,
five paintings of
some sense
who wore them them.
lives led in
Vincent van Gogh, Three
few
Pairs
of Shoes, 1886-7
precedents and no evidence
that proliferated in seventeenth-century Antwerp, such
as Willem van Haecht's of the collection of Cornells van
der Gheest (see page
6),
the emphasis
profusion, wealth, and variety
always on the
is
on show rather than any
made
potential order. In van Haecht's picture,
in 1628,
paintings of every kind and different periods are
hung
shoulder to shoulder. By this date pictures were already being collected by connoisseurs such as van der Gheest as the
work of great
and the arrangement of the
artists
paintings (though probably not reproducing their actual
arrangement
were
in his
house) suggests that the
originally painted
were no longer considered of
own homes, few
primary importance. Today, in our us
religious,
and commemorative functions for which they
political,
who have
art to
of
hang on our walls would think of
hanging pictures along chronological
What we
lines.
choose to put above the mantelpiece or over the bed has nothing to do with when
it
was made or where, but
depends on a variety of other considerations ranging from whether
room
or,
is
it
the right size to whether
perhaps most importantly, what
it
it
suits the
shows.
What's in a picture? This book concentrates on the question of what pictures show.
It
is
organized not by century or country
but by subject or genre, and within each section the
approach
is
The
also thematic.
division of painting into
different categories or genres goes
back to the seven-
Academy - founded
teenth century. The French Royal in 1648
- famously created a
matter.
The highest genre was what was
painting." cal,
and
came
which included
hierarchy of subject
strict
called "history
religious, literary, mythologi-
historical narratives as well as allegory.
portraiture, followed
by genre (an eighteenth-
century term to describe scenes of everyday scape, and finally
still life.
History painting
the most elevated genre owing to
purpose and the demands scene. Instead,
Exploration
The bowl of milk of the of this painting
is
rich
title
presumably
in this
canvas, with
its
strangely
cropped view, the preoccupations
seem to be
of the artist
white seen on the table
colour, surface pattern,
centre of the work.
In
with the brightness of object, the
woman
the right
depicted
and
left
work
is
is
the
contrast
the paint
this
Pierre Bonnard, The
standing on in
shadow
undefined. Although the clearly representational,
the French painter Bonnard
was
light,
and
itself.
Milk, c.1919.
its
made on
life),
land-
was seen as
perceived moral the imagination
dense,
the luminous oval of yellowin
it
Then
and
intellect of the painter. In contrast the
lower genres
were seen as the mere imitation of observable
reality.
The idea of judging the worth of a painting by subject matter
seems strange
to us today -
think less of Vincent van Gogh's
still
lifes
we
its
don't
of shoes
Bowl of
because of their mundane subject - and the academic hierarchy has not held sway since the later nineteenth century. Indeed since that time
one of the recurrent
strategies of Modernist artists has
been to challenge
all
such hierarchies of value.
not predominantly concerned here with either the subject or the narrative possibilities of the
INTRODUCTION
The
division of the genres
is
also not as straight-
forward as the French Academy would have wished. As
the following sections
make
clear,
landscapes can con-
can take place
tain narratives (or narratives
land-
in
scapes), portraits can appear to be scenes of everydaj
and so
life,
on.
Bm
despite the inevitable areas of over-
lap
between the genres, and
ing
some paintings by
the difficulty of categoriz-
subject matter
at all.
approach
in this
ject
was is
been two principal aims. The more straightforward of
means of answering the most occurs when looking at
to provide a
immediate question
that often
paintings of the past: what
Religious Painting and
describe
many
is
going on? The sections on
Myth and
Allegory, for example,
of the most popular subjects and stories
a world of fleshy
"very clear" and indeed
being used
personify a variety of abstract ideas. The naked is
goddess of
\'enus. the
harmony
She
itself.
is
with a
love or rich
in their
how music
harmony
respective type of painting - for
has often been used to symbolize
in paintings of
symbolism of flowers
hope
that the
book
will
in
everyday
still lifes.
life,
is
we
provide a useful guide for the
identification of subject matter in painting,
even more valuable
or the
But although
the
way
in
which
it
perhaps
shows the
figures
of
a
woman
its
figure of Europe.
left
Once
does indeed
is
the figures are
clarify
itself
and
imagery translates directly into figures of
speech We can were people.
still
We
speak of abstract notions as
if they
talk of countries or continents being
ravaged by war and of war trampling over everything its
in
wake. Although unfamiliar as a means of expression
today (except perhaps
in
cartoon), pictorial allegory its
a
the wailing
closest to
the realm of the political is in
some ways imagery
at
Confronting the world
One
spoken language.
of the leading
Pop
artists
of the 1960s, the American
richness of the language of painting, demonstrating
how
strides forward, trampling
an architect with a pair of dividers, and
lute,
to
woman
struggling in vain to restrain
mother - cower before him. On the
much
an
is
here standing for love and
On a book and a drawing as other
identified the painting
example,
lo\ e.
He
Mais, the god of war.
and desperate
and symbols
once the language
which the various figures are intended
in
means by which
be recognized. Other sections explore the use of signs
is,
it
recognized. The picture
is
painted by artists through the centuries as well as the particular saints, gods, and heroes can
women, winged
ever, writing to his patron about the painting, the sub-
thai
book there have
shows
speak clearly to audiences of today. For Rubens, how-
allegorj
In taking this
It
and overblown expression which does not
babies,
many
valuable insights
is
acquaintance strange, confusing, and consequently
approaching
paintings by genre rather than by period offers
these
firsl
Off-putting.
in every kind of painting,
be
it
landscape,
still life,
Understanding allegory depends on both identifying the figures within
or portraiture, artists are working within a deep and
but allegory
long tradition which they can exploit or reject to a wide
that has
variety of different ends.
pher. This
is
it
and the means of expression,
certainly not the only kind of painting
become difficult for the modem viewer to deciis
largely because
we
are
now no
Roy Lichtenstem drew on the colourful imagery of comic
books and advertisements his paintings,
divisions
body of
stories
between "low" and
longer "high"
familiar with the
for
subverting the
and knowledge that
art
was
art.
For him commercial
"usable, forceful, and
Reading pictures
artists
For much
could have been confident their audience would share:
dominant abstract
most importantly the
as being "unrealistic, feeding
matter
is
art of the past, recognition of its subject
often crucial to the understanding and conse-
quent enjoyment of
it.
Van Gogh's shoes may seem
straightforward, but a painting such as
Consequences of War (see page
7) is for
Rubens 's
Tlie
most people on
working
in the sixteenth century, for
example,
Bible, the stories of the saints,
and the myths of ancient Greece and Rome. Advertisers and film-makers today frequently resort to knowing allusions to a broad range of cultural, historical,
and
vital" at a
art,"
time
when he saw
and having
art
"less
the
movements
and
on
less to
do with the world."
Roy
Lichtenstein,
Whaam!,
1963.
INTRODUCTION
Illusion
This
Pope Gregory
work by the Belgian
Magntte
painter
representation is
in books," but paintings of stories
Clearly
in art.
not a pipe."
arranged on
is
It
their
a flat
is
It
inhabits the illusion as
above
it.
same world
too
paintings cannot
it
the whole story.
tell
complex painting Joseph with Jacob
of
the image of the pipe
We
make
stories
more vivid, but without the aid of writing, as in the comicbook images adapted by Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein,
illusionistically,
complete with screws, and
cannot communicate meaning independently. They may remind viewers
of stories they have heard and they can
But the message
it.
also "not real."
painted
at least
read by seeing on the walls what they are unable to read
canvas with different colours
itself is
"may
illiterate
a playful challenge
is
to the idea of illusionism and
"this
suggested that pictures should be
I
displayed in churches so that the
page
can believe neither
Pontormo's
Egypt (see would be incomprehensible to someone who
7)
knew nothing of the
in
story from the Old Testament.
words nor image.
Rene Magritte, The Images
(This
is
not a
Betrayal of Pipe),
1
Hits and misses
953.
The approach taken by
book has a number of con-
this
sequences for the paintings and
Most of these are
represented in
artists
it.
As well as covering many of
positive.
the famous masterpieces of Western
art,
treating paint-
ings by their subject has allowed for the inclusion of
some striking lesser-known paintings by less famous names who might have struggled to be represented in a more conventional chronological history. Some artists inevitably appear certainly
more
revealing
frequently than others and
the
that
it
is
most featured painter
should be Picasso, not only because he turned his hand to nearly every kind of painting but also because, of
twentieth-century
artists,
aware of the tradition
all
he was arguably the one most
which he worked, constantly
in
challenging and responding to the works of his predecessors.
When,
in 1946,
next to Old Masters
some
exclaimed: "You see,
it's
of his paintings were himg
Louvre he
in the
same
the
most
thing." This book, for the
is
reported to have
thing,
it's
same
the
emphasizes and
part,
draws out these elements of that
continuity, an emphasis works against the understanding - enshrined in the
biographical approach - which sees the meaning of art residing principally or even exclusively in the
artist.
But even though Picasso features prominently, his representation is Elements of painting Broodthaers developed
many
of the ideas of his compatriot
knowledge that they can assume the majority of
visual
skewed by another self-imposed
limitation of the book. This
is
a book about painting and
people will understand, but self-evidently this shared
so ignores his work in ceramic, sculpture, and
body of knowledge has changed beyond measure since
The concentration on painting
inevitably
print.
means
that
Magritte, similarly challenging the
very nature Here,
in
a
and aims of
work
called Paintings,
painting.
significantly
he assembles
nine canvases on which are
the Renaissance.
We can be relied on today to recognize
Elvis but references to St Nicholas of Bari
would need
some accompanying explanation (except perhaps modern incarnation as Santa Claus).
painted words which describe It is
in his
sculptors of
all
ages are not included. But arguably this
has the greatest repercussions on the representation of
modern
art
owing to the multitude of media, from video
to performance, used by artists today. In
often claimed that every picture tells a story,
porary
art exhibitions painting will
be
in
most contema minority and
elements usually associated with or pictured
in
paintings,
but experience teaches us that unless being told
such as figures, composition,
story
perspective, colour, price, value,
we might read
and so on. Each canvas presents
is
we cannot
rely
"read" pictures as easily as
a story in a book. Most narrative paintings
illustrate existing stories
a different arrangement,
we know what
on the viewer's
and
ability
in
order to be understood
to
recognize the story.
representational painting in a smaller minority
Even when painting alone
is
being considered,
still.
many
of
movements of the twentieth century present problems for a genre-based study. The term the art
"Modernism" covers a wide range of
artistic
impulses
suggesting the concept of a different painting
Marcel Broodthaers, Paintings, 1973.
Someone who knew nothing of the Bible, for example, would be more likely to interpret a painting of Adam and Eve as
a
scene of nudist apple-eaters than to reconstruct
the story of the Fall of is
true that, in
Man from
book of Genesis.
It
one of the most famous and repeated pro-
nouncements on the use of
INTRODUCTION
the
paintings, in
around 600,
and
strategies.
Some
of these, such as the picturing of
the impact of modernization - as seen in the paintings
of modern -
life
by
artists
such as Manet or the Futurists
can be well encompassed
in
a
subject-based
approach. But another aspect of Modernism was an increasing insistence on the separateness of art: a belief
that its realm
was purely
aesthetic,
to a preoccupation
led
and the
flat
painted surface
matter. At their most
which
may
not be harmful; always
appreciate a work of
from
life,
art
turn often
the expense of subject
at
extreme Modernist
claim: "The representative element in a
or
in
with form, design, colour,
it
we need
no knowledge of
its
is
critics could
work of art may For to
irrelevant.
from the
world of man's activity to a world of aesthetic exultation." (Clive Bell, Art, 1914). Clearly this is
odds
with
Nevertheless,
it
the is
arrangement
of
an attitude
this
one that has informed many
ings of the twentieth century
Improving on the past figure of the
man
in
the
foreground encircled by snakes is
clearly a reference to
The
Laocoon, and other figures
artist Titian
reliefs.
is
the luminous
to advertise how,
a
subject -based
to painting.
Having drawn attention to what
might
slip
through the net of a thematically arranged book on painting,
is
it
important to emphasize the strengths and
benefits of the approach.
from even a brief
flip
Many
of these are apparent
through this book.
On
every page
paint-
tions.
fit
Some
of these are familiar comparisons - for
example, Cezanne appeals next to Poussin (see pages 174-5) and Sargent next to Velazquez (see pages
many
152-.'5)
connections or striking contrasts. Van (iogh's paintings
stem from
this attitude are given their
own
chapter, lines.
abstract paintings self-evidently deny the
more unexpected,
are
revealing surprising
of sunflowers, for example, are such famous iconic
images that
it
is
easy to think of them
in
isolation.
Seeing one of these studies next to one of the meticu-
importance of conventional subject matter, they are not
lously finished flower paintings of his seventeenth-
the only paintings of the twentieth century that have
century predecessor Bosschaert (see pages 226-7)
sought to challenge the traditional aims of
a
in
based on
sky, all
often by
art,
deliberately drawing attention to the limits of the painter's
medium. For example, perhaps the
and
seem
wittiest,
and probably the most famous assault on
the representational aims of painting
was
cleverest,
Magritte's
producing
Tlie
Classical
pipe (complete with shadow) under which
Betrayal of Images, an illusionistic depiction of a
illusionistically painted sign bearing the
words
models.
Bacchus and Ariadne,
1522-3.
games once again evade
approach
8). The movements of the twentieth century which
prototypes, he has surpassed his
ceptual
the 1970s, but such con-
in
Pierre Bonnard's The Hotel of Milk (see page
capturing of Bacchus
the beautiful landscape
Titian,
Broodthaers, for example,
abstract art
painting. Titian's depiction of
a painting
The same themes were taken up by Marcel
ing.
by the Venetian
But while the models
in mid-air,
and as such
art
in
have been linked
sculptures, this
flesh, his
work of art about
there are interesting and often enlightening juxtaposi-
which consequently
which follows more conventionally chronological
to other Classical statues and
were
a
- but
If this painting
is
It
part of another important strand of Modernist paint-
book.
uneasily into a subject-based account - for example,
The
is
bring with us nothing
ideas and affairs, no
familiarity with emotions. Art transports us
at
representation.
n 'est pas
une pipe"
("this is
not a pipe"). This
ing about the nature of reality
is
is
an
brings
home quite how much the
tradition of flower painting
they bring to
What valuably
is
works owe
to the
it.
this
the
book brings out most way in which different
responded to similar themes:
how
and reacted against
tradition
later
and - as importantly - what
it,
and
clearly
have
artists
they have drawn on
and the
varieties of
"ceci
a paint-
and the very act of
Classical
exemplar
The Laocoon, discovered
Classical statue in in
1506, was bought by Pope Julius
II,
patron of Michelangelo
and Raphael, It
shortly afterward.
became the most famous
Rome and
remained so for centuries.
Workshop
of Hegesandrus,
Athenodorus, and Polydorus of Rhodes, The Laocoon,
third
century bc— first century ad.
INTRODUCTION
Light
meaning
and distance
The French
Claude painted
artist
work
this exquisite small
for
unknown
Parisian patron.
embodies
all
that
is
an
most
seen between
darker, framing trees. In the
foreground
is
a scene
story in the Bible's
Genesis.
An
from a
angel appears to
Ishmael, her son by telling
distant
produced as a
respond to the
result.
art of the past
from mimicry to outright
possibility
The ways
in
cover every
rejection. Often
dependence on past models
artists'
times
meanings
result.
some-
The three pairings on these two pages
and the previous page show from the
is explicit,
disguised, but in every instance different
is
it
art of the past,
quoting directly
artists
but in each case the aims and
Abraham,
her to return to the
city.
the effects could scarcely be
more
I
in
his
painting as "having a
famous
little
narrative scene, Constable
more
scattered anecdotal details,
usually
condescend to give
the adjacent painting,
characteristically included a
taken from
[the public]."
his
sketchbooks,
These
The statement suggests that the
through
work's careful finish and
include the drinking boy, the
his picture.
picturesque elements were
sheepdog, and the donkey.
deliberately intended to appeal
John Constable, The
to that public.
Cornfield,
1826.
Whereas Claude,
different. Titian's
famous painting of Bacchus and Ariadne (see page is
Picturesque detail Constable spoke of
eye-salve than
book of
Hagar, prophesying the birth of
and
that can be
artists
It
characteristic of him: distant, light-filled vistas
which
11)
one of the most elegant and involved pieces of
"quotation" that one could imagine.
It
deliberately
invokes Classical precedents in a variety of ways.
Its
patron Alfonso d'Este -
we know he had been up on the
scaffolding in 1512 to see Michelangelo at work. Titian's
painting
is
an extraordinary display of artistic ingenuity
Claude, Landscape with Hagar
and the Angel,
1
646.
subject
is
a
Roman
Bacchus meets and
myth, showing the falls in
moment when
love with Ariadne, aban-
but his use of quotation
is
startling whole,
of a particular kind and
doned on the
island of Naxos. Details of the represen-
depends upon, and was no doubt designed to
tation derive
from a variety of
knowledge of
the subject depended tion, its
tling
literary sources.
upon considerable
But
if
literary erudi-
depiction demonstrates visual erudition of a
similar level.
The
Bacchus's retinue by Catullus, but
also quotes the
it
known as The Laocoon,
the most famous antique sculpture in
Rome.
Classical
sources have been suggested for nearly every other ure, but
fig-
Bacchus's trailing arm seems to quote a more
recent work.
It
the
Alfonso presumably derived from the painting was in his ability to
recognize the wealth of allusions
it
contained.
appears to be based on the arm of
God
Art and nature In contrast, the English nineteenth-century artist
his intense observation of natural
clouds, as
opposed to
on
Titian's
by Constable him-
who looked to art rather than nature On one occasion he asserted that
for their models.
lost
in part
Many of his pronouncements on painting explicitly
criticized artists
Such an allusion would not have been
phenomena, such as
his use of the art of the past. This
was a reputation encouraged self.
the Father in Michelangelo's fresco of the Creation of the Sistine Chapel, finished ten years earlier.
John
Constable has always been praised for his realism and
Adam
in
flatter,
his patron. Part of the pleasure that
bizarre figure in the foreground bat-
with snakes depends in part on a description of
then recently discovered statue
INTRODUCTION
weaving many different elements into a
there
were two approaches
to
painting:
one was
Traditional representation Velazquez's painting of Innocent is
one of the supreme
of
Western
art
was looking he painted
The Spanish
to the past Its
it
X
portraits artist
when
three-quarter
knee-length view of a seated
pope was
used by Raphael
first
of Julius
in his portrait
painted
II,
early in the sixteenth century,
and
was
for centuries the standard
way
of representing popes.
Diego Velazquez, Pope Innocent
Portrait of
X, 1650.
"running after pictures and seeking truth
second
at
hand" while the other aimed for "a pure and unaffected representation."
But although there
is
no denying
Constable's response to nature his paintings are not
simple records of existing scenes. Those produced for
London
exhibition were painted not outdoors but in his
studio and they were careful constructions pieced
together from his
many drawings and
sketches.
oil
Despite his advertised beliefs his compositions also usually adhere to well-established artistic precedents.
The Cornfield, for example, follows the same composition (in reverse) as Claude's
Landscape with Hagar
and
we know
the Angel.
As
it
happens,
that Constable
both knew and admired
Claude's painting,
belonged to his friend
George Beaumont.
Sir
which one
In
he described copying another of Beaumont's
letter
Claudes in terms that reveal a rather different attitude to
what
bears: Appropriation This
is
one of the
artists will
"it
could learn from the work of their fore-
be useful to
contains almost first
of a series
all
that
I
me
as long as
wish to do
in
-
live
I
it
Landscape."
In contrast to Constable's surreptitious but essen-
of popes by the British painter
Bacon that took Velazquez's
famous point.
portrait as their starting
The Spaniard's painting
was not the
only source for these
works. Here the pope's face and
adoption of Claudian compositions, Francis Bacon's
tial
use of Velazquez's famous Portrait of Pope Innocent
both
explicit
number of
paintings based
never to have seen the
on
X is
Bacon produced a
and provocative.
this portrait but
original. Living as
he did
claimed in a
pho-
the architectural background are
based on a photograph of Pope Pius XII being carried in a
of sedan chair.
In
Bacon gave the pope face taken from a film Battleship
form
other versions
still
a screaming
from the
tographic age, his use of the image
was not
the equiva-
lent of Titian's erudite quotation, appealing to those in
the know, but a confrontational appropriation of a
much-reproduced icon of Western
depends for
its
art.
Bacon's painting
power on the recognition of
his source
Potemkin by the
Russian director Eisenstem.
Francis Bacon, Pope
I,
1951
and
its
associations, together with the
distortion.
shock of its
wilful
Indeed Velazquez's painting was just one of a
that Bacon culled - photographs, film newspaper images - as the raw material of his art.
mass of images stills,
These are in
which
artists
just three
examples that suggest ways
have responded to the
art of the past
within the demarcated genre in which they were working
and used the language forged by
their predecessors
within that genre for very different ends. This
introduce
many more.
It
will
book
will
explore the different
themes and subjects addressed by painters and the different treated. at,
ways
in
It will, it is
which these subjects have been hoped, suggest
new ways
of looking
thinking about, and understanding paintings.
INTRODUCTION
1300
Timeline
Giotto Scrovegni Chapel, c.1305
pages 24 and 43
1310
14th Century many
1320
From 14th
Italy's
century
for cultural supremacy, creating a
small city states vie
T
4^T
-
1330
sophisticated court culture and
promoting
1304-74
achievement.
artistic
Life of Petrarch, the earliest great Italian
humanist, whose work
Duccio
di
Buoninsegna 1340
The Calling of the Apostles Peter
and Andrew,
1308-11, page 166
helped to advance the revival 1350 of Classical learning. c.
1307-21
Dante Alighieri writes
poem 1309-77
Tlie
his epic
Ambrogio
Divine Comedy.
Good Government in attracts
many
artists,
—
Lorenzetti
1360
The Effects of Peace or
Papal court in Avignon. France, helping to
City,
the
1338-9, page 176
1370
transmit Italian artistic ideas to
northern Europe.
1337
The Hundred Years War between English or French School
England and France begins,
weakening England's
artistic
links with continental Europe.
1347-51
First great
1380
< 2 O
The Wilton Diptych, 1395-9, pages 28, 214,
and 254 1390
epidemic of the
Black Death, which
kills
a quarter
—
of the European population. 1
387-1400
Geoffrey Chaucer writes the
Canterbury
1300
Masaccio The Expulsion of Adam
Tales.
1410
and Eve from Eden, c.1427,
page 31
1420
1435
Leon
Battista Alberti. Italian
architect
and
art theorist, writes
On Painting,
the
1430
first artistic-
treatise of the Renaissance.
Gentile da Fabriano
Adoration of the
c.1450
Johannes Gutenberg invents
movable type 1453
The
fall
in
Germany.
1440
Magi, 1423,
page 45
of Constantinople to
z <
Turkish Ottomans initiates 150 years of intermittent war
between the Ottoman Empire Portrait
Life of Desiderius
x < 2
1460
2 <
1470
Jan van Eyck
and western Europe. 1469-1 536
1450
Erasmus,
of Giovanni Arnolfini and
his Wife, 1434,
greatest humanist scholar of
page 146
the Northern Renaissance.
1478-92
Lorenzo de Medici, patron of artists
such as
Leonardo da
Botticelli,
Vinci,
Christopher to tin-
(
Botticelli
1480
and
Michelangelo, rules Florence.
1492
Sandro
Primavera, c.1481
lolumbus
1490
sails
Americas from Spain. 1500
TIMELINE
1500
— 72
1510
1517
<
u '1520
Martin Luther's 95 theses
launch the German Protestant Reformation, Artists producing
as
religious art are displaced.
z
1519-22
Ferdinand Magellan
around
sails
the world.
1530
1519-56
Reign of Charles
V,
King of Spain
and Holy Roman Emperor. He 1540
—
CO
-
commissions
Titian, bringing
Spain
Italian artistic ideas to
1527 1550
Sack of Rome bj German Lutheran troops
Hans Holbein the
<
the pay of the
Roman Emperor
pause
creates a
production.
in artistic
The Ambassadors, 1533,
DC
1560
Holy
Younger
in
From c.1530 Onset of Counter-Reformation,
page 162
movement
the Catholic Church's
Jacopo Tintoretto against Protestantism;
The Crucifixion,
1570
1
565,
its
ideas
are promoted through the use of
page 49
religious art
1580
530s
1
Francis at
I
and architecture.
employs
Italian artists
Fontainebleau, drawing Italian
Renaissance ideas to France. 1590
1513
Niccolo Machiavelli writes The Prince;
1550
is
it
published
in 1532.
Giorgio Yasari's Lives, the
first
1600 Peter Paul Rubens
history of ait and biography,
The Judgement of
published
is
in Italy.
Pans, 1632-5,
1610
564-1 616
1
pages 76 and 107
Life of William
Shakespeare.
<
17th Centur
1620
c.
1620-80
Gian Lorenzo Bernini transforms
1630
the appearance of
Rome
with
Baroque fountains and squares. 1
1640
625-49
The court of Charles
I.
King of
England, attracts Peter Paul
Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck. Nicolas Poussin
1650
Et in Arcadia Ego,
1
636-9,
page 121
Rembrandt and Tumed-Up 1659(7),
1660
who
re\italize English art.
Self-portrait with Beret 1
Collar,
648
pages 148
and 257
The state-supported Royal
Academy
of Painting and
Sculpture
is
established in France,
setting a precedent for
Diego Velazquez 1670
in
academies
Europe and America.
Las Meninas, 1656,
page 152
1661-8
Versailles
is built
for Louis
XTV of
France and becomes the model for palaces throughout Europe.
1680
1667
The French Academy
initiates
regular official art exhibitions, Jan Vermeer
1690
A Young Woman Virginal,
1700
—
or Salons.
Seated at a
c.1670,
page 212
1683
The
first
public
Ashmoleon
in
museum,
the
Oxford, opens.
TIMELINE
1700
18th Cent
i
Canaletto The
18th century Age of the Grand Tour: travel by
northern Europeans, especially to
1710
North, early
1730s,
complete their education.
to
Italy,
Piazzetta,
Venice, Looking
page 177 171 2-78
1720
Life of Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
French philosopher, whose writings iivfluenced Romantic
1730 painting and literature. 1
71 3-84
Denis Diderot. French
Life of
encyclopedia editor and great ait
From
1
748
first
1740
critic.
Excavations of Pompeii - a great 1750
influence on Neoclassicism. 1
749-1 832
Franqois Boucher
Johann Wolfgang von
Life of
Goethe,
Diana after her Bath,
German Romantic
1
Thomas
742,
Gainsborough
page 77 philosopher, poet, and writer on
Jonathan
aesthetics.
1759 1
768
("The Blue Boy"),
Museum
British
Academy
Royal
1760
Buttall
in
London opens.
c.1
770,
page 157 1770
of Arts
established in England, with
Joshua Reynolds as president. 1775-83
1789-99
1780
American War of Independence. French Revolution temporarily
monarchy
abolishes
France
in
and ends with Napoleon as
ruler.
Sabine
1793
Louvre
museum
in Paris
1790
Jacques-Louis David
The Intervention of the
Women,
opens.
1799.
page 124
Gilbert Stuart
George Washington,
(the
"Athanaeum Washington 1800 Original"), 1796,
page 155
19th Century 1821-67
1810
Life of Charles Baudelaire,
French
poet and literary/art
whose
critic,
1820
writings influenced artists from Francisco de
the Romantics to the Symbolists. 1
838
Louis Daguerre exhibits the
Eugene Delacroix
3rd
May
Goya
1808, 1814,
1830
page 130
first
Liberty Leading the People,
photographs 1
840-1 902
in Paris.
1830,
page 119
Emile Zola, French writer
Life of
Claude Monet Wheatstacks,
of Realist novels.
1841
Snow Effect,
1840
Morning, 1891, page 167
Collapsible metal paint tube
invented in London by American artist
1863
1850
John G. Rand.
Salon des Refuses in Paris 1860
exhibits art excluded from the official
1867
First
Academy
Salon.
western exhibition of 1870
Japanese
art in Paris,
which
greatly influences Impressionist
and Post-Impressionist painters. 1870
Metropolitan
New 1874-86
Museum
of Art in
Edward Burne-Jones The Beguiling of Merlin,
1880
1872-7, page 89
York opens.
Seven
Vincent van sionisl exhibitions
Iiu,
in Paris; first
Impressionist
exhibition
New
in
York
in
Gogh
Self-Portrait with a
Bandaged
1889,
page 149
Ear,
58 55
—
1890
K PL
1886 1900
TIMELINE
H
"
»
1900
20th Century
S CO
Wassily
s.
— -J
2
Kandinsky
£
Painting with
1907
First Cubist exhibition in Paris.
the Black
1910
Post-Impressionist exhibition
Arch, 1912,
GO
in
London.
page 238
1910
1910
Manifesto of the painters
1913
is
mist
Fill
published
Armory Show
in
in Italy.
New
York
exhibits Impressionists, Piet
Mondrian Post -Impressionists, arid
Composition
Q < P
and
Blue,
1920-6,
GO
o 53 go
K GL X
w
1930
Yellow, c.
1914-18
Pi i st
World War.
1916
First
Dada manifestation
CO
Zurich.
u H
1917
Russian Revolution
overthrows the monarchy
3 EL,
and puts Vladimir
I
Lenin
z 1920s
in
Ilyich
power.
Communist censorship of experimental literature
GO
—
in
page 244
o
1940
such as Matisse.
artists
with Grey, Red,
1920
new
and
w
art in
Russia ends the
flowering of a Russian
-
avant-garde movement;
GO
many
move
artists
to Western
Europe and the USA. 1925
First Surrealist exhibition in
«—
z O
1950
Paris.
Mark Rothko Light
55
Black,
K
Red over
1929
1957
Museum
of
New York
Modern
page 247
Cm
1937
Adolf Hitler's "Degenerate Art" exhibition in
u < K H x
1960
Art in
opens.
displays
modern
contrasting
it
Munich
art,
with academic,
Nazi-approved painting.
pd
<
Andy Warhol
Oh
Mao, 1972, page 134
C
1939-45
Second World War;
New York
becomes an important centre
Ph
for the
1951
First
modern
art
movement
group exhibition of
1970
Abstract Expressionists in
New York. 1963
Pop Art exhibition
1980s
Blockbuster shows of
Guggenheim
1980
CO
in
at
the
New York.
Impressionist and PostJean-Michel
Impressionist art in France,
Basquiat
England, and the USA.
Pyro, 1984,
z c »— H O 3 5
1990
z
page 252
1987
One of van Gogh's four Sunfloicers paintings
—
sold
a world record for prices.
1997-9
"Sensation"
show
British Artists in
New York 2000
is
for £25 ($40) million, setting
of Young
London and
creates public and
media outrage.
TIMELINE
17
"How
depict the invisible?
the inconceivable?
How picture
How give
expression
to the limitless, the immeasurable,
the invisible?" John of Damascus, Oratio
I,
726-30 ad
Religious Paint in
1^>
1
T
.
'JH
JL
he
museum
a
visitor to
or gallery
most of the Western
will find that
pictures painted before the eigh-
century have
teenth
religious
this is
From one perspective, not unexpected - in many cultures
religion
and
subjects.
have strong
art
Images have
links.
long been used to focus the religious imagina-
and help worshippers
tion
in their dialogue
with the numinous and sacred.
HR
pre-modern Europe, the Christian
1
jj S(
bound up with the framing
lives,
fabric of
their
Since,
in
was
religion
most peoples'
understanding
of the
universe and of their place in the grand narra-
ro /
1
;
^"WIS"
tive of history,
*
'
many
"^y
not surprising to find so
is
it
on
religious paintings
gallery walls.
From another perspective, however, The two
surprising.
religions
Old Testament with
above
of God.
all
Christianity,
Judaism and
ban images of sacred
Islam, strictly
Commandments
it is
which share the
figures,
The second of God's Ten "You shall not make a
states:
carved image for yourself nor the likeness of returning from
Idolatry
The an
dance around
Israelites
idol of a calf
which they
worship at the order of
its
maker, the priest Aaron, the bearded robes.
the
man
Moses
left in
is
in
white
seen on
the background,
Sinai with
the Ten
Mount
stone tablets of
Commandments
received from
God The
tablets in anger. Poussin
anything in the heavens above, or in the earth below, or in the waters
organized the composition
under the earth" (Exodus
of the foreground as a frieze of figures,
second of these bans the
ancient
making of idolatrous
Nicolas Poussin,
images, and Moses
is
on
the verge of smashing the
relief
based on
sculpture.
The Adoration of the
Golden
Calf, c.
1634-5.
pictorial representation.
This prohibition, at face value, bans
20:4).
The prophet Mohammed
said that at the
Judgement, when the painter stands before God's throne, he
will
all
Day of
be com-
when he fails, will be cast down to Hell for laying claim to God's creative function. When Moses returned with the Ten Commandments, he found the Israelites worshipping the manded to put life
Golden This
Calf.
was
though
into his pictures and,
Poussin depicts this in
Tfie
Adoration of the Golden
idolatry: investing material objects
with
Calf.
Such worship,
divinity.
common in the ancient world, was anathema to the monotheism
of the Old Testament,
whose God
omnipotent, immaterial,
is
and omnipresent. The acceptance of
this prohibition
invisible,
had fundamental
consequences for the visual traditions of Islam and Judaism.
Representing the divine
Rome
Christians hiding in the catacombs in
could only paint symbols
of Jesus. After Christianity had been legalized by the Emperor
Constantine in 313 ad, however, churches began to be decorated with
God represented human incarnation of
pictures of Christ. According to Christian belief,
himself in
human form
God could be
represented, as could his
developed
tradition
and
in Jesus,
in
the
this
life story.
A parallel
of Constantinople,
city
Byzantine
founded by
Constantine in the Eastern Mediterranean in 330ad, which
fell
to the
invading army of the Islamic Ottoman Empire in 1453.
The justification of images developed by the Church was as lessons in the Christian faith for the
illiterate;
threefold:
as visual reminders of
the mystery of the Incarnation and the examples of saints; and as a stim-
Picturing devotion
saint of painters,
drawing
and the a
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
shown
Virgin
canopy
in
in
Mary under
a palatial room, river.
The
saint
reverence before
of light, have been used by
will
van der Weyden to make
make from the drawing
the vision experienced by
and the painting he
his vision of Christ
overlooking a kneels
is
heavenly apparition
this
St Luke, the patron
will
become an
devotion.
All
object of
the resources
of fifteenth-century
Netherlandish
with
its
oil
technique,
exquisite rendering
St
Luke as palpable as
possible to the viewer.
Rogier van der Weyden, St
Luke Painting the
Mary,
c.
1435-40.
Virgin
Mannered conversion on the way to
St Paul,
Damascus
to persecute
Christians,
was thrown
from
horse and
his
temporarily blinded by
which
a divine light,
converted him to Christianity.
The
Italian
Mannerist painter
Parmigiamno has transformed
this
moment
of conversion into a balletic interlacing of
elegant curves and artificially
elongated limbs
and necks. This
is
an
attempt to present the scene not as really
it
might
have looked, but
rather as artfully
and as
gracefully as possible
Parmigianino, The Conversion of St Paul, c.1
527-8
ulus to devotion. Their didactic role
was understood by medieval
painters: the statutes of the Guild of Sienese Painters
Brutal
we are by the grace of God illustrators for those men who cannot read of those things which are brought
his thirties,
firebrand
about by virtue and by virtue of the Holy Faith." Religious images
were
tied to the Church's teaching,
who
died
1610 when he was
proclaim: "For
simple
drama
Caravaggio,
from 1355
in
was
the history of
the treatment of familiar religious subjects. Instead
matter can be found in pictures from different centimes and from
of the swanlike horse
the separate theological currents of the Eastern and Western
was
dition.
The ways
in
which Mary, Jesus, the
saints,
are imagined today have been established by the
in
Parmigianino's version of
codified not
by written prescription but by convention and iconographic
in
a great
painting, revolutionizing
and the same basic subject
Churches. This system of symbols and images
in
still
the Conversion of St Paul,
we
tra-
see here the
rump
of
an ordinary farm animal,
and even God
with St Paul sprawling
work of artists.
in
undignified submission.
Despite the brutal
The decline of sacred art
naturalism of this painting,
The power of images to control the mind and
direct behaviour
understood by contemporary advertisers; but where images sell
is
with
its
now
light
and dark,
violent contrast of
common
products they once sold theology, a picture of salvation.
it
shares a
iconography with
Parmigianino's work, with
However, the potential of images to perv ert the mind or to idolatry has always
caused controversy. Byzantium was
their use in the eighth century,
incite
split
light as
on
the vehicle of
God's grace.
Caravaggio, The
and iconoclasm was a feature of
Conversion of St Paul,
the Protestant Reformation, resulting in the sixteenth century in
1601.
the destruction of religious images in parts of Europe.
The declining power of the Church, the secularization of the Western mind, the claims of science and materialism, and competition
from other sects and
faiths
have meant that
artists
no longer
message of
salvation.
iconography, the
Stations of the Cross
promote, as they once
Most of the
significant
did, the Christian
Western
art of the past
two centuries was
produced outside the framework of organized
Modernism has provided a new, abstract language
religion,
for the
and
com-
munication of religious emotion that does not rely on traditional iconography. Even so, the basic themes and picture types of Christian art continue to exert their hold
on
painters.
was an American
Modernist vision In traditional
were stages
title
reveals his
fundamental themes of suffering
of the Passion. This painting from
and death
the 1950s abolishes
It
all
depiction
Jew, and this
concern with
raised by the Passion.
has been claimed that one
of the Christian narrative, relying
source of this kind of Modernism
on simple
is
jagged
abstract forms, with a
vertical "zip" intersecting
an open plane, suggesting paths of spiritual energy
Old Testament iconoclasm.
Barnett
Newman,
Station,
1958
The
First
and the
annihilation of matter.
Newman
INTRODUCTION
and functions
Sites museum
a
In
or gallery,
modern viewer
which
can be
it
difficult for the
to grasp the variety of places for
were made and the range of
religious paintings
uses they once served.
Not
religious paintings
all
have been removed from their intended locations: wallpaintings and altarpieces, in particular, often remain in
The High Altar
Many, however, have been separated from their
The scene depicted
situ.
and the viewer is confronted with pictures
original sites,
which have
once part of an
lost all ties
with the locations and functions
St
patrons. art,
Denis near
is
the
abbey church of
interior of the
envisaged by their original makers, purchasers, or
panel,
in this
altarpiece,
with Mass
Paris,
being celebrated by St Giles at
They have acquired new meanings as works of
the High
On
Altar.
the
left is
the
eighth-century Frankish King
to be valued principally for their aesthetic merits.
Charles Martel. The miracle of '
Sacred art in the religious setting
Mass
Religious paintings were displayed in an enormously
diverse range of places.
Some were
altars.
in
Orleans
in
at this
719 has been
transposed to St Denis as
fixed in churches
looked
when
painted. The
and chapels, often as wall-paintings or as altarpieces above
an angel's appearance
the
Others adorned the choir screens separat-
the panel
it
was
work demonstrates
rich array of visually exciting
objects to be seen around
clergy from the
ing the
ceilings, choir shutters, in
Paintings decorated
laity.
the
cupboards, and the tabernacles
which the Holy Sacrament was
canvases were himg against church
pillars or
including the gold
and
reliquary,
the statues, altar cloth, curtains,
and
kept. Panels
altar,
altarpiece, crucifix,
and carpet, and the illuminated
above
missal used to read the Mass.
doors, and associated buildings such as baptistries had
elaborate
decorations,
individuals buried in them. Paintings
form of visual
Master of St
sometimes paid for by the
of St
were not the only
interest in a church: funerary
monu-
ments, church plate, altar furnishings and cloths, the
vestments of the
and
priests,
and the stained-glass windows
flickering candles (not to
mention the
Church's rituals
must have made church the best show
where the brothers
paintings,
ate,
Monks'
at
involved)
it
town.
above
the refec-
all
which could contain
large
famous Last Supper
pictures of meals, such as Leonardo's
from the 1490s
in
- the
rooms besides the church
In monasteries, other
were often decorated with tory
liturgy
- and the theatre of gesture
Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.
might also contain small images or wall
cells
paintings, for instance those at the
Dominican monastery
of San Marco in Florence painted by Fra Angelico from the 1440s, while the chapter houses in which meetings
were held were often decorated with
Some fixed
frescos.
images, like painted crucifixes,
when
above choir screens or hung from arches
not
in the
naves of churches, were carried in procession, as were banners, usually sides.
made
of cloth and painted
The modern chapel
on both
Other religious images were meant to be seen
In
the
late
1
their chasteness.
940s Matisse designed
the Chapel of the Rosary for the
only occasionally
Netherlandish
or,
in
the
altarpieces,
case of
German and
were opened
and
shut
Dominican convent
at
Cannes, including the
pieces,
in
town squares by preachers.
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
France
The
the altar with
its
coloured
from the windows,
furnishings.
in
the
wake
World War, the chapel's of form also
in
of the Second purity
conformed to the
altar-
which acted as visual aids to sermons, could
also be set up
The product
of the revival of Catholicism
windows, the wall ceramics, and
adorned with
the interior of
work by the Master
of St Giles above.
painted on the outside of churches, but most have vanaltars
St Denis in the
The environment
like
Vence near
vestments, the stained-glass
Temporary
not cluttered
priest's
according to the liturgical calendar. Murals were even
ished with age.
is
light
with their tree of across the walls
life
and
motif,
falls
floor, relieving
Modernist aesthetic.
Henri Matisse, The Chapel of the Rosary, 1947-51.
Giles,
Giles,
c.1500.
The Mass
.
In its
Outdoor preaching
this abstract
the main square of Siena, before
pulpit there
principal civic building, the
with an altarpiece. St Bernardino
Palazzo Pubblico, the Franciscan St
Bernardino (1380-1444)
shown preaching
to
referred to
symbol, behind the is
an outdoor
images
and was aware of
is
men and
in his
bled, spoken, or
answered prayers
testifies to the
powers
ascribed to (hem and to the deep needs they have met
altar
sermons
Some
their usefulness
as didactic tools This panel by the
in
confirming faith or relieving suffering. paintings were intended for private devotion
home, especially small paintings of the Virgin and
in the
Votive prayer
this
women,
carefully divided by a
partition.
He holds up
his
fifteenth-century Italian
personal
emblem, together with the
di Pietro
Hominum
Sano
side of an
Sano
di Pietro, St Bernardino
In
thanksgiving for
the miraculous recovery of his
many compact images were wont
on the person as talismans
in
illumi-
for use in times of trouble.
Paintings with protective shutters on hinges could be carried from place to place and installed for prayer.
Salvator" - Jesus the
saviour of mankind.
The prayer books of the wealthy were often
work
daughter, Catherine, a nun at the
convent of Port Royal,
who
Paris,
of
Siena Preaching, 1445
for "lesus
Child.
nated with pictures, and
altarpiece dedicated to the saint.
initials
"IHS", an abbreviation for Jesus,
which also stood
formed one
artist
Champaigne painted
Philippe de
was paralyzed
in
represents the
moment when
both legs
It
the prayers of the Mother
addition to
form a painting took was
In all these cases, the
largely
shaped by
adapted their to
its
intended setting and use. Painters
and patrons
style,
norms sanctioned by
altarpiece
was a
devotional image
tradition
and decorum. An
large public image, while the small
was
not; a narrative
was
while a banner
their expectations,
mural was
fixed,
portable, so they have different
characteristics. In the art gallery or the virtual
museum
of photographic or digital reproduction, religious paint-
Superior of the convent for Catherine's health were
answered, as
recorded
is
in
the
Latin inscription. Votive (also
known made
as ex voto) paintings
were
as offerings of thanks or
of beseeching in fulfilment of a
vow, and
one
this
reflects
the
austere piety of the French Catholic
movement known
as
Jansenism to which both the
ings risk losing their distinctive meanings: a danger that
and
artist
them back
Ex Voto, 1662.
to their original sites
and functions.
Heavenly audience
1789,
and
religious
m
images abounded
outside churches, in places such as
town
halls
in
common
paintings.
people joined together
around towns or as landmarks
ffm
&
in shrines
in the countryside.
i
Pictures could
devotion,
work
miracles.
These cults had to be regulated care-
by the Church
but the
in
order to avoid the sin of idolatry,
number of claims of
paintings that have cried,
i m
li /
^ Jtr
r
Eyck, the
his altar there.
Virgin
C/b-.J»
IS
is
and Child
in
a church setting,
presented by St George
name the
an altarpiece for
Kneeling before the
saint),
left.
(his
with St Donatian on
Every wrinkle
in
the old
man's face creases as he fingers '
c-
*
in
the fifteenth century,
his day, to paint
he /
in
canon
Donatian
principal Netherlandish artist of
an
>3*'
Paele, a
at the church of St
employed Jan van
...
ZKVttflH ki
fully
m
I mj
.
become the object of popular particularly when they were considered to
"
*•
\ '
George van der
Bruges
i
r
worship) were decorated with narrative
Other religious images were placed
iA
1
li
and
government buildings. The meeting houses of guilds and lay confraternities (groups of lay
A
-
secular state existed in Europe before the French
Revolution in
daughter belonged
Philippe de Champaigne,
Religious images in the secular world
No
his
the viewer must redress by imaginatively transposing
*
mk ^ff"'
miJ .
ijc-
.i
'
his glasses, raising his his service
eyes from
book.
Jan van Eyck, Van der Paele Altarpiece, 1436.
SITES AND FUNCTIONS
Sacred spaces most organized Indesignated for worship,
religions, special buildings are
whether they be temples,
mosques, synagogues, or churches. These buildings are
great patrons of the arts, and
church of
St
it
was
at the
was invented
in the 1150s.
such as the Cistercians, abhorred pictorial like the
and are often the location of highly
St
appointed as mediators and
priests,
expiators of potentially vengeful divine forces. In the
celebration of mortuary masses
art,
others,
for the souls of his father, himself,
preaching orders founded by St Francis and
Dominic, promoted
it
in their
and
churches as a way of
teaching and of encouraging devotion
palace at Padua for the
in his
While some monastic orders,
worshipper into a closer relationship with the sacred,
conducted by
Narrative art Enrico Scrovegni built this chapel
Denis that the Gothic style of architecture
usually separated from the profane world, bringing the
codified rituals
Benedictine
among
his family
The
ceiling
was very
little
interior,
which was intended to house
tum, or
cello,
space
forty paintings by the Florentine
ing urban populations of Europe.
in the history of
in its inner sanc-
a sacred image of a god. In Christianity,
however, spacious buildings were needed to accommodate
Painted interiors Unlike the sparse decoration of the
the
Roman
catacombs,
wealth of materials used in honour of God. In the early
the re-enactment at the altar of
Christian basilicas, scenes from the Bible, representa-
attending the
St
faith:
Christ's saving sacrifice. After the official sanction of
Christianity in the
Roman Empire by Constantine in 313
AD, Christians therefore
adopted not the temple but
Romans
another building type, the basilica, used by the as the model
for justice halls,
for their churches.
Some churches needed to be this
was
of considerable
size:
especially true of a cathedral, the seat (cathe-
dra) of a bishop, or of churches housing famous relics \isited
by large numbers of pilgrims, but
it
could also be
The
true of great monastic churches or abbeys.
major organized monasteries, consisting of took the vows of poverty,
chastity,
lived in disciplined communities, St Benedict in the sixth centurv.
Islamic abstraction Built
by the Muslim conquerors of Spam, the Great
Mosque
at
Cordoba was
preserved as a church after the Christian riconquista.
The dome
over the mihrab, the slab marking the direction of Mecca, in
was
961 by Caliph Al-Hakam,
erected its
complex structure decorated with
men who
and obedience and
were established by
The Benedictines were
gold mosaics
from the eighth century on
first
made by
Byzantine
craftsmen. These contain intricate patterns of stylized vegetation, writing,
and abstract
patterns, as
required by Islam's exclusion of the figurative representation of sacred
subject matter. Even so,
it
strongly
suggests a vision of heaven.
Dome
of the Mihrab at the
Great Mosque, Cordoba, 961
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
tions of Christ all
and Mary, and images of the saints were
increasingly depicted. These could take the form of
mosaics, as at Ravenna in Italy in the sixth century, of
of Mary, her
Anne, and
out the
salvation through
Christ,
mother with the Last wall.
Giotto developed a revolutionary '
mystery of their
lives
human
Judgement on the entrance
church interiors came to be richly decorated with a
central
congregations at Mass,
walls
iconographic scheme of nearly
the grow-
artist Giotto, spelling
ancient Greek temple there
and
form a unified decorative and
new here,
style of narrative painting
and these works are often
seen as marking the beginning of the
Italian
Renaissance.
Giotto, Scrovegni Chapel, c.1305.
.
resonance
Spiritual
The non-denominational
browns evoke Institute
and Human
of Religion
Development
was opened
in
Houston, Texas,
space and
spiritual energies, equally as
open
in their
appeal to the Zen
Buddhist as to the Christian
Mark Rothko, Rothko
1971, complete
in
infinite
deep
Chapel,
1971.
with a "chapel" decorated with
commissioned paintings
specially
by Mark Rothko The room has the polygonal form of the early Christian baptistry,
canvases, arranged
and the like
surrogate
altarpieces, are called triptychs. But
these paintings
do not
represent
the traditional subject matter of Christian
of
stained glass, as at Chartres Cathedral in France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and also of mural
painting on walls and vaults. This tradition of fresco
Chapel
Sistine
because
it
was
is
so called
was
particularly
strong in Italy from the its
thirteenth century onward.
side walls painted
by a team of
While a whole church might contain a single cycle or series of pictures, executed at the
same time with a
coherent programme, this was generally quite rare as
artists
scenes from the (left)
the Vatican
built in
Palace for Pope Sixtus
painting
and Christ
Their great blocks
or by lay confraternities. These private chapels, often
Papal authority
The
art.
amorphous, dark maroons and
the 1480s
in
of
life
(right).
for the
commemoration
who owned them
and, in the case
were designed
of the souls of those
He had
IV.
who
called chantries,
depicted
Moses Between
1508 and 1512 Michelangelo
of a family, their ancestors.
It
was
believed that the
performance of Masses would reduce the length of time those commemorated would have to spend in Purgatory,
where people who were neither good enough
to go straight to
Heaven nor bad enough
to be
damned
painted the ceiling for his
most churches were shared by owners and were decorated Coherent cycles were more inside
at
different
many
users and
different times.
common in chapels, whether
a church or elsewhere.
From
the thirteenth
century each chapel had an altarpiece, and
many
nephew. Pope
Julius
Renaissance.
It
was
or mystery to which the altar
was
dedicated. In the case of Christ, Mary, or a saint, the
murals often took the form of scenes from his or her
only
in
his
massive Last
also Judgement on the
whom
one of
life.
Some chapels formed part of palaces: the Scrovegni Chapel (also known as the Arena Chapel), decorated by Giotto in the fourteenth century, was in the palace of a banker at Padua, while the much larger Sistine Chapel, designed to hold the whole papal court, was in the
was designed
to stress the
connection between the Old
New
Testaments, and
show how
the authority of
and the to
have come into existence
was guaranteed by
divine providence.
Michelangelo and others, Sistine Chapel,
c.
in the late
would not
Middle Ages.
Chapels continued to be designed for traditional
worship
in the
modern
era - for example, the one for
the Dominican nuns at Vence, decorated by Henri
Matisse in the late 1940s (see page 22). Perhaps the
most moving example of a chapel of the twentieth century artist
the popes
(painfully) of their sins. Without
altar wall.
The iconography of the whole chapel
would be purged
this belief, private altars, let alone chapels,
1534-41 that Michelangelo painted
had wall decorations, both of which were related to the person to
II,
the greatest patrons of the High
to Hell
1480-1 541
is
that provided with paintings
Mark Rothko, not
Institute
of Religion
for a
and Human Development
Houston, Texas. Here the transcendent
through liturgy and
by the American
church but for the
ritual,
is
in
not translated
or through the elaborate
iconography of the Christian Church, but
in simple,
Vatican Palace in Rome. Most chapels, however, were
resonant forms. The opening of this chapel in 1971 was
attached to churches.
Some were designed for common many were owned by individuals and families,
attended by a Cardinal, a Protestant Bishop, an Orthodox
use, but
Bishop, a Rabbi, and an Imam.
SACRED SPACES
The
altarpiece
In
the liturgy of the Catholic Church, the celebration of
Mass occupies a
central position. At
its
core
is
the
Eucharist, the ritual re-enactment of Christ's redeeming sacrifice.
At the altar the priest consecrates bread and
wine which,
in Catholic doctrine, in
transubstantiation, Christ.
From the
become
a process
known
early thirteenth century
to the congregation, rather than behind that images could be placed at the first
it
became usual
it,
back
which meant
back of the
altar table.
these images were low-lying and horizontal,
but they soon increased in height, becoming important \isual adjuncts to the altar.
then presence above
altars,
a suitable backdrop for the consecration of the Host,
and a signpost of the contained.
They
also
religious images,
altar's
dedication and the relics
performed functions ascribed to
above
all
it
all
inspiring devotion.
the body and the blood of
for the priest to stand in front of the altar with his
At
as
functions, providing a \isual focus for the congregation,
Church law never required but they
fulfilled
valuable
The
rise of the altarpiece
Altarpieces
became more common
Middle
in the late
Ages, aided by the proliferation of mortuary masses for the souls of individuals and families, by increasing devotion to saints,
and by the subsequent growth of side
in churches, especially
altars
those of the preaching orders, the
Dominicans and the Franciscans. Lay confraternities
whose focus was clergy might
the altar
were formed. Although the
promote the foundation of altars and super-
-
\ise their decoration, altarpieces
sioned by the
laity.
As a
result,
were often commisthey acquired other
functions, expressing the devotional orientation of an individual or a group, promoting family or corporate
honour, or even enhancing the prestige of an entire this
way secular values were blended with
city.
In
religious ones.
In the fourteenth century a type of altarpiece
known as the polyptych, made
The winged polyptych
the pinnacles above and, at the
Dominating a small Gothic church in
the Austrian lake-town of
St
Wolfgang,
this altarpiece
by
in
accordance with the
liturgical calendar.
At
its
centre
is
carving of the Coronation of the Virgin, with a Crucifixion
RKLHilOUS PAINTING
among
bottom, a Last Supper. Shutters,
when open,
relate
Closing the
first
from
Michael Pacher can be variously configured
of many parts or panels.
a
the
Christ's
the Virgin's
life
(below);
when
final shutters are closed,
from
St
life.
set reveals scenes
Wolfgang's
life
scenes
appear.
Michael Pacher, St Wolfgang Altarpiece, 1481.
Death of a saint According to legend, received Holy
Jerome
St
Communion
before dying, aged ninety,
Bethlehem
in
420 ad
just in
In this
depiction of the event, the
aged body of the naked
saint,
strength, left
lion
by
is
virtually
drained of
all
supported on the
his followers
he befriended
with the
in
the desert
sitting tearfully at his side.
On
the right, a priest, a deacon
and a sub-deacon administer the bread and then the wine of the Eucharist to St as
Jerome
angels prepare to receive
little
his soul into
heaven; a Classical
arch frames the landscape
beyond. artist
It
took the Bolognese
Domenichmo
three years
to paint this large altarpiece for
the high altar of church
in
Rome
dedicated to St Jerome.
Domenichino, The
Communion
predominated
Unified space In this
altarpiece, painted
Italian artist
Giovanni
by the
multi-tiered,
Bellini for
in Italy.
These structures were often
with gabled tops echoing the Gothic
architecture around them. Decorated with precious
Last
of St Jerome, 1614.
and to the unification of saints around the throne of the Virgin
Mary
in a single,
coherent space. This kind of
altarpiece is usually called a Sacra Conversazione, or
the Franciscan church of San
Giobbe
in
materials such as gold and lapis lazuli, they were
Venice, the saints are
grouped around the throne of
of carpentry and woodearving as
the Virgin Mary
The
as
if
saint
a single field,
in
occupying a chapel. The
on the
far left
is
church
is
is
Job
(to
dedicated).
whom
enter through the church door, it
from
is
fictive light in
this
refers to
Venice,
in
falls.
the half-dome
the basilica of St Mark
and to the
fictive archi-
as the
a sacred space above the
A few
Italian
Burgundian Netherlands and Germany
in
altar.
Another important development was the emer-
which
gence of the narrative altarpiece. Stories from the of
Mary and
Christ
were rarely shown
subjects, but saints
fives
were not unusual as the main in action in the
source that the
the picture
The gold mosaic
known
were even painted on both front and back.
In the
and the
the frame to create the illusion of looking through into
occasionally also appeared in the gables. altarpieces
classical,
The
lowest, horizontal part of the altarpiece,
who
became more
tecture within the picture often linked up with that of
predella, generally featured narrative scenes,
the
Sacred Conversation. The architecture of the frames of altarpieces
and widest panel was often given over to
the Virgin and Child, with saints in the other panels.
Mary turns
to our right to greet those
and
as of painting.
St Francis,
and the almost naked old man next to him
central
much
works
city's
in
the early fifteenth century a different kind of altarpiece
main
emerged which featured shutters or wings, some exam-
however, the saint was increasingly shown performing
ples even boasting
two
sets.
This meant that the
altarpieces configuration could be changed according
field,
hi the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries,
a miracle or being martyred. During the Reformation in the sixteenth century,
altarpieces
were \iewed by
Byzantine roots.
Giovanni
to the church calendar:
it
could be shut during periods
Protestants in northern Europe as incitements to idola-
Bellini, Sacra
Conversazione, c.1480.
of contrition like Lent, but opened up in feast days. inside,
with
its full
glory
on
Colour was sometimes reserved for the
monochrome
painting on the outside.
try
and image-worship, which led
destruction.
to their wholesale
The Counter-Reformation among Catholics
led to saints being hailed as heroic
champions of the
true faith, and dramatization and physical suffering
Sacred conversations From the mid-fifteenth
w ere r
century,
the polyptych
was
increasingly emphasized.
From
the sixteenth century, altarpieces also
own
came
increasingly viewed as outdated in Italy as painters
to be considered as
works of art
experimented with spatial depth, overlapping
collectors separated
them from their altars and removed
unified light effects,
the potential of
oil
and
figures,
realistic textures, exploiting
as a paint medium. This led to the
abandonment of the extensive use of gold
in altarpieces
in their
them from churches. The detachment of from
right,
and
altarpieces
their original liturgical functions is enshrined in
today's art galleries
and museums.
THE ALTARPIECE
'27
Private devotions The altarpiece was usually a large image displayed above the
Royal devotion This painting,
King Richard
made II
for the English
at the
altar in a
church or chapel, and was thus
a public statement of the patron's devotion and social
end of the
status.
be bought
at
the local market or painter's workshop - the
inclusion of a portrait indicates that the
work was made
for a specific patron at his or her request.
The private devotional image, however, was nor-
Private chapels in houses
were very
rare, requir-
fourteenth century, could be folded
and transported. On the left-hand panel of the diptych, Richard
shown
kneeling
in
the
and
or
of
Edmund
character.
Such images did not need
to provide a back-
drop for the solemn celebration of the Mass, nor was
it
Edward the Confessor, and
St
of St John the Baptist,
all
of
whom
he venerated. On the right-hand panel, the Virgin
among
Mary stands
presents a banner to him.
whole work
is
expense
in
was
clearly highly prized;
it
the more surprising that
about
its
protection during travel, and pieces were often of
more intimate and
exquisite workmanship.
personal.
most it
we
maker.
numerous
on a wide
different functions.
variety of
By
far the
common of these was a simple half-length painting
of the Virgin and Child. This
was often placed high up on
the wall of a home, sometimes with a candle or an
lamp burning before
Wilton Diptych, 1395-9.
Virgin
S
Virgin
Private devotional images featured
English or French School, The
RKUCHM
reaches of society. Other
images were small, portable diptychs or triptychs, with
two or three panels on hinges which could be closed
objects with
lazuli
is all
little
and so private altarpieces were generally
restricted to the highest
They might contain a
for
portrait
more subjects - the and Child was again the most common image,
The
that
so
authorities,
ecclesiastical
of the donor along with one or
and such
gold and lapis
a special dispensation from the
devotee and the painting, which could therefore be
Diversity of purpose
executed with such
technical excellence
ing
necessaiy for the liturgy to be interposed between the
angels wearing Richard's
emblems, as the infant Christ
know
cell,
while travelling, and so was smaller and less formal in
is
company
his royal predecessors, St
mally intended for use in the house or monastic
PAINTIM.
it.
oil
Such small-scale images of the
and Child were rarely commissioned, and could
although dramatic close-ups of the suffering Christ
were popular from the Another way
in
fifteenth
century
which pictures were used
onward. in private
devotion was in prayer books, called Books of Hours,
which often contained beautiful illuminations next to or surrounding the text - both illustrations and text
were generally printed from the
late fifteenth century.
Aristocratic observance
On
the
Virgin
the
is
work
left
and
van Nieuwenhove's coat-of-arms
of this diptych are the Child,
and on the
right
man who commissioned
this
for himself, the twenty-three
year-old
nobleman Maarten van
Nieuwenhove
of Bruges.
if
situated
in
close proximity
Private religious images performed a variety of
up on a wall was unlikely to have been used
in regular
Inspiring
saint, in
The
the
in
window behind
Virgin
he
will
his
name
window behind
him.
hands to the naked
fallen state of
the corner of a single room, with
overlapping functions. The Virgin and Child placed high
a stained-glass
her and St Martin,
Christ an apple, a
The
donor and the Virgin are painted as
in
symbol of the
mankind which
redeem.
Hans Memlinc, The Van Nieuwenhove
Diptych, 1487
compassion
Christ, painted half-length in his
shroud on a blood-red background, looks directly at us, his head
whereas the portable diptych was designed for
prayer, this
purpose. Close-ups of Christ were intended to
encourage identification with his suffering, while
illumi-
nations in Books of Hours accompanied and enlivened
crowned with
holding
tied,
sidered aids in the creation of an intimate theatre of spirituality for
the observance of religion in the domestic
sphere. In medieval Europe, privacy
by even
was hard
homes, particularly
in the wealthiest
in
to
come
an urban
Roman
afforded
its
Italy
a
little
room
owner the opportunity
called a studiolo
to surround
herself with precious objects and books, this kind of
room
and
it
him or
was
the birch
was beaten and
in
the reed given to him by
soldiers
mocking
his status
as "King of the Jews." This small
Netherlandish work
was designed
to excite compassion and identification with Christ's suffering in
environment. In
hands
his tears, his
in his left
with which he his right
the recitation of private prayers. All of these can be con-
thorns, blood
mingling with
an intense face-to-face encounter.
Style of Jan Mostaert, Christ as the
Man
of Sorrows,
c.
1
520s.
in
that religious images might be placed.
which stressed the
interior nature of the religious expe-
Personalized religion
rience, the imitation of Christ,
From
holiness with a
the thirteenth century onward, the use of private
life
and the compatibility of
led in secular society. This created a
devotional images, both in monasteries and in the
demand
was encouraged by the Dominican and Franciscan orders, which recognized
alizing religion,
the importance of the visual imagination in stimulating
themselves in more intimate proximity with Christ, Maiy,
prayer and meditation were guided by
and the saints, and these heavenly figures were also made
secular world of lay religion,
piety. Private
devotional manuals stressing the proximity of the saints
and the humanity of
of these
was
Christ.
The most famous
the Meditations on the Life of Christ,
written by a Franciscan friar for a
nun around
life.
for private images
and
which could
less otherworldly. In Netherlandish painting
1420s onward Maiy
domestic settings
in
is
often
shown
in
from the
contemporary
rooms overlooking the town
square.
Private devotional pictures continue in use to this
1300,
and images of the Virgin Mary or of Christ, now most
day,
language and widely used by the
often a print or reproduction, are
Such manuals
everyday
Devotees were increasingly invited to imagine
which was translated into almost every European laity.
assist in person-
in its incorporation into
still
to be found
on the
helped to stimulate demand for devotional images, and
walls of houses throughout the Catholic world. These
were sometimes
images connect the domestic and everyday with the tran-
illustrated themselves.
In the Netherlands
tury a religious
from the
late fourteenth cen-
movement developed
called the Devotio
Moderno which aimed to promote religious observance among the laity, particularly outside the rituals of the organized church.
A new
kind of spirituality emerged
scendent and holy. At least as early as the late fifteenth century, pictures
made
for this
purpose were often con-
sidered so beautiful that they were collected as works of art in their
own
right.
Even
their religious content
so, their
formal beauty and
remain intimately linked.
PRIVATE DEVOTIONS
Creation and Fall While
Christianity,
Judaism, and Islam have a
shared biblical tradition, and a joint acceptance that there
is
only one God, they developed very differ-
ent attitudes about the visual representation of God.
Redeeming the
This small diptych by the
Netherlandish painter
God was
invisible, immaterial, Fall,
omnipresent, immeasurable, and eternal, so
he be depicted there
in visual
how
could
form? In Judaism and Islam
was a ban on representations of God, a prohibiby many Protestant Christians. But for those Christians who accepted that God
tion also adhered to
could be represented without impropriety, practical obstacles remained. There description of
God even
is
no consistent physical
in the "theophanies" (divine
with
In
appearances) that occur in the Old Testament, such as
Sinai.
God on Mount
The problem was further exacerbated by the
the
left
Adam and
tempted by the
panel
Devil in the
right of the apple tree.
right
is
together outside time, but were supposed to have been
the
is
Eve here
of a half-human lizard
form
active in history at different
Old Testament, Jesus
On
Holy
the
pages 50-51), with Mary weeping
Spirit acting as
humankind
in the
moments,
over Christ's dead body with her
companions. The two subjects are
descended on Mary and
"New
Eve,"
and
is
New
Testament, and the
an intermediary between God and
at certain
Baptism and
combined because Mary
moments: God the Father
during the Creation and throughout the period of the
on the
the Lamentation (see
redeems the
Moses's thunderous encounter with
Hugo van
der Goes was painted for private devotion.
All three agreed that
God had one essence but three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The members of the Trinity were co-eternal, existing belief that
Fall
for
example
when
at the Pentecost,
at Christ's
the Holy Spirit
Christ's disciples.
the
Christ's sacrifice
Picturing
God
Fall.
Hugo van der Goes, The Temptation of Adam and Eve and The Lamentation,
c.
1470-5.
was clear that God, in the person of Christ, who was God in human form, could be represented, and the New
It
Testament stated that the Holy
descended
Spirit
in the
form of a dove, a manifestation generally adopted by painters.
Father,
It
was
above
less obvious,
all in
however,
how God
the
his role as Creator of the Universe,
could be depicted. The Book of Genesis told of the
man
Creation of the world in six days, with pinnacle. This
is in
at its
the account of Creation painted on
was
the Sistine Chapel's ceiling by Michelangelo, which
challenged in the Western world by Darwin's theory of evolution in the nineteenth century, but which Creationists
still
believe.
God
In Michelangelo's heroic version of Creation, is
how
presented as a bearded old man, but
man
acquire this form in Western art? In Genesis,
described as being
made
in
did he is
God's image and likeness,
Adam
so Michelangelo has represented
man
as a
of
absolute beauty, with his life-infusing Creator symmetrical in all but age
and garb. But
tations of the Creation,
eleventh centuries,
God
in the earliest represen-
made between is
the third and
represented as only a right
Genesis This
is
the central portion of the
Sistine Chapel's ceiling,
with (from
right to left) the Creation of
the Creation of Eve, and the
Around the
Adam, Fall.
narrative panels are
seated male nudes, with circular
bronze medallions. By placing
Eve's
Creation at the centre of the entire ceiling,
story
which covers the Genesis
from the Creation to the
Drunkenness of Noah, Michelangelo maximizes
Eve's role in the Fall to
stress that
it
by Mary, the
be cancelled out
will
"New
invented a
new
combining
classical
Eve."
He
heroic style here,
grandeur and
biblical narrative.
Michelangelo, ceiling,
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
Sistine
1508-12
Chapel
A vengeful God In
Blake's idiosyncratic interpretation
of the Old Testament,
God
the
Father represents not goodness
but unyielding and oppressive
which he imposes from
justice,
fiery chariot
upon an enslaved
Adam, who
is
aged
God's
in
likeness. Blake related
his
God
to his
own
mythological creation, Urizen,
who
symbolized the tyranny of
pure reason. This colour finished in
print,
pen and watercolour,
challenges the orthodox Christian
view of the
Fall
as deserved.
William Blake, The Punishment of Adam, 1795-1805
Triumph of
On
the
triptych
left is
with huge biomorphic mutations,
sin
symbols of transitory
of this astonishing
gratification
and human degradation. The
the Creation. The central
Overshadowed by Mankind
right
story, panel seems to of
show the triumph
a carousel of
lust:
male
around bathing
rotates
a fantastical landscape. front,
full
riders
women In
panel
is
made
in the
image of God. But
this Creation is
of nightmarish monsters and
of Earthly Delights,
c.
1
490.
Adam and
Eve, the
fourteenth centuries,
skies.
God
then finally an entire body.
Between the twelfth and
acquired a face, then a bust,
God and
Jesus, being consid-
ered identical as two aspects of one God,
initially
of the mural paintings
man and woman, were placed in the blissful Garden of Eden, but they disobeyed God by eating the fruit of the
shared
del
Carmine
same face
(see pages 40-41).
It
was only from about
1360 that the familiar notion of God's fatherhood
emerged
man
in art,
and that he was represented as an old
with long white hair and a flowing beard, an image
from
classical figures of Jupiter, chief
of the pagan gods. Because ruler,
a pope (with a or,
God was conceived
as a
he was dressed up as a figure of power, whether as tiara),
an emperor, or a king (crowned),
as in Michelangelo's version, a senator (with a white
toga). This
venerable image of God, which
the Western visual tradition,
is
still
shapes
the creation of
art,
purely pictorial fabrication without biblical support.
a
in
Santa Maria
tree of knowledge.
moment when Adam and
are
thrown out of the gate of
They were expelled
for their disobe-
ited
by
all
their descendants.
Men and women owed
thereafter a debt of reparation to God, but this debt
unpayable without divine assistance.
became
was
Men and women
the inhabitants of a fallen world
suffering,
prevailed.
sin,
and the
inevitability
where
Hence the pessimistic
Florentine artist Masaccio
buried
in his in
been
folly
pursuit of transient pleasures, perverted by
the Fall from
its
original
infernal damnation.
innocence and heading toward
Only God himself, by the
someone who was both God and man, could debt incurred by mankind at the
Fall.
on the and
cross,
art are
sacrifice of satisfy the
For Christians,
humanity could thus only be redeemed by
mouth
moaning. Although
dignity
-
lost their
their bodies are
idealized, that of Eve being
end of the
futile
Adam's face
they have not
human on
and the
loss,
hands, Eve's
toil,
Garden of
world governed by
Eve
naked and express absolute
despair at their
Earthly Delights, painted by Hieronymus Bosch at the fifteenth century, of a
shows
paradise by an angel. The couple are
opened
of eternal death
vision in The
a
Florence, this scene
the
a classical statue. simplified
reduced to
ultimately derived
in
by the early fifteenth-century
fallen,
the
in
private chapel belonging to the
first
dience, the punishment for this "original sin" being inher-
hand emerging from the
One
Brancacci family
linked to and modified by the Fall.
Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden
naked people are interlaced
placed at the pinnacle of the biblical Creation
a terrifying vision of hell,
surreal torments.
in
the
is
Expulsion from paradise
sin
based
Forms have
and expressions
essentials,
renewing
the monumental narrative tradition established by Giotto a
century earlier (see pages 24-5).
Masaccio, The Expulsion of Adam
and Eve from Eden, c.1427.
Christ's death
and therefore the whole of Christian history
focused on that supreme
moment of sacrifice.
CREATION AND FALL
Angels and devils The
pre-modern world embraced more kinds of
being than modern science allows. Not only did
medieval bestiaries
illustrate
mermaids and unicorns,
but the world was also thought to be teeming with spirits involved in
a cosmic struggle for the possession
of individual souls. The main protagonists in this battle
between good and
Celestial warrior
The Archangel
evil
were angels and
Devil, as
the
to
Mary
that she
was
to give birth to Jesus,
angels appeared to the shepherds to announce his birth,
Women
and another appeared to the Holy
empty tomb.
at Christ's
In descriptions of the lives of saints, angels
were often recorded as feeding starving hermits or comforting martyrs at the
moment
of their deaths.
According to Denis the Areopagite, writing
devils.
St Michael stands
triumphant over the
announced
in
about
500 ad, angels were organized into three hierarchies, each
Angelic forms
further subdivided into three choirs.
Angels and devils were believed by Christians to have a
lors closest to
common
deprived of the
Thrones - these were usually painted as just the heads of
for rebelling against him. This rebellion
children with four, six, or eight wings, Seraphim as red,
The
angelic council-
donor, Antonio Juan, lord of Tous,
near Valencia
in
before him
prayer holding a
in
Spain, kneels
was the
book of psalms.
This
central part of a
composite
altarpiece by the late fifteenth-
century Spanish
Bermejo Miguel
artist
San
Tous. St Michael had
been invoked
in
vision of
God
was
led
who
surpassed
by
the reconquest
of Spain from the Moors,
and
a crystal-domed shield, crushing
the chameleon-like Devil at
armour
star,
other angels in beauty, knowledge,
all
and power, but was defeated and thrown into the abyss with
his
army.
Though not described
is
the
reflection of the heavenly
Jerusalem, which he defends
in
Old
the
Testament, this event was believed to be alluded to by Isaiah:
"How you have
fallen
here he wields a sword and holds
his feet. In his
morning
Lucifer, the "lightbringer" or
Cherubim as
blue.
the Seraphim, Cherubim, and
The next three choirs were the
angelic
governors, the Dominions, Virtues, and Powers, and the
Bartolome
for the church of
in
origin: devils are fallen angels,
God were
from heaven, bright morn-
was merged
final
three were the angelic ministers, the Principalities,
Archangels, and Angels,
who were
more human
given
forms. There were thought to be seven Archangels, the
most important being Michael,
Gabriel,
and Raphael.
Christian
Since angels possessed celestial beauty yet were
imagery with St John's vision of the apocalyptic struggle
immaterial and unseeable, they presented difficulties to
between the Devil and angels led by
artists,
ing star"
(Isaiah
14:12).
It
in
St Michael at the
end
who
generally
them according
depicted
of the world (Revelation 12:7-9). Imprisoned at the
contemporary standards of fashion and beauty. The
centre of the earth, the Devil founded his kingdom of
est depictions of angels
to
earli-
have no wings. These were added
on God's behalf as the general
Hell
of his celestial army.
Bartolome Bermejo,
St Michael
where he reigns as Satan, and where the wicked
will
be tormented for their sins after the Last Judgement.
Testaments as gers, as
spiritual beings
on
earth, the
century ad since
was believed
it
had
that
immense
to traverse
New
distances on their path to and from Heaven. Classical sculptures of winged victories and of "genii" (guardian
immortal servants and protectors of God, and as
his representatives
fifth
angels, as inhabitants of the sky,
and heavenly messen-
Angels are mentioned in both Old and
Triumphant over the Dew/, c.1468.
only from the
heavenly guides of the
spirits)
were adapted to
iconography. As
this
new purpose
God's servants, angels
in Christian
were visualized
in
ways
they appeared to various individuals: an angel prevented
or,
especially in the case of St Michael, general of the
Abraham from
heavenly armies, as knights in armour.
faithful.
Their physical form
sacrificing
is
not described, although
Isaac,
the
angel
Gabriel
that viewers could understand:
as courtiers
Rebel angels
The sixteenth-century Antwerp painter Pieter Brueghel
known
was
to his contemporaries as
the second Bosch (the famous painter of nightmarish visions
of
demons and monsters:
page 3 1
Delights).
pictured
see
The Garden of Earthly
,
Here the angelic army
in
is
mortal combat with a
carnival-like
swarm
of monstrous
demons. Both comic and terrifying, reptiles,
these mutations of
bodies are the angels rebelled against
dressed
in
God.
who
have
St Michael,
armour and with the
cross of the Resurrection shield,
fish,
and disfigured human
triumphs
on
his
at the centre,
while other angels fight or blow
trumpets, anticipating their role at the Last Judgement.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Fall
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
of the Rebel Angels,
1
562
5
and 52) St
as "St Anthony's Fire," caused
section of a multi-panelled
altarpiece (see also for the
by eating contaminated rye
pages 49
The work's
monastery of
hideous
The
in
on the
figure
diseases attached to the monastery
saint harassed by
demons
Mathis Grunewald, The
the wilderness
left
were
original viewers
from a hospital dedicated to skin
Anthony, Isenheim, Grunewald
shows the
known
the skin disease ergotism,
Demonic torments In this
Temptation of St Anthony,
from
suffers
c.
1
1
5.
Modern demons German-born Max
Ernst
was
clearly inspired
by Grunewald's
painting of the
same
subject,
but transmogrifies the landscape
dead water and "fishbone
into
forests."
Although Ernst
lived in
America from 1941, the setting the
of this work, painted
in
of the Second World
War
Hollywood
film set,
devastated
cities
Anthony in
a
is
dense
creatures,
wake
for a
evokes the
of Europe. St
inextricably entangled
web
of nightmarish
phantasmagoria of the
subconscious mind.
Max
Ernst, The Temptation of
St Anthony, 1945
Depicting the Devil
depiction, mixing animal
The Devil has many names, among them and Beelzebub, and
is
Lucifer, Satan,
as old as the world.
He
is
seen by
and human forms
in a
manner
reminiscent of the pagan satyrs of the Classical world, inventing multiform and multicoloured demons, as in
Lucifer victorious In
a
was
the Old Testament, Job
good and upright man. God
tested his faith, allowing Satan
Christians as an invisible yet personal
power who
directs
Grunewald's terrifying hybrid monsters.
to destroy
the forces of evil against God's design and tempts
During the witch crazes of the sixteenth and seven-
Adam and
teenth centuries, the socially ostracized, possessors of
tempt
hidden knowledge, such as midwives, and even the merely
mankind away from goodness, Eve
in the
starting with
Garden of Eden. Although
his bid to
Christ failed, he tested the resolve of saints, led sinners to
perdition and will torment the Lucifer
inSakni
damned
William Blake, but
as beautiful, as
with Sore Boils by the English
more
usually he and his
were denounced as witches, who assembled
sabbaths to worship Satan and cast
in Hell.
was sometimes represented
Sm iting Job
eccentric
artist
demons
are
spells.
Satan became
a form of social control through terror, and images reinforced this
fear.
In the
modern period
increasingly migrated to the psyche as
devils
demons
have
of the
Job loved, including
and to cover
his
skin with boils. In Blake's
visionary religious system. Job
undergoes at
all
his children,
a process of salvation,
abandoning the vengeful
God
of the Old Testament for the
new
dispensation inaugurated
by Christ. Blake's Lucifer beautiful
and glorious
is
in his
tormenting triumph.
disfigured
and
beauty
disobeying God. Their external form reflected
in
bestialized, having sacrificed their angelic
inner ugliness, and painters went to extremes in their
subconscious (as
in Ernst's
work
here), although the rich
iconography of the satanic survives to disrupt the outward
calm of smalltown America
in
William Blake, Satan Smiting Job with Sore
Boils,
c.1826.
Hollywood movies.
ANGELS AND DEVILS
Heroes and heroines In
Western
Christianity, figures
are not venerated in the
from the Old Testament
same way as
followers. Noah, Moses, Kings
Christ
and
his
Solomon and David, and
the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel do not have altars dedi-
cated to them.
It is
who
only those
followed Christ
are considered to be in a state of grace and Fratricide
who
who were
thus considered suitable as the subject of devotional
Adam's two sons, Cain and Abel,
images. Old Testament
men and women, no
matter
how
as
its
climax. Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the
Chapel in
Sistine
parallel stories of
became
a farmer
and Abel
.became a herdsman. They both offered sacrifices to
God
in
a
fit
after returning to
depicts the dramatic
He
is
strained as the stricken Abel in terror,
the
his sacrifice rising to
by others
narrates world
Fall to
Noah and
the
also painted, enthroned beneath the Genesis
narratives, colossal prophets
of the ancient
and
sibyls (female oracles
Roman world who were
claimed by
Christians to have foretold the Messiah's coming) and,
around the chapel's windows,
Christ's ancestors, stress-
in
ing his lineage in the Old Testament. In the ceiling's four
corners he depicted miraculous deliverances of Israel
because they
from oppression, presaging the triumph of the Church.
1608-9.
one of two ways: as
smoke
of
New
in
Sex and violence
prefigura-
Outside churches and illustrated Bibles, the range of
Testament (see
subjects chosen from the Old Testament in medieval
pages 36-7) or as part of the history of human salvation.
and Renaissance Europe met secular rather than devo-
They occur
tional needs.
tions of people
Giusto
de'
and events
in the
in narrative cycles
Menabuoi
in
such as that painted by
the
baptistry
of Padua
Cathedral in the 1370s. Here the events of the Old
Beyond the
stories of the Creation
and
Exodus, subjects were chosen largely because they were outside
traditional
iconography,
Christian
especially
heaven.
Peter Paul Rubens, Cain Slaying c.
makes sense only
He
Although prophets occur
Old Testament subjects generally feature churches and chapels in
moment just
the bodies of the brothers
Abel,
it.
Titian,
before Cain strikes. Every muscle
up
fulfils
Christ painted
1480s.
from the Creation and the
history
Flood.
in the
foretold the advent of the Messiah.
Antwerp from
where he had seen the
work of Michelangelo and
looks
New that
because, in the
in altarpieces, they are usually there only
Flemish painter Rubens, shortly
in
terms of the
is
1508 and 1512 (see
of envy, he killed his
brother (Genesis 4:2-12). The
Italy,
place on the outskirts of Hell, until Christ liber-
Christian view, the Old Testament
accepted by God, Cain's was not and,
listless
ated them from their confinement. This
at
but while Abel's was
altars,
were believed to have been confined to Limbo, a
Moses and
on the side walls
followed different paths: Cain
holy,
Rome between
page 30) with scenes from Genesis to complement the
Testament are included
in a
programme
illustrating the
entire history of divine providence, with the Crucifixion
is
the most violent picture
ever painted by the Dutch master
now overcome Samson,
blinded him. Rembrandt does not flinch
from representing the
moment when
horrific
Samson revealed
to his lover
struggling Samson's eyes are
a Philistine, that
gouged out with a dagger
who was
his great strength resided in his hair.
She cut
it
off while
he was
asleep and Philistine soldiers,
who
armoured
soldiers restrain
as
him
with chains. Delilah flees from the tent,
Samson's
her in
left
hair clutched in
stories.
hand, as darkness closes
on the Old Testament
Rembrandt, The Samson, 1636.
the
Rembrandt. The Hebrew warrior
Delilah,
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
Old Testament could also provide good bedside
could
Betrayal This
those involving sexual encounter and violent action. The
hero.
Blinding of
» Despotism defeated
The youthful hero David springs into action, his hair
and drapery
swept by the wind,
his left
raised,
while
in his right
armed with the
holds a slingshot
stone he
about to
is
arm
hand he
hurl at
Goliath. Already at his feet,
however,
the huge head of
is
the decapitated Goliath, a
stone buried
forehead.
in his
In
the fifteenth century David
symbolized for Florentines the republican fight against
despotism such as that of the
Duchy
The
of Milan.
Castagno painted
Italian artist
a leather shield (hence
shape) that
unusual
its
was probably
during processions at
tournaments or
on
this picture
carried
civic
jousts.
Andrea del Castagno,
David,
C.1450.
Violent struggle
as in the tale of Joseph, used to decorate the bridal
The
chamber of the Florentine Pierfrancesco Borgherini
rare subject of this picture
an episode
around 1518 (see page
human
folly
7). It
could furnish parables of
such as the Tower of Babel,
built
when
by the
struggle of Israel against
its
evil,
Moses then attacked. Moses,
men
represented by the
still
oppressors. While Old
exemplary models.
to the ground and grabbed
women and One
reason
was
subject
boy David over the giant Goliath, the underdog wins because of the protection of God and his
their
that
of the
Samson, defeated not
in battle but
this
allowed him
nude male form
in
strenuous action, a concern derived above
figures,
it
in
right.
why Rosso chose
to depict the
own fortitude.
The power of women There were also tragic
sheep react
the background on the
triumph of the
In the
in
another by the beard, while the
Testament figures could not be invoked as intercessors, they were
their
whom
the centre, has knocked three
Testament subjects were used to exemplify the peren-
between good and
daughters
father's flock by shepherds,
twice by Pieter Brueghel in Antwerp in the 1560s. Old
nial conflict
Jethro's seven
were prevented from feeding
descendants of Noah to reach Heaven and painted
is
Exodus (2:16-18),
in
work
all
from
his
study
of Michelangelo.
Rosso Fiorentino, Moses and
such as the strongman
the Daughters of Jethro, c.1523.
The story was painted by many
Delilah.
ing, in 1610,
and,
by the deceit of
in
Rubens,
1636,
who
Rembrandt,
artists, includ-
lived in Catholic
who
lived
in
Antwerp,
Vengeance
Protestant
Judith
Amsterdam. The moral point about the deleterious effect of the
power of women, an important element
by the Italian Artemisia Gentileschi,
Constantijn Huygens. About a third of Rembrandt's
1611, as
Testament subjects.
slept with the
who was oppressing Israel. When he was drunk and asleep,
tale,
religious paintings have Old
who
Assyrian general Holofernes,
of
was understood by both sides of the religious divide. In 1639 Rembrandt offered The Blinding of Samson to the secretary to the Stadholder of Holland, the
was an Old Testament
heroine
she beheaded him. Artemisia
after she
was raped
in
In the seventeenth
Gentileschi depicts the
moment
of decapitation: blood spurts
an assertion of men's abusive power.
and eighteenth centuries the
from the
wound
in
Holofernes'
neck as Judith wields the sword
women
also illustrated
Old Testament was increasingly mined for subjects for
men's immoral power over women. In that of Susannah
grand "history" paintings. In 1746 Hogarth appropri-
Stories of Old Testament
and the Elders two voyeuristic old bathing
men
try to
seduce a
woman by blackmailing her. Although this subject
ately painting the Finding of
Moses
for the Foundling
Hospital in London. The English artist and poet William
while her maidservant holds him
down.
moral right of justice
offered opportunities to paint erotic female nudes, the
moral was
and
clear,
as both
that of Judith
men were executed.
This subject
and Holofernes were repeatedly painted
Blake incorporated Old Testament themes into his very personal religious vision
in paintings
Smiting Job with Sore Boils (see page
In this
dark and powerful
painting the artist affirms the
on
women
their
to exact
male oppressors.
Artemisia Gentileschi, The
such as Satan
Beheading of Holofernes,
33).
1614-20.
HEROES AND HEROINES
Prefiguration Prefiguring the Eucharist This
winged
was
altarpiece
painted by the fifteenth-century Netherlandish
artist
Dienc Bouts
for a chapel of the Confraternity
of the Holy Sacrament at St Pierre in
Louvain. The central panel
depicts the Last Supper, at which
shown surrounded by
Christ,
his
disciples at a table in a light-filled
room, established the sacrament of the Eucharist
in
the bread
and wine he offered to them as his
body and
his blood.
Two
theologians were appointed by
the Confraternity to establish four Old Testament "types" of
the Last Supper, to be painted
on the wings
On
the
of this altarpiece.
side are, at the top,
left
the meeting of
Abraham and
Melchizedek (the of bread
and
first
and wine by
at the
offering a priest),
bottom the Passover
(the Jewish ritual understood
to foreshadow or parallel the
Sacrament).
hile there is
a shared biblical tradition linking
Islam, Christianity,
and Judaism, only Christians
accept Jesus as the Messiah foretold by the prophets.
The Old Testament
only so called by Christians,
is
method had to
its
Moses as a lawgiver and
also said:
who
authority in Christ,
"And as Moses
likened himself
to Elijah as a prophet.
up the serpent
lifted
even so must the Son of Man be
desert,
He
in the
lifted up, that
On
the right side
are the gathering of
manna
(life-
saving bread from heaven) at the
top and at the bottom
Elijah in
the desert (who was brought
bread and water by an angel).
because
New
it
has been brought into a relationship with the
Testament
telling
his saving mission for (the
of the
life
of Christ and of
humanity - the era of the Law
Ten Commandments
in the
Old Testament) was
who
those
everlasting
here
is
believe in life"
him may not perish but may have
(John 3:14-15). The incident referred to
the plague of fiery snakes sent by
God
to the
people of Israel in the wilderness to punish them for
When Moses,
thus followed by the era of Grace initiated by Jesus.
their disobedience.
Theologians saw no opposition between the two, but
erected a serpent of brass (the Brazen Serpent) on a
rather continuity, noting that Christ himself said: "Think
wooden pole, those who looked at it were cured. This event was presented by Christ himself as the prefigura-
not that I
am
not
am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17).
I
Once the "canon" of authorized books
that comprised
at
God's instruction,
on the
tion of his redeeming sacrifice
cross, while
concordances presented Moses as a "type" of
Christ,
the Bible had been established, interconnections between
the lawgiver having led his people out the wilderness,
New
just as Christ
and Old Testaments were made
which linked passages from one to the
concordances
in
A
other.
Universal history
was seen by
Christians as a gradual
unfolding of God's plan, in which events in the Old
Testament did not merely precede those but actually prefigured them. "The
concealed in the Old, and the
New
New
in the
even objects
New makes plain the
in the
salvation.
runners of those
in the
way of
Bible is
is
called
called the
fulfilment the "antitype."
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
renewal of
all
prefigurations included Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac as a
symbolic fore-
typology: the Old Testament prefiguration
New Testament
fied for the spiritual
type of the Crucifixion, and the prophet Jonah,
The
who
spent three days in the belly of a whale, as a type of the Resurrection. While the relationship of type to antitype
was often based on parallelism, the
was crucimankind - the New
physical recovery of the Israelites, but Christ
Old,"
New.
interpreting
as the Son of God. The Brazen Serpent resulted in the
Testament thus suipassed the Old. Other Old Testament
Old Testament were to be understood
not just literally, but allegorically too, as
its
toward
is
Testament
wrote St Augustine (354-430). Thus people, events, and
"type,"
faithful
between "type" and "antitype" was
made by medieval theologians, who saw Moses as a spiritual leader who came face to face with God, and Jesus
TVpology
This
would lead the
distinction
it
could also be based on
opposition: for example, Christ and
as the
Mary were presented
new Adam and Eve because
resulted in the Fall
the original sin that
would be cancelled out by them.
Dieric Bouts, The Last Supper,
1464-8.
Types and antitypes Painted by Holbein around the
time he became court painter to
King Henry
England, this
VIII in
symbolic picture
the
illustrates
typological interconnection of the
Old and
New
composition
Testaments. The
by the tree of sits
Man On
Fall,
the
left
the Old
is
Adam and
Eve at
and above them Moses
Commandments
receiving the Ten
on Mount
Behind
Sinai.
Brazen Serpent Crucifixion), lies
under which
life,
Testament, with the
two
divided into
is
(a
and
is
the
type of the the foreground
in
a corpse. To the
left
of
Man,
Isaiah prophesies the Virgin Birth
of Christ,
and points to Mary on
On
the mountain top.
hand
side
is
the
New
with Christ led to In
his Crucifixion.
the background
Crucifixion
the right-
Testament,
is
itself. In
the
the
foreground the resurrected Christ
conquers death
in
the form of a
skeleton, while to the right of
Man,
St
John the Baptist points to
Jesus as the Messiah The
New
Testament
fulfilling
is
presented as
the Old as part of a single history of is
human
salvation,
all
of
which
explained by Latin inscriptions.
Hans Holbein the Younger, Allegory of the Old Testaments,
way
While this
today
it
may appear remote
of thinking
had considerable popular appeal in the late
medieval and early modern period.
Paupevum ("The
A book called Biblki was issued
Bible of the Poor")
in the
woodblock form, with black-and-
fifteenth century in
white illustrations showing ninety Old Testament types for thirty
New
Testament scenes. Such books achieved
wide circulation among preachers and lay readers, and so their
cycles like that of the Sistine Chapel, in
1
and New
535.
destiny
was begun by the
English Pre-Raphaelite painter
Holman Hunt during trip to
the Holy Land
second
his in
1869-72.
The painter took great pains to ensure that the details were accurate, even starting the
work
a carpenter's
in
shop
in
Bethlehem. Hunt himself explained the work's symbolism -
imagery shaped the popular imagination. In painting, typology is usually
Fulfilling
This picture
c.
found
in
which a
large
deliber-
the young Jesus, stretching after a long day's
work
in
Joseph's workshop, unwittingly
ate parallel
is
made between
found
in altarpieces, like that
Supper, with
its
like Holbein's
and
salvation linking Old
a diagram of
is
New
Allegory of the Old
human
presages
his
own
crucifixion,
which Mary sees as on the
wall.
a
shadow
The picture toured
Oxford and northern England to great public acclaim.
William Holman Hunt, The
Shadow of Death, 1870-3.
Testaments, reflecting
Protestant convictions.
Another form of prefiguration
drawn from the knowledge of
occasionally also
by Dieric Bouts for the Last
and New Testaments, which
own
It is
four Old Testament types; or in pro-
grammatic pictures
Holbein's
and Moses on the
Christ
side walls, painted in the 1480s.
New
is
Christ's tragic destiny,
impede, submitting to
found
its inevitability
pictures of the infant Christ, but in
before he leaves
young man
home
to
fulfil
it
fore-
which she does not and the necessity of
redemption. This melancholy prescience
ing of Christ as a
in paintings
Testament alone. Mary has
is
present in
Holman Hunt's
paint-
appears dramatically
his universal mission.
PREFIGURATION
Images of Mary During the Middle Ages the cult of the Virgin Mary came virtually
miraculous powers were attributed were of the Virgin. She could be
to eclipse in importance that of Jesus himself in Christian
domesticated in private devotional images, or presented in celestial
Alongside paintings of the Cmcified Christ, the most
worship.
common
religious
emphasized
image of the time was the Virgin and Child, which
in particular Mary's status as the
Mother of God. She was
seen to be the instrument of the Incarnation, and her status as a virgin lent her special sanctity.
ancient world were
Elements of cults of mother goddesses
subsumed
the symbol of the Church
in the
in the
worship of Mary, and she became
made
her the object of countless prayers, and most of the images to which
Queen This
is
Queen of Heaven.
In paintings of the Crucifixion, she
became the
mater dolorosa (suffering mother), and her sorrows were recorded in prayer
and
in art as the
different types of
A
model of compassion.
large variety of
image of Mary emerged to meet the diverse religious
needs she answered. Protestant reformers considered that devotion to her had become exaggerated
itself.
Mary's powers as an intercessor on the behalf of sinners
majesty in altarpieces and on the walls of public buildings, reigning as the
at the
expense of that due to
Christ,
and
so restricted the proliferation of images of the Virgin in areas of northern Europe from the sixteenth century onward.
of Heaven
the main panel of
the altarpiece completed by
Duccio
131
in
for the high
1
altar of Siena's cathedral.
The
Virgin
Mary was thought
by the Sienese to be protectress, is
their
and here she
enthroned
heavenly
in
majesty, with patron saints
of the city kneeling before
her and other saints and angels behind. Byzantine formality
and resplendent
gold are blended with a
new humanity and The other
was dedicated life;
on
softness.
side of the altar
to Christ's
this side, facing
the
congregation, Mary reigned.
Duccio
Buoninsegna
di
Maesta, 1311.
Purity
Heavenly vision Painted for the ceiling of the
meeting house
Venice of
in
a lay confraternity devoted
to the Virgin, this
the
Italian artist
illustrates
1251,
in
the Carmelite
monk
St
Stock received the scapular
became
the symbol of his order, and
was claimed to
Purgatory. Tiepolo
in
shows
the vision as unfolding
in
the presence of angels
in
the sky and of souls
burning
in
Purgatory below.
Giambattista Tiepolo, The
Virigin
Mary
Presents
the Scapular to St
original
Promoted by the
Franciscans,
it
was contested
by the Dominicans and
dogma
Catholic Church
only
in
1854. The
the Immaculate
cult of
fervent
in
Spam, and the
Spanish painter Murillo
executed over two dozen
remit
periods of punishment
was born
without the taint of
Conception was especially
hung from the
shoulders by strings,
doctrine that held
that the Virgin
became a
Simon
from Mary. This piece of cloth,
was a
sin.
Tiepolo
the moment,
when
English
work by
The Immaculate Conception
Simon
Stock, 1749.
RKLIGIOUS PAINTING
"Immaculadas" the Virgin as a
girl
is
in
which
usually
shown
of about twelve in
a white tunic and blue mantle, surrounded by the
sun and with the crescent
moon
at her feet.
Bartolome Murillo, The Virgin
of the Immaculate
Conception, c.1678
Divine mercy This
Sorrowful mystery
the central panel of
is
a polyptych commissioned della Francesca
from Piero
1445 by the
in
lay
town
in
of
with
jar of oil
will
Christ's body,
St
On
the
crown
of thorns
Christ's
wipes tears
commissioned
narrative scene
- the
Pieta -
who
priest this
work, for
a church at Villeneuve-les-
head This
Avignon
fifteenth-century French
painting does not
any temporal sequence
The unknown
from
show
a
from the
Passion, but a static
anoint
left,
John removes the
is
this
image
removed from
in
southern France,
portrayed praying before
scene of naked grief
Enguerrand Quarton, The Avignon
Pieta, c
1455
members,
confraternity
whose
may
mother To
from her eyes
Mary protects
her mantle
these
holding the
which she
Borgo San Sepolcro Under
of
rigor mortis, over the lap
the right Mary Magdalene,
Maria della Misencordia
some
lies
arched, stiffened by
of his grieving
confraternity of Santa
Piero's native
The dead body of Christ
portraits
They pray
be.
together for her intercession
On
the
on
flagellant,
their behalf.
hooded
a
left is
who would
chastise himself during
processions.
In this
image, Mary
is
type of
of necessity
larger than her supplicants.
Piero della Francesca,
Madonna
della
Misencordia. 1445-62
The milk of kindness The
Virgin
Mary suckles
the infant Jesus
a well-
in
established type called
Maria Lactans (Mary nursing),
which
stresses
the tenderness of their relationship.
Mary
is
Modern
enthroned under a canopy in
Max
a small room, a richly
woven carpet
Surrealist
at her feet.
hand, as he
will
Eyck's
two
redeem
humankind from the Van
mastery of
Fall.
work
bringing
of
Eluard.
They
Mary
to the ground. This
deliberately sacrilegious
work subverts the notion
into
prefiguration
intimate contact with the
Jesus
object of their devotion.
is
- the
in
Mary's lap,
anticipating the
c 1436.
of
infant
usually painted
sleeping
Jan van Eyck, The Lucca
Madonna,
924,
spanking Jesus, whose halo
viewers of this small devotional
1
members
secretly witness
falls
light,
leading
and Paul
oil
present subtle differences of
and
in
the group, Andre Breton
technique allows him to
texture
founder of the
movement
has portrayed himself with
Christ holds an apple in his left
dissension
Ernst, a
dead
Christ
of the Pieta. Here Christ's flagellation
is
prefigured
instead, disrupting the
harmony
traditionally
between the holy
Max
shown
pair.
Ernst, The Blessed
Virgin Chastising the Infant
Jesus before Three Witnesses, 1926.
Virgin of the Rosary Durer painted this altarpiece for a in
German
confraternity
Venice devoted to the
Virgin of the Rosary. rosary, a string of
used as an aid
in
The
woodcut is
of 1476, the
work
translated into the format
and
rich colours
altarpieces.
the
of Venetian
Mary crowns
German Emperor
beads
Maximilian with roses and
counting
Christ
prayers to the Virgin,
was
II,
crowns Pope
while
members
Julius
of the
promoted by Dominicans
confraternity look on.
as a stimulus to devotion.
Albrecht Durer, The Feast
Based on a crude German
of the Rosary, 1506.
IMAGES OF MARY
Images of Christ aw
who is both God and man? His in the New Testament, yet a standard
can Christ be represented,
appearance
not described
is
way of imagining Iris features has nonetheless emerged. Early Christians showed him only in symbolic form, whether by the fish (the letters that form the Greek word for
Son of God and
Christ
fish,
were used to stand
Ichthus,
by his monogram, or by the Good
man
resembling the Classical god Apollo,
with a sheep oxer his shoulders. Later, the most powerful Christian
symbol of
the cross, triumphed.
all.
From
the fourth century portraits
of Christ were claimed to exist. In the West the most important of these
medieval and Renaissance periods was the cloth offered by
in the
mosaic
in
Norman Sicily,
'"¥''
the apse of the
sovereign in
m^Hfll
from Byzantine
depictions of Christ as
God
SlS^^B Vil'
tS-^-'jk
cathedral at Cefalu,
derives
ft^^^^fi
;£'
Pantokrator This large twelfth-century
all-
-
-^^^^ ---'~
*
«*
^/ if
t
fc^WWHi Kfc£>lf ^ ^^
->.'-"V*
MHH^CTk.
/
m
I
ivl
S^sik AA "^-iD'
1
-
VJQ&
i
Christ
is
shown
mentioned
way to
in the eleventh century, but
it
Calvary. Its existence
was not described as
when the
bearing the imprint of Christ's face until the thirteenth century,
bearded Christ had long since replaced the youthful
Roman
god.
While the all-powerful, divine Christ dominated the Byzantine East, in the
West
his features
imbued with character so and
were increasingly individualized and
that viewers could identify with his kindness
suffering. This presented painters with the difficult task of retaining
Christ's divine status while portraying his
humanity and
-
frailty
Cluist,
whether as God, preacher, redeemer, or suffering
victim.
The true likeness The
on
Christ
Housed Rome,
his
way
to Calvary.
at St Peter's in
became an
it
portrait of Chnst.
object
Other
majestic
likeness included a called the
blessing, his left holding
was
kerchief {sudarium)
given by St Veronica to
hand
in
differ-
ent types of image were developed to emphasize different aspects of
candidates for the true
~j/k En=tJ
imperial imagery.
frontality, his right
first
of devotion as the true
{Pantokrator
Greek) which draw on
Roman
Veronica to Christ to wipe his face on his
was
for "Jesus
Saviour"),
Shepherd, a beardless young
St
East,
^^^^
doth
mandylion
and a
linen
the
in
shroud
in
which the dead Christ was
the Gospel. Behind his
|2SjHiMflr>' \U (
head
the cruciform halo
is
with
on
his
monogram,
XC,
IC
either side. Christ's roles
as Ruler
humanity
attracts pilgrims
still
to Tunn.
century
In this fifteenth-
German work,
Veronica holds the
and Judge are
emphasized over
have been wrapped,
said to
which
reserved for Christ alone,
relic
to
encourage prayers to the holy
his
face,
in this hieratic,
which angels adore.
awe-inspiring image of
Master of St Veronica,
divine power.
St Veronica with the
Unknown
Sudarium, c.1420.
artist, Christ
Pantokrator, c.1148.
The dual nature The This
is
Trinity
The fifteenth-century the left-hand panel Sienese painter Giovanni
of a two-part altarpiece di
Paolo presented Christ
commissioned by Edward twice
On
in this altarpiece.
Bonkil, Provost of the church
the of the Holy
Trinity,
the tormented
left is
Edinburgh, Christ
on
earth,
naked and
from the fifteenth-century emaciated, holding the cross
Hugo
Netherlandish painter
and crowned with thorns. van der Goes.
God
the His skin
Father,
enthroned
Heaven, holds
chafed from
is
his
in
and bleeding
from the
Crucifixion.
arms
in his
the broken body of his
the right he
dead son, while the dove, symbol of the Holy
flogging,
is
On
seated
in
heaven surrounded by
Spirit,
angels with trumpets: this
hovers between them. is
At the throne's foot
is
the Christ of the Second
a
Coming, returning as Judge. transparent sphere In
the blasted landscape
symbolizing the world.
below, the diminutive In Christianity,
God
has figures of St Michael
and
one essence but three the Devil separate the persons, a mystery here
saved from the
presented as a vision of
Giovanni
transcendent suffering Suffering
Hugo van Trinity, c
damned
di Paolo, Christ
and
Christ
der Goes, The Triumphant, c.1450
1478-9
RKLIGIOI
S
PAINTING
The Lamb of God Painted for St Bavo this
Ghent,
in
the central panel of a
is
complex
altarpiece In a
meadow on an "Lamb
of
away the (John
God
sins of
the
is
the World"
symbol of
29). a
1
altar
that takes
Chnst as the redemptive sacnfice celebrated in the
Mass. The Holy
Spirit
hovers
above, the Fountain of the
Water of
Life
stands
the
in
foreground, with saints and the blessed of the Old
Testament on either
and the
in
side,
the background
is
New Jerusalem.
Jan van Eyck The Adoration of the Mystic
Lamb, 1432.
The Man of Sorrows After his arrest, Christ
mocked by Roman
who on
was
soldiers,
put a crown of thorns head. By giving the
his
tormentors sixteenth-century
and symbols which
clothes, identify
them
as unbelievers,
Bosch satinzed society
his
own
and updated
suffering
-
Christ's
Christ looks out
Light of the world Christ,
the bearer of light to
a sinful world, holds a
1889 on
a yellow-painted
wooden
statue
symbolic of the obstinately
church near Pont-Aven. He
at the
shut mind. This painting, illustrating
a text from the
has placed Christ
New
women
in local
us too This
became the most popular
Painted
in
image of
forms and
not a
story,
a static image,
and
is
intended
to encourage reflection Christ's
on
innocence and the
Testament (John 8:12),
Christ in the British
Empire, and a version
toured Australia,
New
in
a Breton
in
a field,
surrounded by peasant
at the viewer, inculpating is
this
extraordinary painting of
closed and overgrown door,
lantern
and knocks
Christ as primitive
Gauguin based
costume.
simple, rhythmic brilliant,
colours, the
garish
work suggests
the semi-idolatrous nature
abuse he suffered for
Zealand, Canada, and South
of rural image-worship
mankind's salvation.
Africa in 1905-7.
the
artist's rejection
and
of
Hieronymus Bosch, The
William Holman Hunt
"civilized" society
Crowning with Thorns.
The Light of the World.
Paul Gauguin, Yellow
1490-1500.
1853-6.
Christ.
1889
IMAGES OF CHRIST
The
Mary
of
life
Paintings
of the
Christian
an insecure
art,
life
of
Mary appeared very
but this visual tradition
biblical foundation. Mary's birth, death, age,
and physical appearance are never mentioned Gospels. In that of St ingly,
and
early in
was based on
Mark she
in that of St
is
in the four
mentioned twice,
fleet-
John she again appears only twice.
Only St Matthew and St Luke relate the infancy of Jesus
and involve
his
mother to a greater degree (see pages
44-5). St
Luke tells the story of Christ's conception,
infancy,
and childhood. In
all
four Gospels
birth,
Mary
is
anecdotal tification
detail, entertaining to read,
with the
human
and
inviting iden-
aspects of Mary and Christ,
they remained of paramount importance in medieval
and devotion. The
art
not
until
Catholic Church eventually sure,
and representations
and Anne were forbidden 1563. But
much
Reformation.
the
bowed
was The
to Protestant pres-
in art of the story of
Joachim
after the Council of Trent in
of Christian painting
some knowledge
ble without
these legends
reliability of
challenged
really
is
incomprehensi-
of these Marian legends.
almost completely absent from Christ's ministry. Holy birth
Scenes from a
Mary's mother, St Anne, upright
in
sits
her bed on the
left,
was
receiving refreshments. At the
This meagre biographical information about Mary
foot of the bed the newly born
insufficient to allow painters satisfactorily to depict
Mary
scenes from her
is
swathed by a nursemaid
seated next to a rocking
crib,
some
in
the foreground with
food. This domestic scene
has been transposed to the side aisle of a grand
German
cathedral. Angels, holding hands, fly in
life.
It
was, however, greatly fleshed
out in the Apocrypha, early writings once associated
while Mary's father, Joachim, returns
with the
New
Testament but rejected from the Bible as
while another swings
incense over Mary. Altdorfer has distorted space
and heightened
the interplay of light and dark to
of Pseudo-Matthew, which give a fuller account of the life
of Mary, including her parents, Joachim and Anne, girl,
and the circum-
stances of her marriage to Joseph.
Mary's bodily
her presentation in the temple as a
the holy
Albrecht Altdorfer, The of the
Virgin,
c.1521.
birth.
Birth
scenes from her
life
were also painted, some indepen-
dently, others as parts of life
whole
cycles.
Scenes of her
and the infancy of Jesus are closely related to her
role as vehicle of the Incarnation:
Assumption
into
Heaven (see page 53)
referred to in the Bible. These stories
down
Initiation
According to the Apochrypha, as a small child to the
Temple
Mary was taken
in
Jerusalem,
where, to the astonishment of
likewise not
all,
she climbed the fifteen steps
were incorpo-
up
to the High Priest unaided.
is
rated into the "Golden Legend" in the thirteenth century
add to the supernatural aura of this depiction of
her with the infant Jesus (see pages 38-9), but narrative
it
was through Mary
uncanonical. These include the Gospels of St James and
a ring around the church
piers,
life
The most common painting of Mary was the image of
The Apocrypha
The Venetian
artist
Tintoretto
painted this picture for the
and
into
Franciscan devotional literature such as
organ shutters of the Venetian
Meditations on the Life of Christ, and so became
church of the
Madonna
and
(originally the
canvas was divided
generally available to the
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
laity.
Full of colour
dell'Orto
the middle and could be
opened) As beggars
line
Temple's gold-spangled
the
stairs
and spectators
twist
amazement,
mother points
a
around
in
out Mary's example to her daughter. The drama of light
and dark as,
is
played around her
undaunted, she enters upon
her religious
life.
Jacopo Tintoretto, The Presentation of the Virgin, 1556.
Mary's disappointed suitors, a
Matrimony The
to Joseph in the Temple.
the back The the story to
Joseph places a ring on Mary's
hand
finger. In Joseph's left
is
that has flowered, a sign of
approval, alighted
that
and the Holy
on
it.
God was made
Mary Birth,
To the far
flesh.
left
artist
and has
and made them
appear three-dimensional.
has
Giotto, The Marriage of the
are
Virgin, c
The scenes from the
1305.
life
of
were most frequently represented were her
that
has reduced
essentials
its
simplified forms
a rod
God's
Spirit
about to give
is
Joseph a congratulatory slap on
JHigh
hands and
Priest joins their right
man
smiling
Giotto shows the marriage of Mary
her Presentation at the Temple, her Marriage,
chosen to marry
her.
The subsequent
by Giotto with revolutionary
Conception
stories, also told
spatial clarity
and psycho-
logical power, are inextricably linked to the early life of
The Venetian
artist
Lotto
painted this altarpiece for a lay confraternity at Recanati
and have more authority
the Annunciation and then those scenes associated
Jesus
with the infancy of Jesus (see pages 44-5). Mary
Gospels, above
is
conjoined again with her son at his death (see page 51,
Giovanni
Bellini,
Dead
Christ) and
present at the
is
all in
that of St Luke.
central event of the Annunciation,
canonical
the
in
Here
we
find the
when Mary was
greeted by Gabriel with the words "Hail, thou that are
eastern
Italy. In
in
a peaceful
overlooking a garden and
room full
of
ordinary domestic objects - a
bed, books, a candle, a towel,
and an hourglass. The Archangel
descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in the presence of Christ's disciples.
The Death of Mary
is
followed by
Queen of
her Assumption and her Coronation as
Heaven by Jesus (see page Tfie
Coronation of the Virgin);
she will sinful
sit
on
Enguerrand Quarton,
53,
at the Last
Judgement
with thee, blessed art thou
old and pregnant St Elizabeth, the mother of Baptist,
is
John the
One
empha-
is
of these
is in
the
The events of Mary's in great feast days,
when the
life
were woven
such as that of the Annunciation on
Florentine artist and architect Giotto;
once began. They were integrated into prayer books
it
recounted,
is
some forty rectangular fields
25,
English as well as the Venetian year
the illustrated Hours of the Virgin, and
in
commemorated
painted around the walls and culminating in the Last
in
Judgement over the entrance (see page
(Annunciation and Childhood of Christ), sorrowful (the
24).
with the time before Mary's birth and ryphal story of Joachim and Anne,
These
tell
start
the apoc-
who were
the devotion of the rosary in the fifteen joyful
Passion),
and glorious
(Resurrection
to
Coronation) mysteries of the Virgin. Through art and
Anne dedicated
prayer Mary was promoted as an exemplary figure, a
her daughter to service in the Presentation at the
model of female conduct. The central episodes of her
When Mary reached
assembled
all
the
birth.
puberty the High Priest
widowers of
announces
"And
she saw him, she was
Israel
and Joseph was
life,
jumps away from the
heavenly apparition. Through the doorway
God
the Father
down on moment
a cloud, this being the of Christ's conception.
Lorenzo Lotto, The Annunciation to Mary,
c.
1534-5.
Heavenly
childless
Temple.
when
as he
birth of Jesus.
(rather than the Holy Spirit) darts
March
rewarded by God with her
lily,
Mary the
startled cat
into the calendar
Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, painted around 1305 by the
until
holding a to
face the viewer, while her equally
Joyful and sorrowful mysteries
Mary's role in the history of salvation
along with that of Jesus, in
Gabriel kneels on the right,
troubled" (Luke 1:29). Mary,
likewise to be found in the Gospel of St Luke.
on behalf of
humanity (see pages 68-9).
life story.
is
among women" (1:28) and Christ was conceived in her virgin womb. The Visitation, when Mary embraced the
taken unawares, turns around to
his right hand, interceding
sized in cycles of her
highly favoured, the Lord
no matter how apocryphal, have been given endur-
ing visual
form by painters.
THE LIFE OF MARY
The childhood
A
s
with the
life
of Christ
of the Virgin (see pages 42-3),
it is
images rather than the written word that shape our
The Shepherds This giant
winged
shutter.
story of his early
Mary. She
life is
was the
inextricably linked with that of
man. Not only was she a virgin when Christ ceived, as
God as was con-
vehicle of the incarnation of
had been foretold of the Messiah by the Old
businessman,
for his private chapel.
descended from King David, making Jesus a
his
One of the paradoxes of the
Christian story
bom
in
is
such humble
that cir-
cumstances. Joseph was a carpenter from Nazareth,
in
with Mary to Bethlehem for a census
ordered by the Romans. Unable to find accommodation, they stayed overnight in a stable, and
it
was here
on the
left
in
a Nativity,
in
adoration.
Hugo van der Goes, The Portinari Altarpiece, 1476.
shutter
wife and daughters by
female saints on the right
birth
was Epiphany (January
6),
when he was wor-
shipped by the Magi. By the third century the Magi were it was agreed that there had By the ninth century they were named, and
described as kings and
been
three.
represented three different races: Balthasar, Asian; Gaspar,
European;
known Adoration
was bom.
that Christ
saints
his
common
shepherds are also
sons are accompanied by
male
is
and here the rough-featured
is
centuries the most important feast relating to Christ's
so exalted a person should be
who went
He
on
rightful
King of the Jews.
Galilee,
him, as
Portinari,
portrayed as a kneeling donor;
and
Testament prophets, but her husband Joseph was
Tommaso
lies
Joseph, and angels kneel before
ordered by a wealthy Florentine
mental picture of Christ's infancy and childhood. The
The Christ Child
the ground at the centre. Mary,
was
altarpiece
African. The earliest was painted on a wall of
Melchior,
of the Magi
Nativity By night, Mary kneels
the catacomb of St Priscilla in
in
own naked
adoration before her
baby, who lies in a manger common stable. To the left also adore the
source of light
right. is
The
the baby
glowing with a golden
light. In
there
wonder.
in
Joseph enters on the
Jesus,
is
the background on a
another source of
to the shepherds at their
intimate and
200.
Here
reign.
He
St Mark or was born in
describes the
the stable, the ox, or the ass present. In art they did
not
become kings
until the tenth century,
with Christ
presented as the King of Kings.
from the East, who, guided
In the thirteenth century the focus shifted to
by a star they saw as the sign of the advent of the
Christ's birth. In 1229 St Francis of Assisi constructed the
arrival of astrologers (Magi)
homage
to Christ at Bethlehem, present-
first
nativity crib at Greccio in Italy.
The Christmas
story
ing gifts of gold, frankincense,
and myrrh.
Luke
entered into Franciscan devotional literature, which
mentions the stable and relates
how shepherds were
stressed the need to identify with the innocence and
St
light:
camp
panel by the Netherlandish is
by
states that he
Bethlehem during King Herod's
Messiah, paid
the birth of the Messiah. This
meant
Christ's birth is not told
Matthew simply
hill
an incandescent angel announces
Geertgen
The story of St John. St
Rome around
the Magi are wise men, not kings; nor are Joseph,
baby and the ass
and the ox look on
mam
a
in
angels
Adoration
told
artist
was
by an angel about Christ's birth and went to honour
The
vulnerability of the
newborn
child, as in
Meditations on
the Life of Christ. "Be a child with the Child Jesus!
him, but he does not refer to the Magi. familiar story of Christ's infancy does not
therefore appear in coherent form in the Bible.
It
not disdain humble things and such as
seem
Do
childlike in
was
the contemplation for they yield devotion, increase love,
is
excite fervour, induce compassion, allow purity and
for private devotion.
Geertgen tot Sint Jans, The Nativity, c.
1480-90.
elaborated
in
the
Apocrypha (sec page
here thai the ox and the ass
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
42),
and
it
make their appearance. For
simplicity, nurture the vigour of humility
and poverty."
It
The Magi
Rest
Painted for the richest
man m
The Holy
Family's Rest
luxuriously decorated altarpiece
Herod's persecution,
depicts the three Magi, with their
common
courtly retinues,
come
to adore
offering as
in their
own
processions
right in
and
marked
Greifswald. his
in
art,
did opportunities
German
the Protestant Manenkirche
stand two midwives, while the
ox and the ass are located
a
paint
scene for an altarpiece for
this
day Behind Mary
their feast
was
Northern
Runge was asked to
painter
special
Florence
it
in
to paint landscapes The
The Magi were revered
Christ.
subject
on the
escape
Flight into Egypt, to
Florence, Palla Strozzi, this
own
He used
it
in
to express
pantheistic theology,
front of a cave, as recounted in
with the awakening Christ Child
the Apocrypha.
at the
at the
In
the predella
bottom there are three
scenes: the Nativity, the Flight into Egypt,
and
Presentation
in
new dawn
symbolically
linked to the renewal of nature.
Christ's
the Temple.
The
tree
just
heavenly flowers but also
on the
right sprouts not
sprite-like angels.
Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration
Philipp Otto Runge, The Rest
of the Magi, 1423
on the
took place
in a cave,
and
this is
Flight into Egypt,
1805-6.
sometime represented
alongside the stable. Shortly after the birth of Christ
Mary and Joseph presented him Jerusalem, where he
Alarmed
at
the temple of
was circumcised.
that the
Magi honoured a future "King of
the Jews," King Herod ordered the murder of all infants
of less than three years of age in Bethlehem, a scene
depicted in the violent Massacre of the Innocents. Joseph, however, had been warned in a dream by an angel and the Holy Family escaped to Egypt. The Flight The
was the human
child Jesus
The press attacked the English showing the
painter Millais for
Holy Family
realistically, in
carpenter's workshop,
his
hand of
at
mother kneeling
it
with a
Christ's
Jesus,
Far
nail.
who
from
will receive
on the
were poor
in the
way
to adore
received empha-
into
him just
led
that St Francis
after his
was and
the
on
Egypt
is
depicted either with Mary riding the ass
by Joseph or as a scene of the Holy Family resting their journey.
has hurt
of
Sweden
not. In
ing before Jesus, shifted
accordance with a vision of St Bridget
(d.1373),
Mary
who
is
lies
sometimes depicted kneel-
on the ground. Celebrations
from the Feast of the Epiphany to that of
Christmas on December
25,
which has retained
its
Missing years After this event remarkably
little
emphasis
is
placed on
Christ's childhood, either in the Bible or in art.
Gospel of St Luke
tells
how
Only the
the twelve-year-old Jesus
stressing
mere humanity,
incident prefigures the
he
birth
Magi were
and as
before him. Joseph holds out the left
The shepherds who came
now
a
working people. Jesus stands the centre,
sis.
side of Christ that
centrality in the
this
wounds
cross as
Saviour of the World, which
Mary
Western Christian calendar.
Both the Adoration of the Shepherds and that of the Magi occurred at the stable, which
is
often depicted
as a building in ruins to symbolize that Christ's birth sig-
left his
at
parents to dispute with teachers in the Temple
Jerusalem, impressing
all
with his wisdom, depicted
among the Doctors. The years of adolescence and early manhood are absent, and we do in paintings as Christ
sorrowfully acknowledges
John Everett the
House of
Millais, Christ in His Parents,
1
850
nalled the advent of a
new
dispensation as the old one
disintegrated. According to the Apocrypha, the birth
not meet Christ again until he
is
about thirty years old
and on the brink of his world mission.
THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST
Fishing for souls The
adult
which
is
of Christ opens with his Baptism,
life
described in
Baptism In
four Gospels. His cousin
all
John the Baptist had preached repentance
a landscape with a palm tree
on the
the
in
John the
left,
wearing a camel's
wilderness, and prophesied the imminent coming of the
many people
Messiah. John baptized Jordan, saying,
one to come who
(Luke
his shoes"
whom
mightier than
is
3:16).
He was
he also baptized. This
was
cleansing with water
1
1.
the
of
referring to Christ,
of symbolic
moment
and
anointing, his rite of passage
baptizes Christ
God lower
the Holy
hands
Spirit.
The
is
very strenuous
and
is
wiry and
this Christ
One
head toward
two angels
of the
kneeling on the
Baptism
the River
in
Christ, the
action of John
angular.
of Christ's
initiation.
Above
Jordan.
is
am not fit to fasten
ritual act
and
robe and holding a reed cross,
the River
in
baptize you with water; but there
"I
Baptist,
hair tunic
left,
turning his
Christ, represents a
different ideal of formal beauty
became, along with the Eucharist, the key sacrament of
and was, according to Giorgio
the Church, without which no salvation
was
possible,
Vasari (1511-74), painted by
symbolizing rebirth and renewal, washing away the
Leonardo da
taint of original sin.
Verrocchio's
the
Baptism of
from the third century and may be found
in
then a pupil in
in
Florence.
Andrea del Verrocchio, The
The iconography of this event quickly established itself
Vinci,
workshop
Christ,
1470-5.
both
Eastern and the Western Churches. John the
Baptist, dressed in a camel's hair tunic, stands
shore baptizing Christ,
who
is
axis and standing in the Jordan.
the Holy Spirit as a dove, in
hands of God above appears and Christ
As angels hold
is
it.
Christ hovers
paintings with the
such images the Trinity
In
acknowledged as the Son of God. he stands naked except for
his clothes,
a loincloth and has
Above
some
on the
on the central
usually
assumed the perfect male form of
the nude gods of Classical
art.
It
is
the last time he
appears unclothed before the Passion. The Baptism occurs in narrative cycles and also in altarpieces, especially
those above altars dedicated to St John. The body
of Christ
thus associated with the sacrament of the
is
Eucharist performed at the
Man
altar.
of action
In paintings of Christ's ministry, nist
he appears as protago-
and man of action rather than as the child of the
Nativity or the victim of the Passion.
He
is
recognizable
not just by his face but also because he almost always
wears a red robe with a blue mantle over it. major
act,
which features
in
"Come with me and (Mark
I
will
Christ's first
was the
paintings,
whom were fisherAndrew, to whom he said:
Calling of the Apostles, the
men, including Peter and
many
first
of
make you
men"
fishers of
the Calling of the Apostles
is
often
conflated with the Miraculous Draught of Fishes,
when
the
1:17). In art
first
working
apostles, having failed to catch all
night
any
fish after
on Lake Gennesaret, were
told
by Christ to lower their nets again. After they made a big catch, he said to them:
"From now on you
will
be
catching men" (Luke 4:1-11). This symbolic imagery of fishing for souls
who damned
salvation: those
are not are
was
later said
by Christ to refer to
arc caught arc saved; those
RKLIGIOUS PAINTING
who
Miraculous catch This scene
was
Peter,
only one part
Fishes,
the Miraculous Draught of
and the moment when
St
topographically accurate, making it
easier for
Genevans to imagine
Peter tried unsuccessfully to walk
the event. The dark mountain
commissioned by Francois de
on water
above
Mies for
The German painter Wttz has
of a
winged
his
Cathedral
in
altarpiece
chapel
in St Peter's
Geneva
It
conflates
three events: the Calling of St
in
imitation of Christ.
known
Christ's
head
is
that
as the Mole.
translated the Sea of Galilee to
Konrad Witz, The Miraculous
Lake Geneva and the scene
Draught of
is
Fishes,
1444.
Water The
into
wine Veronese
Italian painter
executed
this
enormous work
for
the refectory of the Benedictine
monastery of San Giorgio
Maggiore
Venice and
in
appropriately feast
it
pictures a great
Although Christ and Mary
are placed at the centre of the
composition, they are almost in
lost
the surrounding throng of
magnificently dressed figures, set in
a Classical architectural setting
of theatrical proportions.
In
the
centre foreground musicians play as the miracle of the
of water into
changing
wine occurs,
almost unnoticed, to the
and
left
1573 Veronese was
right. In
questioned by the Inquisition for
adding more figures than are described
the Bible to a Last
in
Supper that he had painted for another refectory
Venice.
in
Paulo Veronese, The Marriage at Carta, 1562-3.
Christ appointed St Peter leader of the Apostles:
"You are Peter, the Rock; and on this rock
I
will build
my church, and the power of death shall never conquer
Righteous anger
An elongated whip
of traders it.
will give
I
you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven"
Christ swings his
at the centre of this
Jerusalem. Through the archway
(Matthew 16:18-19). This was taken by the Roman
is
Church as the foundation of
Venice (where
(whom
authority, as Peter
its
was the first pope) died in Rome. The Keys was depicted twice in the Sistine
claims
it
Giving of the
seen an idealized view of
stayed
tapestry designs of 1515—16.
The wedding tles,
first
at
2:1-10), to
and his mother were
invited.
which
was
at
a
he, his apos-
The wine ran out
during the feast and Christ changed the Jewish purificatory water, contained in six stone jars, into wine,
symbolizing the transition from the Old to the
Covenant. This scene
was
New
particularly suitable for
the
El
1
Greco had
560s on
On
his
left
way
finally
either side of the
opening are sculptural
on the
public miracle Christ performed
Cana (John
in
from Crete to Rome and Spain).
Chapel, by Perugino in 1481-2 and by Raphael in his
group
the Temple at
in
reliefs,
representing the
Adam and
Expulsion of
Eve from
the Garden of Eden and on
the right the Sacrifice of
Isaac,
both Old Testament types (see
pages 36-7) of
El
this
event and
imminent Passion.
of Christ's
Greco, The Purification of the
Temple, c.1600
paintings in the refectories (eating halls) of monasteries.
The Raising of Lazarus
is
also frequently represented,
as an illustration of Christ's
power
to heal
and to
conquer death (see pages 58-9).
From
Galilee to Jerusalem
In a disjuncture
between
occur
and the visual
in art,
but his
preaching does not. The Sermon on the Mount, his declaration of the
new
and
his parables provided powerful
above
all
father
and squandered
faith, is rarely
represented because
who
way that
his inheritance, only to
Christ forgives those
Christ's ministry centred
move
but his
images for
the story of the Prodigal Son,
given, in the
biblical narrative
tradition, Christ's miracles often
Christian calendar. But Jesus also taught by example
to
his
be
for-
repent.
around the Sea of Galilee
Jerusalem was a
According to St Luke, after entering the
on Palm Sunday he went
who
artists, left
tuiTiing city
to the great
point.
on a donkey
Temple and,
how do you visualize the Lord's Prayer? Another reason why
finding
scenes of Christ's preaching do not appear in paintings
challenged Jewish religious authority and contributed
the content of his
is
sermon could not be
that these episodes are not
pictured:
celebrated in the
sellers,
it
full
of money changers, merchants, and animal
evicted
them
in
fury.
This revolutionary act
directly to his execution.
FISHING FOR SOULS
The Passion The Passion
the climax of the Christian story, and
is
covers the events immediately leading up to and
was
including the Crucifixion. This Christ's
redeeming
humanity.
It
is
moment
of
death for the sake of
sacrifice, his
commemorated
the
at Easter, the critical
point in the Christian calendar, and used to be enacted in Passion plays
throughout Europe.
It
has been cele-
Revelations of Divine Love of 1373: "After this
thing of his Passion.
moving masterpieces of European
how
insults
to describe."
and
saw
condensed
hi paintings the Passion tinct stages.
The events
and
spittle
disfig-
more than I know
Here the entire cycle of
fering during the Passion is
and ended
painting.
saw
I
uring and bruising, and lingering pain
brated in music such as Bach's St Matthew Passion,
and has provided subject matter for some of the most
I
my own eyes in the face of the crucifix hanging before me and at which I was ceaselessly gazing somewith
Christ's suf-
one image.
into
was also separated
into dis-
began with the Last Supper
that
provided the core, but the
in his Crucifixion
scenes chosen varied, and could even be expanded to
Evoking the suffering of Christ From the early thirteenth century, new currents, largely stimulated
placed more focus on the
and on
include the entire narrative from his entry into Jerusalem
devotional
by St Francis of
human dimension
Assisi,
of Jesus,
emerges
identification with his suffering. This
in
to his Resurrection. logical
Gethsemane; High
on the Meditation of the Passion of Christ:
Jailers;
sary that
when you concentrate on
contemplation, you do so as at the
very
time when he
should regard yourself as
if
these things in your
you were actually present
suffered. if
neces-
And
in grieving
you
you had our Lord suffering
before your eyes, and that he
was present
to receive
your prayers." The brutality and physical pain under-
1.
Disciples' Feet;
devotional literature of the time, such as the Little Book "It is
order
7.
10.
Eeee
3.
principal stages were, in chrono-
The Agony of
The Arrest of
Caiaphas;
Priest,
Pilate; 8.
Pilate
4.
The
The Last Supper,
6.
Homo
("This
the
is
Washing
Christ;
5.
Christ before the
Roman
Christ
by
his
Governor, Pontius
Man" - the words spoken by
to the people of Jerusalem); 11.
Christ Carrying the Cross to Calvary; 12. Tire Crucifixion.
These events are
in the
New
Testament, but were
elaborated on in devotional literature and
new
Interrogation
his
Garden of
The Crowning with Thorns;
Flagellation; 9.
on showing Christ
Christ
The Mocking of
Christ before the
The
2.
Christ in the
scenes
room
In
a darkened
lit
only by a candle, Christ
questioned after
at night,
his arrest
left,
were incorporated,
evoked. Christ was no longer just a symbol of salvation
body, which
but engaged the deepest emotions of the worshipper.
development, Stations of the Cross were devised, corres-
Visual images
The
were involved
crucifix alone could
of imaginative English
false witnesses standing
behind
him. The contrast of light and
dark dramatizes the event, focusing our attention on the principal characters. This light also
has a symbolic function: Christ, dressed
in
white,
cycle,
at the top,
composite image, the Passion
from the Entry into Jerusalem,
through the Flagellation centre,
described
Mother Julian of Norwich
Via Crucis In this
as
at the
ending with the Crucifixion
is
shown
is
presented
on the
entombment right,
in
Rome from
c
prayers usually covered fourteen, but sometimes more.
before the High
one
are depicted
outside the
city walls.
his wife,
kneel
on
either side. This
Netherlandish work
was
a miniature
of the Via Crucis, allowing for a
pilgrimage
in
private prayer.
Hans Memlinc, The
Passion, c
1480
this picture
and saw the work of Caravaggio
Gerrit
her
1610 to 1620,
where he painted
where Christ suffered during the Passion, and which
The donors, Tommaso Portman and
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
ponding to places on the Via Cruris (Way of the Cross)
to paint such nocturnes while
pilgrims to Jerusalem visited - paintings and devotional
continuous narrative Scenes after Christ's
not mentioned in the Gospels. In a separate
The
Utrecht painter Honthorst learned
levels
in
as
Lamentation over Christ's
by the
produce extraordinary
identification,
mystic
in this enterprise.
is
like the
is
with the two
as the Light of the World.
gone by Jesus, his disfigurement, were often graphically
by
who
the High Priest Caiaphas,
seated on the
is
and
his followers.
van Honthorst, Priest,
Christ
c.1617.
Justice miscarried
Images of Pity many
Painters responded in
ways
different
to the
In this
need
artist
of worshippers to empathize with Christ, stressing physical
his
during
suffering
the
Flagellation
Crowning with Thorns, despair during the
Agony
his in the
della Francesca, Christ
and
spiritual
isolation
Garden and
tied to a
his rejection
by society
in
at his trial.
dying
at his
the Ecce Homo, his
or St John
at
The addition of
three
figures like
provided role models of appropriate sorrow.
emotions,
used
some
was developed of
it
with
its
to
Mary
Pilate.
A
may
An
vast
amount of
them - was
eerie
altarpieces.
visual
Agony
imagery developed
articulated. Different types of
which taught the
place in the history of salvation,
In
these closed wings of an
piece painted early
panels see pages 33 and 52, the stress
Christ
is
on the pain of the giant
- the arms of the cross are
bent by
weight, his body
his
m
There were also images which told no story
sufferers
from
left
Imago
Pietatis (Image of Pity,
known
as the
"Man
On
original
and
On
the
St John, while
kneels, distraught
the right John the
Baptist points to Christ as the
of Sorrows"), in which Christ, sometimes holding or
Saviour, the
surrounded by the Instruments of the Passion with
take
which he was tortured and executed (the crown of
skin diseases.
Mary Magdalene grief.
its
institution for
are the Virgin
with
the
an
is
- an
his flesh torn
emphasis appropriate to location
small devotional paintings for private prayer like
altar-
the sixteenth
in
century by Grunewald (for other
and single scenes from the Passion for
but were designed for concentrated meditation, especially
1460
communicate these
contorted and
for churches,
and
calm and order
origins in the formulae
included entire narrative cycles, its
uncertain,
Piero della Francesca, The
painting were produced for different purposes. These
Passion story and
is
include Herod
reper-
around the subject of the Passion, and with it a grammar of the emotions - a way of organizing and disciplining
identity of the
reign over this act of state violence.
in ancient sculpture to indicate feelings.
A
middle
the right
Flagellation, c
toire of gestures
in
under the
is
The
official
men on
but they
side during the Crucifixion
Christ's
Piero
not
distance, being flogged before a
humility in the washing of his disciples' feet, and his
innocence
column,
Classical loggia in the
and
seated
moments,
is
the foreground, but, stripped and
Mocking and the
Crucifixion, his humiliation in the
enigmatic painting by the
and mathematician
of
God who
sins of
the world.
Lamb
away the
will
Mathis Grunewald, The Crucifixion, c.1515.
thorns, the scourge, the cross, the nails, the lance that
pierced his side, and the sponge of vinegar pressed to his lips
among them),
half-length,
wounds
is
presented
and sometimes upright
frontally, usually
in his
tomb, with his
displayed, inviting our pity for his
suffering
on our
behalf.
momentous
Light
in
the darkness
head bowed. At the foot of the
Mary has
dramatize
the cross of the
Christ as
cross
while to the
left
the axis of the entire composition
good
lifted
- the Crucified
forming a diagonal pointing at
Christ,
with his
thief
is
saviour Light has
fainted with grief,
huge canvas by the Venetian artist Tintoretto has at its centre -
This
been used to
this great
its
source
panorama, with in
the darkness.
Jacopo Tintoretto, The
with ropes, his
Crucifixion,
1
565.
THE PASSION
The body
of Christ
For Christians, Jesus
is
the
Word of God made
flesh,
the incarnation of God. The duality of his nature as
Commissioned by the
archers'
guild of Louvain for their chapel, this great altarpiece
by the
artist
Rogier van der
sacred majesty and his touching childishness can be con-
the viewer's
veyed. During his baptism, ministry, and miracles, the
and to emphasize the apparent
from the
cross.
down
shape echoes
Its
that of carved altarpieces, and the
ten figures are placed box, almost
like
in
a shallow
carved figures.
But the space they inhabit small to contain
is
presented by
man, the
artists as the ideal
perfect image of his father, but in the Passion his
them
all,
undergoes pain and disfigurement. After the Crucifixion, Christ's
body
is
represented as dead, a
once contained his divine
lifeless
husk that
soul. This physical
and transfigured
bears the marks of his physical torments:
the
in
Resurrection,
and
St
Thomas, doubting the Resurrection, was
atmosphere of the scene. As the
of Arimathea right,
wound
and Nicodemus on
In addition to
and co-existent with
body of Christ there sent during the
is
also an invisible one,
Mass at Communion,
uniting
all
made
pre-
as part of one mystical body. In the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, the consecrated bread and wine (the
restrains her
On
right St
fall.
left,
the far
Mary Magdalene
Christ - his real all
body and blood.
In this
ing spiritual presence in the world
body remains the focus of worship despite
their
of death, from
way out.
Paintings of the dead Christ can occur as continuations of the Passion's narrative scenes - this
occur
in the
and The Passion by Memlinc (see page also occur as individual images, in
is
how they
Scrovegni Chapel by Giotto (see page 24) 48).
They can
whether as altarpieces
churches or as smaller devotional paintings for private
These figures usually include the Virgin Mary, with
grief,
St
fainting
John the Evangelist, the three Marys
way Christ's abid-
participants display dignified
his
finality
Christ's saving act of sacrifice is the only
sacraments) are considered to be the Real Presence of
sadness. The compositional
diagonal of Christ's body
to arouse
is
contorted with sorrow, and
echoed by that of
meant
Christians
John the
St
is
own sense of guilt for Christ's judicial murder
responses, manipulating feelings as tragic actors do.
this physical
on the
and
loss.
disjointed, contorted
traught, provide cues as to the appropriate emotional
lowered by Joseph
the Virgin Mary faints
grief,
imme-
in his side.
Evangelist, in red
with
broken body, shattered and
with pain, stiffened with rigor mortis,
which
his
overwhelming sense of
meditation and prayer. Intermediary figures, often dis-
Christ to place his fingers in the spear
the
their
by
invited
This transfigured body then ascends to Heaven.
is
and
too
is
to the heightened emotional
Christ
is
regalvanized
this constriction contributes
dead
body
though
it still
Christ's
body
Weyden
depicts Christ being taken
agony and more with the bereavement of
diate entourage
adult Jesus
fifteenth-century Netherlandish
his
God and man presents special challenges to artists. Christ's body has many forms in art, emphasizing different aspects of his nature. When he is an infant, both his both
The Deposition
of Christ's dead body required less direct empathy with
is
celebrated,
and
his
his absence.
is
mother,
hands held near each
Painting the dead Christ
other.
Rogier van der Weyden, The
Unlike representations of the punishment and physical
Descent from the Cross,
suffering of Christ the
c.
1435.
man
during the Passion, paintings
the crown of thorns and the
The Lamentation This painting by Botticelli
a
pillar in
Santa Maria Maggiore
Florence. Christ's limp his fainting in
hung on
mother's
body
lap,
lies
wrapped
a shroud, attended by the three
Marys.
St
John sustains the Virgin,
while Joseph of Arimathea holds
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
in
on
nails
with which Christ was crucified.
The mood of extreme tension stark
is
grief
and
accentuated by the
opening to the tomb before
which the figures are compressed
Sandro c.1495.
Botticelli,
Lamentation,
Image of
hand, St John turns away
Pity
Although the popular form of the
"Image of
dead
Christ in the
Bellini
his
Pity" simply
The Entombment this
relief
work
the is
Baglione
Entombment with
Christ being carried
tomb on the
backward
left.
Christ's
based on an ancient
her
into
(a Pharisee
placed
c
let
forth their lament
work was able Bellini,
Dead
to
weep."
Christ,
1465
limp body contrasts with
in
Perugia,
young son
in
for Atalanta
who
had
lost
and so
a feud,
bereavement.
Raphael, The Entombment, 1507.
Joseph of Arimathea
St
(who obtained permission from Nicodemus
eyes swollen
Giovanni
raises his right
in is
which reads: "As soon as the
Mary places her cheek and
hand
inscription in Latin
Giovanni's
St
left
his straining supporters.
identified with Mary's
pose
Roman
Mary Magdalene),
(including
his
The work was painted
Lamentation, Raphael instead created an
-
those of
as a
above an
John the
mother and
close to his
1
tomb, Giovanni
depicts him held upright by
Evangelist.
Having begun
shows the
sorrow. Christ's
Pilate to
bury Jesus), and
who secretly worshipped
Christ).
Pictures of the events that followed the death of Christ depict
distinct
scenes,
not
all
of which are
described in the Bible but which nonetheless established
themselves in the visual tradition of Christian first
type
the Deposition, which
is
shows
and lowering from the cross as described
The next
is
the Lamentation,
his
art.
The
detachment
in the Gospels.
when Mary and her com-
panions mourn the dead Christ on the ground. This event is
not recorded in the Bible, but a thirteenth-century
sometimes flanked by
mother and
his
arms are folded or
St
and
John or held by
wounds
Italian devotional text, the
Meditations on the Life of
angels. His
Christ, provided a graphic
account of the suffering of
apparent. Such images were intended for private devo-
limp,
his
are
The Eucharist
A
beardless Christ presides over a
table bearing only bread
before which
those involved. This scene must not be confused with the
tion
and are generally quite
Pi eta, which shows the Virgin Mary with her dead son on
her
lap,
which
is
not described in the Bible and
meant to be understood as a stage final stage, is
the
and one
for
in the narrative.
which there
Entombment, when
Christ's
is
is biblical
body
is
nature of his body and
The
but
authority,
carried to
its
association with the Eucharist,
stress his invisible presence at
Mass more
overtly than others. There are images of Christ emerging
from a Communion
chalice, or with his blood being
collected by angels. Paintings of the Last Supper
There were also images exclusively designed to
on
some
its
Christ's death
and on the suffering of
either
the
moment when
Christ
Located
like priests.
images of Christ emphasize the sacramental
not
resting place in his tomb.
aid meditation
All
small.
show
announces that one of
his disciples will betray him, or the establishment of the
and wine
his apostles in
kneel
an indefinite
space, half Modernist penthouse, half northern Spanish coastline,
the mystical body of Christ hovers
above
this
When
the accusation of vulgarity
was
unusual Last Supper.
raised against this
replied that
work,
he had wanted
it
Dali
to
be popular and boasted (wrongly) that
it
had sold more postcards
than the works of Leonardo and
Mary and the
St John. This type of
Imago Pi eta t is (Image of
image
is
called in Latin
Pity). It is usually
a half-
length image of the dead Christ, often upright in a tomb,
first Communion of the Apostles, when Christ commanded them: "Take this and eat; this is
Salvador
my body" (Matthew 26:26).
the Last Supper, 1955.
Eucharist,
and thus the
Raphael combined. Dali,
The Sacrament of
THE BODY OF CHRIST
>1
Triumph over death The question of death just Christianity.
is
all religions,
not
in the best of health
we
central to
"Even
general resurrection for the rest of humanity that must
follow at the Last Judgement. This also
should have death before our eyes" and "We will not
physical event,
it
means
could be represented by
that, as
a
artists.
Love transfigured
expect to remain on this earth for ever, but will have one
wrote the French Protestant reformer
foot in the
air,"
Jean Calvin
in the sixteenth century.
after
we
die?
What happens to us
The Christian answer, whether Catholic or
Protestant, is clear:
"God loved the world so much
that
Mary Magdalene came to
tomb
Christ's
but, finding
empty, began to that his
A man
cry,
it
convinced
body had been then appeared
stolen.
whom
The Resurrection None of the four Gospels describes the Resurrection. It was not witnessed by Christ's followers or even the
Roman
soldiers
who were
sent to guard his tomb. Holy
she mistook for a gardener, but
who
he gave
Ms
may not
die but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
only son that everyone
has faith in him
who Mary
For Christians, the death of Jesus on the cross
was necessaiy but not final. The pain of the Passion and its
aftermath had
to be undergone for the sake of human salvation, as the
expiatoiy sacrifice for the is
Fall.
But the
abolished, not just because Christ
because he came back to
memorates three days
life
not his immortal
spirit,
of death
sacrificed but
again. Easter Friday
Christ's death, Easter later. Christ's
finality
was
Sunday
com-
his revival
was of his body, paves the way for the
knelt
and reached out to
touch him, but he recoiled, saying:
me the desolation of the Crucifixion and
revealed himself to be Jesus.
"Do not touch me
tangere"
in Latin]
not yet ascended to ... to
my God and
Titian set this
scene
my
I
["Noli
tomb and found
show not
a pastoral
avoids the touch of the
who
loves him, his
representations
of the resurrected Christ, he
is
Christ but an
shown with
who, doubting the Resurrection, stuck
St
Thomas,
his finger in the
wound in Christ's side. From the eleventh century Christ
woman
body now
transfigured and beyond the
reach of mortals.
and
Titian, Noli
Me
Tangere, c.1510.
Glory
The German
his artist
Grunewald
tomb and
painted this work for a winged
caught fall
In
contrast
radiates energy
into the darkness. Soldiers,
altarpiece at Isenheim
in
suspended animation,
to the ground as Christ
with the outer panels' imagery of
assumes the cosmic mantle of
overwhelming
the
pain,
it
presents a
picture of incandescent joy.
The
transfigured Christ has burst from
RKUGIOUS PAINTING
empty. The ear-
it
empty tomb with sleeping soldiers or with the angels who greeted the holy women. In the earliest representations liest
am
Father
your Lord." in
to the
landscape. Christ, holding a hoe,
resurrection it
for
women came
stars,
blazing
like
the sun.
Mathis Grunewald, The Resurrection, c.1515.
Mary
Assumption Titian painted this
work
an aureole of golden
altarpiece of the high altar of the principal Franciscan
Church
hands and eyes
in
It
bottom, Mary
the middle, and
shown standing in the tomb; a century later he is shown emerging from it. This was extended to his is
suspension in mid-air and, from the sixteenth eentuiy,
from the tomb.
to his bursting
underwent a
change. His body has been transfigured - that talized.
How
Testament
Adam
could painters convey
its
is,
new
immorstatus?
who had
two
and the
apostles beneath life-size
Titian, The Assumption,
1518
Coronation
lived before his coming, including
and Eve, and he
was
united by the
The figures are over
the Father
open the gates of earth
In the process of resurrection Christ
God
robes of
in
above to receive her
floating
is
her
ecstasy
red pyramid of her dress
has three divisions: the
disciples at the
light,
lifted in
The composition
Venice, Santa Maria Glonosa dei
Fran
propelled up on a cloud
is
by a semicircle of angels against
for the
is
represented in art as bursting
The
Hell.
last
time he appeared on
The Ascension
to ascend to Heaven.
rarer in painting than the Resurrection, as
it
is
much
marks a final
disappearance rather than a resurgence, making
it
more
This altarpiece
Villeneuve-les-Avignon by Jean de
Montagnac,
son.
Her death,
was witnessed by the apostles at her Much more common in art is her Assumption.
canon there with a
a
devotion to the is
made
described in Acts,
the Father. This
costume: he used gold leaf along with blue
bedside.
patron
those
scenes representing Christ transfigured. These include the
Transfiguration
and
which
occurred
before
moment when her body and
it
is
the
soul were taken up to
Heaven. The iconography of this event evolved from
on Mount Tabor between the prophets Moses
her suspension in the sky with the apostles beneath her
Elijah.
Where
after his death,
it
which he appeared to three of
Christ's is
body is shown partially naked
no longer the disfigured body of the
in
Virgin
was
is
God
because the
is
at that time
engaged
negotiations over the nature
of the Trinity with the Byzantine
Church, which believed that the
his
Christ's death, in
disciples
itself,
Described in the Apocrypha but not the Bible,
who
to look identical to
piece for Siena Cathedral of 1311, simply changed his in
The
Trinity.
here crowned by the
not just Christ,
Trinity,
The Virgin Mary outlived her
Enguerrand
artist
Quarton for the Charterhouse at
Mary
difficult to paint.
Duccio, in the scenes on the back of the Maesta altar-
was commissioned
from the French
more dynamic presentation of her ascent, as Titian's version shown here. Her conquest of death
to a
in is
Holy
Spirit issued
Father.
only from the
Montagnac
also insisted
on the depiction of the heavenly court of angels, apostles, prophets, saints, and the elect,
Crucifixion and
Entombment, but the heroic male nude
of the Baptism, but with the five
The
first
rected Christ
This
is
person
in the
wounds
comparable with that of
Mother and son are reunited
to his flesh.
Gospels to see the resur-
was Mary Magdalene on Easter Sunday.
the much-painted scene in which the risen Christ
Christ.
rejuvenated Mary
is
is
all
eternity
and a
represented in art being crowned
Queen of Heaven by Virgin
including those infants
for
Christ.
The Coronation of the
not based on the Bible but on typological read-
in is
innocence
(left).
Christ crucified
Calvary, with
is
also
ings of the Old Testament's Psalms
represented after appearing to two of his disciples over
The subject was
Emmaus, near Jerusalem. According to the Apocrypha, it was shortly after this period that Christ descended into Limbo to liberate the just souls of the Old
was thought
supper
at
and Song of Songs.
and Jerusalem on the
especially popular for altarpieces, as
it
to symbolize the union of Christ with his
Church, represented by Mary, enthroned with her son in
Heaven and surrounded by angels and adoring saints.
left is
died
on Mount
Rome on
linked by the sea.
asks her to refrain from touching him. Christ
who
At the bottom
the
left
right,
Below on the
Purgatory (with an angel
receiving a soul into Heaven)
and on the
right Hell.
Enguerrand Quarton, The Coronation of the
Virgin,
1449.
TRIUMPH OVER DEATH
Images of saints The word The
"saint" derives
from the Latin sanctus, meaning
were men and
saints
Christ to a heroic degree.
The
women who
first
apostles and the evangelists were
recognized as saints by early Christians, as were martyrs died for their
faith.
Some monks were
who had
also acclaimed as saints
them were added exceptional churchmen and
and to
teachers, a group called
"confessors." At first only the sanction of the local church was required for an individual to be venerated after his or her death. From the tenth century, however, the authority of the Pope was needed and
was only granted
this
had been scmtinized
after the record of in a
formal process
Saints
holy.
dedicated their lives to
were considered
others, that is
occupied a pre-eminent place
on
to
more meritorious
be
in
in
in
were revered, and they were
prayer as intercessors. In paintings they usually have a halo
(a circular disc of light surrounding the head)
and are
identified either
by features of their appearance or by symbols known as
The legends of their source
than
Heaven. They were commemorated
their anniversaries, their relics
invoked
in a higher state of grace
God's eyes, and for this reason they
lives
"attributes."
and miracles were often depicted, the main
used by painters being the thirteenth-century
"Golden
any candidate for sainthood
Legend." The Protestants abhorred the late-medieval cult of saints,
known
believing that
as "canonization."
it
had degenerated
into idolatry.
All saints
This altarpiece
was painted
for the chapel of a hospice
Nuremberg by the
in
German stands,
artist Durer, in
the bottom
heaven, with the its
The sky
right.
with a vision of
filled
is
who
small scale, at
Trinity as
centre. At the top
Holy
God
angels. Christ
The
cross.
adoration:
in
on the middle right,
the
supports
on the
blessed are
the
is
encircled by
Spirit,
on
tier
the patriarchs,
prophets, and kings of
the Old Testament; on the left,
female
Mary
saints.
kneels on the
John
left,
the Baptist on the
right.
Beneath are male
saints.
Among
these on the
left
is
the work's bearded donor,
Matthaus Landauer.
The Evangelists
Albrecht Durer, The Adoration of the
Trinity,
The four
Evangelists
who
wrote the four books of
1511.
the
New
Testament, which
relate the
life
and death
of Christ, are sometimes
Doctors of theology represented not
The Austrian
in
human
Michael
artist
form but as symbols: Pacher shows the four St
Matthew
St
Mark
St
Luke as a winged ox;
as an angel;
founding theologians of as a
winged
lion;
the Church enthroned
under Gothic canopies,
and
St
The
Italian painter
John as an eagle.
each inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Each has an Raphael paints a vision
attribute. In the case of
of St Jerome,
on the
God experienced by
left, this
the Old Testament prophet
the
is
lion
he befriended Ezekiel.
in
the desert. He
is
God
is
surrounded
shown by what Christians
as a cardinal, St Gregory interpreted as the symbols
(second from right) as a
of the Evangelists and
pope, and St Augustine therefore as prefiguring
and
St
Ambrose
as bishops.
the
New
Testament.
Michael Pacher, The Four Raphael, The Vision of Doctors of the Church, Ezekiel, c 1518. c
1483.
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
Company
of
Heaven
Fra ("brother") Angelico
painted this altarpiece for
the church of a monastery of his
Dominican order
Fiesole,
near Florence.
Mary
crowned by
in
is
at
Christ
the court of Heaven.
Around the throne, angels play instruments, while
on the steps
saints kneel,
each identified by
his or
her attribute: for example, St
Agnes by her lamb.
On
the
left
are Dominican
saints dressed in their black
and white
habits.
They
whose
include St Dominic, life
and miracles are
pictured
in
the predella.
Fra Angelico, The
Coronation of the
Virgin,
c.1435.
Holy burden According to legend, St
Christopher
who
was
a giant
wished to serve the
most powerful king world.
in
the
One day he was
carrying a child across a ford
when
the child
became extremely
heavy.
"No wonder," the
child
explained. "You have been
whole world.
carrying the
am
I
Jesus Christ, the king
you seek." The German Dix situates the story
artist
on Lake Constance and
shows
Christ revealing his
identity.
The
story
had
personal significance for
the painter as a symbol of
hope. The staff that grew into a tree child are
and the Christ
both attributes
of St Christopher.
Otto (IV),
Dix, St Christopher
1939
Piety St Carlo
arm across the landscape.
Angelic healing
Borromeo
The
story
is
Both wear fashionable
taken from
(1538-84), a modernizing
the Book of Tobit
Archbishop of Milan, was
Apocrypha. Tobias was sent
wings and
canonized
by
invoked as a saint before
in
1610 Crespi
in
the
his blind father to collect
depicts him seated at a
a
table opposite a domestic
He was escorted by the
altar
with a
crucifix.
With
debt from a distant
Archangel Raphael,
only bread and water for
told
supper, this austere figure
gut
is
moved
to tears by his
deep reading of the
Bible.
him to catch it,
and apply
city.
pulped
He
did so,
and cured
was
St Christopher.
Attributed to Andrea del Verrocchio, Tobias and the Angel, c.1475.
his
sight.
Borromeo
the ointment and Tobias the
at Supper,
He was
entrails to his father's eyes.
Daniele Crespi, St Carlo
c.1625
a halo.
long journeys and as a healer, as
who
a fish, its
clothes, but Raphael has
fish as
Here Raphael holds
they spring arm
in
IMAGES OF SAINTS
Martyrdom Mutiny and martyrdom This altarpiece
by King
Philip
then rejected
to mutiny
was commissioned
who
of Spain,
II
it
because of
and
Around 302
his legion
St
Gaul.
El
the
crowns and palms of martyrdom.
Maurice
El
for
refusing to persecute Christians in
right. In
angels play music and bear the
its
were butchered
by the saint and
on the
middle they are beheaded. Above,
unorthodox treatment of the subject.
made
his officers,
Greco, The Martyrdom of
St Maurice
and the Theban
Legion, 1582.
Greco emphasizes not
the martyrdom but the decision
Saints have been venerated for different reasons and
Patron saint Painted for the Charterhouse at
Champmol
the French
so feature in paintings in various ways. They could
Burgundy, by
in
be identified with entire communities - for example,
Henri Bellechose,
artist
has the
this gilt altarpiece
Trinity
Mark with
the evangelist St
Venice, and St George as
either side, as
the patron saint of England. Saints also
became the pro-
part of a continuous narrative,
tectors of professional groups, like St
Luke
at
its
centre.
On
are scenes from the
Denis (d.258).
On
life
the
of St
(see page 20, Rogier van der Weyden, St
left
the Virgin).
and
St Denis, Bishop of Paris
chivalric orders,
patron saint of France, having
been thrown Holy
company side,
into prison,
Communion
of angels.
the saint
is
given
is
by Christ
On
in
the
the other
beheaded
Mount)
in Paris,
along with
St Rusticus
St Eleuthenus,
all
Luke Painting
spiritual
heads of
such as the Knights of St John, and of
They were invoked by
lay confraternities.
their
name-
sakes; those with a personal devotion to them; those suffering from afflictions (as
were
St Sebastian
and St
at
the foot of Montmartre (Martyr's
companions
They were made the
for artists
Roch by plague
victims); or those in danger.
his
and
three wearing
Saints and martyrs Innumerable images of saints or their symbols (such as
persecuted for refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods and
the cross of St George, the shell of St James, or the
many were
the mantle of Christ.
Henri Bellechose, Altarpiece of St Denis, 1416.
winged
Mark) were made to meet
lion of St
this
huge
executed. Around 200 Tertullian wrote that
to be a martyr guaranteed immediate salvation: "Your
was shown
demand. Figures of saints were painted on the walls of
blood
churches and public buildings, on either side of Mary
in
martyrs at the place where they suffered and were
altarpieces, or as central cult figures themselves; their
buried and on the anniversary of their martyrdom mass
actions were painted as narratives and as examples
was
of heroic conduct. The Reformation in the sixteenth
rologies and the Christian calendar.
century put an end to this explosion of cult images in
Christ in the Passion; St
the Protestant parts of Europe. Nevertheless images of
(before Christ
saints
are
still
although the
widespread
Roman Church
saints cannot be
in
the Catholic world,
has always insisted that
worshipped as demigods but only
The
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
who
first
people to be called saints were martyrs,
died for the
faith.
The
early Christians
the key to paradise." Reverence
celebrated. Their deaths
was
were martyred, upside
were registered
to
in marty-
The model was
John the Baptist was beheaded
crucified),
and some of the apostles
St Peter traditionally being crucified
down and
St
Andrew on an X-shaped
cross.
In the iconography of saints, martyrs are often rep-
resented standing with the instruments or method of
venerated, images of them being devotional aids.
those
is
were
their torture as attributes: St
used to
kill
Stephen with the stones
him; St Lawrence with the
grill
on which he
Saint arrested This
work
is
Herod Agrippa The Venetian
one of a
series of
painter Piazzetta depicts the
the twelve apostles painted by
massive, diagonal forms of the
different artists to decorate the
henchman and
church of San Stae
blocks of light and dark
St
in
Venice
James the Greater was the
of Christ's
first
immediate followers to
be martyred, on the orders of
the old saint
in
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, St c.
James Led
Martyrdom,
to
1722-3
was burned
St Catherine with the wheel
to death;
who was flayed own skin. These reminders of however, linked with saints who usu-
intended to break her; St Bartholomew, alive,
holding a knife or his
physical torture are, ally display
absolute composure, in a realm beyond pain.
The representation of martyrdom included in mural cycles of a saint's in
a martyrium
built at the spot of
death or burial, or
churches dedicated to him or
her,
was
pictured being shot with arrows as the main field of
Darkness at noon St
could be
- for example,
in the predellas of altarpieces. St Sebastian
in other chapels or
and
itself
life
John the Baptist has
been
just
executed. His executioner reaches
from the sixteenth century,
Especially
altarpieces.
martyrdom became more common as the main subject
for a knife to finish the job of
severing his neck. The
jailer
points to the plate that will
of altarpieces. Around 1527 the Venetian painter Titian
represented the Dominican preacher St Peter Martyr in
receive the saint's head, held
an altarpiece (unfortunately burnt
forward by Salome. The
traditional way, calmly standing with a cleaver buried in
wife clasps her head prisoners look
in
jailer's
horror as
on from behind
moment when he was
his head, but at the
not in the
cut
down by
robbers in a forest in 1233. As the Reformation grew in
image of
bars. In this dark
in 1857),
Church placed new emphasis on
brutal death the Italian painter
strength, the Catholic
Caravaggio gives over most of
the heroic conduct of martyrs and their endurance of
the wide canvas to emptiness.
extreme pain, often graphically depicted, promoting
Caravaggio, The Beheading of
them as exemplary
St John the Baptist, 1608.
faith.
martyred by the
Roman Emperor
false
figures willing to die for the true
gods to
whom
they would not sacrifice
were now associated with Protestantism or the pagan
Torment endured St Erasmus,
The
idols of the
New
World.
Diocletian
around 303, had
his intestines
Heroic figures
torn from his body on a windlass.
The Frenchman Poussin painted this altarpiece for
St Peter's
in
an
altar in
Rome. As
a
pagan
priest points to the idol that St
Erasmus has refused to worship, executioners perform their
gruesome
task, while
little
angels
During the Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a formula emerged for the pictorial
representation of a saint's martyrdom. The saint
shown
at the
by a Roman
bottom, undergoing torment supervised official,
and on one side
is
the idol that
he or she has refused to worship. Above, the heavens
and angels bring down the crown
bear the crown and palm of
open
martyrdom. Counter-Reformatory
of heavenly victory and the palm of martyrdom.
representations of saints often
emphasize agony and
is
to the saint
martyr's bodily suffering
is
The
contrasted with the eternal
ecstasy, but
calm nonetheless reigns here.
happiness that he or she has won. Such images are
Nicolas Poussin, The Martyrdom
an inversion
of St Erasmus, 1628-9
mated
in
which pain
into ecstasy,
is
transcended, agony subli-
and death conquered by
faith.
MARTYRDOM
•),
Miracles Miracles affairs,
of the
supernatural
in
human
marvels involving the temporary suspension of
the laws of nature.
Testament, as
Some
are reported in the Old
when the Red Sea parted to
the Israelites pass but
let
Moses and
drowned the Egyptian army
was pursuing them. According
that
to the Gospels, Christ
himself performed miracles, considered to be tokens of his divinity. His first miracle
was
at
Cana (see page
Veronese, The Marriage at Cana?),
when he
water into wine. Elsewhere he multiplied Rescue at sea This
work
one of
is
small scenes
a series of
church
altar of a Florentine
dedicated to the fourth-century
bishop St Nicholas. The scenes narrate the
five
47,
be
how can a static moment of water turning into wine,
difficult for painters to represent:
narrative depict the
Lazarus's revival, or the multiplication of loaves and fishes?
One
solution
was
to use continuous narrative:
the inclusion of two scenes, before and picture.
after, in
one
Another way was to show the astonished reac-
tions of the onlookers or to use light effects to suggest that something supernatural
was happening.
turned
loaves and
Supernatural intervention
two fishes to feed a crowd of five thousand; he increased
Many
the catch of his disciples in the miraculous draught of
supernatural powers by God. Miracles were taken into
performed miracles, being endowed with
saints
from the predella
of an altarpiece painted for the
main
As miracles often involve transformation they can
are considered extraordinary events, the
manifestation
life
and miracles
fishes;
and he walked on water. He also performed mir-
acles of healing, such as restoring sight to a blind
and bringing Lazarus back to for four days,
life
after
man
he had been dead
and he carried out acts of exorcism.
account
in their canonization, as
proof of their
These could be performed during the posthumously,
sanctity.
saint's lifetime or
when he or she was invoked in prayer by
devotees on earth. Long-dead saints are depicted flying
of
the saint, and this one depicts a
A
miracle that he performed after his
death,
when he
saved
sailors
shipwreck. Gentile da Fabriano
shows him
diving
down from
heavens, surrounded by a
mermaid swims
relics
in
of St Nicholas,
the patron saint of
taken to Ban
in
formed
part of a series decorating the
from
off the Lycian coast
the foreground under a canopy.
father's prayer
This narrative canvas
the
light, as
boardroom of
a Venetian lay
confraternity that
miraculous
relic
which Christ was
who became
records
sailors,
were
Italy.
It
relic in
1444.
the main square of Venice the
on the
Gentile da Fabriano,
confraternity, in procession
St Nicholas of Bari Preventing a
feast day of St Mark, the city's
Shipwreck, 1425.
patron
RKIJGIOUS PAINTING
saint,
parades the
Mark and
relic in
is
is
the Basilica
to the right the
Doge emerges from
his palace.
difficult
to spot:
kneeling to the right of the
dressed
who
one of the miracles
performed by the In
crucified.
the background
of St
The miracle
a
of the cross on
the sea. The
southern
housed
In
in
is
Jacopo de
relic,
Salis,
has just learned that his son
Brescia has fallen
his skull. his
in red,
He prays
and cracked
to the
relic
and
son recovers.
Gentile
Bellini, Procession in the
Square of St Mark, 1496.
T
1622. The saint stands beside an
Exorcism
In this
huge
altarpiece, painted
for the Jesuit church in
Antwerp,
Rubens celebrates the miracles of
down from Heaven to perform miracles,
the meeting
hall of a
work
for
cycles in chapels dedicated to halls of confraternities
who
the
relics
disobeyed orders and
captured and was about to be
poked out and
when he was by the lies
his
his legs
slave
Mark plunges from
the sky to rescue him. This very large canvas, with figures
of colossal energy,
Venetian
artist's
made
full
1
Peter Paul Rubens, The Miracles of St Ignatius Loyola, 1619.
meeting
and they
the "Golden Legend" (see pages 42-3).
whose
pope
miracles, including the saint
whose breath asphyxiated Maso di Banco around 1340 on
clasping the jaws of a dragon people, were painted by
the walls of a chapel at Santa Croce in Florence. In later centuries miracles were increasingly subject to the
Church's formal scrutiny; for example, those of Ignatius
Loyola (d.1556), painted by Rubens in The Miracles
wrapped
at his death is venerated in
a chapel at Turin;
sudarium (see page 40) at St Peter's in Rome gave rise to numerous images; and the cross on which Christ was crucified was venerated in the form of splinters, the legend of its miraculous rediscovery by Emperor the
the
reputation.
Jacopo Tintoretto, The Miracle of the Slave,
cult,
St Silvester (d.335),
miraculously saved
St
in the
are fantastical, such as that of the fourth-century
and mallets used against him and
them and
devoted to their
broken,
on the ground, the staves
shatter
was
later, in
left,
works
eyes
As the naked
saint.
the
including,
exorcism of demoniacs.
Many painters read about the miracles of saints in Some of its tales
Mark was
punished by having
on the
the
his miracles,
often occur in the predellas of Italian altarpieces.
a pilgrimage to venerate
of St
composition shows
Paintings of their miracles could be found in mural
Legend," the slave of a Provencal
on
companions
rest of
by Gentile da Fabriano and Tintoretto shown here.
According to the "Golden
left
The
Venetian
confraternity devoted to St Mark.
master
as in the
his Jesuit
Ignatius Loyola, supporting his
canonized three years
Heavenly help
with
to his right.
the founder of the Jesuit order,
claim to sainthood. Ignatius
Tintoretto painted this
altar,
of St Ignatius Loyola for the Jesuits as part of their
Constantine's mother, St Helena, being painted by Piero
successful campaign to have
della Francesca
their founder canonized.
Francesco
548.
The power of relics In medieval
Bellini
and early modern devotion,
relics of saints
in
on the walls of the main chapel of San
Arezzo in the 1450s. Around 1500 Gentile
and others painted canvases recording the
recent miracles performed by a fragment of the cross
were very important and miraculous powers were often
owned by
ascribed to them. They drew pilgrims to shrines such as
Giovanni Evangelista. Paintings such as the work by
those of St Thomas a Becket at Canterbury and St James
Bellini
at Compostela,
was
the route to which
lined with
churches. Relics acquired an almost totemic force and
saint's
whole body or parts of
which he or she had come
it,
or objects with
into contact.
They were often
shown here supported
the miracles' claim to
authenticity through the topographical accuracy of their Venetian setting
were seen as protecting whole communities; they could be a
the large Venetian confraternity of San
The
Virgin
and the number of eyewitnesses.
Mary did not perform any miracles
in
her lifetime, but she was constantly invoked in prayers
and could respond
in
miraculous ways to them. Votive
the kernel of church-building and decorative projects
images of thanksgiving or beseeching were hung
and occasioned
shrines dedicated to her throughout Europe, as at the
significant paintings, as at the shrine to
St Francis at Assisi in the thirteenth century,
murals
in the
upper church depict his
life
and miracles.
As both Christ and Mary ascended body and
all,
their relics
to
were harder to come
the shroud in which Christ
is
where
Heaven
shrines of saints and their relics.
Some
of the Virgin Mary, were believed to their
own
right,
at
images, above
all
work miracles
in
The Protestants outlawed as idolatrous
but
the cult of the Virgin Mary, the saints, relics, and images,
believed to have been
along with the belief that these could perform miracles.
by,
MIRACLES
59
Solitude Many
saints practised
some form
of withdrawal
from the world, renouncing the pleasures of the flesh, property,
family
life,
and personal ambition
their pursuit of spiritual perfection. This retreat
in
may
be represented in images of individuals in a solitary dialogue with God, far
away from human
the
inflicted
Bellini's St
on Christ on the
cross.
Francis in the Desert varies the
traditional iconography of this scene
by not including
whom
the Seraphim (see pages 32-3) from
it
does communicate the change
St Francis
in attitude
toward
nature wrought by Franciscan sensibility. St Francis
The desert
God
nature
in
The Venetian painter Giovanni
received the stigmata, or his companion. Brother Leo.
But
society.
wounds
five
Giovanni
believed the natural world should be praised as God's
depicts St Francis as he
Bellini
emerges from Alvernia,
his
reception of the
and nights
he was tempted by the
Devil. St
in the desert,
where
John the Baptist
sometimes painted as a young man assuming
is
his solitary
vocation in the wilderness, as in Veneziano's St John
creation,
and the wasteland of the desert fathers
flowers in Bellini's picture. This collector in Venice, retreat
where
it
work belonged
to a
offered a vision of spiritual
and of God's presence
saint's
face
is
From
the Baptist in the Desert. According to the "Golden
the fifteenth century
Christ, retired to the desert for thirty years after his
and the monastic
crucifixion.
She
is
depicted as a beautiful young
women
haggard old penitent
after her long retreat, as a
or,
onward images of
were painted increasingly
saints in retreat
cell.
St
on the
heavenly light source
for the
house
Jerome, the Church Father
who translated the Bible from Hebrew into Latin and who around 374 withdrew to the Syrian desert, is repre-
his
cross.
The
in
the top
left-hand corner of the picture, a
around him.
Legend." St Mary Magdalene, a prostitute converted by
wounds on
turned to a
light that unifies
in nature.
Mount
in
hands, which echo those that Christ received
Christ spent forty days
cave on
arms spread
wall, this
is
the landscape
Just outside the city
no desert forsaken
by God, but a countryside that overflows with
mouth
to sing
presence.
his
ecstasy, St Francis in
opens
In
his
praise of the
Creator of the world.
covered only with her Tfie
own
Georges de
hair.
la Tour, in
Penitent Magdalene, has represented her exchang-
sented as a scholar in his study or as a penitent in the wilderness, as in Gian Girolamo Savoldo's St
Jerome
in
ing her youthful sexuality for saintliness. 7
Many saints were monks or nuns, and monks in the third century lived alone as
Among
the deserts of the Middle East.
was
fathers"
St Anthony,
the earliest recluses in
these "desert
whose temptation by
devils
became a staple of Christian painting (see pages 32-3). The desert was represented by the sixteenth-century German painter Griinewald as a place of demonic terror
and harsh torments, but
saint is
in
other paintings the
tempted by a beautiful woman.
Despite his vocation to preach to the urban poor, St Francis spiritual
was
also attracted by the idea of retreat for
renewal and
in 1224
he withdrew to
Italy's
Apennine mountains, where he received the stigmata.
bleak but for a
Renunciation
Domenico Veneziano
John the Baptist as he his
RELIGIOIS PAINTING
above.
worldly clothes and replaces
them with
his
Naked but
for his halo, the saint
In this
prepares to
shirt.
wilderness the saint
make
the transition
from the world of the body to
has the beautiful physique of a
the
Roman
Domenico Veneziano,
god, combining sanctity
with athleticism The landscape
down
from the jagged mountains
strips off
camel's hair
few shrubs and a
copse and a stream curling
depicts St
is
life
of the spirit
the Baptist
in
St John
the Desert, c.1445.
Giovanni
Bellini. St Francis in
the Desert, c 1480
makes the
Self-punishment In
front of a natural altar
out of the rock, his
hand
is
on her
sits
lap. lost in
with a
on
her vanity, has
become
a
still
terror,
mori.
The candle's flame, which
must
die like passing
human
view of Venice
came from
Italian
Brescia to
painter
that he uses to mortify his flesh,
work -
thus achieving a closer
on the
identification with the suffering
Gian Girolamo Savoldo
Christ Gian Girolamo Savoldo
St
is
visible across
Jerome
the water
of the picture
left
in
the Desert, c
1
530
it,
on death. Her outer
the quietness of the night,
in
complete
life
memento
with a message: a
A
which the
beauty counts for nothing, but
the former altar of
it,
city to
the
the void of the
in
and Mary turns to
reflecting
meditation.
Her dressing table with her pearl jewelry
duplicated
mirror
skull
blue mountains
- the
an open Bible and
in
sets over
hand he holds a rock
in his right
Repentance
is
dominate
background the sun
Jerome kneels,
eyes fixed on a crucifix Before
his left
Mary Magdalene
St
saint
the foreground, while
formed
stillness,
in
she feels no
only inner peace.
Georges de
la
Tour, The
Mystical isolation
Penitent Magdalene, 1638-43.
life,
This installation by the American
video
artist Bill
Viola
fills
darkened room of the
the Desert,
sometimes with the
Paintings of St
he befriended there.
role
models
man engaged
by showing him both as a plative life
lion
Jerome provided
where
for viewers
in the
it
is
displayed.
a
museum
The work
combines media, including video, soundtrack, and electric lighting.
contem-
At the centre of the room
and as a penitent.
is
an
uninhabited cabin furnished with a desk, a miniature television set,
The contemplative
life
a jug of water,
For the lay person, and even for a parish priest or a bishop,
it
was
did from the 1440s at the
Marco
in Florence,
largely financed.
Soul. Against the back wall are
the remote mountains of John's
Dominican monastery of San
whose
building and decoration he
isolation,
and the soundtrack
plays the
sound of the wild wind
rushing through them.
Here Fra Angelico painted devotional In Catholic art of the seventeenth century dra-
pictures for the meditation of the friars in their cells. also
had a room
matic extremes came increasingly into play. St Francis
there.
Meditational exercises were developed for use in retreat,
some devised by
the Franciscans in the thir-
teenth century. St Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) wrote his
Spiritual Exercises for his
first
Such exercises were important
in
becomes an excoriated penitent who goes agony
mystical union with God, an ecstatic \ision of the
transcendent reality lying beyond earthly appearances.
manuals
for penitents,
and move on to
meditation and the formation of mental pictures.
in
natural landscape
mystical experience.
Bill
Viola,
Room
for St
John of
the Cross, 1983.
might be translated into the ultimate goal of all ascetics:
shaping the religious
with the examination of conscience, in the tradi-
tion of medieval
under-
Jesuit companions.
The theme of mystical experience
imagination of both ecclesiastics and laymen. They start
in the night
search for God. Self-denial
in his solitary
In this
work technology transmits the
power of the
Cosimo
is
author of The Dark Night of the
some undertook periods of members of orders, as Cosimo de Medici
of the saints. However, retreat as lay
glass. This
the sixteenth-century mystic and
emulate the heroic asceticism
difficult to
and a
the room of St John of the Cross,
still
interests artists
a paintbrush
but
communicate the
such as
Bill Viola,
explores
spiritual
in
withdrawal
who does not use
modem
technology to
dimension of solitude.
SOLITUDE
Christianity The
two most important forces
Western
to
have shaped
- the
civilization are Classical antiquity
legacy of ancient Greece and
Rome - and the
Christian
and the antique The
cult of the antique
High above a rocky landscape,
Roman
the
religion.
Harmony has not always
existed between
them: in early Christianity, the pagan worship of the
Olympus was viewed with
ancient gods of
temples of ancient Greece and of the
were
filled
with images of pagan
horror.
The
Roman Empire condemned
divinities,
(c. 540-604)
said that
all
Pope Gregory the Great
these statues in
be thrown into the River
Rome
should
Although the Emperor
Tiber.
Constantine had legalized Christian worship in the
Roman Empire in 313 ad, the sensuous art of the ancient world, and above
all its
celebration of the beauty of the
nude human body, was
tied to a massive
is
connthian column
in
the ruins of
an ancient building. Naked as a
pagan god save he looks up to
for a loin cloth,
God
while his
coarse-featured tormentors ignore his
as idols by early Christians.
and martyr
soldier
St Sebastian
agony. He stands on ancient
fragments - to the
own, as
Mantegna, the most
if
antiquarian of
artists,
marble of ancient given flesh
art
could be
Christian painting.
in
condemned by medieval
Andrea Mantegna, St Sebastian, c.1480.
idolatry.
wished to
remind viewers that the dead
Christianity, largely as a result of the distrust of ancient
still
the foot
left,
of an ancient statue echoes his
The unclothed human body was considered by
Christians to be naked and undignified rather than nude and beautiful - nudity was an occasion for shame rather
A new This
made
than celebration.
synthesis
one
is
of a series of designs
by Raphael for tapestries,
woven
in
Brussels
and placed
in
the Sistme Chapel, Rome, depicting
The survival and
revival of the antique
Christian artists
needed
Christ, Mary,
still
and the
The
visual models.
to find
saints,
the acts of the Apostles. Here
ways of representing
and ancient
art
provided
survival of ancient buildings
and
St Paul tears his clothes
sacrificing a bull to him, believing
him a god. Painting
sculptures throughout Europe after the
Empire ensured as Christian art tic.
its
continued
became
vitality
fall
of the
Roman
as a source, even
less representational and realis-
Christ, particularly in the guise of the
Good Shepherd,
style of
Raphael has used
altar,
Raphael, The
of Rome, at
for
example under the Emperor
Aachen around 800 and again during the
twelfth century in France.
However, the greatest revival of ancient tion in the West
ment which
was
civiliza-
the Renaissance, a cultural move-
started in Italy in the fourteenth century,
and whose values had spread to much of Europe by the sixteenth century. Florentines led the
way
in reviving
the use of the Classical architectural orders and in
looking at ancient statues and reliefs with tion.
From
new
atten-
the 1400s, sculptors such as Donatello and
architects such as Brunelleschi, with the support of
humanist scholars and enlightened patrons, created
works
No
that
were self-consciously based on the
fifteenth-century
cult of ancient art
painter
antique.
more exemplified
than Andrea Mantegna,
this
who from
1460 was court artist to the Gonzaga family at their sophisticated court in Mantua, in the north of
Because no major
figurative paintings
times had survived, he looked
at
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
Italy.
from ancient
Classical sculptures
knowledge
sacrifice, in
and
in
the
surrounding Classical buildings.
Lystra,
Charlemagne
the grand
architecture in
the depiction of the
ancient motifs in Christian guise, there were also revivals
culture
his
and
of ancient art
the pagan connotations, hi addition to this survival of
of the antique which aimed at emulating the visual
in
the High Renaissance,
the triangular
could take on the idealized body of Apollo while losing
because
the citizens of Lystra are
Sacrifice at
1515-16.
and architectural fragments and incorporated them into unique
his
which
style, in
figures
appear to be made of
new
generation of artists
stone or bronze.
Prom around 1500
a
created a synthesis between Christian iconography and ancient
based on an intense study and understand-
art,
from these
ing of Classical works. Rather than quoting
works,
such as Michelangelo and
artists
Raphael
grammar of form, creating a known as the "High Renaissance."
utilized their underlying
truly classic style
Both in
worked
artists
Rome, but
in this style for
was the
it
paganizing values by Luther,
who had been
to
led to the iconoclasm of the
that
1511,
a series of popes
rejection of exactly these
Reformation
in
Rome
in
Protestant
northern Europe (see pages 64-5).
The antique after the Renaissance Interest in antique art persisted despite the impact of religious reform,
and
Rome remained a centre of attrac-
tion to foreigners with a love of the antique. The
Frenchman Nicolas Poussin
lived in
the landscape painter Claude spent
Academies of
there.
Rome from
the
and his contemporary and fellow countryman
1620s,
art
much
were founded
that
of his
life
made
the
copying of ancient statues part of the educational curriculum of painters, and from the 1750s
became
the focus of the Neoclassical
revival of the antique,
Rome
movement, a new
based on the exact and archaeo-
logical study of ancient remains.
The age of
A
formed
Raphael, presided over by the
faith
Brotherhood of
St
1809 by German
in
Overbeck and Franz
led by
Known
artists
set
is
artists
age of
with the aim of
new
German
romantic longings for unification. Friedrich Overbeck,
The Triumph of Religion
including Durer, Memlinc,
the
in
Arts, 1831.
Mantegna and
It is
under
faith that will fuel
Johann
out here: a group of
Fra Angelico,
is
background
construction, a symbol of the
reviving religious painting. Their
creed
ideal assembly. In the
a Gothic cathedral
Pforr.
as the Nazarenes, they
m Rome
settled
an
Virgin, gather together in
Luke was
therefore ironic that in 1810 a conuriunity of
long-bearded
German
painters
newly converted to
Catholicism should settle in Rome.
Known
as
the
Nazarenes, they re-explored the age-old tension between Christianity
and the antique with new conviction,
ing that the study of ancient sculpture original simplicity'
painting.
and
religious tmthfulness of Christian
To regenerate
religious painting, they felt that
art before Raphael's stay in
A
classical
From a
gathering
ancient
artist
in
Rome
depicted. Poussin
part of the
Nicolas Poussin, this
1508 should be
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood established in England in
was aware
that the Jerusalem of Christ
by the French
Rome from
emulated, and such beliefs were to be adopted by the
style rather
than upright, as conventionally
series depicting the
sacraments of the Catholic Church painted
Roman
believ-
had corrupted the
Roman
Empire.
was
1848.
It is
a further irony that Overbeck's composition for
the painting Tiie
Triumph of Religion in
the Arts,
which
represents the establishment of
Nicolas Poussin,
shows
the Eucharist by Christ at the Last
The Sacrament of the Holy
should be based on Raphael's frescos, executed from
Supper. Seated
in
a
darkened and
severely Classical interior
a
Roman
oil
lit
on couches
1647
1509 for the Stanza della Segnatura in the papal apart-
only by
lamp, Christ and his
disciples recline
Eucharist,
rejected antique fragments in the foreground,
in
the
ments
in the Vatican, as these exalt the
fundamental unity
of the Christian religion and Classical civilization.
CHRISTIANITY AND THE ANTIQUE
Christendom divided 1517 Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk,
October Inattached ninety-five theses to the door of the church Wittenberg Castle, Saxony. In these he attacked the
at
sale
by the Church
in his native
(the reduction of periods of in return for
money
Germany of Indulgences
punishment
In
spread throughout northern Europe, however, more
whitewashed, as here
militant
in
Haarlem,
in
the
home town
in Purgatory)
forms of Protestantism, with more
Renaissance papacy and of the perceived corruption of
was
Rome and many
some
religious
in
Pieter
Saenredam. He
first
Switzerland, France, and Holland, in the Protestant
made
Netherlands. Europe
meticulous drawings on the spot,
then used them
in his
workshop to
create extraordinarily serene
and
crisis
to lead to a total
parts of Germany. In
images continued to be
bare-walled church Pieter
was
which was not
divided by settled
war
until
in a general
the
Peace
of
Westphalia in 1648: whole kingdoms, including England,
luminous paintings of spacious,
including the worship of saints,
Lutheranism,
restrictive
approaches to the use of religious images, arose
of the seventeenth-century painter
to rebuild the Basilica of St Peter
the entire fabric of late medieval devotional practices,
breach between
As the Reformation
of images against Catholicism.
the Protestant Netherlands,
churches were stripped of art and
cathedral
Rome. His condemnation of the abuses of the
in
produced, and prints were used in an ongoing war
Prostestant austerity
broke their
ties
with Rome,
splits
which
last to this day.
interiors.
Saenredam, The
Interior
of
the Grote Kerk, Haarlem, 1636-7.
The destruction of images This division of Christendom destroyed the unity of
medieval Europe and had gious
art.
The
cult of the Virgin
as important as her son
consequences for
vital
Mary as a
reli-
figure equally
was attacked by the reformers, demand for their
as were devotions to the saints, and
images declined accordingly
in Protestant countries.
The denial of the Real Presence in the Mass (see page
50)
resulted in a decline of elaborate decorations and
furnishings for altars and of major altarpieces. In their
more extreme forms, and especially in their phases, Protestant movements actually called
earlier
for the
wholesale destruction of religious images as well as
new
banning the production of ings
were thought to have
religion
ones. Religious paint-
led to idolatry in popular
and to have furthered a
rather than divine worship.
cult of earthly
beauty
Religious images were
destroyed in parts of Germany and Switzerland Holbein's decision to leave Basel in Switzerland in 1530
was hastened
on
this
account
-
while
in
the
Netherlands iconoclastic fervour reached a peak with the Beldersturm (Storm of Images) of 1566.
Europe divided In this allegorical
Dutch painting.
Christian Europe (and especially
the
Low
Countries)
divided into
on two
is
shown
two opposing camps
sides of a river:
are the Protestants
on the
left
and on the
right the Catholics. In their midst
are portraits of prominent rulers
and
religious figures.
souls are fished
Drowning
from the waters
onto rowboats belonging, on the
to Protestant laymen,
left,
dressed
in
sober black and
clutching Bibles, and to Catholic bishops
one
of
on the
and
right
friars,
them even equipped with
reliquary
and
censer.
Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne, Fishing
for Souls,
1614
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
Catholic illusionism
huge seventeenth-century
This
fresco,
which occupies the entire art,
ceiling of
the church
in
shows
Jesuit order, St Ignatius,
him being carried up to heaven
who
to be received by Christ,
saint's heart,
transmitted
which
down
It
book
a
in the Protestant
Netherlands the whitewashed interiors of churches depicted by Pieter Saenredam can while
many
still
be seen today,
most powerful arms of papal
make use
Wren
firmation of Catholic dogma.
for
London
wake
in the
of the Great
had to
which helped
of genre painting and
ways of exercising
find other
to give rise to the in Holland,
still life
importance
and the dom-
religious order, the
authority.
of visual media in
to
and
rec-
its
The order began
programme of
reaf-
By the seventeenth century the Catholic world's and persuasive power of art was
belief in the efficacy
expressed in a style
known as the Baroque, which fused
together sculpture, painting, and architecture in over-
whelming
inance of portraiture in England.
The Counter-Reformation
architectural space projecting
above the spectator's head,
like
one. The church's ceiling
with celestial
light,
theatrical visions, often
scales. Illusionism
creating the illusion of an
filled
A new
St Ignatius Loyola in 1534
ognized by the Pope in 1540, was to become one of the
Fire of 1666 have similarly stark interiors. In these
their skills,
founded by
which he
explained the mathematics of
this
Supper he had painted. Jesuits,
of the churches designed by the architect
countries, painters
was
Thus
interiors.
turn
is in
to the four
who wrote in
from many church
Christopher
painted by a Jesuit lay brother,
on perspective
the Inquisition in Venice about the contents of a Last
but also to the purging for good of religious images
the
light to
corners of the world.
Andrea Pozzo,
the famous artist Veronese found himself questioned by
much medieval and Renaissance
Rome
dedicated to the founder of the
sends forth a ray of
These attacks on religious images led not just to the permanent loss of
In the Catholic world,
was employed
worshippers the feeling that they were themselves
and above
all in Italy,
Spain,
involved in the heavenly rapture or physical torments
is
and
France, and southern Germany, a counter-offensive
Known
was
of saints, and that the ceiling above their heads had
seethes with ecstatic figures
organized by the Church.
proclaiming the glory of the Jesuit
Reformation, this
order and
administrative and doctrinal, led to the convocation of
just
the Council of Trent which, in
Germany, but also to the Catholic
its vital
part
in
the
Catholic Church's world mission.
Andrea Pozzo, The Glory of St Ignatius Loyola,
1691-4
on the grandest of in paintings to give
as the
movement for church its final
Counter-
reform, at once
session in 1563,
been blown away, revealing a their
own earthbound lives. across
celestial
This style
Mediterranean
Europe
defended the existence of religious images against the
Latin
claims of Protestant iconoclasm. Stricter controls were
Church's reassertion of
placed on what paintings could represent, and in 1573
universal mission of conversion.
realm beyond
was exported not
New
and
southern
World, whether
America or the Philippines, as part of the Catholic its
religious authority
and of
its
CHRISTENDOM DIVIDED
1
Alternative visions In the
West many have held views outside the frame-
work of
the
distinctive visual
Christian
Church and have sought
forms for them. There were entire non-
Christian communities such as the in Spain.
Languedoc, persecuted by the
newly founded Inquisition from
1233.
There have also
They were
however,
not,
intended to challenge the Christian view of the world, Protestant or Catholic, but coexisted with
Jews or the Muslims
Within Christianity there were heretical sects
like the Albigensians in
subject matter in paintings.
It
was only with
it.
the scientific revolution of the
seventeenth century and the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century that the hold of the Church and
its
doctrines began to loosen, and notions began to emerge
been individuals who sought union with God
in the per-
of indefinite
Some
minorities
ity
human progress ensured by the
perfectibil-
State religion In
June 1794, on the Champ-de-
Mars
in Paris,
a festival in
honour
"Supreme Being" was
of the
held at the orders of Robespierre,
who was viewed
by
many
in
the
wake
of the French
the
"God
Father of Nature"
was represented
was honoured
as an ancient
Hymns
were sung eulogizing republican virtue,
good
citizenship,
glory of France,
worship were victimized as witches, but few invented
the existence of a personal
distinctive pictorial idioms.
ity
The margins of Christianity
and State was
and the
and denouncing
and early modern Europe the borderline
fuzzy,
and the distinction between magic and
unclear.
These ambiguities emerged
tional rites,
the birth of the religion of the
religious images.
the justification for
himself
that
At higher levels of society, among a
minority of humanist scholars for example, there
have been some scepticism about
Christianity.
legally
tolerated:
the
may 1
Such
founder of study,
was suspected of harbouring pagan views and imprisoned by the Pope in 1468. Even during Pomponio
Leto,
the Reformation both sides
beheaded the
following month.
still
accepted the Creed, the
basic tenets of the Christian religion.
Images
general obedience. Robespierre
was
new one
state to be
the ultimate object of reverence, itself
abolished and temporarily replaced with a
and the widesr ?ad idolatrous worship of
one Roman academy dedicated to Classical
in a
contemporary painting, marked
m
and the Christian calendar was
religion
kingship and tyranny. This
and
instituted,
at carnivals, tradi-
occasion, depicted here
which held the
the universal valid-
During the French Revolution the separation of Church
views were not
state,
God and
of Christianity and attacked superstition in general.
and
hero on a column placed next to a "Tree of Liberty."
of nature acting as a machine, governed
between popular religion and deep-rooted paganism was
of Liberty,
at the "Altar to the Nation,"
man and
by discoverable laws. French thinkers even questioned
In medieval
Revolution of 1789. At the festival,
of
held anti-Christian beliefs, and those suspected of devil
as a
dictator after his swift rise to
power
sonal isolation of mystical experience.
in the Catholic
world presumed acceptance
of Christian iconography and
its
picture of salvation. '
The
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed the
Attributed to Pierre-Antoine
Machy,
Festival
Being, 1794.
of the Supreme
growth
all
over Europe of other genres of painting, such
as portraiture and landscape, which widened the range of
Aurora - greets the newborn child
Pantheistic visions This
is
of this
the smaller of
two
versions
work by the German
painter Runge.
her,
He envisaged
series of the times of
would decorate
a
day that
the accompaniment of
choral music. Here the
the form of a naked
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
dawn
woman
circle
This
in
-
her.
lily
grows above
spirits
spring
beneath the morning
is
in
a
star.
a mystical vision of spiritual in
which
regenerative in
A
from which
renewal
a neo-Gothic
temple celebrating a pantheisitic religion, to
beneath
role,
light plays a
as
it
often did
Christian iconography.
Philipp Otto Runge, Spring
Morning, 1808.
Paradise regained
French
artist Paul
the
German
especially in
ished,
lost his Christian faith,
Having
work of
culture in the
painters such as Caspar David Friedrich and Philipp Otto
Gauguin sought
Runge, where the worship of nature was subsumed into
alternatives in "primitive" cultures.
He returned
to Tahiti
a pantheistic celebration of the presence of the divine in
the
in
in
1897, and painted
and science led to a new
the summation of his ideas
It is
art
and
religion, starting
air.
The nineteenth-century clash between
this picture
shortly before a suicide attempt.
on
and
flowers, trees, water,
French Pacific for the second time
critical
and new ways of looking
on
approach
at Christ as
religion
to the Bible
man
rather than
the right with birth and ending
God, especially after Darwin challenged the account
with the peaceful death of an old
of Creation contained in Genesis in The Origin of
woman
Species (1859). Toward the end of the century, painters
idol
presided over by a blue
on the
left.
Two women
to
such as the Frenchman Paul Gauguin began to look for alternatives to traditional European Christianity -
the right reflect on their destiny,
while a boy picks
fruit in
the
Gauguin himself sought answers to the meaning of
centre: "simple beings in a virgin
nature,
which might be the
human
idea of paradise," as
Gauguin wrote of
this
Paul Gauguin, Where
life
by exploring the religious and
artistic traditions
of Polynesia.
work.
In the twentieth century extraordinarily
Do We
few
truly
Come From? Who Are We?
innovative paintings were produced either for churches
We
or within the framework of traditional Christian iconog-
Where Are
Going?, 1897
The German
raphy.
artist
Max Beckmann employed
canonical formats such as the triptych for his subject
while
matter,
Marc
Chagall
modern
reinterpreted
subjects such as the Crucifixion from a Russian-Jewish
commenced with
Totem
the start of the secular revolutionary
era rather than the birth of Christ. In the twentieth cen-
perspective. After the
Jackson Pollock explored forms by layering
tury, totalitarian
regimes, whether Fascist or Marxist,
them on top
other, uncovering
America such as Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and
new ones
Jackson Pollock in
process of pictorial archaeology in
power through
visual propaganda.
which
"veils
he, in his
own
words,
the image." At the
foundations of
this
work
Pollock
new sources
explored religious themes, but using
new visual language of abstraction (see pages 246-7).
Newman worked on the theme of the Passion, but with Jesus as a man abandoned by God, while Rothko's canvases are
full
of mystical energy, unspecific to one
religion. Pollock, like
totem, bristling with sacred
the late eighteenth century, artists increasingly
turned to
the
unearths a potent hieroglyphic
Subjective religions
From
all
a
mythic achievements to create a religion of the glorifying secular
in
of each
used alternative iconographies of exemplary heroes and state,
Second World War painters
of religious inspiration - the
visionary English artist William Blake
produced images
and poetry based on his very personal reading of the Bible and his self-made mythological system, in radical
opposition to official doctrines of religion and the emergence of Romanticism, alternative
art.
With
and more
subjective representations of religious experience flour-
Gauguin and others before him,
energy, reminding the viewer of
explored "primitive" religions, such as those of the
Western
Mexican and the North American Indians,
ritual
civilization's roots in
and
tribal
only one of
custom. This
is
derived from the art of North
American
for the fundamentals of the
Indians that Pollock
such as the Englishmen Gilbert
traditional
iconography,
religious
given that Christianity
painted between 1937 and 1953.
irony,
Jackson Pollock, Totem
bedrock of Western
Lesson
II,
1945.
search
human psyche. Post-modern
many totemic images artists
in his
societies,
is
& George
but with
exploit
knowing
no longer the only
with their competing
values and their growing multi-culturalism.
ALTERNATIVE VISIONS
1
The Last Judgement
In
the Christian view of time, the world has a begin-
ning, the Creation,
and an end, the Last Judgement.
This Last Judgement
combines a number of
is
Divine justice
a composite image which
different elements: the
Second
commissioned from the
The the
latter is
New
not described in the Bible, although in
Testaments
last
book, Revelation, St John
described in symbolic language the Apocalypse, the violent
end of the world, the
final
triumph of the forces
Coming of
Christ,
enthroned as Judge and Ruler, the
Resurrection of the dead to be judged; the defeat of evil
and the
final
establishment of the Kingdom of God. The
composition was usually schematic and symmetrical,
was
This multi-panelled altarpiece
fifteenth-
century Netherlandish painter
Weyden by
Rogier van der
Nicholas Rolin, Chancellor of the
Duke
of Burgundy, for the chapel
of a hospital for the poor at
of good over the Antichrist and the forces of
evil,
the
Second Coming of Christ, and the establishment on earth of the Heavenly Jerusalem. This
was seen as the
era of
the four last things: Death, Resurrection, Judgement, and either
Heaven or Hell. When exactly the end of the world
with Christ placed high
in
Heaven
at the centre, the
blessed arranged on clouds just below him, and Mary to his right
and
St
John the Baptist
to his
left,
both interced-
ing for sinful humanity. Immediately beneath Christ
was
placed the Archangel St Michael, presiding over the
Beaune.
It is
of the
central panel. To the
tall
immediate our
first
millen-
whole occasion as God's
general,
and holding
in his
hand
nium in 1000 ad was one of a number of portentous dates
not a sword but the scales in which the good and the bad
met with trepidation by many
deeds of
Christians.
men and women
are to be weighed and their
ultimate fate decided. Seven other angels blow trumpets to arouse the dead.
Although images were painted of the Apocalypse, most depictions of the world's end concentrated on the Last
Judgement. Some paintings of Last Judgements were
many appeared as large
murals, located, as for example in the Scrovegni and Sistine
Chapels (see pages 24-5), on the end walls of in
government
halls. In
England
these paintings were called "Dooms," as they repre-
sented
Doomsday and
In early Last
for the scene
Italy,
the
At ground
rainbow of God's Covenant with mankind.
In
smaller panels on
either side at the top, angels carry
used
level the
dead emerge from
their graves,
physically reconstituted in their original bodies.
saved
move toward the right of Christ (our left)
gate of
Heaven could sometimes be
The
where the
located,
and the
damned toward
his left (our right)
and the mouth of Hell.
in his
torture
weighing souls
in his scales,
surrounded by angels blowing trumpets.
In
St
two panels on
the
Mary (on our
John (on our
left)
and
right) intercede for
humanity, and the blessed stand
on clouds behind them. Below,
damned and herding them toward
brutalizing the
in
men and women emerge naked their graves: the damned are
eternal perdition.
sixth-
propelled by their
Changing interpretations In the Last
the
Judgement painted by Michelangelo from
1536 on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the
shows Christ with sheep to his right (sym-
whole composition was organized not just symmetrically
Nuovo
mouth
of Hell
and goats to
his left (symbolizing the
damned). By the ninth century, however, a consistent
Judgement had been formulated
Byzantium and was soon transmitted
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
to the Wesl
in
in horizontal tiers,
but also with a general circulatory
which the saved are shown
motion
in
on the
right of Christ
are
rising to
and the damned, on
shown being dragged downward
Heaven his
left,
to Hell. After
own shame in
panel, while the saved
the far
move
left.
Weyden
The Last Judgement,
to
the far right
toward the gate of Heaven on
Rogier van der
I^ast
Crucifixion.
and demons are usually involved
at
depiction of the
and
Beneath him stands St Michael,
Angels escort the saved to eternal salvation, while devils
Day of Wrath.
Judgements, a standard iconography
had not been established - the
bolizing the saved)
his
seated on the
is
from
century mosaic in the apse of San Apollinare
Ravenna,
the sword of
is
vengeance. He
either side
churches or chapels, or
of his mercy, on
lily
the instruments of the Passion,
Establishing an iconography
incorporated in altarpieces, but
head (on
right of his
the
left) is
the other side
would occur was a matter of debate, and the
shown open,
here
with Christ enthroned at the top
1
443-5
The saved and the damned These two
damned (left),
frescos,
(right)
Italy
Italian
end
They were commissioned on
the cusp of the half-millennium
and the saved
are part of a series of murals
depicting the
the
for a chapel in Orvieto Cathedral,
showing the
of the world by
(1500),
when
Antichrist
the saved, strewn with flowers
with their victims or
had been widely
to earth, herding
mouth
prophesied The damned,
painter Luca Signorelli
writhe and struggle,
the
multicoloured devils who, driven
from heaven by archangels,
the coming of the
damned
completely naked, are tortured by
of Hell
let
them
on the
fly
them
and crowned
off
ecstasy to the
fall
to the
left
While
in glory,
used
this subject,
chosen by the
church authorities, to paint the
assemble
naked human form
in
a variety of
in
postures and so display his artistry
accompaniment of
heavenly music, awaiting their
Luca Signorelli, The Saved and
ascent to paradise Signorelli also
The Damned,
1
500-4
Village resurrection In this
very personal vision,
the English painter Stanley
Spencer places the Resurrection
m
the graveyard of
parish church at
his local
Cookham.
People are naked or clothed,
and a
beardless, mother-like
Christ
is
enthroned under the
church's flowery porch. artist like
himself
lies
grave to the
The
on a bookright,
while
others, including his wife,
emerge from
their graves.
Here there
no punishment
is
but only peace and love
in
a
transfigured world, as the
dead are transported to
Heaven
in
the boat
in
the
painting's top left-hand corner.
Stanley Spencer, Resurrection,
77ie
Cookham,
1924-7.
Michelangelo's fresco
was unveiled
cized for the nudity of
many
supposed inaccuracies.
Among
Christ
would be enthroned
of
its
in 1541
figures
was
shown
Representations of the Last Judgement were meant to
criti-
and for
its
these were the fact that
at the Last
standing as Michelangelo had
it
Judgement, not
him; that angels
strike terror into viewers, placing their lives in the context
of the theology of the final days: death, resurrection, and
judgement. But not
all artists
have treated resurrection as
a terrifying event. In the 1920s the English painter Stanley
own village
were supposed to have wings; and that he should not
Spencer located
have included the pagan figure of Charon (the ferryman
ing his \ision of it joyfully:
who
in Classical
and there things slowly move
the
River
mythology escorts the damned across
it
in his
"No one
of
Cookham,
is in
any hurry.
off but in the
describ.
.
.
Here
main they
underworld).
resurrect to such a state of joy that they are content. ... hi
Nonetheless. Michelangelo's dramatized vision of the
Day was followed by the Venetian painter Jacopo
life
of Wrath
a state of awareness, a state of being in love, and at such
Styx to Hades,
the
ancient
we experience a kind of Resurrection when we arrive we
Tintoretto in the 1560s and by the Flemish painter Peter
times
Paul Rubens in the seventeenth century.
in the past,
like to
at
do again what we have done many times
because
now we do
it
anew
in
Heaven."
THE LAST JUDGEMENT
"Fable
is art's
patrimony, an inexhaustible
wellspring of ingenious ideas, joyous
images, interesting subjects, allegories
and emblems alive,
... in
myth everything
is
everything breathes the breath of
an enchanted world, one
in
which
symbols have bodily form, where matter takes on
life."
Chevalier de Jaucourt, Encyclopedie, 1751-65
Myth and Allegory
word "myth"
The
mythos, or
story.
derives from the Greek
A myth
is
a fictional story
used to explain fundamental human behaviour or to present a message. Xineteenth-
eentury
noted
anthropologists
own myths and
peoples created their
that
all
the Swiss psycho-
analyst Jung wrote of mythology as the use of stories to
From the prehistoric oral tradition modern films, myth has provided artists with narratives
reveal essential truths. to
which they have used to fear,
illustrate
themes such as
myth
or desire. They have also used
often to
tell
of love or
expound a
truth,
allegorically.
patriotic theme.
Classical mythology
The fountainhead of Western culture
whose myths were
This painting, first
one of the
enjoy a
since antiquity to
full
Homer
were elaborated by the ancient
Romans more than two thousand myths persisted through
ancient Greece,
established by the time of
(ninth century bc) and
Springtime
is
early Christian times
years ago. Classical
and the Middle Ages, to
flowering in the Renaissance. Rediscovered works of
Greek and Roman
literature
by Homer.
Virgil.
Apuleius, and. above
all.
depict Classical deities
on
a large scale,
0\id told of gods and heroes involved
may be
in adventure, love
and sexual
inspired by Ovid's poetic
dalhance. crime and punishment, cruelty and revenge, and these
calendar The Fasti and
stories inspired artists
depict the year's cycle. At
and
From much painting in
their patrons alike for centuries.
1450 to 1850 Classical mythology
was
the subject of
the touch of Zephyr, the
European art, and
West Wind, the nymph Chloris
was transformed
into Flora,
symbol of
artists*
Spring, represented by Botticelli as
it
has remained an important source of imagery and
inspiration for painters despite the diversification
subject matter.
The widespread
a garlanded
gods
and expansion of
of. for
interest during the Renaissance in the Classical
example, love. war. wine, and the harvest led to their use
woman. Venus and Cupid in
as allegorical figures.
the centre, attended
by the Three Graces and
Mercury on the
warlike instincts.
left,
may be composites
Many
depictions of Mars and Venus express
allegorically the desire to see the ability of love to
of
ing over the arts
Minerva, goddess of wisdom,
and
civilization,
and therefore
is
is
overcome mans
often
shown presid-
used by painters of
descriptions given by a
political allegory to suggest a civilizing presence.
number
of Classical texts.
Sandro
Botticelli
Allegorical images, in
which figures represent emotions or other
personal qualities, were used from the fifteenth century to celebrate.
Primavera, c.1481.
Staged movement
Exuberance Galatea, a
nymph
of the
Atalanta, a beautiful,
was
sea, rides her shell chariot
athletic virgin,
through a crowd of
reluctant to marry
mythological figures where
demanded
even the harnessed dolphins,
challenge her
among
race
the centaurs and
mermen, look
mythic. This
fresco provided a backdrop
to entertainments staged at the
villa
banker.
Roman
A comparison
v
Birth
page
1
for losing
a running
was
death.
Hippomenes, excited by hor beauty, decided to
help of Venus, ,.
Botticelli's slightly earlie"
The
in
which the penalty
compete. He implored the
of Agostino
Chigi, a wealthy
in
and
that her suitors
who
gave
him tnree golden apples to
throw to the ground
of Venus (see
during the race to distract
shows that
Atalanta and allow him to
06)
the gentle and "sweet"
overtake her and win. Here
painting style of the
the
early Renaissance has
depicts the
been supplanted by the
of the
confidence and exuberance
almost choreographically.
of the High Renaissance.
Guido Reni Atalanta and
Raphael, Galatea, c 1506
Hippomenes, 1612
MYTH AM) ALLEGORY
Italian
painter Reni
movements
two competitors
flatter,
Rococo fantasy
or warn. For example, they adorned
wedding
page
gifts (see
74, Botticelli,
The French
Venus
Boucher
artist
painted this erotic work
dud Mars), were represented
in paintings
given to rulers (see page 99, Bronzino, Allegory with Venus
Venus
and Cupid), or decorated
reclines
seaweed,
were often a
Others
may have sought
and violent action
dalliance in
the is
only
pictorial
continue
air
lifted
and the
through
flit
silken fabric
by a sea breeze.
Triumph of Venus.
painters.
From
the
seventeenth century, Church and State developed the use of
huge
frolics
1
740.
that proliferate
myth and were frequently treated by
allegory in
a sea
Francois Boucher, The
conveyed by the scenes of sexual
thrill
The
above, as cupids
grams, perhaps drawn up by court scholars
with less erudite tastes
lifts
presents Venus
with a string of pearls on a shell
the
triton
who
nymph,
with carefully contrived iconographical pro-
texts.
refers to the sea
was born. A
commissioning works
from a wide variety of Classical
hair,
from which the goddess
which a patron could display
his or her learning,
half-
decorated with pearls and
myth and allegory served a
the Renaissance courts they
whose
over figures
wide variety of purposes. For the princes of
vehicle through
naked
on her
shell chariot, presiding
churches and private and public buildings. Paintings of
A
simply to delight.
An
schemes celebrating
religious
and
A legendary
myth and medieval
Celtic
literature,
secular achievements. During the eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries the annual exhibitions at venues such as the
Academy
Salon in Paris and the Royal large-scale narrative paintings
in
London, where
on Classical themes were
warrior
Deriving from a fusion of
island of
the mysterious
Avalon was the
final resting place of
Arthur. his
Legend has
King
it
sword was forged
that at
Avalon and that he was
particularly favoured, provided artists with the opportunity to appeal to the public directly. In post-revolutionary France,
brought here after battle to
have
his
his last
wounds
scenes from Classical mythology, allegory, and history were
tended by enchantresses.
commissioned and publicly exhibited to promote notions of
The
patriotism, civic virtue,
and moral
Ages
as a lost
in this
Golden Age
dreamlike image of
Mythologizing the past
Arthur and
During the nineteenth century, which in Europe saw the rise
beneath a canopy
of nationalism and colonial expansion, the canon of
myth
widened as many people looked back to past glories and mythologized their homeland.
Some
British artists turned to
the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the
while in
Germany an
Burne-
British painter
Jones evokes the Middle
probity.
Round
alternative to the Classical
Table,
gods was
his
nurses richly
decorated with the exploits of the king
and
his
bold
Knights of the Round Table.
Edward Burne-Jones, King Arthur
in
Avalon,
1881-98
provided by a pantheon of Teutonic gods and legends.
Images based on medieval tales extolling chivalry
and romance,
courtly love, and noble adven-
Abduction Europa, the
sister
of
Cadmus, caught the eye
ture offered an escape
from the Jupiter,
ugliness of the industrial era.
second half of the
In the
nineteenth century, painters of the emerging
modern movement
who
of
transformed
himself into a
snowy
and abducted
her. This act
bull
led to the birth of three
offspring.
Many
painters
depicted the abduction,
preferred
represent them-
to
usually
making the
bull's
selves engaged in the activities of
brute force a metaphor for
modern
rape.
life,
and
in
so doing cast
aside the subject matter of myth, allegory,
the
artist
and
history.
twentieth
However,
century saw a
reinterpretation of myths, often
invigorated
or Jungian
through
Freudian
interpretation,
by
In this
primitive
deliberately
work the Russian
Serov shows Europa
on the animal's back,
in
an
interpretation that focuses less
on the
brutish aspect
of the abduction than
on
the exotic and magical nature of the myth.
painters with a wide diversity
of
styles,
including
Picasso,
Beckman, Pollock, and Nolan.
Valentin Alexandrovich Serov, The Rape of Europa, 1910.
INTRODUCTION
73
Search for the Classical past Reflected glory This early mythological scene,
executed on
wood
painter Botticelli,
by the
is
Italian
thought to
have been a wedding present, possibly a bedhead.
If
so,
it
was
well suited to newly-weds, for
Venus, goddess of love, remains
awake and
vigilant while Mars,
the god of war, sleeps. The bridal
couple would have been
likened flatteringly to these
Roman
two
gods, and thus linked
to their beauty
and
strength,
respectively, as well as to
the
greatness of ancient Rome.
Sandro Mars,
For around
Rome was
a thousand years
shadow of
land, a
its
a waste-
former greatness. From ad
500 to 1400 the city which had been the heart of one of
great
became cows grazed in the orators had addressed a
elite citizenry.
Later visitors to the city
the most powerful empires the world had seen a place of desolation. Sheep and
Roman forum where wealthy and
looked in wonder at the ruins of once-great buildings, arches, and statues, and lamented the dereliction.
Naturally
many attempts were made
to resurrect
the glories of Rome. The Carolingian Renaissance
was
an early ninth-century example, but the most important of these rebirths of interest in Classical antiquity
is
the Renaissance, which began in the early 1400s in
Florence and spread throughout
Italy
during the
fif-
teenth century, and beyond Italy to the rest of Europe
medieval and Renaissance
in the following century. In Italy the Classical
world was almost tangible. Ruins of
Imperial greatness were visible not only in also elsewhere in the peninsula,
and
Rome
but
later inhabitants
looking at the remains of colossal buildings and statuary longed to recreate the beauties, learning, and
power of the
A
fallen empire.
Golden Age recreated 1430 the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini
In
wrote an elegiac lament on the ruins of ancient
which evokes the nostalgia he and for ancient .
.
.
Rome
Rome
his compatriots felt
as a lost Golden Age: "Not long ago
Antonio Lusco and
I
.
.
.
used to contemplate the
Military
reflected
wonder in our hearts as we
on the former greatness of the broken
ings and the vast ruins of the ancient
city,
the truly prodigious and astounding
fall
build-
and again on of
its
great
empire and the deplorable inconstancy of fortune."
them proclaim the emperor's
passionately
interested in the Classical world. In his series
desert places of the city with
prowess
Mantegna was
of nine paintings The
Triumphs of Caesar
this Italian
of
Rome," wept over the decline of "the Capitol
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
that
our
bought the
series in
became one
of his
possessions.
It
I
of England
1629 and
was among the
few fifteenth-century works
Rome
to be seen as a masterpiece
at the
beginning of
imperial greatness. This
shows
Julius Caesar's
its
one
triumphant spoils of
war. Long trumpets are blown victoriously
and banners below
it
most prized
Renaissance painter celebrated
entourage bearing the
These scholars of the ( HassicaJ world mourned the "ruin
name. King Charles
still
during the following century.
Andrea Mantegna, The Triumphs of Caesar: Vase Bearer
and Bearer of Bullion, c .1
Trophies
486-94.
and
Botticelli,
c.1
486.
Venus and
Meeting of minds The
Italian
executed of
one
painter Raphael
this fresco
Vatican,
on the wall
rooms
of the Papal
the
in
Rome. Centre stage he
places Plato
and
Aristotle,
two
of the founders of Western
philosophy, identified by the texts
they hold: Plato's Timaeus and Aristotle's Ethics.
imagined figures
Within
Classical
this
academy
great thinkers. Socrates, ticks off
on
his fingers
in
is
in
green,
the points
of a syllogism. Pythagoras, left,
are
from the pantheon of
with book and pen
in
on the hand,
the middle of a small group
of students Euclid,
and
on the
is
balanced by
right,
who bends
forward to demonstrate a geometric theorem Diogenes,
who renounced
all
worldly
goods, reclines on the steps,
and
Heraclitus, the legendary
pessimist,
is
pictured as
Michelangelo, the only figure in
contemporary
dress.
Raphael, The School of Athens,
1508-11
and saw
as a disaster greater
Almost no paintings from the Classical world survived;
than any other calamity which had befallen any other
the murals at Pompeii and Herculaneum were discov-
Virgil celebrated,"
Rome had
its fall
ruled the western world from before the
ered long after the Renaissance. Artists and patrons of
birth of Christ until its fall in the early fifth century ad.
the Renaissance were not able to look at examples of
city.
Rome had produced
Imperial warriors.
It
those by Catullus (c.84-c.54 bc) and Philostratus (third
Rome was
seen as a model of
virtue,
a city
life,
was necessary
law,
out,
to be learned of the
all
over Europe to discover,
and bring back Classical
on architecture, were
more
and history of the Classical world. Early
humanists sent scribes
copy
for
law, history,
edited, translated,
texts.
These
and Classical mythology,
and published for a
life in
clientele of
the Classical world. However, the religious
climate of the Middle Ages
was
hostile to
and images. Such texts furnished patrons with
many
the
means of replicating
lost Classical galleries.
Patrons
such as Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and his Isabella d'Este, artists to
sister
Duchess of Mantua, commissioned
reproduce paintings reported
in Classical texts.
texts,
scholars and humanists eager to study different aspects of
century ad), supplied not only stories of Classical
mythology but also actual descriptions of picture galleries
In order to recreate this lost grandeur of ancient it
in
administered an effec-
arts,
of morally upright, law-abiding citizens.
Rome
them
and commanded a military discipline
which had governed the known world. Moreover, Republican
Classical paintings; they could only read about
Classical texts, and some important works, such as
had fostered the
tive legal system,
great men, rulers, and
of these
Birthplace of the Renaissance This rebirth of the ideals of the Classical world
keenly century
felt
by the
Italy,
artists
who saw
cultures of Greece and
and thinkers of
was
fifteenth-
their age as having revived the
Rome.
In 1492 the philosopher
secular Classical texts. In the widening world of the
Ficino wrote: "This century, like a Golden Age, has
century the tales of Classical mythology,
restored to light the liberal arts, which were almost
fifteenth
which many Classical authors dealt with, opened up an exciting
new
their patrons
grammar, poetry, rhetoric, painting, sculpture,
architecture, music, the ancient singing of songs to the
embraced with enthusiasm.
Orphic
In the visual arts patrons
and painters looked to
the Classical texts to supply information on the sort of paintings the
extinct:
range of subject matter which artists and
Romans had owned and
appreciated.
lyre,
and
all this in
Florence. Achieving what
had been honoured among the ancients, but almost forgotten
since,
the
age has joined wisdom with
eloquence, and prudence with the military
art. ..."
SEARCH FOR THE CLASSICAL PAST
75
The gods
Olympus
of
Wrath of the gods In this fresco,
for the Palazzo del Te in Italy,
The pantheon of the gods of ancient Greece was adopted by ancient
Roman
have
Rome and
so the Greek gods
counterparts with alternative names
paintings use the
painters
titles
of Renaissance
names of the Roman gods because time took their inspiration from
of the
Roman
Latin writers describing
deities.
From
the
eighteenth century onward a growing interest in
was reflected in artists' source mateand there was greater use of Greek deities. In the
shows the
Ens, sky,
she hopes
down
appeared
is
of thunder
represented
and
lightning,
human
in
form,
gods of antiquity crush the
brandishing a thunderbolt.
upstart giants. Presiding over the
Giulio
scene from on high
Thunderbolt, 1526-35.
is
an eagle.
Romano,
Jupiter with
goddess of discord,
will
be caused by the
to earth. Inscribed "to is
sought
keenly by Venus, Minerva, and Juno. Mercury, recognizable by
has taken
civilizations
god
which the
witnessing the trouble
the fairest," this prize
his
from both
the gods.
golden apple she has thrown
rial,
century deities
all
Beauty contest
Classical Greece
twentieth
in
of
the polymorphous Jupiter, also
Romano, painted a scene
pandemonium
god
Beneath an angry storm cloud
Mantua,
The Flemish painter Rubens
in
but similar characteristics. The
of Jupiter,
the building's architect,
Giulio
of
symbolizing the regal aspect
which he executed
winged helmet and wand,
them
be judged by
to
Mount
Paris in a
Ida to
beauty
contest to decide the winner of
in paintings.
the apple. Minerva
is
identifiable
by her owl, helmet, and shield;
Symbolic qualities Each
Juno by her peacock. Venus,
deity is identified
Christian saints, attribute.
By
is
by a symbol, and,
like the
recognizable by his or her particular
far the
the prize. She has bribed Paris
deity
is beautiful
woman
Helen of
Troy,
of the importance of her sphere of influence and the
events
opportunity she offered artists to depict an idealized
Peter Paul Rubens, The
is
identified in various ways:
golden apple she wins by,
among many
Paris;
in the
others,
by kissing
turtle
Allegory with Venus
by the
beauty competition painted
Rubens
in
The Judgement of
is
Roman god
Rubens shown
ically
sexually
charged
in
that
the
austere
embodies contrasts with her physical
Judgement of Paris, 1632-5.
chastity
Juno, wife of Jupiter - the couple were
Hera and Zeus by the Greeks presence of a peacock; the
she
desirability.
known
as
is identifiable
by the
many eyes seen on
its tail
watch on her errant husband. Greek Athene or Roman Minerva, goddess of wisdom, protectress of arts and
of love, Eros to the Greeks,
He
is
often
as an infant with his mother, Venus, as in the
painting by
and from these
spring the Trojan War.
woman. However, she is more psychologcomplex than Venus, and her image is often more
nubile naked
(see page 99); or by the
recognizable by his quiver of love darts.
shown
the world,
once belonged to Argus, who was used by Juno to keep
attendance of the Three Graces or Cupid. Cupid, the
will
in
An
doves, as in Bronzino's
and Cupid
Artemis or Diana, goddess of chastity, hunting
and the moon, provides another opportunity to paint a
with the love of the most
most frequently depicted
Aphrodite or Venus, goddess of love and beauty, because
female nude. She
in
the centre, steps forward to claim
here, but
can also appear as
an adolescent youth. Whichever guise he
is
almost always portrayed as naked and winged
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
in,
he
is
crafts,
and presider over peace,
owl, a symbol of wisdom.
as springing fully
wearing spear,
full
is
accompanied by an
The Greeks described Athene
grown from the head of Zeus and
armour: she
is
represented with helmet,
and a shield bearing Medusa's head - a reference
to the shield she gave to the gorgon-slaying Perseus. In
A
contemplative Bacchus
The Roman god Bacchus (known by the Greeks as Dionysus)
god
is
the
of wine. His followers, the
Bacchantes, hunt for food at night and celebrate noisily with
meat, wine, and music; the adjective "bacchanalian"
describes frenzied, drunken revelry. This artist
work by the
Caravaggio
is
Italian
unusual
in
depicting Bacchus as a lone and
contemplative figure
who
stares
thoughtfully at the viewer.
Caravaggio, Bacchus,
c
1
589.
Sophistication amid nature
moon,
Diana, goddess of the
hunting, and chastity,
is
identifiable by the crescent
moon
on her headdress, the quiver of arrows on the
left,
and the bow
and dead game on the she
is
right.
As
naked, Boucher could not
indicate her divinity, as nobility,
he would
by the use of costly dress.
Instead he includes pearls
hands and
hair,
and
a
in
on which she
silken fabrics
her
swath of sits
This sophistication contrasts with
the natural setting chosen by the French Rococo painter.
Francois Boucher, Diana after her Bath, 1742.
allegorical
works Minerva presides over peace, knowl-
edge, and the arts (see page 102, Rubens,
War and Peace
and Spranger, Minerva Victorious over Ignorance.)
God
hunt animals and drink, dance, and sing to excess (see
of the sea
Neptune, god of the sea, known as Poseidon by the Greeks,
deities,
Zeus/Jupiter
is
frequently
figure bearing a trident. In this late
nineteenth-century painting,
him and
the
British artist
by the thunderbolt he wields. He can transform himself
famous
Bacchus and Ariadne).
Walter Crane,
for his illustrations in
and objects (see pages 78-9). Aries or traditional
Mars, god of war, in
is
readily identified as a warrior, clad
armour and bearing arms. Hermes or Mercury, the
messenger god,
is
also the
god of eloquence, and the
love and war, food and drink,
conductor of dead souls to Hades. He
is
recognized by
image of the god of
travel.
As
alle-
with which they are traditionally linked, such as love,
From
war, and peace. also used
and beard, bearing
cruel, or
his trident in
war and
life:
gorical figures they symbolize the abstract qualities
the sea, with flowing white hair
his
gods and goddesses of the
Classical world represent fundamental elements of
children's books, offers this
into other beings
the
painting,
bearded
depicted as an omnipotent power, identifiable by the eagle that symbolizes and often accompanies
80. Titian,
is
In usually represented as a
Of the male
page
them
the Renaissance
onward painters
to give a respectable gloss to erotic,
even comic subject matter.
outstretched right hand to
command
the waves over which
Continuing inspiration
he holds dominion. He depicts
his
winged helmet and winged sandals, and bears a
caduceus, a winged
around
it.
He
prosperity, trade
is
wand with two
also
associated
and commerce, and
fertility
is
and frenzied, ecstatic
Neptune's rearing horses, their
the emotions, fears, and concerns of the communities
white manes forming billowing
with which these deities were associated. Indeed, in
the protector of
is
prosperity.
god of wine and also of revelry.
Classical antiquity expressed
serpents twined
works depicting war, peace, or
Dionysus or Bacchus
the waves imaginatively, as
with peace and
merchants. Mars and Mercury alike often appear in allegorical
The myths of the gods of
He may be
recog-
crests
The undulating
line
of the
horses suggests the shape of a
wave
that
is
about to break on
contrast to the
God
of Christianity, they are like
humans, only more extravagantly
so.
the shore.
Walter Crane, The Horses of
become embroiled
Neptune, 1892
ued
in
human dramas. They have
to provide inspiration
painters of the twentieth century and
or loins and by his chariot, which
in
He
is
accompanied by
Silenus, a
fat,
led
by leopards.
often naked, old
drunk, and also by his followers, the Bacchantes,
who
popular culture -
books - and
in
contin-
and imagery, not only for
nized by the vine leaves that he wears around his head is
Embodying the
most extreme passions of humankind, they often
beyond but also
in films, advertising,
and comic
a wide variety of other spheres, such as
the space missions
named
after Apollo, the
sun god.
THE GODS OF OLYMPUS
The
loves of Jupiter
Jupiter, as the Romans named the Greek Zeus, king and ruler of the gods of Mount Olympus, is the cosmic seducer. In his Metamoi'phoses the
Roman
many loves. Roman myths arid legends, with its inspired many artists and writers from the poet Ovid writes of Jupiter's
From his vantage point in the skies the omnipotent Jupiter spied out the most desirable of female mortals and, exemplifying Ovid's
theme of transformation, seduced them by adopting a
variety of
Renaissance onward. For centuries art patrons were familiar with
He could appear in both male and female human form, take on the appearance of an animal or a bird, and even become a natural phenomenon such as a cloud or a shower of rain. The recipient of his
0\id's tales of Jupiter's infidelity. Not only did they recognize the key
attentions
moment being depicted in any painting inspired by one of his stories but they also knew the frequently unfortunate sequence of events in
each of his conquests becomes pregnant, usually with disastrous
This compilation of Greek and
theme of perpetual change,
which
that scene played a part -
of
that
added piquancy to
is
never aware of his true identity as the god of all gods, and
results. Jupiter's exploits
allowed
artists the
opportunity and licence
to depict scenes of sexual dalliance that ranged
from the playful to the
overtly erotic and even brutal.
their viewing.
God
knowledge
disguises.
many forms
Willing participation
Sensuality Taking the the form of a
The seduction of Leda by
here identified by the eagle
handsome white
Jupiter disguised as a
and thunderbolt, turned
Jupiter enticed Europa, a
is
himself into a sea monster.
princess of Tyre,
of Jupiter's conquests
The onlooker seen
the shallows and then into
To seduce Olympia,
Jupiter,
in profile
bull,
first
into
one
swan
the most often painted
- by
Raphael, Leonardo da
and Michelangelo
mirrors the action of the
deeper water. This
viewer, lending a voyeuristic
of Titian's seven great
the sixteenth century and
mythologies, which he
later
called poesie, painted for
Boucher, Gericault,
dimension to
work.
this
Other scenes of seduction
accompany
this fresco in
the Hall of Psyche at the Palazzo del Te
the
in
Mantua,
to which Giuho
city
Romano
fled to
escape the
scandal caused by a series of erotic in
works he made
Rome. The
Mantua most
are
frescos in
some
of the
sexually explicit
scenes of the Renaissance.
Giulio
Romano, Olympia
Seduced by Jupiter, 1528.
King Philip
II
of
is
Spam. The
vigour and sensuality of this painting
may be
interpreted as depicting either the terror
of rape
or,
and fear
as suggested by
Vinci,
by Poussin, Rubens,
Cezanne, Delvaux, and Dali.
the
The swan depicted by
Italian artist
combines
Correggio
a sexual urgency
with a softness that echoes that of Leda's bare flesh.
the attendant cupids, a
Leda's compliance suggests
rather alarming prelude to
a languid lack of intensity,
a joyous union.
and the work's tenderness,
Titian, The
Rape of
Europa, 1559-62
delicacy,
and gaiety
anticipate the
Rococo
style
of the eighteenth century.
Correggio, Leda and the
Swan, 1534.
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
in
Golden
rain
Danae was held
in
a tower
by her father, Acnsius,
who hoped
King of Argos,
to disprove the prophecy that the son of his
daughter would bring
about
death Seeing
his
the captive from above, Jupiter transformed himself into a
shower of gold and
rained
down upon
her
Danae conceived and gave
who
birth to Perseus,
later
unwittingly killed Acnsius
when throwing Titian,
the
a discus
Danae Receiving
Shower of Gold,
before 1553.
paw. Correggio's concept Is
both humorous and
erotic,
but the Intensity
of the
moment
depicted
and the suggestion that lo
is
alone
made
byword in
in
her pleasure
the painting a for
pornography
the eighteenth century.
Correggio, Jupiter and
lo,
c.1530.
Comic eroticism The
flying figure in the
pink robe
is
Jupiter,
identifiable by his symbols,
The
immortality. artist
Italian
Tintoretto paints
insidious than
a scene at once comic
of Jupiter's
and
disguises are those
erotic in
which Juno
registers
Pastoral pursuit
More
any
this
both surprise at
unexpected attempt
at seduction
non-human where
by the chaste
goddess and the humble
the eagle and the
awakens and pushes away
he appears as a friend or
handmaiden's recognition
scorpion-like thunderbolt
the suckling child, her milk
loved one of his prey.
of the impossibility of
In his
arms
is
the infant
Hercules, his son
spilling into
where
its
Disguised as Diana, the
rejecting the
forms the
goddess of hunting, he
advances of an immortal.
conceived by Alcmena,
Milky Way. This painting
seduces her handmaiden,
whom
was probably one
the
Jupiter
seduced by
of
nymph
Calhsto.
four such works given
this painting
husband. Jupiter steals
to Emperor Rudolf
exemplifies the French
away
to drink
at the breast of his wife,'
Bohemia by the
II
of
artist.
Jacopo Tintoretto, Origin
the goddess Juno, so that
of the Milky Way,
the child might gain
c.
1575-80.
Rococo
style,
Francois Boucher, Jupiter
and
In
disguising himself as her
Hercules
amorous
the heavens,
arc
Callisto,
1
769.
Boucher
creating an
elegant and light-hearted pastoral erotic
idyll
charm.
that has an Callisto's
face
THE LOVES OF JUPITER
79
The
painter's bible
Virtue saved
A
During
frequently painted subject
the Renaissance an appreciation of the
in
literature Western
art
is
Fleeing the
god
lascivious attentions of the
Apollo, she prayed to her father, river
Rome
led
the story of the
nymph Daphne.
the
Greece and
of Classical
god Peneus,
to be
painters to search
it
turning her into a laurel tree as
Apollo touched
her.
Daphne
first
The moment depicted
sight
work by the
was the work of Chid, who wrote first
in Latin
during the
most
century ad, that furnished the subjects for
paintings based on Classical mythology.
of Ovid's narratives
made
his texts
both during his lifetime and,
The
Ariadne
Venetian Renaissance painter
is
the
when Bacchus and
instant
love.
fall in
Bacchus
it
Titian depicts a dramatic
rescued from her tormentor.
Peneus answered her prayer by
for subject matter. In particular
Love at
This vibrant
liveliness
immensely popular
much later, throughout the
scene
proposes marriage and the
in
the story of Ariadne, abandoned
crown of
by her lover Theseus on the
as a
island of Naxos. his
he gives
his bride
can be seen
gift
in
the heavens, as the constellation
As she waves to
Corona
departing ship she turns to
Borealis.
Titian, Bacchus
see Bacchus, god of wine, and his followers,
stars
wedding
and Ariadne,
1522-3.
the Bacchantes.
Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
symbolizes a virtuous female
who
chooses, to the point of
annihilation of her
human
not to relinquish her
Stories of passion and tragedy
is
from
identified with Lucifer, the rebel angel excluded
form,
Ovid's Metamorphoses,
a collection of myths
and
heaven. Another moralized Ovid appeared in France in
virginity.
Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo
legends in the form of a long poem, was particularly
1340; written
Apollo and Daphne, 1470s.
challenging to the teachings of the medieval Church.
this
While
telling of
salvation,
it
passion and tragedy, punishment and
espouses no clear morality. From the
eleventh century Christian scholars had attempted to read Ovid's
work
these attempts
is
The most celebrated of
as allegory.
an early fourteenth-century poem,
"Ovid Moralise," by an anonymous Frenchman, in
which characters from the Metamorphoses are fied with characters from the
way Actaeon, devoured by
New
his hounds,
and Phaeton, who
becomes a
when
symbol of
Christ,
Ins chariot
was broken by one of Jupiter's thunderbolts.
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
fell
to earth
in Latin
prose form,
inspiration for artists.
Ovid was introduced into English literature by Chaucer
same
in the
many
was Shakespeare's
century, and
author, supplying
of his
favourite
him with the source material
plays.
the
In
sixteenth
century
Metamorphoses was drawn on so frequently by that
came
it
to be
known
Classical sources it
was
for
the
artists
as "the painter's bible."
But although Ovid's
identi-
Testament. In this
by Pierre Bersuire
was an important source of
poem was
chief
among
mined by patrons and painters
certainly not the only one.
the
alike.
The multiple use of
Classical texts to provide subject matter for paintings
during the Renaissance
is
demonstrated by the works
commissioned
the
in
early years
century by Alfonso d'Este,
The
of the sixteenth
Duke of Ferrara
for his
artists
repertoire of Classical authors exploited by
and patrons grew as time passed.
In Britain in
Feast of the
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the education
Gods, which was based on a legend in Ovid's poetic-
of gentlemen consisted exclusively of the Classics:
These included
private gallery.
Bellini's
Greek and Latin language,
calendar the Hie Fasti. Bellini originally deviated from the text and the picture had to be altered to
more
faithful.
Also
in
the
room were
Titian's
make
literature,
and
history. Texts
of antiquity provided narratives and poetry and also the
it
history of the Classical world,
Worship of
which offered examples
Yen us and Bacchanal of the Andrians, which were
of government such as the democracy of ancient
based not on mythological texts but on
Athens, the austerity of the Spartans, and the philoso-
tions of Classical
literary descrip-
paintings by Philostratus.
phy of the ancient Greeks. Roman texts provided,
whose
in
Idealized beauty
Imagines claimed to describe a collection of pictures third-century Naples. For the scene of
Ariadne. Titian
was
lost picture, this
erence to a
man
in
Bacchus and
directed to another description of a
time by Catullus, which included a
ref-
"girded with writhing snakes." depicted
An excuse
to portray an idealized
impression of male and female beauty, this
work by the Venetian
painter Veronese
shows a scene
in the
foreground. Other elements
came from
glory
became
men who
ait
inspiration for generations of
young
derived from them the Classical attachment
to nationhood.
from Ovid's Metamorphoses The story tells of the passion of
by Titian
addition to narratives, histories in which patriotism and
Venus
for the beautiful mortal Adonis.
Classical revival
sources such as Ovid's Ars Amatoria. Titian did not
Venus, identified by her infant
Despite the use of other Classical texts. Ovid retained
read Latin and so presumably the relevant passages
son, the naked, quiver-bearing
his
were chosen and translated
for
him by an
Cupid, seems to upbraid him for
adviser.
playing with
In contrast, Titian's later mythological paintings for Philip
II
of Spain were taken exclusively from Ovid's
Metamorphoses (see page letters Titian
Rape of Europa).
in
the founder of psychoanalysis.
Sigmund Freud, became
one of the hounds,
which she fears lover asleep
pre-eminence and has continued to be mined by a
wide variety of painters. Early
will
on her
awaken her lap.
The
the twentieth century
interested in Classical literature and mythology,
In
standing and recumbent hounds
he found descriptions of actions that shed
described these as poesie, implying their
present an intimation of the fate
human
origins in poetry
and
their
78.
comparable aims.
of Adonis, who, while hunting,
Titian's
behaviour.
where
light
By the 1920s these sources were
viding material for
some
on
pro-
of the greatest painters of the
meets a gory death from a wild
poesie exerted an exceptional influence on later interpreters of Ovid, from his younger contemporary Veronese to artists
such as Rubens
in the
seventeenth century.
boar which he disturbs
century. in its lair.
Picasso, for example, produced a
work
that included
body of
Nessus and Deianira,
Paolo Veronese, Venus and
Classicizing
Adonis, c.1580.
a painting directly inspired by his reading of Ovid.
earth.
Fatal pride
Ignoring the words of his father
Daedalus,
who had made him
pair of wings, Icarus flew
near the sun. The
a
too
wax which
The sorrowing sea nymphs
singing their lament offer an
image of
pale, delicate
female
flesh that contrasts with the
darker, masculine
body of
Icarus.
sealed the feathers melted, the
Herbert Draper, The Lament
wings loosened, and he
for Icarus, 1898.
fell
to
THE PAINTER'S BIBLE
Demigods and heroes Both demigods and mortal adventurers are the heroes of Classical mythology. Perseus and Hercules, half divine and half human,
were the sons of Jupiter by mortal
women and so were often aided by
the gods. Their feats of courage exemplify \irtue rewarded. The Greek
king Odysseus. Ulysses to the Romans,
human hero:
his later
life,
was
as recounted in Homer's Odyssey,
acterized by shrewdness and perseverance.
examples of
men who,
less noble but a
was
A
As
fates.
political
to leave the
was hated by Juno
and unwittingly
child,
who was brought up by the rulers of Corinth the prophecy. Revelation of the truth led
Jocasta to commit suicide and Oedipus to blind himself. Sigmund
Freud used his name to describe a male
Deadly
Perseus and
he strangled them
in his
cradle. Catherine the Great
feast of
Andromeda
bride's suitor,
the infant demigod, but
infant's desire for his mother.
rivalry
The wedding
was
kill
interrupted by the
whose
Phmeas,
claim to her
led to a fight.
The
painter Giordano
hand
Italian
makes
diagonal rays of light
of Russia commissioned
resemble stage lighting.
Reynolds to paint
A
this
political allegory. Hercules,
young and
strong, stands
for Russia, the serpents for Russia's
backward-looking
nature, which
it
must
destroy to enter the
arena of European
new
politics.
asked a shepherd
fulfilled
shepherd saved the
her husband, Jupiter. She
two serpents to
the fates for actions
newborn boy to perish, to disprove the prophecy that his son would kill him and commit incest with Laius 's wife Jocasta. The
as the illegitimate son of
sent
Good Shepherd.
man punished by
his control. His father Laius, King of Thebes,
message
Hercules, Herakles to the
Greeks,
Oedipus epitomizes the
char-
unable to escape their destiny, are destroyed
suffering mortals they
Christians to portray Christ as the
beyond
Oipheus and Oedipus are
for the wife he lost. Classical
sculptures of Oipheus carrying a sheep were adopted by the early
more
became attractive figures from the Romantic period onward. Orpheus was both supernaturally gifted and very human: he competed with the gods in music, but by the
was consumed with human sadness
curtain
is
drawn back
(top right) as Perseus
produces
his secret
weapon:
the head of the snakehaired gorgon Medusa,
whose glance
who
turns
all
look at her into stone.
Luca Giordano, Perseus
and
Joshua Reynolds, The
Turning Phineas
Infant Hercules Strangling
Followers to Stone, early
the Serpents, 1786-8
1680s.
his
Conquering hero The Dutch Mannerist painter Goltzius
shows
Hercules with his lion skin
and
club, posing
triumphantly after killing
the fire-spitting
giant Cacus.
The
birth
of Hercules' children
provoked
his jealous
step-mother, Juno (Hera to the Greeks), to drive
him into a in
fit
of
madness
which he murdered
the children and his wife. After this dreadful deed, as a
penance Hercules
was ordered
to perform
twelve tasks of great difficulty.
These, the
Labours of Hercules, provided another subject
popular with painters.
Hendrik Goltzius Hercules
1613
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
and Cacus,
Song of the Ulysses Ithaca in
Sirens
was the King
who
the Trojan
War
of
Greeks
led the
His
protracted journey
home
included such episodes as
an encounter with
the one-eyed Cyclops,
the perils of Scylla and Charybdis, and the island of the lotus-eaters, from
which he rescued
his
men
The winged Sirens are mythical figures
songs
whose
fatally lure
all
who
pass their island. Ulysses
protected his crew from their
deadly charms by
blocking their ears with
Death of a musician
wax, but, wishing to hear
Orpheus
the Sirens' song, tied
The
himself to the ship's mast.
attracted the
John William
Moreau and other
Waterhouse, Ulysses and
Symbolist painters of the
the Sirens. 1891
story of
Frenchman
nineteenth century.
late
Taught to play the
lyre
by
Orpheus entranced
Apollo,
gods, men, and animals. After the death of his wife,
begged the
Eurydice, he
god of the underworld
for
permission to rescue her.
was granted
His request
on condition that he neither speak nor look at Eurydice, but
on the long
journey back to earth he
turned to her and she was to him for ever. Later,
lost in
was
Thrace, he
apart by
women
torn a
in
bacchanalian frenzy.
Gustave Moreau, The Maiden of Thrace Carrying the
Head of Orpheus,
1865.
Riddle of the Sphinx
The French painter Ingres takes a central incident
the
life
in
of Oedipus, the
solving of the riddle of the
"What animal
Sphinx:
relinquish the throne
Heroic voyager In this
Moreau
painting
on condition that Jason
depicts the Greek hero
return with the
morning, on two at noon,
Jason as an androgynous
Fleece.
and on
figure.
walks on four feet
all
three
evening?"
All
to answer
it
from a
cliff.
all
his
life,
feet,
the
were hurled
who
crawls
fours at the start of
then walks on two
and needs the help of
At
this
end of
his
the Sphinx
Behind him stands
Medea, who
love
fell in
with him, became wife,
Oedipus
a cane at the life."
the
those unable
"Man,
replied:
on
in
in
his
and helped him win
the legendary Golden Fleece by giving
him a
sleeping charm for the
it.
seen beneath Jason's feet.
820
and the
fifty
it
with
his
Argonauts,
crew
who
numbered among them the Greek heroes Orpheus
and Hercules.
Gustave Moreau, Jason
and Medea, 1865.
The
The son of King Aeson of
Ingres, Oedipus
of
Golden
sail in
vanquished dragon can be
herself to her death.
Sphinx, c.1
search of
set
dragon that kept constant
watch over
Jean-Auguste-Dominique
threw
He
Thessaly, Jason
was
dispossessed by his uncle Pelias,
who
promised to
DEMIGODS AND HEROES
The uses The
myth
of
spread of Classical
much
literature,
concerned with myth, from northern countries of Europe from
new
were dramatic
stories,
it
around the end of the
fifteenth century provided artists
a wide variety of
of
Italy to other
subjects.
as a
show
Room
of erudition. The decorative
scheme
in the
of the Months, derived from a compilation by
and their patrons with
scholars,
Many
suggestion of secret meaning that only the initiated
of these works
and these offered an exciting
alternative to the religious
decorate the Palazzo Schifanoia with frescoes intended
combines Classical myths,
would be able
and a
to understand.
As Marie de Medici did
themes that had predomi-
astrology,
later in the cycle of paint-
nated in painting during the preceding centuries. The
ings that she
specific episodes that artists depicted reflected the
102-3), the d'Estes
taste of either themselves or their patrons.
painted in a cycle of scenes in which the gods of antiquity
Esoteric images Classical
complex
mythology also offered the possibility of allegorical interpretation
and patrons com-
missioned scholars to devise arcane narratives for this
purpose. The integration of myth with personal
allegory
was used
court at Ferrara,
in the fifteenth Italy.
pursued an interest
Under Borso d'Este the court
Mannerist horror story of the
Cadmus, the
artist
horrendous scene followers,
who
which
have gone
his
a sacrifice to the gods, are
his
man
the trapped
is
of the
city,
and
with the symbolic and its
complex
astrological
of great importance in interpreting
its
scheme. The central horizontal decorative band links the upper and low er levels thematically. r
It
contains the
sign of the Zodiac for the relevant month, flanked and
crowned by the three
figures
who each govern ten days may well have
of that month. The themes of the cycle
been understood by the
courtiers, but quite possibly not
in
vain
to resist the dragon. Cornell's
serves to accentuate our sense of his helpless
agony as
his
face
guards the fountain. Within a
revenge by
the dragon.
triangular composition the artist
Cornelis van Haarlem, Two
its
killing
Followers of
by a Dragon,
is
Cadmus Devoured 1
588
viewer while holding Vulcan,
Eroticism
Bartholomew Spranger made a
god of
series of paintings for the
nymph whose
drawn from
Emperor Rudolf
II,
stories in Ovid's
Metamorphoses.
The
stories selected are
erotic this
and one of them
work,
in
all
highly
inspired
which the enticing
Maia thrusts her body toward the
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
The cycle combines
role.
in Ferrara
back show,
struggles
later exacts
claws into one man, whose
life
programme
played a life
their circle
body traps another. As
the muscles of
gnawed. Cadmus
destroyed by the dragon that
depicts the creature sinking
to
imaginary
had themselves and
contortion of the man's right arm
in
search of water so that he might
make
and arcane, and
was commissioned
stricken
Greek hero
chooses the in
century by the d'Este-
in the esoteric
the painter Francesco del Cossa
From the
also
contemporary
commissioned from Rubens (see pages
with Zeus
affair
Hermes.
led to the birth of early
Maia was a
fire, in thrall.
In
Roman legend she was
very a
goddess and gave her name to the
month
of May.
Bartholomeus Spranger Vulcan
and Maia,
c.
1
585.
A
calendar
pictorial
Francesco del Cossa was probably the leading master painters d'Este,
Duke
of Ferrara, to create
the elaborate frescoes as The
group of
a
in
commissioned by Borso
Months
known
for the Palazzo
Schifanoia The
work was
carried
out between 1458 and 1478
Cossa alone painted March,
April,
and May, which decorate part of the
Room
The upper
of the Months.
level of
the fresco
month
depicting the
of
March
shows the Triumph
of Minerva.
Although the work
is
it
is
possible to
damaged,
make out
her
and
attributes of sword, book,
owl. Her chariot
is
drawn by two
unicorns, a mythical animal held
dear by the d'Este family. left
On
the
of the chariot a gathering of
scholars read refer to
and debate, these
Minerva as goddess of
wisdom. The
ladies
on the
right
are working at a loom; they refer
to Minerva as patron of weaving.
The lower
tier
shows
Aries
the Ram, the Zodiac sign that includes the last third of March,
and the deans
who
each watch
over ten days of the month.
Francesco del Cossa, The
Month of March, c.1469
fully
by the
artists
who
painted them. Other themes in
the cycle illustrate the relationship of Ferrara to
its
sur-
rounding countryside, almost as a charmed city within
show
a garden, and
combined with an Rudolf
II,
the medieval notion of chivalry
Roman Emperor from
and
1576,
creator of a great court at Prague, interested himself
and sciences. The
effect of his rule
allegorically in a painting
by Bartholomeus
greatly in the arts
was shown Spranger.
The
artist's
horrify.
The painting does not take as
work Minerva Victorious over
its
central
who later kills the
the heroic valour of Cadmus,
Instead this scene
interest in Classical antiquity.
Holy
Tao work designed expressly to
the Dutch Mannerist Cornells van Haarlem in
Followers of Cadmus, a
becomes a background
the depiction of grim carnage
fills
theme
dragon.
detail,
while
the foreground of the
canvas. Clearly this image answered a taste for horror, for
was widely
it
distributed as a print in the 1590s.
The story of the
flaying of Marsyas, painted
several artists, including Titian,
by
Domenichino, and
Ignorance (see page 102) shows the flourishing of
Ribera,
learning under the aegis of Rudolf. Like the d'Estes
and
punished. The satyr Marsyas challenges the god of
of the Renaissance princes and scholars, Rudolf
music, Apollo, to a contest in the playing of pipes.
many
was a keen student of astronomy and was
also a patron
is
a chilling tale of inhuman cruelly* and pride
Apollo wins, and as victor chooses his prize: the flaying
of several well-known astronomers. His commissioning
of Marsyas. Ovid's description
of Spranger to create a fresco cycle that depicted a
cries the skin
series of narratives selected
shows
from the Roman poet Ovid
his interest in Classical literature.
trates his taste for the highly
characterizes
the
work of
It
also
illus-
charged eroticism that
the
Flemish Mannerist
body:
it
was
was
all
is horrific: "in
spite of his
torn off the whole surface of his
one
raw*
wound. Blood flowed every-
where, his nerves were exposed, unprotected, his veins pulsed with no skin to cover them.
It
was
possible to
count his throbbing organs, and the chambers of the
painters of the late sixteenth century.
lungs, clearly visible within the breast."
Depicting cruelty
was a subject from Ovid painted by the Flemish artist Rubens for the Royal
The story of Saturn devouring also
As well as providing themes
that offered opportunities
memorably
disturbing.
his children
is
It
for titillation or the display of learning, the Ovidian
Hunting Lodge near Madrid, and inspired Goya to
world presented
produce, around 1820, a private, non-commissioned
violence.
artists
with scenes of cruelty and
The story of Cadmus, recounted
in Ovid's
Metamorphoses, was seldom painted, but was used by
painting of the
same subject
ical allegory referring to
that
may be
read as a
polit-
recent events in Spain.
THE USES OF MYTH
Mythical beasts and monsters All
mythologies
tell
of beasts and monsters and most such
creatures are a composite of real beings, including humans. The
best-known mythical beast
is
ridden by Perseus, lion's
of the horse
more
is
who
slew the Chimaera, a monster which pos-
head, a goat's body, and a seipent's
is
the unicorn, which, although
it
tail.
Another variant
dates back to antiquity,
The unicom was
often associated with medieval heraldry.
thought to possess medicinal or magical properties that derived from its
single twisted horn.
horse,
which
A third variant is the centaur,
half
man and half
Classical mythology often symbolizes the baser
in
passions, such as lust and drunkenness. Also part horse
hippogriff.
the winged horse Pegasus, which sprang
from the blood of the snake-haired gorgon Medusa. Pegasus was sessed a
human
which has a horse's body and a
Like the centaur, the satyr In youth the satyr, or farm,
is
is
its
body
is
that of a lion
god, Ra. Although the Sphinx appears in Classical texts,
inscrutable
femme
fatale.
This exotic
era,
Symbolist painters attracted to the unattainable and perverse female.
The Minotaur,
killed
by Theseus, has a man's body and a
In this
bull's
head.
foiled
work by the
painter
Italian
Guido Reni the
centaur symbolizes man's
his
winged horse Pegasus, do
rarely
it
when it became an hybrid was popular with
occurred in painting before the Romantic
Leighton shows the heroic
hurrying to
and derives
The abductor
mounted on
lust.
Egyptian mythology from a combination of the pharaoh and the sim
British painter Frederic
Perseus
the
goat.
is
age symbolizes
Winged steed The
is
wings and head.
half man, but the lower half
playful, but in old
The Sphinx has a human head, but in
griffin's
lust.
Claiming to be the
ferryman of the gods, the
battle with
the Chimaera, which
centaur Nessus offered, for
threatens Andromeda.
a small fee, to carry the
As Pegasus,
lovely Deianira across the
his nobility
while her husband,
suggested by the lack of
river
saddle and bridle, leaps
Hercules,
over rock and water
dived into the water, but
against a dramatic sky, he
Nessus galloped off with
carries a grisly his origins:
A
like a
arms, threw
tried to rape her. Hercules,
by
length of silken
visible in
man and
took up
fabric enfolds
horse
slain
in his
her to the ground, and
the decapitated
head of Medusa, his rider.
Deianira
reminder of
swam. Hercules
the background, his
bow and
killed
him with a poisoned arrow.
heroic halo.
Frederic, Lord Leighton
Guido
Perseus on Pegasus
Abducted by the Centaur
Hastening to the Rescue
Nessus. 1620.
of Andromeda,
c.
Reni, Deianira
1895-6
Dream
gothic princess recreated
of chivalry
man and
nature. Having discovered
Half
one clothed and one
medieval times.
the satyr or faun
nude, suggest that
the dreamlike setting
deity attendant
combines the courtly world
Dionysus or Bacchus, god
throat, the satyr
of wine and associated
her tenderly. The scene's
painting love.
principal figures,
is
this
an allegory of
However, the aim of
the French Symbolist
artist
Gustave Moreau was to paint a mysterious
work
which the mythical unicorn and the elegant
MYTH AM) ALLEGORY
but the gentle side of his
Dual nature
the chivalric imagery of
The two
in
In fact,
of the High Middle
Ages
half goat,
was
a
on
a
young woman dead
from a
wound
in
her
mourns
echoed by
with the exoticism and
with wild orgies. Here the
poignancy
opulence of Byzantium.
Italian painter Piero di
the abandoned dogs.
is
Cosimo A
Satyr
Gustave Moreau, The
Cosimo portrays not the
Piero di
Unicorns, 1887-8.
customary lasciviousness
Mourning over a Nymph,
of the mythological satyr
c
1495.
Seductress
The sphinxes that adorn the tombs of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt are male,
but
in
the nineteenth
European
century, after
imperial incursions into Africa
a
in
spawned an
new
interest
exotic mythology,
the creature's head
became
that of a beautiful
woman. From
this
time the
female sphinx was most often portrayed as a
seductive
and
inscrutable
creature. Here the Belgian
Symbolist painter Fernand
Omnipotence
Khnopff paints an image of this feline seductress.
Picasso identified strongly
Her soft but dangerous
with the Minotaur and
body
lies
young
made
close to the
poet's
naked
a series of etchings
of himself as the creature,
chest,
which she encircles with
reclining with a beautiful
her forelegs while stroking
young woman.
his
In his
personal interpretation of
temple with her cheek.
the myth, Picasso shows the
Fernand Khnopff The Caress of the Sphinx,
Minotaur as all-powerful,
1896.
escaping the outstretched
hands
in
and carrying
a cave
he seems to
a horse that
have choked. With defiant
his
hand he draws
left
attention to the face of a
young
woman
floating
above a clenched
fist.
Pablo Picasso. Minotaur
and Dead Mare,
In
Knightly hero
dragon but blinding
the well-known legend
and paradoxically showing
of St George, the is
dragon
often seen as a symbol
it,
the creature the light of Christianity. In this
work
of the non-believer
by the
Artistic interpretations of
Uccello, this reading
Italian
on a leash held by the princess. This refers to a later part of
when
dragon was
painter is
the
the story
the captured
city
it
led
had
back to
terrorized.
winged Pegasus, and both
especially popular.
heroes rescued a naked
French
Valiant rescuer
Ruggiero, hero of Orlando
and chained maiden.
Furioso, Anosto's epic
Medieval themes were
poem
vogue
of 1532,
is
plausible. Furthermore,
Paolo Uccello, St George
half griffin.
the saint not
the
the dragon
and
variant of Perseus
depicted
the Dragon, c.1460.
a
hippognff, half horse and
show
is
936.
The mount ridden by
the story frequently killing
1
Ruggiero
on
is
a
in
Europe
in
The
artist Ingres
painted several versions in
the
of the subject.
Jean-Auguste-
nineteenth century and
Dominique Ingres
the heraldic quality of the
Ruggiero Rescuing
hippognff
made
this tale
Angelica. 1819
MYTHICAL BEASTS AND MONSTERS
Norse and Arthurian myth n the
late eighteenth
the Romantic
and early nineteenth centuries
movement
in literature
reappraisal of "primitive" humankind.
and
ait
painter Henry Fuseli,
brought a
whose
vivid imagination
made him
a leading figure of Romanticism, produced in Tiior
The concept of
Battering the Serpent ofMidgard in the Boat
ofHymir
the "noble savage" described by the French philosopher
the
Rousseau developed the idea that human nature was
Norse mythology. These myths did not simply provide
pure
until
Giant one of the
new
corrupted by the civilizing effects of society.
visual material but
earliest paintings derived
were also part of a wider
phenomenon: as hundreds of
Northern myths By extension the
and electorates coalesced primitive
Scandinavians, which had not been painted for three
were also seen as
centuries,
artists
ing.
attractively uncorrupted. In first
with
its
tales of
Grimm's Fairy
in the
tales
Norse and Teutonic gods. The Swiss
He
in
England.
depicts Thor, the Norse
god of
shows the death
wife of Siegfried, the hero of the
medieval Teutonic epic
giant Hymir recoils at the back of
Siegfried's assassins,
herself
left
is
the pale figure of the god Odin.
may
also be read as
which the humbly
clarity typical of
Middle Ages
front of the
in
the
in
the costumes
Romanesque arches
and zigzag moulding of the
aristocratic but less valiant Odin.
interior architecture
Henry
Julius Schnorr
Fuseli, Thor Battering the
ofHymir the
in
the Boat
Giant, c.1790.
artist,
the
Nazarenes, evokes the early
and
Serpent of Midgard
the
Knemhild
knight Hildebrand. The
with a
against darkness, represented by in
poem
was murdered by the
born but courageous Thor battles
the serpent,
work
of Knemhild,
the boat, and at the upper
in
may be
good myth, they
Nibelungenlied. Having killed
The
a boat attacking a serpent.
an allegory
all
Teutonic epic
thunder, perched on the edge of
MYTH AND ALLKGORY
But, like
Part of a fresco cycle, this
Switzerland
his career in
This painting
folkloric stories of small
not only reflect aspects of the society that produced
was born
made
and subsequently published These
were being published.
Norse valour
but
philolo-
seen as an idealization of a world that was dying as the
courageous heroes and courte-
Fuseli
Tales.
kingdoms, kings, queens, princes, and princesses
ous deeds. During the following century a keen interest developed
of
the Germanic lands recording the oral tra-
of storytelling
dition
from Classical sources of subject matter was to
96),
into the nation state
The brothers Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm,
gists, travelled
major deviation by
the legend of the third-century Gaelic bard Ossian (see
page
social
kingdoms,
Germany, a nostalgia developed for what was disappear-
myths of the Celts and
the late eighteenth century the
principalities,
from
von
Carolsfeld.
Kriemhild Being Killed by Hildebrand, 1849
Golden knight from a work by the
In this detail
Austrian painter Gustav Klimt,
the vertical figure of the knight in
burnished armour resembles a
stylized heraldic figure like
those
seen on medieval tombs The fairy-tale
the
image
enhanced by
is
artist's characteristic
gold
leaf,
use of
applied to create the
impression of a shower of gold
an enchanted land.
falling in
In
a letter to Karl Wittgenstein, the
owner
first
known
of the painting, also
as Life
and
A
Klimt referred to the
Battle,
work as
The Knight of Gold.
Gustav Klimt, The Knight (detail),
4
them but
The magician enchanted
Legend told
how
King Pellmore
brought to King Arthur's castle a fair
but
finally
later
love with
fell in
she tricked him and
imprisoned him under a
stone. Burne-Jones painted the
subject
the Nazarenes, they favoured non-Classical subjects,
such as Christian or medieval themes. One of their
by abandoned children. The German
number, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painted a series of
the fear
felt
many
people's nostalgia, coupled with a desire to establish a
watercolours based on events in the
national identity, resulted in a revival of interest in early
well as canvases inspired by the legend of King Arthur
Teutonic myth. The Nibelungenlied, a thirteenth-century
and the Knights of the Round Table. Although
times. This version
variation text that tells
how
Merlin
hawthorn bush.
It
The gods who played a major part
was
soothed to sleep by Nimue
in
a
reveals the
influence of the Renaissance
visits
most notable
to
This
Italy.
in his
date.
since the Middle Ages, these were small illustrations
Volsunga Saga
("children of the mist")
was
the world by Wagner's cycle of
Ring of the Nibelungs (1869-76). Schnorr von Carolsfeld was one of a group
four operas Tfie is
her elegant stance, and the
elaborate drapery folds. Merlin's
his eyes,
in the
in
books
or
illuminated
manuscripts;
until its
the
resurgence in the nineteenth century.
For the Pre-Raphaelite
artist
Edward Burne-
Julius
German
who worked
Rome
Jones the medieval era was an enchanted world of chivalry, courtly love,
and adventure, a world he sought
in the early
to capture in paintings such as Tfie Beguiling of Merlin.
nineteenth century as a quasi-religious confraternity
At Oxford University he and his friends founded a
who
society dedicated to Sir Galahad, Arthur's purest and
of
painters
in
called themselves the Nazarenes in emulation of
is
hands,
the followers of Christ. Later commissioned to decorate
rooms of the
royal palace in Munich, Schnorr
von
noblest knight, and resolved to
holy warfare" against their
own
make
a "crusade and
which they saw as
five
him appear as
Carolsfeld chose, in a gesture of Teutonic pride, to paint
cold, unromantic,
a fresco cycle containing scenes from the Nibelung
reading of the
myth, such as Kriemhilds Death.
such as Idylls of the King, and Malory's
spell of
after
Renaissance the Arthurian theme was rarely painted
and supine position, which make if
at that
time images drawn from Arthurian legend had existed
is
Nibelungenlied, this time in minor roles.
The legend of the Nibelungs
treatment of
complete subjugation
in the
made known throughout
the snake-like coils of Nimue's
suggested by
appear
of Dante, as
saw
paintings that the artist
during his
on the Icelandic Volsunga Saga of similar
life
a
epic that narrates the exploits of the hero Siegfried,
draws upon a medieval French
hair,
and
also deal with archetypal characters
emotions, such as the wicked stepmother or
damsel named Nimue. The
magician Merlin her,
common
1902.
drugged by the
the enchantress.
era,
and heartless toward the poor. Their
poems
of their contemporary Tennyson,
Edward Burne-Jones, The Beguiling of Merlin, 1872-7.
fifteenth-
century prose romance Le Morte d'Arthur led them to
The Pre-Raphaelites
worship the idea of the knight errant and his
In the nineteenth century medieval
among
spiritual
mythology was also
quest for the Holy Grail, the chalice used by Christ at
England, where, in 1848, a
the Last Supper. In a passage that encapsulates the
group of young painters formed the Pre-Raphaelite
Victorian idealization of the High Middle Ages, Burne-
Brotherhood. Revering the medieval world that had
Jones wrote of imagining "the abbey, and long proces-
flourished before the Italian painter Raphael, they took
sion of the faithful, banners of the cross, copes and
influential
artists in
their subject matter
from the Middle Ages and often
emulated the more primitive style of medieval
art.
Like
croziers,
gay knights and ladies by the river bank, hawk-
ing parties
and
all
the pageantry of the golden age."
NORSE AND ARTHURIAN MYTH
89
Women and myth Mysterious beauty Jupiter
the wreath of
gave Pandora a box
that she
was
told not to open.
Disobeying him, she released the
ills
With the reflowering,
during the Renaissance, of
interest in Classical
mythology came a profusion
of images of nudity. Classical gods were often identified
by
their nudity
and many of the mythological stories
amorous
exploits. Before the fourteenth century
told of
nudity in painting
was
rare and considered a shameful
Ages
subject. In the Middle
Adam and Eve
expelled
from the Garden of Eden were the most frequently
Echoes of the The
itself part
of the cause
of their shame.
One
of the
startling
innovations
in
the
paintings of the later fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
was Jane
the wife of the
artist's
Morris,
protege
William Morris. For Rossetti,
in
who
time to enclose only Hope. Her
was deeply
gaze does not reveal whether she
possessed an enigmatic beauty.
in
love with her, she
understands the significance of
Dante Gabriel
her action. She seems not to see
Pandora, 1869.
Rossetti,
Fall
depiction of a nubile
woman
young
with a snake coiled
around her
erotically
recalls Lilith's
connection with Adam, whose fall
from grace was caused by
Eve,
who was
a serpent. Far
herself
ensnared by
from threatening
stories for the snake,
says,
The
most
this painting
British painter Collier's
her,
painted nudes, their nakedness
her malevolently. The model for
all
that have since plagued
the earth, shutting the box
smoke emerging
from the box and curling about
is
entirely
artist
was
description of
under her control. inspired by Keats's
Lilith in his
"Lamia" as a serpent
images of female
flesh intended to delight
expression
Lilith's
poem
who
the eye. Such works included paintings of goddesses,
nymphs, and beautiful mortal women, inspired by mythology, but where no such story was shown, the
takes
nude was simply
titled
"Venus."
From
the Renaissance
on the shape of a beautiful
ompared with those of the previous centuries was the
woman,
a "palpitating snake
depiction of nudity and a concomitant celebration of the
of dazzling hue, vermilion-
body
spotted, golden, green
beautiful. Inspired
idealized nude, painters
by Classical sculptures of the
and patrons
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
alike
drew on these
John
Collier,
Lilith,
onward Venus appears .
and blue."
1887
either as part of an allegory in
which she represents her reflection divan.
in a
love, or
on her own, contemplating
mirror or reclining gracefully on a
Her appearance as an idealized
figure in art
is
a
Romantic wish to be over-
reflection of both changing fashions in female beauty
inscrutability appealed to the
within society and the taste of the individual
powered by a great or sublime emotion. The English
artist.
Diana, goddess of the hunt and chastity, offers a
Venus as an
subtler alternative to the depiction of
Romantic
portrayed
make her a
counterpoised by
Her
woman
(see page 89,
The
also focused on the decadent and mysterious aspects
sexually alluring figure are
frigidity.
alluring
the
in
nineteenth centuries. The athletic prowess and physical
appeal that
fatally
Beguiling of Merlin). The European Symbolist painters
and early
paintings of the late eighteenth
Burne-Jones painted many images of this destruc-
and
more
enticing nude, and images of her prefigure the
complex attractions of women
artist
tive
role as the eternally
woman. For example, the French artist Gustave Moreau, lost in dreams of Byzantium and the Middle
of
Ages, painted proud queens and unfathomable females
who
encapsulated this vision of
woman
as tainted.
He
chaste virgin creates greater psychological tension and
described this archetype as "an unthinking creature,
a more complex sexuality than
mad on mystery and
seen
is
Venus.
in
wisdom and protector of warriors, shown as sexually neutral; but there are
Minerva, goddess of traditionally
is
Minerva Victorious
exceptions, including Spranger's
the unknown, smitten with evil in
the form of perverse and diabolical seduction."
Decadence
over Ignorance (see page 102), in which her pneumatic
In the twentieth century artists
breasts protrude erotically from her armour.
satirist
George Grosz painted
decadent. Grosz
Femme From
fatale
women
century a vogue prevailed for painting the
mythology as femmes fatales Lilith,
who
Romantic period,
who
Mesopotamian myth
who
described as a nocturnal visitor in sexual
an era of which he raphy,
Homer's Odyssey, as a symbol
Weimar Republic of the
later wrote:
1920s,
"A wave of vice, pornog-
and prostitution enveloped the whole country."
from
not, however, a character
Classical mythology. In
men
ensnare men. The
of the decadence of the
enters Western art during the
first
is
of
as corrupt and
to produce several images of
Circe, the enchantress of
the Romantic era to the end of the nineteenth
seductive
was
such as the German
women
Lilith is
consorted with
dreams, and in the Jewish Talmud she
succubus
similarly represented as a
who seduces men
sleeping alone. She appears in Goethe's poetic
Faust (1808 and 1832) and
in the
is
poem "Adam,
drama Lilith
and Eve" by the nineteenth-century English poet Robert
name
Browning. Under the of a
poem by
is
the subject
the English Romantic poet John Keats
which she
(1820), in
of Lamia, she
a treacherous and beautiful
is
woman who transforms herself into a serpent. a
demon or a vampire
of the night, she
Feared as
described as
is
same time as Adam but seen as the first woman.
"the first Eve," created at the
before Eve, and as such
The
the wearing of In
is
esoteric Jewish text the Cabala
charms against
Lilith
recommends
before intercourse.
more recent times she has become notable
new
feminist literature as a
pated
woman and
in
archetype for the emanci-
a leading figure in contemporary
"goddess religion." In the nineteenth century, English poets
such as
Tennyson and Swinburne and the painter-poet Dante
made
Gabriel Rossetti
the image of the beautiful but
passionless and cruel Belle subject of their verse.
Base creatures In
Homer's epic
Dame Sans Merci a frequent
Woman's
exotic,
sphinx-like
interwar Germany, to satirize
poem
the Odyssey
venal
woman and
animal
man
as
the enchantress Circe lured
stereotypes of the period. Circe,
Odysseus (Ulysses) and
like a
to the island of
them
his
crew
Aeaea and turned
into swine.
by George Grosz,
Here she in
is
one of
used
his
prostitute in a Berlin bar,
kisses a swinish Bestial
war
profiteer.
man becomes
manner and
intention
pig-like in
when
most searing indictments of the
ensnared by a debased
corruption and decadence of
George Grosz,
Circe,
woman. 1925
WOMEN AND MYTH
91
Freud and mythology The
impact of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the
father of psychoanalysis,
Fatal self-absorption
Here
only
himself, Narcissus
spurned
the attentions of every young
woman
or man.
with his
own
reflection.
to tear himself from his
Paris Freud's idea of "free association"
Unable
and transformed by Breton and the
writers and painters and inspired a broad base of inter-
encouraged writers to
into the flower that
on the
plinth
is
named
right in
after
is
young
echoed by the bony
hand holding an egg from which a narcissus sprouts.
Salvador
Dali,
Narcissus,
might
in painting,
of the meanings con-
much
who
freely
also encouraged
where the hand was permitted
to
The meaning of myth
outlined the theory of
Many
condition.
Classical
myths
tell
of events that
arouse people's deepest fears and desires, such as
and
parricide, infanticide,
incest.
Freud analyzed these
narratives to find the bearing they had In particular he
examined the
chological "complexes." art in
He
on
stories
Narcissus, and Electra, and gave their
hilfllment
Dreams
roam
(1900) Freud
dreams as disguised wish-
and a manifestation of repressed sexual
desires and energy. His studies of hysteria and infantile
sex led him, in Totem and Taboo (1913), to propose the theory of what he called the Oedipus complex. This
real people.
described the infant male's sexual attraction toward his
of Oedipus,
mother and
names
to psy-
also investigated literature
an attempt to analyze the
artist's
subcon-
He
studied
scious as revealed in his or her work.
of his work,
medieval architecture juxtaposed with
right with a curtain,
is
trains, railway
power
Delvaux uses Classical mythology
lines,
The dreamlike environment
and sculpturesque, are
setting in
The same approach was
without the conscious intervention of the brain.
as his subject matter. His nudes.
often placed
arise.
cealed behind both words and images.
Leonardo's personality through his output, and the
Surreal juxtaposition
Classical
mind
express disconnected ideas and such associations as
we have become more aware
and
1937.
in
the unconscious
in life
his jealousy of his father. Interestingly, later
Freud called Anna, his daughter and close com-
panion, Antigone, after the daughter of Oedipus.
The German
Surrealist painter
Max
Ernst incor-
The
Metamorphosis of
Here, as
let
was taken up
Surrealists,
and again
the process
of transformation. The
man's form
work, so that his name has become a term to
describe hidden or unconscious motives. Since Freud
Freud believed that myths give insight into the human
own
him. Dali shows Narcissus alone
the foreground
life
of the twentieth century. His influence has affected
In Tfie Interpretation of love
fall in
image, he faded away, changing
in
but also had a profound influence on the cultural
response
In
Nemesis caused him to
on a
The founder of Surrealism, the French poet Andre Breton, travelled to Vienna in 1921 to see Freud. In
from
Metamorphoses. Interested
in
these contained evidence of maternal deprivation.
psychology, criminology, sociology, and anthropology,
est in his
Ovid's
accounts of his dreams, and concluded that
not only influenced the related fields of psychiatry,
the tale of the
Dali depicts
beautiful youth Narcissus
was immense. His work
artist's
in
which
an ambiguous Classical or
or overhead
this picture,
with
its
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
is
in
mixture of
industrial, ecclesiastical,
architecture,
cables.
and
edged on the
civic
which gives
a theatrical setting to Delvaux's
modern
interpretation of a well-
known myth. Paul Delvaux, Leda, 1948.
porated his understanding of Freud's ideas about infant sexuality, fear,
and the interpretation of dreams
into his
Sexual symbolism This
entranced Like a figure
work by de Chirico
resembles that painted by fellow Italian Uccello fifteenth century (see
powerful male with
his
the
in
page
lance,
by Night. In
this painting
body of the dead Christ
lies
on the
lap of his mother,
hints at a vulva.
the red drapery, with
its
is
folds that
also resemble female genitals.
is
depicted here as a modern,
Giorgio de Chirico, St George
naked young woman, seemingly
Killing
the Dragon, 1940
Dream landscape
he
inverted the traditional form of the Pieta, in which the
George,
his phallic
Enforcing the sexual imagery
is
seen through Freudian eyes. The
Pieta or Revolution
her
which he stabs into a
dragon that
87),
although the modern work
princess, rescued by St
in
dream, St George epitomizes the
As
if
set,
in
a surreal nocturnal stage
a naked Venus sleeps, arms
outstretched, on an ornate divan,
Mary.
on
The work parodies the Pieta
to
show
the live son
his father's lap. Ernst painted this personal rework-
ing of his
own
relationship with his father in the light of
Freud's writings on, in particular, the Oedipal theme.
Freud was revered by the Spanish Surrealist painter Salvador
Dali.
When
they met in
1938 in
while another
woman communes
with a skeleton. The town square that frames this scene on three sides
is
entirely Classical in
how he came
investigate analytically
to create that
architectural style. Moreover, the
picture," correctness of the Doric order of
the building on the
left
he admitted the next day to the Viennese
writer Stefan Zweig,
and of
who had
introduced the two men.
London, where the psychoanalyst had settled after
the frieze of the Ionic temple
escaping from the Nazi regime in his native Austria,
the background contrasts with
not the unconscious that
the apparently random action
conscious. While in the pictures of the masters -
Dali
showed Freud
Metamorphosis of time Freud had regarded the
his painting
Narcissus. Until this
Surrealists as fools, but the
change his opinion.
"It
Tfi e
young
artist
would indeed be
caused him to
However, according to
in
I
Dali,
Freud told him:
seek in your pictures, but the
enclosed by the two structures.
Leonardo or Ingres - that which interests
Paul Delvaux, Venus Sleeping,
seems mysterious and troubling
1944.
"It is
to me,
me and which
is
precisely the
search for the unconscious ideas, of an enigmatic order,
interesting to
hidden Imagery of pain In this
disturbing painting, by the
Belgian Surrealist Labisse, Leda
shown with
a face
swathed
arm becomes
the neck and head of a vicious-
looking bird that the beautiful
is
swan
not at into
The picture
Freud had written
in
is
is
manifested
but a mechanism to reveal
it."
Totem and Taboo that the myth of
is
in
bandages, unable to see, smell, or speak. Her right
the picture, your mystery
in
outright.
Narcissus represented a search for sexual gratification in oneself,
and the following year he had published a
paper entitled "On Narcissism." the
It is
not surprising that
myth of Narcissus struck a chord with
Dali,
who
all
which
Jupiter transformed himself to
gave the self-referential
title
Tfw Great Masturbator to
one of his paintings.
seduce Leda but an imaginary, quasi-mythical creature. The
hardness of the
bird's
beak,
Dream imagery The work of the Belgian
Surrealist artist Paul
Delvaux
biting her nipple, suggests the
brute sexuality of the Classical
also both exploits Classical
myth and provides
fertile
myth. The ends of Leda's hair
ground for Freudian interpretation. His Leda, a depic-
have the same prickly quality
tion of the story of
as the thorny branches of the
swan's neck
stylized tree
crest
and the
is
Leda and the swan
in
which the
an obvious phallic symbol, treats a myth
bird's
and beak, adding to the
imagery of pain contained
in
that
had a particular appeal for twentieth-century
painters.
Here and
in
many
other of his paintings.
the bandaged face and the
Delvaux's seemingly arbitrary arrangement of figures
assaulted breast.
and objects
Felix Labisse, The Strange Leda,
in unrelated settings suggests the
random-
association imagery experienced in dreams - an area of
1950
investigation central to Freudian psychoanalysis.
FREUD AND MYTHOLOGY
Reinterpreting Classical The use of imagery inspired by the Classical world was challenged
in the
second half of the nine-
teenth century by avant-garde take contemporary the
first
life
who chose
artists,
two decades of the new century
comparatively
also contained
metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico.
and inspiration to the Surrealists of the 1920s, he looked to the Classical world for a the hard-edged
often celebrated the
modern
and machine, and did not look
back to myth and legend.
ings of the legacy of ancient Greece.
At the beginning of the 1920s, after a decade of abstraction, there artists,
Classicists
There were exceptions. At the beginning of the century
Khmt made a number
of very
imaginative depictions of Classical figures such as
Danae and Athene. These he painted not
manner but
bold composition,
the dappled
left
thigh of
in
which
Danae
in the prevail-
own
in his
Homage
Rapture In this
to Classicism
more
Picasso's return to a
"Classical"
highly
ground
in
the 1920s
occupies a third of the canvas,
was emulated by many other
Khmt painted a
European
highly erotic
work. The curled figure of the princess
a
opens her
shower
legs to receive
of gold, the
means
later his
world was
and
Classicist chilly
still
in
evidence. Here
David by recreating
page 124)
in
a twentieth-century
The work
idiom.
The clench of Danae's fingers
Classical in style, but
over her breast suggests orgasm
based on the
c.
1907-8
his
Neoclassical masterpiece (see
decorative pattern on the right.
Gustav Klimt, Danae,
forty years
he pays homage to the great
used by Jupiter to seduce Danae.
the gauzy fabric that forms a
artists,
debt to the Classical
The round gold coins are echoed in
empty
marble torsos and antique heads, are elegiac rework-
it
the Austrian artist Gustav
lyrical alternative to
abstraction. His
subject
world of the
ing traditional academic
modernism of
When
abstract
matter was recognizable
Modern
Italian
A precursor of
squares edged with Classical colonnades, and his
avoided reference to the outside world.
train, plane,
was the
art
while
mythology,
little
to
The paintings of
as their theme.
idiosyncratic style. Another exception
is
anything but
earlier
it is
clearly
composition.
Pablo Picasso, The Intervention of the Sabine David), 1963.
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
Women
(after
was a
"call to
order" in which
notably Picasso, returned to a
mode
many
of painting
myth
that
was more
and subject
traditional in both style
1
matter. Picasso continued to return to the subject of
myth throughout ical
reworking mytholog-
his career, often
^^1
HflfT^^^^v
paintings by masters of previous eras, such as the
Neoclassical painters David in lite Intervention of I he
Sabine Women Other
and Poussin
artists,
Pollock,
Grosz,
Bacchanal.
in
including painters as diverse as
Beckmann,
and
Nolan,
longer
using these narratives as a pretext for painting
titillat-
modern
age.
WTp
similarly
No
reinvented Classical myth for a
^Kl.
ill
:7\ 11 A
1
JNf \\j
111 rMI
understood
stories that are part of the collective consciousness.
Many
artists,
including Picasso,
complete abstraction
led
felt that
ap9
mere pattern-making,
to
whereas the reworking of Classical myth to a
new
narratives of both the Classical for the content of his work.
the
to
$8)
and Christian traditions
with a series of mythological subjects. In the 1930s the artist
Salvador Dali, fiercely rejecting abstrac-
and seeking to paint his dreams
in hallucinatory
colour, explored Classical sources, both visual
and
imagery.
V,
This painting
investigated
for the subject matter of
Primitive influence
The American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock interested in Classical
myth and Jungian arche-
types through reading Freud and Jung. This led him to
an eclectic approach to myth
of his work.
much
1
'--'A
He read Goethe's
Philostratus of Jason
in
Minotaur
in
which Native American
series. Like
those earlier
works, they are about
and the
sex.
and
art
The crudity of the image
echoes the brute force of the
search of the Golden is
make
playful reference to Picasso's
whose head
Minotaur,
depicted
in
in
the
TV
screen,
the central panel of this triptych,
verbal-visual
where Jason and Orpheus
the work
are
seen embarking on the Argos for
pun that
its title.
reflected
is
making
a
gives
The
fantastic
nature of this mythological scene
counterpomted by the
the kingdom of Colchis. The sea
is
god Glaucus emerges from the
straightforward glance at the
waves to prophesy the
viewer,
and her
visually
and metaphorically,
mission's
feet,
girl's
which
are,
and South American myths were fused with elements of
success.
Greek mythology. Pollock had been profoundly
bold as his mythological heroes.
placed firmly on the ground.
Max Beckmann,
Joe Shannon, Pink Minotaur
Picasso" in the
^v lift ^^m
part of a series
is
featuring the Minotaur that
translation of the account by
Sea
enced by John Graham's
w
;
Modern Minotaur
Epic quest
Max Beckmann
Fleece. This episode
became
^Vn'rll
3k.
Argonauts' voyage to the Black literary, for
ft
The German painter made
painting religious themes, and followed these
Spanish
IbMm
I
-N^^lG£->^
the myths of ancient Greece
tion
m^
1
^^tF^SbB^
formats and
a series of triptychs - the essentially Christian format initially
_^^fj
lent gravitas
style.
Max Beckmann looked
Jbm^"
H^H H
the road to
^
"wm
ing nudes or allegorical themes of patriotism and moral probity, they sought to interpret universally
J
11
'
mi
^^^^ \P *P
M
I
1
article
"Primitive Ait
Magazine of Art
in
1937.
influ-
and
Beckmann's
style
is
as
The Argonauts,
1949-50.
Monitor: Night Guests, 1982.
Graham
believed in Jung's theory of the "collective uncon-
which he saw as the repository of human
scious,"
psychic heritage. into the artists,
He saw
c r
Picasso's paintings as tapping
J
unconscious with the same ease as primitive
but also
saw evidence
of conscious thought.
s
<
\
' .
|
titles,
\ «/
such as Pasiphae, that allude to myth.
X\j£
Graham had seen in Picasso's work. The American painter Joe Shannon uses Classical mythology to infuse magic into modern life. His paintings work on an immediate level, striking the viewer
i
A-V'"
as odd, amusing, or surreal, but for those with a knowl-
v
V
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'vrift
'
s
t&* i^&K^Ara *^< K ^_
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J^A
Such works were deliberate attempts to embody what
'
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Pollock's paintings are usually entirely abstract but are
often given
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31
edge of Classical mythology they are accessible on another
level.
f
Most viewers have a residual memory of
ancient myths encountered in childhood. figure with a bull's
head
Monitor: Night Guests
Minotaur slain
in his
in
Thus the
Shannon's Pink Minotaur
may
recall the story of the
maze by Theseus. The use of a
Turbulent expression
The
title
of this painting carries
echoes of the wooden horse of Troy with
which the ancient
wooden head
of a child's rocking
horse, excavated from the rubble
beneath a
new
house, to the
pouring, and squirting paint
onto the canvas, he sought to
make "automatic"
abstract
finished work. By subordinating
expressionist paintings.
Jackson Pollock, Wooden
mythological subject of this kind offers the possibility
Greeks defeated the Trojans.
the conscious part of the brain
of many-layered interpretation.
Jackson Pollock attached the
to the unconscious
and
dripping,
Horse, 1948
REINTERPRETING CLASSICAL MYTH
Modern mythology Toward the end of the eighteenth century the search for the dramatic subject matter that characterizes
Romantic painting led to new discoveries and especially of Celtic for novelty
non of
revivals,
and Norse mythology. This appetite
and exoticism
is
phenome-
best seen in the
was known about
Ossian. Little
this third-
century legendary Gaelic bard and warrior. In emulaof fifteenth-century scholars sent out to the
tion
farthest reaches of the
known world
Classical texts, a Scotsman,
commissioned
by
the
evocation of a religion centred on elemental spirits
Romantic elevated expectations of the
gratified the
primitive and
it
was widely acclaimed
as the Nordic
equivalent of the Homeric epics. Napoleon read Fingal in the Italian translation;
he took an
was
illustrated
it
was
copy on
his favourite
all
poem and
his campaigns. Ossian
the one of the heroes painted on the ceiling of
Napoleon's library
at
Malmaison, the
artist
Girodet
in search of
combining the spurious myth of the ancient bard with a
James Macpherson, was
celebration of recent French victories (see page 129,
Faculty
of
Advocates
Edinburgh to tour the Scottish Highlands
in
in
Ossian Receiving the Shades of French Heroes).
search of
material about the legendary hero Fingal, as recounted
Reinvention of myth
by
Few early nineteenth-century works embody so
son Ossian.
his
Macpherson's findings were published
in
1762-3
as Fingal: an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books, which was followed by two later volumes. By the 1770s the work was famous all over Europe, for it had received great acclaim and then aroused a storm of controversy
about
its authenticity.
Investigation revealed that
it
was
what French Romanticism sought Francois-Pascal
Gerard's
Ossian
to
clearly
represent as
Conjures
up
the
Banks of the River Lora. Gerard seized a literary theme that gave the opportunity for theatrical
Spirits
on
the
gesture, dramatic staging, an evocation of night as the
harbinger of pain and suffering, hostile nature with
Visual poetry
Although the gave
Allan Poe's
largely the invention of fifteen
Macpherson,
who used
only
genuine pieces of original verse. The rest he had
altered or invented to create the epic
poem. The work's
treacherous waters, and a castle reduced to a ruin. The
Ossian story
is
an example of the plundering and
vention of myth. In fact text
was thought
was exposed Other
it
rein-
was because Macpherson's
to adhere too closely to
Homer that
perched on the
bird of the devil
the
left
Oscar
the past with his harp. His father,
throng about them, and maidens
King of Morven,
Fingal,
on
his
is
seated
throne of clouds, spear
in
hand. Beside the king, Roscrana, his first
on
his thigh.
tower of Selma appears
in
background as a dramatic
the ruin.
Baron Francois-Pascal Gerard,
wife and Ossian's
mother, lays her hands and
throw flowers and play harps. The
bow
The ancient bard
in
the centre reaching toward the
Ossian Conjures up the
on the Banks of the 1801.
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
Spirits
River Lora,
keeping watch.
although
this
was
a subject
Gauguin enjoyed, but as a
seen in the work of the French Post-Impressionist Paul
symbolist
where he became interested lore, relating that his
thirteen-year-old
wife.
would have made
it
in the
He
later
knowledge of
Tehemana's age and gender
unlikely that she
religious secrets, but
On
to
painted as a direct
it
mythology to create a synthesis of myths. This can be
the "ancient Maori cult" derived from Tehemana, his
Ullin.
was meant
illustration of Tahitian legend,
borrowed from European and world
legends and religious secrets of the islanders.
is
sill
as unauthentic.
artists
wrote on Tahitian
harp
Raven,"
represent not Poe's raven but a
Nor was
travelled to Tahiti,
and Malvma embrace, warriors
echoes Edgar
poem "The
he maintained that the bird
Gauguin was
was
privy to such
nevertheless struck
work
that united the
poetic, the literary,
musical.
Raising the dead
Gauguin
it
Gauguin. In search of an uncorrupted paradise, he
Ossian conjures up the ghosts of
title
this painting
visual
It
and the
was intended
poem
in
as a
which colour
suggested particular musical vibrations
and sounds. Of an
earlier, similar
subject the artist
wrote: "the general harmony
is
sombre, sad, sounding to the eye
like a
death-knell."
Paul Gauguin, Nevermore, 1897.
A modern hero In
a landscape of yellow, dried
scrubland beneath blue
Nolan shows the of
Ned
Kelly,
sky,
stylized figure
armed with
a
rifle,
riding
toward the horizon.
many
paintings of the popular
hero the a face
artist
In his
him
did not give
but alluded to his armour,
which was so heavy that he was unable to escape after he was
and wounded.
eventually shot
Despite the intense heat of the Australian outback, Kelly
wore
a
metal helmet with an open eye slit.
By painting the outlaw as a
bold silhouette and exaggerating the squareness of the helmet and
the size of the
slit,
so that
we
see an open rectangle within a square, Nolan
makes him two-
dimensional. This depiction reflects the hallucinatory status
that the outlaw
of
many
had
Sidney Nolan, Ned
painting has seen the central
the founders of ancient Rome.
white rectangle as a symbol of
The mysterious
human
on
left
and
creature
in
mirror the
unconscious, guarded
The
title's
calligraphic
marks
suggestion of
to the initiated.
wolf-like
Jackson Pollock, Guardians of
the lower part of the
the Secret, 1943.
canvas suggests the wolf of
forcefully
1946.
hidden knowledge available only
right by the sentinels
of consciousness.
Kelly,
nourished Romulus and Remus,
Freudian reading of this
the
the minds
Roman mythology who
Concealed wisdom
A
in
of his fellow Australians.
by an incident that he related and painted
Manao Tupapau: The Spirit Watch of 1892. Returning home to
his
Tehamana
expected, he found
her bed, eyes wide open. The
consumed, and without
light
in
of the Dead Keeps his hut later than
lying face
oil in
he
down on
the lamp had been
she had lain in mortal fear
of the spirits of the dead. Gauguin perceived the inci-
dent not as a child's anxiety at being alone in the dark but as evidence of "religious fear."
which he returned
same pose
in his
was a theme
for the female figure but takes his title
the refrain from Edgar Allen Poe's in this
It
way combining
to
Nevermore, where he uses the
the
poem "The
from
Raven,"
myth of the South Seas with
Poe's generalized myth-making.
Twentieth-century mythologizing In
twentieth
the
century
the
American Abstract
Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock looked to both Classical
and primitive myth as well as to Jungian
archetypes (see page 95) for his subjects. Works such as
Guardians of the Secret, while hard
to interpret with
certainty, suggest the influence of all these sources.
The Australian
artist
Sidney Nolan explored both
modern mythology, but, being of European he identified more readily with the young coun-
try's its
recent mythology than with the ancient legends of
Aborigines.
included
Ned
In painting
Kelly,
a series of works that
he examined the relatively recent
mythologizing of a wild Irish family
who had
Australia. At the heart of the Kellys' story
spirited outlaw Ned,
of twenty-five and
origin,
mythical status.
was the
who, having fought against the
British colonial overlords, was
ancient and
settled in
hanged
in 1880 at the
age
became a popular hero with almost
MODERN MYTHOLOGY
Painting a message Cardinal virtues Raphael's fresco, which the
executed for
Italian painter
one of the Papal rooms Rome,
Vatican,
the
in
a lunette
is
depicting three of the cardinal
The
virtues.
central figure of
Prudence holds a mirror that enables her to look behind, metaphorically speaking, and learn
from experience. The
theme
of learning
experience
is
from
embellished
in
her headdress, which creates an illusion
Myths and fables may contain morals, but there
is
another type of painting, linked to paintings of myth, that carries a message: the allegorical work. The
term "allegory"
is
derived from Greek and Latin words
meaning "'speaking otherwise than one seems speak."
An
to
allegory uses one thing to stand for some-
familiar
"time
is
Time,
flies"
Latin
word
nouns
in
- carrying
Time
hourglass.
shown is
as an aged, winged
man - since
his attributes, the scythe
a portrayed as a
for time (tempos)
is
man because
and the
masculine, but abstract
Romance languages tend
as a result, so do their personifications.
More
human
on the
A wide
symbol of strength, from which
young cherub plucks an acorn.
Temperance, on the
The
Classical gods
were
range of ideas, from the seasons to the senses,
often used in paintings to stand for their spheres of influence:
Venus and Cupid could represent
war, Minerva
love,
Mars
wisdom and peace, and Bacchus wine and
hedonism. Other ideas were personified by figures with recognizable or
fitting characteristics.
One
of the most
acquired their vices
own
right,
holds
infant.
Raphael, The Cardinal and Theological Virtues (Prudence.
and Temperance).
Fortitude,
form; they are personified.
Fortitude,
holds a slender oak,
left,
and impetuous
Vices and virtues
often than not. these notions take on
in profile
the reins to restrain the young
thing else. In pictorial allegories, abstract notions and
ideas are given visual form.
man
on young shoulders.
a
to be feminine and,
of an old
and thus suggests an old head
personifications.
The
virtues
and
1508-11.
were personified from the Middle Ages onward, as
were the
so-called liberal arts,
which included
logic
and
grammar, music and astronomy. The means of representation
was not always consistent but, despite this, became accepted. Justice, one of the
certain attributes
Renaissance interpretation
Some
fifty
years after the
publication of the treatise
De
Pictura, in
Alberti,
which the author,
commended an
ancient
allegory to painters, the Italian artist Botticelli
of
it.
made
his version
Calumny, surrounded by
Envy, Treachery,
and
Deceit, bears
a burning torch of resentment
and drags an innocent victim by the hair toward a judge
who
bears the ass's ears of King Midas
and
who
is
counselled by
Ignorance and Suspicion. The
Naked Truth on the
far left points
upward to the
seat of justice
Remorse, clad
in
dark robes,
looks up at Truth while pointing
toward the centre of the
Sandro
Botticelli
ofApelles, c.1490.
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
action.
The Calumny
four Cardinal Virtues,
was
usually
shown holding scales
and a sword. From the sixteenth century she also appears blindfolded, a sign of her impartiality.
painting
three
of the
remaining
Cardinal
Prudence holds a mirror, Temperance holds Fortitude
is
identified
Raphael's
In
Virtues,
reins,
and
by the strong oak, although she
more often accompanied by a
lion.
is
Prudence can also
be shown with snakes, from the biblical injunction "Be
tion
and as a
result often
outside this narrow world. <
by the
"lipid
figures that
that
we can
became scarcely
An
Allegory with Venus
and
Bronzino contains several
Italian painter
we can
intelligible
interpret with certainty
and others
Venus and Cupid,
identifiable
only guess
at.
Crime and punishment
by the golden apple and quiver respectively, suggest themselves as allegories of love, and Father Time identifiable
by
his
and
wings,
beard,
The French
artist Pierre-Paul
is
hourglass.
Prud'hon was unusual
the
in
early nineteenth century in
ye wise (p>~udentes) as serpents" (Matthew 10:16). With
However, the other figures must be interpreted within
concentrating on allegorical and
considerable ingenuity, Raphael also depicts his figures
the context of a painting that seems to deal with
poetic subjects
accompanied
aspects of love. Given the possibilities and complexities
by
cherubs
representing
the
three
in
preference
to painting historical subjects. This dramatic painting
Christian virtues: Faith points heavenward,
Hope bears
of allegorical personifications,
handbooks
a torch, and Charity shakes acorns from the oak.
artists resorted to
Interpretation
Iconologia by Cesare Ripa,
attributes
Many
allegorical figures
decipher.
in
paintings are hard to
The Florentine scholar Alberti,
his treatise
on painting of
in
De Pictura,
1435, advised artists to try to
paint a Classical allegory that, according to Lucian,
writing in the second century ad,
reprinted
had been painted by
not surprising that
it is
that suggested suitable
and forms. The most famous of these was the
many times and
first
in
published in 1593 and
many languages
in
Justice in Paris.
The
artist
shows
the assassin (with the face of the
Roman Emperor
Caracalla)
escaping from the scene of the
Allegory has been used by artists in both the
seen
for
the courtroom of the Palace of
since. reli-
gious and secular spheres. In religious art the allegorical glorification of Catholicism is
was
commissioned around 1804
many ceiling paint-
ings of the late sixteenth century, such as Pozzo's Tlie
crime into a moonlit night. Above
and behind him
bearing a
Justice,
torch of light and righteousness,
and Divine Vengeance, with sword and arrows, are poised to
Apelles six centuries earlier. The subject
was Calumny,
Glory of St Ignatius Loyola (see page
and Apelles had depicted an innocent young victim,
employed
in royal palaces to
who
particular
monarchs (see page
dragged by Calumny before a judge with ass's ears is
counselled by Ignorance, Suspicion, Envy, Treachery,
and Deceipt. Lucian wrote that the
tale
would end
103). Allegory
was
promote the virtues of Rubens, Henry TV
103,
Receives the Portrait of Marie de Medici) and in public buildings to honour civic duty and moral probity, as in
strike the miscreant.
The realism
and pathos of the work made a sensation at the at the close of
personally
it
1808 Salon,
which Napoleon
awarded Prud'hon the
Legion of Honour,
well for the youth
if
he looked to Repentance and Truth
behind him. In The
Calumny
of Apelles Botticelli
displayed great fidelity to Alberti's treatise, but while the judge's ass's ears symbolize idiocy and the
Truth
is
Ambrogio
Government in Justice
The Effects of Peace or Good
Lorenzetti's
the City (see page 176) or Prud'hon's
and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime.
Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, Justice
and
Divine Vengeance Pursuing
Crime, 1808.
Naked
a verbal-visual pun, other figures are less
easily understood.
Allegories
became
increasingly
complex
in the
closed circles of Renaissance courts, witere they were
devised by scholars themselves attracted to mystifica-
In
Complications of love
the naked boy throwing rose
Bronzmo's complex allegory
petals
is
a
young woman. She may
top right
is
Father Time,
who may
be covering or uncovering the
Venus, holding her golden apple,
look beautiful but this allegory of
scene, apparently
takes one of Cupid's arrows. The
Deception
to the figure (perhaps Oblivion)
god and goddess of the figures around
embody
love kiss
them
and
also
aspects of love. Behind
is
dangerous, for she
whom
he
in
opposition
holds behind her a thorny spike
at
on the end of a hard, swollen,
Agnolo Bronzino, An
poisonous-looking
with Venus
ball.
At the
glares.
and Cupid,
Allegory c.
1
545.
PAINTING A MESSAGE
A darker message eath and the transience of earthly existence
has been a theme thirteenth century,
when
in it
Western
ait since the late
originated in
poems on
the
subject of the impartial and equalizing nature of death.
The best-known medieval allegory of the passage from this
world to the next
is
The Dance of Death.
In
such
images the hooded figure of Death, holding his symbolic sickle,
hand
in a
is
shown
is
leading a line of figures by the
macabre dance
to the other world. \
Rampant death
/
Untimely death on a grand scale through war and disease
was a
fact of life in the
*
Middle Ages. In 1348 the
Black Death struck northern
Italy,
killing
*
•
half the
people of Siena and Florence within a few months. The Tlie
Triumph of
mourning the
loss of his
Italian
poet Petrarch began writing
Death
in
the
same
year,
many of his friends. In Pisa the walls of the burial ground of the Campo Santo near the cathe-
beloved Laura and
dral are painted with mid-fourteenth-century frescos
\j*
^^KS^W-'.
\v *
ii\
Jt<-
*^^s-
—
«ft <* r
'
The Ages of
Human
Life
Grien uses a skeleton holding an
In
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i
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j*
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fragility
Rosa's dark allegory, Death as
winged skeleton makes
hourglass to symbolize death and
a
the passing of time. The infant
write:
represents the beginning of
a Punishment, Life Hard Labour,
journey.
The prime of
life's
"Conception
is
a
baby
Sinful, Birth
Death Inevitable." These words
life is
represented by the naked young
from a twelfth-century poem are
woman
echoed by esoteric symbols. The
admiring herself, neither
seeing nor heeding Death. The
woman
anguished figure on the
represents the
left
is
seated on a glass sphere
human
Old Age, reaching out to push
the painting's
the hourglass from Death's hand
a bust of Terminus,
if
to thwart his grim purpose
Hans Baldung Grien, The Three Ages and Death,
1
509-1 0.
and the owl
is
title.
an
frailty
1656.
is
of death,
omen
Salvator Rosa, L'umana c
of
Behind her
god
/. '
£*~% A
.
~'
"
as
Mws^M
\&4f
1
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
*
of death fragilita,
"V
v
*J^
showing images of death. Here the theme of the triumph of death and the vanity of the allegorical painting The
exemplified by
life is
Legend of the Three Living
the Three Dead by the artist Francesco Traini. A company of knights and ladies on horseback stops
and
before three open coffins in which
The
corpses.
between the
link
lie
putrefying
and the dead
living
indicated by the hand of the finely dressed
is
woman who
points toward the rotting skeletons, and the message
is
reinforced by the scroll borne by a hermit, on which
is
written: "Death vanquishes pride and vanity."
The work of the German
many
Grien contains
Hans Baldung
artist
allegorical images. In his painting
The Three Ages and Death he depicts the three stages of
life
and
humanity's ultimate destination, repre-
all
Among
sented by the skeleton.
the woodcuts of his
contemporary and fellow countryman Albrecht
near-
Diirer are other allegorical reminders of
brevity,
life's
such as The Knight, Death, and the Devil.
The personification of Time as a bearded and winged old man emerged
in the
Middle Ages. He
is
derived from the figure of Kronos or Saturn in Greek
and Roman mythology, the oldest of the Titans and the father of Zeus or Jupiter.
To
a prophecy that
forestall
one of his children would depose him, he devoured them. This
act,
which was interpreted
Ages as a symbol of an
path, provided
how
horrific
time eats everything in
image that was
derived from Kronos (whose
word
Middle
later
its
used by
most famously Goya. But although
several artists,
the Greek
in the late
name was
for time, chronos), the
very close to
winged
figure of
Father Time, with his familiar attributes of scythe and hourglass, does not appear until the fourteenth century.
His character
is elusive:
he can be destructive, as when
shown
clipping the wings of Love or wielding his scythe
as the
"grim reaper," but he can also be benign,
protecting or else revealing the future or unveiling his
daughter "Truth" in
all
her naked beauty.
In the allegorical painting to
Destroy Beauty the subject
and Father Time
who
shown
the ravages of age,
directing a withered old hag
reaches out to scratch the rosy face of a young
beauty.
The
worked
in
Italian
Rome
most famous for the
is
Time Orders Old Age is
painter
Pompeo
Batoni,
in the eighteenth century
his portraits of English
Grand Tour, was
particularly
gentlemen on
proud of this
boasting to his patron that the subject
who
and was
was
and witchcraft,
evident in a chilling allegory on the
by the
Italian artist
Salvator Rosa. In L'umanafragilitd Rosa integrates his
The passing of beauty In
personification of abstract qualities such as frailty
"own
pair,
invention."
The work was painted as one of a
the other painting containing an allegory warning
and
advanced age, and
Netherlands of the seventeenth century
allegorical meditations
on the transience of
very popular. These took the form of
known "all is
still-life
life
were
paintings
as vanitas images, from the biblical reference vanity" (see pages 228-9).
pessimism, along with the
A
similar profound
artist's interest in
alchemy
wings,
Old Age to destroy youthful
The
truth that
no one
is
exempt from the
disfigur-
ing
hand of time and
all
has persisted in allegorical form in painting and
that death will eventually claim us
literature for centuries.
From
the Middle Ages, through
Marlowe and Goethe of
Faust's
and Oscar Wilde's late-nineteenth-century story
frailty
In the Calvinist
his
tableau vivant, or rather a tableau mourant.
pact with the Devil at the expense of his immortal soul,
Human
Time,
orders the wizened figure of
the dramatizations by
against Lasciviousness.
life,
death with symbols of the passing of time to create a
Beauty. The harsh truth of the inevitable loss of youthful Beauty is
his
Batoni's powerful allegory
of the transience of
identified by his hourglass, his
painting,
entirely of
is
brevity of life painted in that century
reinforced by the poignancy of
Beauty's attempt to recoil from
the ravaging hand of Old Age.
Pompeo
Batoni, Time Orders
Old Age to Destroy Beauty,
1
746.
Tfie
Picture of Dorian Gray, right up to the present day, the
theme of seeking flourished. In
to escape time
and death has also
modern times meditations on
mortality
include the silkscreen prints of skulls by the American artist
Andy Warhol and
formaldehyde of the British
the
animals preserved in
artist
Damien
Hirst.
A DARKER MESSAGE
10
Political allegory The triumph of wisdom from Antwerp to Prague Italy
to
work
via
theme of "Good and Bad Government," painted
and painted
town
work to celebrate the
flourishing of arts
under
An early example is the fresco on the
as court painter to II
concepts to convey a civic or
ification of abstract
patriotic message.
Emperor Rudolf this
allegory uses symbols and the person-
olitical
Bartholomeus Spranger travelled
and learning
for the
by Ambrogio Lorenzetti
hall of Siena in Italy
in
1338-9 (see page 176, The Effects of Peace or Good
his imperial patron.
Government
in the City).
showing the
effects of both kinds of government.
The work is a simple
allegory
Minerva, goddess of wisdom, treads on Ignorance and presides
painting
over Bellona, goddess of war,
seen lower
left,
panoramic view of the well-governed town and
to symbolize the
victory of Rudolf's armies over the
Turks
in
several battles
1593 and 1595. right,
roundings. The industry in the country and
between
History,
and Learning, seen
prosperity to both. The city
in
on the adjacent wall
the
Government
Minerva. Despite her warlike
Justice,
pose, her costume, and the spear is
distinctly erotic figure
is
a
sur-
town brings
recognizably Siena, and
on the
background, are protected by
she holds, Minerva
The
Good Government shows
allegorizing
in the
is
the personification of
Good
form of a noble king flanked by and other
Prudence, Temperance,
virtues,
including a pensive figure of Peace, clothed in white.
painted as a
In the following century the d'Este family, the
whose bare
dukedom of Ferrara in Italy, commissioned
breasts protrude from her fitted
rulers of the
armour, mixing the
a fresco cycle for the decoration of their palace that
message with
political
a sexual one.
celebrated by
Bartholomeus Spranger,
means of
erudite and arcane symbolism
the civilizing influence of their court (see pages 84-5).
Minerva Victorious over Ignorance: Allegory on Rudolf c.
Much more
easily read is the
message
in the
II,
on the achievements of Emperor Rudolf
allegory
1591.
painted by the Flemish Mannerist
artist
II
Bartholomeus
Spranger. At the end of the sixteenth century Rudolf transferred the imperial court from Vienna to Prague
and
in
so doing created one of the most magnificent
courts of Renaissance Europe. His patronage
saw the
creation of much highly erotic mythological painting, as
well
complex
as
allegories
reflecting his interest
glorifying
and achievements
learning, science, the occult,
himself and in the arts,
and warfare.
Self-aggrandisement
more ambitious programme of selfaggrandisement, Marie de Medici, Queen of France, In
an
even
commissioned from the Flemish painter Rubens twentyone large canvases depicting scenes from her
life
as
if
conducted under the watchful eye and guidance of the Classical gods, with
whom
she appears on equal terms.
Her aim was to be ranked with the immortals. Rubens's role as both painter and diplomat was put to use in his large allegorical work
He travelled
England
to
in 1629 as
War and
Peace.
an envoy of Philip IV
of Spain to promote peace between the two countries.
This painting, a Peace and plenty
Plutus,
god
of wealth.
A
satyr
The armoured goddess Minerva
offers a cornucopia to
protects Peace from Mars by
one of
pushing the god of war away
by Hymen, god of marriage. The
from the peaceful scene of
two female
plenty,
toward the Fury Alecto,
whose
fire-spitting
nature
whom
is
two
on the
left
represent prosperity and the All flourish
arts.
under Peace.
symbolizes war's destruction.
Peter Paul Rubens, War and
Naked Peace,
Peace,
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
in
the centre, feeds
1629-30
to Charles
I
of England, reflects the
stance of the Spanish diplomatic mission by depicting
girls,
being crowned
figures
gift
the threat of
war
to the benefits of peace.
The celebration of
single great figures
seen in the church. Raphael,
rooms
in
the Vatican for
second room events that
in
in his
Pope
was
also
decorative cycle of
Julius
II,
frescoed the
1511-14 with paintings of historical
made allegorical
references to contemporary
company
Divine This
is
Henry
the fourth work
monumental
in
IV,
by two winged
followers of Juno,
a
who
appears
to be describing Mane's beauty
series of paintings
commissioned from Rubens by
to the King. Juno's
Marie de Medici Her purpose
are beside the goddess of
was
on
to bring glory
being depicted
the
in
herself by
marriage as she surveys the
company
scene from on high.
Peter Paul Rubens, Henry IV
of the Classical gods. Here a portrait of
Marie
shown
is
peacocks
Receives the Portrait of Marie
to
de Medici, 1621-5.
her prospective husband, King
Lifeblood of the city In this
work Barry depicts
a
giant figure of the River Thames,
transported by swimmers and
mermaids, with the explorer Captain Cook,
modern
in
steering the vessel.
It
dress,
one
is
of
a series of seven canvases that
he painted for the Society for the Advancement of Arts,
Manufacture and Commerce London. Barry
tried to
in
emulate
the great works he had seen Italy,
and
in
ambitious scope
in its
the idealized
his series recalls
and heroic forms of the great Renaissance decorative schemes.
James
Barry,
Commerce
Triumph of the Thames,
events.
Thus his depiction of Pope Leo
years earlier
was believed
I,
as a reference to the victory of
Pope
Julius
invading French army. The figure of Leo
Leo
X,
The
to have miraculously halted
Hun on Rome, was
the advance of Attila the
the features of
who a thousand
who succeeded
I
recognized II
can be seen
in Tfie
in
Pozzo's
enormous
a detail
in full
from
painting
on page
which decorates the
II
in 1513.
named
after the
triumphant as
and
its title in
subject, the
Rome,
in
founder of the
Jesuits, St Ignatius Loyola.
Glory of St Ignatius
65),
ceiling of
the church of St Ignazio
Julius
Loyola, a painting that decorates the ceiling of the
church of St Ignazio
here
is
or The
780s.
the world
Shown
(reproduced
over the
was later given
In the next century the glorification of another great religious figure
light of
1
work
As
style
depicts
heavenly figures on clouds
Rome. This allegory celebrates
ascending heavenward toward
Loyola's founding of the Society of Jesus, the missionary
work of the
Jesuits,
and
his elevation to sainthood.
the celestial source of light
Athens and Rome, Napoleon encouraged the painting of allegories that celebrated him and the greatness of
Commerce An
his empire. Ingres depicted
eighteenth-century personification of the city and
hopes for
its
Triumph of
nourishing the
is
seen
in
Commerce
or Tlie
Thames by James Barry. The Irish London to a great commercial
history painter elevates
metropolis presided over by the river god himself.
Commerce city,
Jupiter,
and
in
Napoleon
like
a
modem
Ossian Receiving the Shades of French
Heroes (see page 129) another French
shows Napoleon's
artist,
Girodet,
fallen generals rising in the after-
symbolizes Christ as the light of the world.
A
staggering piece
of illusionism, the
In the early twentieth century allegorical imagery
work was
celebrated from the time of
conception and of the
it
its
remains one
most famous Baroque
ceiling paintings in
world to be greeted by the Gaelic bard Ossian.
in
the upper central portion, which
Rome.
Andrea Pozzo, The Glory of St Ignatius Loyola, 1691-4.
is
depicted as the very heart of the capital
recalling Napoleon's slighting characterization of
England as "a nation of shopkeepers." In post-revolutionary France,
served as an instrument of political change in revolutionary Russia.
The Bolsheviks painted
with abstract images with
a reborn nation
consciously modelled on the great cities of ancient
titles
their trains
such as Beat the Whites
with a Red Wedge in order to spread an unambiguous
message throughout the country.
POLITICAL ALLEGORY
"Art
is
the most beautiful of Claude Debussy, Monsieur Cmche,
all lies."
antidilettante, 1917
The Nude
Western
Body language
When
marble
this
sculpture, illustrating a
scene from
poem
in
1506
it
interest in
is
in the
West the human body has been the essential
build-
little
ing block of ait. Consequently mastering
fired in
as the truest test of artistic
artists
the depiction
expression.
of emotion through the
for
skill
it
was seen
and the vehicle for the widest range of
The nude emerged as a genre
Greece before the
in
fifth
century bc and the idealized Greek nude, perfectly proportioned with
naked human body. The
work was admired cohesive and
preoccupation with the
in its
importance in Eastern cultures, but
of
came
many Renaissance an
unusual
epic
Virgil's
the Aeneid,
to light
ait is
naked body. With the exception of India the nude
none of the
its
tion.
brilliantly
flawTs of reality, stands as the source of the Western tradi-
Although ancient Greek philosophers introduced the distinction
balanced composition as
between body and
well as for the expressive
express both physical beauty and nobility of soul and
two were seen as
soul, the
linked: the
nude could In the
spirit.
nature of the bodies and
body and soul came
Christian era, however, the faces.
Workshop
sites.
of
to
be seen almost as oppo-
and nakedness was more often a sign of shame and humiliation
Hegesandrus,
- the nude became the naked. The naked human figure
Athenodorus, and
ible in Christian
Polydorus of Rhodes, The Laocoon, BC-first
of
medieval
Adam and Eve and
art
is virtually irnis-
except in a sinful context, such as scenes
the Last Judgement.
From
the seventh to the
third century
eleventh centuries even the crucified Christ
century ad.
cut from
certainly not dispelled
shown on the
is
and
by the rediscovery
cross with the Virgin Mary,
Classical teaching
who
From the Renaissance, however,
holy St
is
supported by two
women, on
the
was
This attitude toward the naked body as something shameful
a single plank of poplar,
Jesus
usually depicted clothed.
The nude and the model
Stylized Christ In this crucifix,
is
left.
artistic
John the Evangelist and
art in the
theme and since then
of,
and enthusiasm
Renaissance and
it
the nude once again
artists
for.
persists today.
became a major
have worked variations on such
enduring motifs as the reclining female nude and the bathing nude. As
the Centurion appear on the
right. Christ's
stylized
and
its
body
importantly, the study of the
anatomy
is
reduced to pattern, but there
is
majesty
great pathos and in
the silhouette.
Attributed to the Master of St Francis,
1272-85
Crucifix,
nude became an indispensable part of an
is
artist's training
from the Renaissance. Writing
Florence Alberti explained: "Before dressing a nude, then
we
in fifteenth
man we
first
century
draw him
enfold him in draperies." Artists such as Leonardo da
Vinci are reputed to have dissected bodies in order to understand their
musculature
belter,
and
numerous drawings survive from the
Renaissance of studio assistants posing
working
in the
in their underclothes.
papal rooms in the Vatican, Raphael
first
When
posed his
figures in the nude, in order to understand their real structure, then
clothed them and proceeded to colour in the
sequence became enshrined the sixteenth century
Gothic influence Botticelli's
incomparably
beautiful depiction of
Venus, the goddess of love, as
she emerges from
the sea on a
shell,
does
not slavishly follow the
Greek
ideal of
proportion
in
beauty and
the female
nude. Her neck and arms are unnaturally long,
her
and
shoulder slopes
left
The image of the
gently.
two entwined wind gods is
taken from a Classical
source.
The
picture
is
probably an allegory of spring, with spirit
Venus as the
of regeneration,
hence the cloak of flowers she
is
about to put on
Sandro
Botticelli,
Birth of Venus, c
THE NUDE
The
1485
in the
onward
in
academies of
final picture.
This
art established
from
which study of the nude (almost
Divine forms This subject, taken from
Ovid's
gave
Metamorphoses,
full
Erotic
rem to Rubens's
talent for painting the
Morphise, as she was
female nude. The story
called at the court of
allowed him to focus on
King Louis
three nudes, each striking
became one
a provocative
pose
Paris
mistresses, supposedly
of awarding a golden
Boucher paints a candidly
apple to the goddess he
erotic depiction, believed
in
the
in
a softly
At
lit
is
virtual
model but they were expected Classical lines. Studying the
to idealize
live
what they saw along
nude also meant studying
Classical sculp-
age of fourteen
to have
this point
which
story,
most
been calculated to
whet the
set
for the
Arcadian
The
landscape, Pans has just
became the
of France,
of the king's
at the
beautiful.
basis of art training. Students were instructed in drawing from the
XV
had the unenviable task
believed to be the
exclusively male until the later nineteenth century)
pose
Louise O'Murphy, or La
king's appetite
young woman.
playful sensuality
characteristic of
is
how
selected Venus, the central
Boucher portrayed the
figure in the group.
female nude
Peter Paul Rubens
Francois Boucher.
The Judgement of Pans,
Reclining Girl (Portrait of
1632-5
Louise O'Murphy), 1752
tures and exemplary paintings of the past, Michelangelo setting the
standard for the male nude and Titian for the female.
Gender and sexuality Representations of the nude inevitably reflect attitudes toward gender
and
sexuality.
and patrons
The Western
tradition
patriarchal and
is
most
KjEJ
artists
!yvV
v
^*v
^r ^^4fc^' :
period covered by this book were men. Both facts
in the
have inevitably affected the ways in which male and female nudes have been represented. The essential difference between the male and female body in art before the late nineteenth century characteristically
shown
as active, while
women
are
is
that
more
men
are
frequently
passive. There are of course important exceptions to this general rule
&
^^^B ^^^^^^^
e&Z
1
1 /
/
long tradition of showing female nudes asleep or being spied upon,
HI &J'i
by figures within the picture or by the viewer. Female nudes
Wr\
- the naked suffering Christ
is
one, the naked female personifications
of virtues another - but these are special cases. More typical
either
also often
is
the
i^^^t.
_-'
\
makes sense
if
she
is
being looked
at.
In Rubens's
% it Rlt \
\
miLZb
Judgement of
Paris the three goddesses are explicitly on display, presenting themselves to both Paris within the picture and the viewer outside
\a ^M
Kr
acknowledge the viewer: Venus s apparent gesture of mod-
esty in Botticelli's Birth of Venus (borrowed from Classical sculpture)
only
\
it.
Et^
kSHf*
^
*
"A —- A. i
v
'Vim
KM J vi
^
jjfl
Changing ideals Depictions of the idealized female nude reveal changing ideas of beauty. fifteenth
century
stomachs
like
women
are
the
In
shown with
Distortion Kirchner painted this
work
over a period of years while seeking inspiration
In the
the
pears and breasts like apples.
seventeenth century, most famously in
work of Rubens, they are
and fleshy while,
heavily built
Rococo
in the
age, artists
such as Boucher and Fragonard favoured a
at a nudist colony near
Dresden. The distortion of the figures
that had excited the group of artists
trimmer
figure. In the
teenth
century
second half of the nine-
Realist
artists
such
as
owes much
to the African sculptures
known
as Die
Brucke (The Bridge), to
which Kirchner belonged.
Courbet and Degas challenged the tradition
The man on the
of the idealized female nude and instead set
appears detached from
out to depict naturalistic bodies in everyday settings.
Since
then
changing
toward sexuality and sexual
made
attitudes
politics
have
the nude one of the most highly
charged of
far left
the other bathers, and
some
believe that this
is
a self-portrait.
Ernst
Ludwig
Kirchner,
Bathers at Moritzburg,
1909-26 all
the genres.
INTRODUCTION
^^HHDM
Gods and goddesses In
1548 the humanist and courtier Annibale Caro
who was
wrote to the painter Giorgio Vasari,
work on
also be regarded as a poetic experience, ennobling the
at that
soul,
famous Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, period just beginning
improving the mind, and inspiring music.
his
Titian's
Venus of Urbino
sentation of Venus
him a picture. In his letter Caro sums up the Renaissance attitude to the nude. He wanted two nudes, which he described to the artist as "the greatest subject of your art." He said he did not mind who they were or what the story was, but he
(it is
to ask Vasari to paint
Unusually, Titian's nude
perfectly
usual attributes: there
full
No academic nude
something tragic and
affecting,
for Caro: he
and
figure of
Cupid and no
we have
to
woman." She does is
curled up at her feet, which has been interpreted as a
symbol of faithfulness
ment as
Body and mind Titian's
Venus of Urbino has
been read
in
owing to the
Attitudes to the nude
no
is
hold roses, a traditional symbol of love, and a dog
wanted
erotically charged.
given none of the goddess's
is
the picture talks only of "the nude
and Adonis's death would make a scene
of feeling.
not explicitly a repre-
golden apple, and the earliest reference
suggested something like Venus and Adonis, because their passion
is
also probably not from Urbino).
to
no agree-
in love, but there is
whether the picture should be read as
allegory or fantasy.
very different ways, fact that
is
it
neither
The nude and narrative
a real-life, naturalistic image, nor
Later commentators were far attitude to the nude. Scholars
more
and
reticent in their
- especially
critics
in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - often sought to
deny the obvious sexuality
in
works such as
Titian's
an episode from any known story
Paintings of nudes before the nineteenth century are,
concerning the goddess.
however, usually clearly identified as gods or goddesses
It
has
been interpreted as an allegory of marital
fidelity,
suggested by
- as
in Velazquez's
figure of
Cupid
Toilet
77?c
of Venus, where the - or are
identifies the reclining figure
the cassoni, or marriage chests,
Venus of Urbino. Her gesture with her hand, for instance,
was
interpreted as an act of
than as sexually provocative. ence, however, to another
A
modesty rather
contemporary
nude by
Titian
refer-
makes the
viewpoint of the original spectators quite clear; writing
in
the background, and by the
roses
range
and the sleeping dog
Alternatively,
presented in the context of a story. Painters could
Venus might be
seen as a kind of vision, a
among
the numerous tales found in Ovid's
Metamorphoses (most metamorphoses had some kind of sexual motivation) or exploit other rediscovered
materialization of the spectator's
Classical texts that
were ceaselessly being
translated.
fantasy The figure's pose derives
to his patron, a courtier enthuses that the
"put the devil
on your back" (arouse
Venus of Urbino look culture of the period,
lust)
like a nun. In the
male-dominated
as objects to be enjoyed. This enjoyment
sinful.
nor was
it
will
and make the
women's bodies were
sively sexual, however,
work
readily seen
was not exclu-
always thought of as
Indeed contemplation of a naked
woman
could
from a work painted by
Titian's
contemporary Giorgione
Venus
is
shown
asleep
in
in
which
the
countryside. Here Titian has
were also
Biblical subjects
upon the bathing Susannah,
palazzo and shown her very
much awake. Titian,
Venus of Urbino, 1538.
or King
made
it
possible to hint at the situa-
tion rather than describe
it
and
with such subjects
transposed the figure into a
may
nude
in
some cases
the artist
deliberately have left the identity of his
ambiguous, as
in
more than one
Flesh tones
for a client
of both the arts
nude
picture by Rembrandt.
Tintoretto. But despite this,
who was
this
fond
and women. The
painter clearly had in
mind the
great Venetian tradition of nudes, particularly those of Titian
nude
for example,
David's lust for Bathsheba. Contemporary familiarity
Velazquez probably painted
tin:
available: the Elders spying
and
the pearly grey, pink, and cream flesh tones,
executed with great
subtlety, are peculiar to
Diego Velazquez, The
Velazquez Toilet
Venus ("The Rokeby Venus"). 1647-51.
of
Compassion Rembrandt often used mistress,
as a
Hendnckje
his
Stoffels,
model when he painted the
female nude and for this picture
clearly did so
for the tenderness
discernible
may account
This
in this
and
affection
simple yet
highly effective portrayal of
the Old Testament character
Bathsheba Rembrandt's nudes tend to be
earthly,
Their beauty often
sympathetic
way
in
not idealized lies in
the
which he
depicts their vulnerability.
Rembrandt, Bathsheba, 1654.
The
erotic
Artists
male
The French academic painter Girodet
was
a passionate admirer
of ancient literature
mythology.
In this
were not
entirely free in their representa-
Where the woman was depicted as an of desire, it was usual to introduce some note of
tion of nudes.
object
warning. In the story of Susannah viewers were reminded
came
bad end. Some works
depiction of the male nude, he
that the Elders
reveals his admiration for the
duced
Greek
Bathsheba, which suggests some of the accidents and
from
ideal of beauty, learned
his master,
the Neoclassical
evils
a
note
to a
melancholy,
of
consequent on adulterous
as
in
intro-
Rembrandt's
love: in this case, David's
painter Jacques-Louis David.
Endymion was with in
whom
the goddess Diana,
moonlight that
in love.
It
on him
in this picture.
is
shown
is
in a
fell
falls
was
a
Boucher's
woman,
de Pompadour, the
is
taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses,
but the narrative
is
than the painter's
less
important
skill in
depicting
the flesh tones of his sensual
flagrant eroticism of his nudes
Venus. From Venetian painting
seems intended
onward, Vulcan was often shown
Boucher,
like
for
male eyes.
other Rococo
artists,
often used the voyeuristic device
showing an amorous couple
gazing on
his wife's genitals.
Francois Boucher, Mars and
Venus Surprised by Vulcan,
1
754.
contriving of the death of Bathsheba's husband in order to obtain her. There was, however, criticism of
seldom any
implicit
Mars and Venus but instead a cruel joke
at
the expense of Vulcan, Venus 's unappealing husband.
by
satyrs,
nymph
whose
eternal fate
only to have her run
to leap
upon the naked
away - a
witty device to
is
remind viewers that the pleasures depicted are visual
Endymion
In Boucher's
pose more usually
associated with this
moon,
caught unaware. The subject
artist
mistress of King Louis XV, yet the
of
a beautiful youth
her capacity as the
principal patron
Madame
and Greek
highly erotic
Rococo sensuality The French Rococo
women, and
androgynous beauty
is
emphasized. Girodet, The Sleep of Endymion,
typical of the frank
sensuous depiction of
this subject,
hedonism of Rococo nudes, Vulcan
shown discovering the two
is
lovers. This familiar device of
showing an onlooker emphasizes the act of spying and looking on the naked body - an act in which those
who
and cannot not be enjoyed
Endymion
is
unusual
in the flesh.
sleeping man. But here again
it
is
it
is
a
the act of looking at a
beautiful but unobtainable figure that
Endymion was sent
The story of
in that, in this instance,
is
into perpetual sleep
emphasized.
by Jupiter
in
1792.
look
at
the painting are inevitably implicated.
voyeuristic device
is
found
in the stories of
The same
return for everlasting youth and
Susannah
nightly
and Bathsheba, both spied upon while bathing. Sleeping or reclining
nymphs
are often
shown being
spied upon
was visited and admired
by the chaste Goddess Diana. The subject offered
artists the
opportunity to depict an idealized, youthful
male nude, but
in
an unusually passive, vulnerable pose.
GODS AND GODDESSES
09
The human form
Noble beauty David was a pupil of the French
Rococo
artist
saw
the Elgin Marbles, the Greek sculptures from
Boucher but soon
rejected his teacher's style
the Parthenon in Athens that were temporarily located in
favour of the linear grandeur of Neoclassicism. His careful study of Greek
1817 the British history painter Benjamin Haydon
In
and Roman sculpture
in
a shed constructed by Lord Elgin in Park Lane,
London.
showed him how to model the
human body and work
Classical
later,
"as
a divine truth had
if
my mind." Haydon was not alone
response to the art of Classical Greece
in his ecstatic to create a
noble, balanced composition. In this
he wrote
"I felt,"
blazed inwardly upon
his adulation of
splendour
is
clear.
and Rome. The
arrival of the Elgin
Marbles had a huge
influence on British artists, inflaming their passion for
the antique.
Jacques-Louis David, Academie
d'Homme
dite Patrocle, c.1777.
Revival of the nude
The Neoclassical movement had
its
roots in the previ-
ous century. Johann Winkelmann (1717-68), the leading
Sinuous
artist Ingres
movement, who attempted a systematic
theorist of the
history of Classical sculpture using stylistic criteria, laid particular
beauty,
emphasis on the importance of ideal
which he looked
for in the "noble simplicity
and
But despite
line
Like his master, David, the French
style of
admired the heroic
the antique and believed
passionately
in
one of the
life.
This work,
calm grandeur" of the antique.
academies of
art,
students were encouraged to spend hours in the
life
class studying the
famous
nude model - often
Classical sculpture -
Academie, or
life-study, in
<
artist's training
in the
pose of a
by candlelight. The painted
which the nude model was
idealized along Classical lines,
of an
In the
became an
essential part
artist in
the revived
academic tradition of painting the nude was Ingres, although that
was
it
was the female
rather than the male nude
his principal subject.
When,
He produced a
series of
female nudes
and
Jean-Auguste-Dominique
was
Anadyomene,
1848.
often a contentious issue.
in the first half of the nineteenth century, in
Britain, William Etty
played an active role in making the
female nude model available to students in the Royal
Academy and
in art
schools up and
there were letters in
and practice.
Perhaps the most important
and form.
the art schools. This
principles, his
are often highly contorted
Ingres, Venus
finest of his nudes,
reveals his love of line
professed
Classical
hardly Classically correct.
the importance
of drawing from
his
adherence to
Parliament.
Even
77? e
late in the
strictly controlled the
down
the country,
Times and complaints century the Royal
in
Academy
access of male students to the
female nude - those under twenty were not admitted unless they were married.
smooth-skinned, sensuous but utterly unreal nudes in the guise of goddesses or eastern
Turkish bathers.
It
was
largely
odalisques and
under Ingres's influence
that nude females began to supplement male models
THE NUDE
in
The
naturalistic
In the 1850s
nude
and 1860s the Classical tradition was
chal-
lenged by Realist artists such as Courbet and Manet.
Courbet's deliberately unidealized nudes shocked die public, as did ited
by Manet
stir
nierbe
Concert
(
two highly controversial paintings exhib-
in Paris in 186. }
woman, naked in
L866. His
Le Dejeuner
Tunnpetre (sec page 172), took the Parisian art
world by storm. In
men
and
reworking of Giorgione/Titian's
(1863), a
He created an even greater outsame year but exhibited
dress.
rage with Olympia, painted that in 1865, a
modem
reworking of Titian's Venus of I 'rhino
(see page 108). Despite echoes of Titian 's painting and
the Classical
title,
Manet's nude
is
emphatically contem-
porary and, equally clearly for her original audience, a prostitute. This
believed that
conventions
in
In this
stale
painting he reworks a
in
in
first
time since the
late in his career,
are
among
his
best-known works
Although his use of paint was much
freer, his
nudes
share the exuberant voluptuousness of the eighteenth-
century Rococo painters and offer a considerable contrast to those of Degas. They have reality but are creatures of
handled
little
to
do with
pure fantasy, sexual objects
Renaissance tradition, even though they are in
an Impressionistic
style.
Olympia
neck
stares defiantly out of the picture, her
upright and hand planted firmly
on her
thigh. This is
is
nude and
not a posed, is
come-hither look and her directness
is
no
echoed by the
Titian
had painted a sleeping dog.
naturalistic nude, but to very different ends, in his
is
ordinary surroundings
fact that she
Classical
did not
but the voluptuous
examples he produced, such as The Bathers, painted
in the
nude confronts
was unusual. Renoir
until his fortieth year,
Degas, like Manet, explored the subject of the
depicted as a contemporary
woman
nude
and disturbing was the way
bed - where
a
context. Here, for
Renaissance, a female nude
The
Degas's approach paint a
aggressive arched back of the kitten at the end of the
Titian, but,
provocatively, puts her
almost the
ests than those involved in their physical condition."
provocative contemporary context. More unexpected that Manet's
of mine
and meaningless.
famous nude by
modern
if
women
which presuppose an audience, but these
are honest simple folk, unconcerned by any other inter-
poses of so many academic female nudes, Manet's
many
painting, including
the depiction of the nude, had
become
a naturalistic nude in a believable
licks herself;
her audience - in the place of the langorous and uniting
Breaking with the past
Manet
is
who
hitherto the nude has always been represented in poses
Manet depicts an unidealized
it,
rather than a nude, in the presence of
modem
preoccupied with herself - a cat
also clearly
extraordinary series of paintings, pastels, and drawings of bathing
women. Like Manet's Olympia these are
contemporary
women
in believable situations but, in
contrast to Manet, Degas's principal interest
w as r
in
a courtesan receiving flowers
from
a client,
shocked the
body and
the physicality of the
his active
nudes are
Parisian public.
shown
Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863.
Degas himself described them as "a human creature
as self-absorbed and oblivious of the spectator.
grace as the
Domestic study This pastel
is
one
which Degas began
in
the 1880s.
He focuses on the female nude is
in
a
new
unaware that she
is
Sunlight on skin This late
Renoir's
Impressionist brushwork
and
a
sunlight
affects flesh tones. Renoir
models and chose domestic
whose
interest in Classical art with
how
dries herself.
in
prints,
he was
adopting
unconventional and apparently
spontaneous viewpoints.
Edgar Degas, c
Woman
in
a Tub,
1883
inspired by the beauty of his
work combines
concentration on
is
observed.
Degas captures the natural
and Japanese interested
way. The figure
not consciously posed and
woman
Influenced by early photography
of a series
was
staff
skin "took the light well"
to pose for him.
Pierre
Auguste Renoir, The
Bathers, 1918-19.
THE HUMAN FORM
The modern male nude From
beginning
the
the avant-garde
of
the
twentieth
century
movements of Cubism, Futurism,
and Expressionism approached the human form
in
radically different ways, distorting
and elongating
it,
and dispensing with the
aim of making the
traditional
nude a thing of beauty. Throughout the century other social and political developments such as the changing role of women in society - which among other things resulted in
many more women artists - a growing frank-
ness toward sexuality, and the rise of feminism have affected
how the nude
all
has been depicted and seen.
The modern male nude
seldom the heroic,
is
muscular, active figure of Classical
decades of the twentieth century,
Cubism was developing
in Paris, a
art.
In the
first
about the time that
at
number of German
Expressionist painters were distorting line and colour in depictions of the
human form
to express feeling
and
mood. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and other members of
made
the group Die Briicke
a nudist colony, Uncompromising intimacy Spencer was an artist
resists
this
of
In
as in the
work of the
Cubists, the powerful
a reference to
influence of the art of Africa and other cultures then
imposing double nude, one
two he painted
atmosphere of sexual
strange distortions of Kirchner's figures (see page 107)
easy
reflect, categorization.
a series of paintings of
to the
frankness and their subjects' uninhibited postures. The
original, visionary
whose work
drawn
in
seen as primitive.
the winter
of 1936-7, he likened himself
to an ant crawling over every
Uncompromising depiction
part of his future wife's body.
The
Spencer's unflinching treatment
distortion of the
body
for expressive ends
was a
of both anatomical detail and
recurrent theme throughout the twentieth century and
emotional vulnerability
was given
his
typifies
approach to the nude.
Stanley Spencer,
fresh but disturbing impetus by the suffering
brought about
Self-Portrait
by,
and witnessed during, two world
wars. As early as 1914 the Jewish sculptor Jacob Epstein
with Patricia Preece, 1937.
made half
his
famous Rock
bronze sculpture that
Drill, a
man, half mechanical
robot, expressive, as
"of the terrible Frankenstein's
is
he wrote,
monster we have turned
ourselves into." In the
Second World War the
horrific
images of
the tortured, emaciated bodies from the concentration
camps
inspired the Swiss painter and sculptor Alberto
Giacometti to create his famous slender figures, both in
bronze and
in paint.
But his nudes, male and female,
also speak of the Existential philosophy of the futility
of existence. In 1945, the year the
Second World War ended,
Francis Bacon achieved international recognition after i
Spiritual pain
Inspired by a
men
photograph of
characteristic of the angst-
exhibiting Tliree Figures at the
ridden subjects that the
Perhaps more than any
painted
running taken by the
artist
he manipulated the paint
Muybridge, Bacon started to
a highly original
depict the male form. in this
painting
is,
Movement
as always,
when
in his later years,
pioneer photographer Eadweard
captured
way
flesh
tones, as well as inner unrest.
of great interest to him The
Francis Bacon, Study for Portrait
distorted pose of his sitter
on Folding Bed. 1963
is
he explored the male nude to express isolation and introspection. His unique
12
THE NUDE
way
of using paint, which he
described as "waiting for the right accident to happen,"
has an almost visceral effect on viewers, disturbing yet powerfully communicative. Bacon paint the
1
Base of the Crucifixion.
of the twentieth century,
in
that
movement and
artist
made no attempt
to
nude descriptively and he never required the
_^H
sitter to
be present while he worked. His highly original
treatment of the nude addressed deeper concerns than his
own
in his
homosexuality, though this was clearly a factor
choice of models. While paintings such as Study
for Portrait on Folding Bed convey something of the sitter's
anguish, they also reflect Bacon's
pessimism about human
own deep
life.
the distortion of the male nude to suggest
If
and suffering has been one response to
vulnerability
many others. The eccentric
the subject, there have been British painter Stanley
Spencer approached the subject
with a a deliberately frank matter-of-factness. Between 1933 and 1937 he painted seven nude or semi-nude portraits,
and the
among which are two double nudes of himself woman who was to become his second
wife. Particularly striking is the
double nude Self-Portrait
with Patricia Preece, an uncompromisingly
realistic-
depiction of the nude. The starkness of this painting
may reflect
the couple's problematic relationship.
The bather as subject Perhaps surprisingly depictions of the male nude as erotic objects are rare in twentieth-century art
and have
more often been the preserve of male homosexual artists than of women. David Hockney 's series of beauMovement Hockney painted
water. As a homosexual a series of
male
more
inspired by
body are obscured
artist,
male than
composition
recalls
in
the
young men showering or diving
tiful
method
added an important chapter to
human
he became fascinated with the
the history of the male nude.
depicts the subject from an
later
challenge of depicting the male
this painting
angle that prevents a
of showers
m
the
nude
1
in
living in
960s.
He
Los Angeles
later
wrote that
action, especially
when
the subject was surrounded by
of the
In
he uses the device
shower to concentrate on
movement. The way
parts of the
of rendering the
form,
which the
in
David Hockney, in
swimming
pools, painted in the 1960s in Los Angeles, expresses a
female beauty, Hockney has
nudes while
into
Degas's
Beverly
Hills,
1
full
Man
in
artist
view.
Shower
sensual delight in observing the active male form.
and
wrote of these paintings: "For an
in
artist the interest
obvious; the whole body
is
movement, usually
964.
own
caressing his
He
is
always in view
gracefully, as the bather is
body. There
also a three-hundred-
is
year tradition of the bather as a subject in painting."
Hockney 's unashamed homosexuality allows him to see himself following in this tradition, even though the bathers he refers to were female.
few
In contrast
the male nude.
century that
It
women
was not
women
artists
have painted
until early in the twentieth
artists
were
first
allowed limited
access to the nude male model in the teaching studio
and throughout the century
women
ing the nude, tended to focus
"female gaze" sexuality -
is
women
on
when paintown sex. The
artists,
their
observing or celebrating male
a chapter in the history of the nude yet to
be written. Again, there are some exceptions. Sandra Fischer
made
tive studies
a series of beautifully observed, descrip-
- for example, Red Nude - combining
affec-
tion with a gentle, subtle sensuality.
Tenderness In this
tenderness to her studies of the
composition the unusually
high viewpoint and the
warm
palette of browns, yellows,
reds derive from the
and
artist's
admiration of Degas.
In
her
short career - she died at the
age of
forty-six in
1996 -
Fischer
painted both male and female
male body. Here,
at the
same
time as she depicts the physical
form of her subject detail,
vulnerability by
asleep
in
intimate
she conveys the man's
in
Sandra
showing him
an unguarded position.
Fischer,
Red Nude,
1989.
nudes, but she brought a particular sensuality
and
THE MODERN MALE NUDE
The modern female nude n the early years of the twentieth century Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse each invented
Jacqueline Roque. These paintings seem, to some,
new ways
of depicting the nude. The approaches of the two artists
were completely lasting influence
looked
different, yet
on the way
torturing the female form.
both were to exert a
which modern
in
Matisse had no such plans for his female nudes. His paintings, influenced by both ancient Greek art
artists
and the pattern-making of Islamic
at the nude.
Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
the most famous nudes
is
art,
embody a
sense of harmony rather than fragmentation. The vivid
one of
women
colours and the expressive freedom of the
of the twentieth century.
Afro-European art Picasso famously repainted the
two heads on the
right of this
composition after wandering into
showing African
a Parisian gallery art in
1907. He
was
I
later
wrote: "At
have discovered what
art
what last
show
his different versions of Tlie
of Cezanne's Bathers and a new-found passion for the
of the bold palette and uninhibited energy of his
ered a completely
that the female
nude should give pleasure
a brothel, derive analytical
relationship with the nude.
He was
own
lovers art.
of Bathers.
its
mood
could scarcely be more different;
1950s,
produced an astonishing
reinvention of the depiction of
the female nude. The work
throughout
toward the end of
his
life,
clearly
central subject of
long
his
is
career.
In
the
Matisse embarked
on a series of paper cutouts, some of them nudes.
the most autobio-
life,
Their simple beauty
in particular his
and wives, often provided the raw material for his
The nature of a
century
makes them
classics of twentieth-
art.
relationship at a given time in
subject.
Soon
after
way
in
which he depicted
Challenging convention
his
Marie-Therese Walter,
meeting the seventeen-year-old
When Gwen John
when he was in his fifties,
Slade School of Art in London in the 1890s very few
Picasso
women
celebrated the erotic nature of their relationship in a series of
nudes that are
full
of undulating cuives, an
followed her brother Augustus to the
attended art school and they were certainly
not invited to attend the classes in
life
drawing.
artists for
Nevertheless, she pursued the subject of the nude in
expression of both tenderness and frank sexuality.
decades.
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles
1907
Much
later,
when
Picasso
was
in his eighties,
produced a series of distorted nudes of
her career, which
he
Wild colour
work
themselves
reveals the
emphasis
placed on colour by Matisse and the other Fauvist painters. Pink figures, set against a blue
and
green background, dance joyously
in
a circle
and turn with
nude
many
critics
now
hold in higher
esteem than that of her brother, who received a great
his third wife,
This
Tin;
The nude remained a
art
it
The
amalgamation of these two
o"Avignon,
to the viewer.
Matisse's
graphical of artists and his
disputably affected the
would influence
as hostile to academic painting
as Picasso's iconoclastic Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,
has often been said that Picasso had a love-hate
approach to representing form
styles
Dance was
line in Tlie
all
the nude figures, representing
in his late series
are characteristic
Although the use of colour and the freedom of
painting.
celebratory.
same
African masks, but at the
from Cezanne's
Iberia, Picasso deliv-
depiction of the female body.
Painting from experience
the influence of
time the geometric forms of
in
new
His violent treatment of the subject rejects any notion
It
prostitutes
and
austerity of the art of Africa
is
about." The two reworked heads clearly
Dance
in
Combining a fascination with the formal organization
instantly
captivated by the atavism of
he saw, and
filled
with a rage and bitterness that appears to find relief in
They twist
feeling as they lose
in
the rhythm of the
dance. Matisse's work expresses a
remarkable intensity of emotion here, the feeling
is
one of
joy; in
other paintings, a profound
melancholy
is
engendered
Henri Matisse, The Dance
1910
(II),
Isolation In
the early 1990s Lucian Freud
began
two
a series of studies of
favourite models: the performer
Bowery and the "Benefit
Leigh
Supervisor
Both
"
sitters
had
huge, ungainly forms, which Freud clearly found a challenge to paint. Even so, his technical
render flesh tones
ability to
without
modern
parallel in
is
art.
The obese form of the Benefit Supervisor, seemingly exhausted
with her
own
body's weight,
conveys an atmosphere of isolation
common
Freud's nudes.
in
Lucian Freud, Benefit Supervisor Resting, 1994.
The unfashionable body Rubens, Jenny
Like
Saville loves
to explore the sensuality of oil
paint to convey flesh tones.
She
also influenced by Lucian
is
work
Freud. This series of
nude
is
one of
studies
in
a
which
she specialized during the
1990s Like much of the work,
artist's
highlights the idea of
it
women
representing
alone. By depicting
women
focuses on the idea
Saville also
that food
as bodies
obese
is
an issue for
and that the majority of
women women
do not have the fashionable, androgynous bodies represented by models
Jenny
deal
fashion magazines.
in
Saville, Propped, 1992.
more
attention in his lifetime.
Her passionate
with the French sculptor Auguste Rodin, for
affair
whom she
as represented by young, androgynous-looking
whose boyish bodies
women
Objective realism This painting
belie their sexual maturity.
is
one of a
of pictures of the
modelled, inspired an interest in the nude. Unlike Rodin's powerfully sensual studies, however, John's female nudes, such as
and subtle,
in
many
Nude
Girl,
Gwen
are quiet
cases emphasizing her subject's
painted
Psychological studies
works
Saville's
clearly display the influence,
introspection.
Gwen John is one of the many twentiethwomen artists who have been interested in discovering how to depict the female nude in ways that
porary Lucian Freud. Freud
century
tion as
challenge
illusion of flesh in his
that
passive, erotic presentation in paintings
presupposes a possessive male viewer. John's
painting is
its
direct
is
as
much
portrait as nude; the girl's gaze
and her body
is
presented in as factual or
way as possible. The same desire to challenge
objective a
both in
subject and in their use of paint, of her older contemis
well aware of his reputa-
flesh painters" in the tradition
of Rubens. His technique of using
as female -
is
subject,
1909. John
which
intimacy,
is
rare in the
history of the nude, although in
the work of both
Stanley Spencer and Lucian
paint to create the
Freud. She
was known
nudes - which are as often male
an intense
dislike of
masterly.
He has
and slowly,
oil
said: "I
act as flesh." Freud's magnificent
want the paint
to
nude studies are made
many
sittings
with the
whom he almost always knows well.
His nudes
carefully
where Gwen
living in
combines objective realism and
found
one of the "great
in Paris,
John was
after
traditional repre-
are not simply sexual beings and his subjects are
sentations of the female form in art and popular culture
seldom beautiful young women. Appropriately for
pair
same model
named that
is
Fenella Lovell
quite apparent
way she
-
a hostility
the
in
represents her subject
Nevertheless, first
to have
the model,
when
shown the
it
was
portrait
was
immediately admired
Gwen
John, Nude
Girl,
1909-10. lies
behind the nudes of the contemporary British
Jenny
Saville. In the early
series of realistic
artist
1990s she embarked on a
nudes of obese women.
Saville's
works are
and unadorned; they are also a deliberate
rejection of the
contemporary concept of female beauty
the
grandchild
Sigmund Freud,
of his
concerned with the
body
It is
the
pioneering
psychoanalyst
nudes are psychological sitter's
telling that
studies, as
character as with his or her
he refers to these paintings not as
nudes but as his "nude
portraits."
THE MODERN FEMALE NUDE
"ti
"Historic painting, .
.
.
from
its
sublime style
and the great breadth of imagination
to
which
it is
susceptible; from the
extensive range of
its effects,
unbounded dominion
it
and the
gives the painter,
occupies the most exalted rank in the various departments of art." William Cullen Bryant, Letters of a Traveller, or Notes of Things Seen in
Europe and America, 1850
History Painting
History
painting
is
not simply the painting
of history; the term
wider than that
is
and includes the depiction of events
may
may
or
from Classical mythology
for example,
or the Bible.
It
could more accurately be called narrative
painting - although
it is
usually applied only to easel
from the Renaissance to the nineteenth
paintings
century - but the important point
is
that
from other kinds of painting that do not such as portraiture, theory
it
that
not have happened, drawn,
still life
tell
or genre. In
it
is distinct
a story at
has been held in the highest esteem, as
were the equivalent of epic
all,
much academic if it
poetry.
Classical influences History painting
was an
invention, or a re-invention, of
When
the Florentine humanist Leon
the Renaissance.
Battista Alberti, in his influential treatise (1436), discussed
what he expected to
he focused on what he called an
On Painting
find in a painting,
istoria.
He took
his
ideas not only from the great fresco cycles in Italian
churches, by painters from Giotto onward, but also
from what he had read of Classical painting. In particuPatriotic
The three
heroism
Dramatic conflict
Horatii brothers
The American
John
artist
swear an oath of
Trumbull, inspired by
allegiance to fight the
Raphael and Michelangelo,
painted a picture representing his fellow courtiers' treachery. Alberti
Curatii brothers to the
paints as a Classical scene
defence of the
death
in
state.
David took the story
from the Roman Livy.
historian
The work celebrates
the republican ideals of late
eighteenth-century
France but ironically
it
was
commissioned by King Louis XVI,
who was
one of the dramatic
battles
that led to independence for the
American colonies.
important conflict
an
in
emergent nation suggests comparison with
was in
all
that
strongest and noblest
the ancient world of the
guillotined in 1793.
Greeks and Romans.
John Trumbull, The
Horatii,
1
784.
praised this lost picture above
all
for its quality of invention
portrayal of the figures in action. His ideal painting
and the
would have several
contrasted figures, young and old, male and female, angry and happy, and
so on, and
it
would move the spectator
just as
Ptolemy was moved by
This dramatization of an
Jacques-Louis David, The
Oath of the
lar he drew on the description of the Calumny of Apelles work of Lucian, dating from the second century ad. The painter Apelles was falsely accused at the court of Ptolemy I, King of Egypt, and
in the
of Bunker
Hill,
1
786.
Battle
Apelles's painting to
The
pardon him and punish
his detractors.
greatest painters of the High Renaissance consciously took over
Alberti's ideals, infusing
them with a grandeur derived from
Classical
sculpture. For later generations, Raphael's frescos in the papal
of the Vatican in
Rome
(see page 75)
should be. The fact that there (it
is
no
rooms
embodied what history painting
real action in
The School of Athens
simply represents Philosophy, in terms of numerous people walking
and talking) does not detract from
crowds of
figures of all kinds
its
invention, with
making noble gestures
in
striking poses.
Poussin and his followers During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was little
discussion of forms of painting; almost
worked on commission and jects they
all artists
generally painted the sub-
were given with as much display of
their art
was permitted or demanded of them. However, by the seventeenth century, more and more artists were as
able to build careers without relying predominantly on
court or religious patronage, and could devise their subject matter. Nicolas Poussin
own
was a notable example, who would buy the
building up a circle of patrons
history paintings he invented for them, whether these
were mythologies or
religious works.
French Academy, founded
in 1648
Louis XTV's
and dominated by
Poussin's disciple Charles Lebrun, adopted as a stan-
dard of excellence Poussin's carefully deliberated and
HISTORY PAINTING
Freedom
fighters
Delacroix
documents the
street fighting in Paris in
1830 and makes
sympathies in
Self-sacrifice
Cato the Younger took
The French painter
his
clear. Liberty,
Classical dress, a single
life
after
his
an unsuccessful
plot against Caesar in
Guerm's scene of
46 bo
Roman
heroism held great appeal for revolutionary France
allegorical figure in a
He created
staged scene peopled with
tableau through the play
real players,
symbolizes a
prized virtue from ancient
days
In
a reference to
a
melodramatic
of emotional gestures that
sweep from
left
to right
toward the dying Cato,
recent events she wears
who
the revolutionary cap of
entrails while resisting the
liberty rifle
and brandishes a
and the
tricolour as
has ripped out his
efforts of his doctor. In
the centre his horrified son
she urges on the popular
runs toward him, arms
struggle for freedom.
rigid in
Eugene
Pierre-Narcisse Guerin,
Delacroix, Liberty
Leading the People, 1830.
pain and disbelief.
The Death of Cato, 1797.
balanced paintings, in which a range of gestures, emotions, and
was contained
colours
Leonardo da Vinci
in
a focused composition. Lebrun also studied
passions, represented above
When
painters
chiefly for
compile a kind of grammar of the
in order to
came
through
all
facial expression.
to select stories to illustrate they looked
a moral or an uplifting theme, especially for works that
were destined
for public display.
The
greatest Classical
good conduct was that of Scipio, who conquered not only but also himself, abstaining, in the episode
known
example of his
enemies
as the Continence
of Scipio, from taking as his concubine the wife of a defeated captive (see page 125).
The decline of history painting The eighteenth century saw a decline
in the
The French Academy struggled
painting.
blatantly frivolous compositions like Chardin, a
In England,
to
demand
and to honour
self-acknowledged specialist in
sufficiently a painter still life
and genre.
had never been much patronized,
history painting
Hogarth's rumbustious portrayals of real
Reynolds, president of the
for this sort of
accommodate Watteau's
new
life
being preferred. Joshua
English Royal Academy, founded
in 1768, tried to introduce history paint-
ing values into portraiture, artists, in
particular the
but other
Americans John
Singleton Copley and Benjamin West,
Timeless contest In
1817 Gericault saw the
riderless Barberi horses
race through
more imaginatively extended the form reportage, representing
to
famous contem-
porary battles in paintings that were intended to be reproduced as engravings. In
France the revolutionary Jacques
one of the
Rome
A
traditional events.
of horses
and
observer of
in
city's
a
lover
keen
modern
life,
the French painter was transfixed by this
Louis David brought
new
life
to history
subjects by imparting not moral but political
messages to them. With the
restoration
of the
French monarchy,
spectacle, seeing
in
it
the
fusion of the timeless and
the modern. He stripped
away modern
detail
and
introduced a Classical
despite Delacroix's brilliant attempts to
continue the tradition, the
life
went out of
background to create a universal
image of
men
history painting, which, paradoxically,
and horses engaged
became
fierce competition.
ties
increasingly valued for
of genre -
its details, its
its quali-
costumes,
Theodore
in
Gericault,
The Race of the Riderless
and
its
exotic settings.
Horses, 1817-18.
INTRODUCTION
119
The From around
Classical past and then
1400, at first in Italy
considered to represent a quests,
lost
in
other
Rome were
parts of Europe, ancient Greece and
golden age of heroes, con-
and great thoughts and deeds.
Artists
and writers
looked back to the Classical world for examples of virtue
and heroism that would serve as subjects for their work. Poggio Bracciolini, one of the early Renaissance humanists,
wrote nostalgically of Rome's
seeking from is
to be
it
mourned over
.
.
.
the parent of so
many and such
mother of so many good
from which flowed military life,
from greatness,
inspiration for the present day: "this city
great \irtues, the
and
fall
the city
aits,
discipline, purity of
the decrees of the law, the models of
morals all
were collected by humanists, and by the end of the fifteenth century patrons
were asking painters to repro-
duce the works. For example,
Botticelli
and Mantegna
both recreated Lucian's Calumny ofApelles;
Botticelli's
shown on page 98. Patrons such as Alphonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, commissioned series of works for their private rooms or studioli, recreating ancient masterpieces. Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne (see page
version
80),
is
based on a description by Catullus of a figurative
embroidery,
is
one such
painting. Alternatively, court
humanists were asked to supply appropriate subjects taken from their
knowledge of ancient
literature.
Compassion
Darius kneel before Alexander
and
companion Hephaestion,
his
who
them
visit
of Darius
after the defeat
in battle,
the entire Persian Empire. The is
recounted
histories, including
virtues,
and the knowledge of right
Adapting the past In many cases, the stoiy
living."
Plutarch
itself
provided a clear enough
when
Alexander gained control of
episode
the
victory
in
The family of the Persian king
who
and
in
many
those of
Valerius
Maximus,
described the potentially
made
Inspiration of the past
example from which to work. However, humanists and
disastrous mistake
Inspired by the writings of scholars such as Poggio, in
patrons also worked by choosing their theme and then
Darius's family in mistaking
the fifteenth centuiy Italian artists began to travel to
seeking out suitable stories or by adapting mythologies
Rome
to see
to
great
Roman
the
what remained of the
capital of the once-
Empire. Marvelling at the beauty of the
Eternal City's ancient statuary and architecture, they
adapted the styles they saw for their
own work. Andrea
fit
their
established
own in
ideas. Building antiquity,
on a
tradition already
Renaissance
artists
used
Classical figures as personifications of abstract qualities
- Venus was used to represent love, for instance, and
tall
and splendidly
in ancient
Rome and
works such as
sought to capture
its
glory in
his series of nine paintings called T)ie
Triumphs of Caesar (see page 74). Very few paintings from ancient Rome and none was known
in the
survive,
ten descriptions of the paintings,
HISTORY PAINTING
as ekphrases,
their
own tableaux
using these protagonists. Although easy to confuse with histoiy painting,
many
gories and not stories;
Renaissance. However, writ-
known
Mars to represent war - and devised
page 102)
fits
into this
of these works are in fact
alle-
War and Peace by Rubens (see categoiy. Even when adopting a
stoiy from Ovid or another Classical source, artists freely invented the circumstances
and emotions.
attired
Hephaestion for Alexander
The former explains that he is
not Alexander, while the
latter
remarks
lightly
magnanimously that
companion
Mantegna, for example, was passionately interested
by
Alexander.
is
In
like
a
and his
another
show
compassion to the
of
family,
Alexander refrained from taking offence, even
though the wife
of Darius feared for her
life.
Paolo Veronese, The Family of Darius before Alexander, c.
1565-70.
Memento In this
mori
("I")
enigmatic work Poussin
depicts a Classical figure
who
indicates to three shepherds an inscription
reads "Et
A
legendary hero
This fresco
in
Leo
one of the four
Pope
was commissioned by
Julius
II.
The
Virgil's
foreground scene shown here is
of people fleeing a
X,
under
allusion to the presence of in life
and
death
the loveliest Arcadian
idyll.
his figures
on antique Roman
sculpture and those of Raphael.
a reminder of the
Nicolas Poussin, Et
omnipresence of mortality even in
painter studied Classical literature
and philosophy, and based
an
The
in
Arcadia
Ego. 1636-9
of
whom
the
description of
Aeneas
fleeing Troy with his father,
Anchises, on his back and his
fire in
Rome
son, Ascanius, beside him.
around the Vatican) that was
Raphael, The Burning of the
miraculously quelled by Pope
Borgo
In the early Renaissance, to
sarcophagus that
refer to Death,
inscription
however, was clearly inspired by
principal
the Borgo (the area of
"name ancestor"
a
Arcadia Ego ""Ego"
thought to
work was completed Raphael,
Stanze, or papal rooms, in the
Vatican
IV,
Pope Leo
on
in
is
which makes the
(detail),
1514-17.
Mantegna had been keen
evoke the Classical past by reproducing accurate
costume and armour, but by the sixteenth century there
was
less
concern to place the ancients, whether
or Classical, in their to
renew
This
is
own
biblical
contexts and a greater desire
their stories entirely in
particularly clear in the
contemporary terms.
work of Veronese, who
borrows from the pageantry of the doge's audiences to present the confrontation of Alexander with the family of Darius. Veronese displays
all
porary Venice, particularly
its
evoke a world
still
the opulence of contem-
sumptuous
textiles, to
grander than the ancient one.
In the seventeenth century Nicolas Poussin, a
superlative history painter, evolved a kind of dress
and
presentation that gave his chosen stories a timeless
and universalizing
quality.
His paintings incorporated
archaeological accuracies and occasional direct refer-
idealized
world that the ancients, or his
past that
characters,
would not have recognized any
artists.
perfectly
Man
Poussin created a style for handling the Classical
ences to ancient buildings, but created a less specific,
became a point of reference
for
all
subsequent
in
biblical
more
easily than Veronese's world. Poussin's
rary
Claude based his settings on the countryside
contempo-
around Rome, but also transformed the old ruins of
Rome
into grandiose visions that
sites
and
were more
However, the discovery of sites such as Pompeii
in the late eighteenth century,
ology,
and the growth of archae-
enabled painters to introduce almost topical
allusions to recent finds and to rethink Classicism
returning to accurate detail of the ancient world.
by
The
against nature
Turner sketched a dramatic storm northern England and later
used
its
effects as the
for this work.
on an episode
background
The painting draws in
the history of
the Punic Wars that
tells
of the
battle of the Carthaginian leader
army against
Hannibal and
his
snowstorm
the European Alps.
a
inspirational than instructive, as in bis Seaport with the
nineteenth-century Dutch painter Alma-Tadema created
Embarkation of the Queen o/Sheba (see page 122). To some extent, once the setting had been composed and
intensely evocative scenes meticulously reconstructed
Joseph Mallord William Turner
from the evidence of Pompeii and other
Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, 1812.
the
mood
struck, the actual story told did not matter.
his Tfie
sites,
Baths of Caracalla (see page 210).
such as
in
THE CLASSICAL PAST
12
Other histories The
new
subjects began during the
subjects. Similarly the popular revival of the Arthurian
Renaissance, prompted by the demands of patrons
legend in Britain, and of that of the Nibelungs in
search for
for representations of appropriate stories with
which to
Germany, provided a rich vein of alternative histories
decorate their palaces. They wanted scenes featuring
that
contemplative philosophers and theologians to go
prehistory while at the
their studies; feast scenes in their dining
was popular Marriage at Cana or
monastery
Last Supper
in
the
the Fall of
rooms
in
(the
refectories, but
Manna were
also
scenes of battles and pageantry in their state
suitable);
receptions rooms; and, of course, the loves of the gods in their
bedrooms. Humanist courtiers were urged to
devise "programmes" that would answer the "decorum" of the context wittily
and
flatteringly.
The scope of
expanded so widely by the end
history painting had
of the sixteenth century that the meanings of pictures
still
many
tax the erudition of scholars today.
The process continued
into the seventeenth
were seen as dignifying
eigh-
establishing a differ-
ent tradition from ancient history.
Chronicles of medieval and Renaissance histories
provided inspiration for a number of nineteenth-century including the French painter Delaroche. His
artists,
picture The Execution of
Lady Jane Grey enjoyed The
great critical acclaim in the Paris Salon of 1833.
beheading of monarchs, and the sympathy the viewer invited to feel for the martyr-like figure,
is
may have
struck a compassionate, even nostalgic note in postrevolutionary France. Delaroche in Paris in the
and
their respective nation's
same time
subjects, as
was
1830s for creating
opposed to Classical
greatly
esteemed
modem
historical
historical subjects,
by
teenth centuries, but by this time the context had
depicting scenes from medieval English history. His
become
Princes in the Tower (1830) was a painting of innocent
less important
and learned
learned friends, would seek their
but
new
artists,
or their
subjects derived from
own reading. They cast their nets increasingly wide, was not
it
until the nineteenth
century that history
painting began to range freely through the centuries.
victims,
subjects'
pawns death.
in
a political
game
Historical texts
that led to the
on English history
provided Delaroche with the tragic tale of the two
young
princes, popularly
supposed to have been
incar-
cerated and then murdered by their usurping uncle,
Alternative sources of inspiration
From to
the late eighteenth century
widen
gies
their repertoires
and
histories.
onward
lung Richard artists
sought
and explored other mytholo-
The saga of the Gaelic bard and
warrior Ossian (see page 96), for example, which
contained
much
dramatic narrative
and heroism, was
an alternative to the Classical pantheon as a source of
III.
He may
history plays for material
also have read Shakespeare's
on the English monarchs.
The nineteenth-century French Ingres
drew on Giorgio
Classical painter
Yasari's Lives
Excellent Pointers, Sculptors,
of the Most
and Architects,
lished in 1550, for subject matter. Yasari's
first
pub-
book records
the great achievements of contemporary artists such as
Tribute to a master
The painter-biographer tells
Vasari
us that La Fornanna
was
the baker's daughter with
whom
the Renaissance painter Raphael
was
in love. In this
tribute by
the French painter Ingres to the artist is
he most admired, Raphael
shown seated with
on
his
his
beloved
knee. She looks out at us,
recognizable as the face beneath
the headdress that Raphael had
painted
in
1518. Raphael looks
over his shoulder at
his
painted
image of La Fornanna, offering us the three-quarter view of
the face he painted self-portraits.
and her retinue descend to the
Royal voyage In
Claude's
idyllic
boats that
waterside
town the picturesque rums a Classical portico
on the
of
left
on the
right
This
transport
them
to the ships on the horizon,
and thence to King Solomon
other
references to the Renaissance
master
is
appears
the papal chair that
in
Raphael's portrait
of Pope Leo
X
Jean-Auguste-Dominique
are balanced by a fine Classical
building
will
in his
Among
is
the
Queen's palace, from which she
Claude. Seaport with the
Embarkation of the Queen
Ingres, Raphael
and La
Fornanna, 1811-12.
ofSheba, 1648.
HISTORY PAINTIM.
Focus of sympathy Delaroche paints the just
elder daughter of Henry
moment
found
beheaded
before the execution of the
at the
VIII,
and
guilty of treason,
Tower of
sixteen-year-old Lady Jane Grey,
London
great-granddaughter of Henry
her skin and silken underclothes
After the death VIH's son,
in
1
VII.
553 of Henry
the young Edward
1554 The
pallor of
the gloom of the tower
in
make
her a beacon of light intended
VI,
Lady Jane Grey became queen for nine days She
in
to
was deposed by
elicit
the viewer's sympathy
Paul Delaroche, The Execution
the supporters of Mary Tudor,
of Lady Jane Grey, 1833.
Michelangelo, whose work the author considered to
match or even surpass
thai of the ancients. In tracing
the history of Italian painting from
own
thirteenth century to his
Cimabue
in
the
day, Vasari created a fas-
cinating record of a progression toward "perfection."
The L ires has never been out of print and from edition
it
its first
provided painters, writers, and poets with
inspiration.
Among
these
was
Ingres,
who was moved
to depict his hero, Raphael, seated with the object of his Early This
America
love.
was the
first
American
history
painting to be exhibited at the Paris Salon.
It
shows
a notorious
incident from the Revolutionary
War
La Fomarina.
work by John Vanderlyn
of 1775-83: the colonist
who
The need
to establish the history of a nation through
literature
and painting
is
seen worldwide, but the
histories of late eighteenth-century
Jane McCrea was murdered by Indians,
Creating history
were painted
in
America and Russia
accordance with the dictates of French
took her scalp
history painting. Benjamin West's Tfie Death of General
to the British for a reward.
Vanderlyn depicts the terrible
Wolfe (1770) (see page 116) illustrates a heroic
moment
in the early history of colonial
this
before the atrocity
in
dramatic reconstruction
in
which McCrea
is
sacrificial victim evil.
The
artist
scale figures
an innocent
overpowered by
based the large-
on
the right from the
known
European history
painting. Artists
on
moment
in the heroic
such as West
and John Vanderlyn. who depicted scenes not only of the ancient world but also of their emerging nation,
worked within the European
late-Classical
sculpture, deriving the figure
style of
America,
working
in Italy, Paris or
Roman work to the "rules" of
tradition, studying
and
London and painting according
European history
painting.
as the Borghese warrior.
John Vanderlyn, The Murder of Jane McCrea, 1803-4.
In the nineteenth century the greatest Russian
histoiy painter,
Vasily
Surikov,
depicted scenes of
medieval Russia. His works show dramatic incidents as the central focus of vibrant
crowd scenes.
Religious division
An
aristocratic
opponent of
church reform carried out by the czar
and
Patriarch
Nikon
the
in
seventeenth century, Feodosia
Morozova was punished as an "Old Believer."
Condemned
a horrible death
shame and abuse in
to
and exposed to
chains through
as she
is
driven
Moscow,
she nevertheless asserts her intransigence with a sweeping gesture:
in
an allusion to the
cause of her downfall, her two outstretched fingers form the sign of the schism. Surikov
was
attracted by both the exoticism of the past
and the power of
religious fanaticism
by the heroine of
embodied
this painting.
Vasily Surikov, The Execution
of Boyarina Pajaritar Morozova.
1887
OTHER HISTORIES
123
Scenes of virtue Underpinning
history painting
exemplary conduct
was the idea of "example" or
in a difficult situation. In the seventeenth
century the Classical world was seen as embodying virtue, stoicism,
and moral
self-sacrifice,
probity, providing material for
French drama-
tists such as Racine and Comeille, as well as for Poussin, the founder
of French Classicism in ential in
art.
The theme of ancient
virtue
was
also influ-
France during the eighteenth century, when the nobility
Rome was
of ancient
a guiding principle for the
new
republic that
was not only
and children were also presented and parent, friend and
to spouse
Artists could
Conjugal fidelity
the province of men.
in paintings as acting
stranger.
One
Women
honourably
of the best-known
world was that of Lucretia,
in the ancient
dishonoured after her rape by Tarquin, King of
live
Rome, took her own
life.
draw on examples
illustrating
was exemplified by
every
known
virtue.
who drank
Artemisia,
her
husband's ashes mixed with wine, thus transforming her body into his grave. Filial piety
was the
subject of one of the chapters of the nine
books of memorable deeds and sayings compiled by the Roman writer Valerius
followed the Revolution. Virtuous action
examples of female virtue
who, rather than
Maximus
in
ad
telling of the respect
\irtue of Charity.
30.
This contains the story of
Cimon and
Pero,
due to a parent from a child and extolling the
The Flemish
Rubens made several paintings
artist
of this subject.
j/k'
H:>dW.
/^fcwv
Greek refinement
Champions of peace The
Italian artist
Guercmo
painted several stirring
scenes from ancient This
history.
work was made
for
This painting, in
which the
central figure of Hersilia
arms
stretches out her
who had been
secretary of
husbands, marks a change
and
is
a fine
Classical style
example of
Baroque. Both
and subject influenced
many
later
works, including
David's The Intervention
of the Sabine Hersilia,
Women.
wife of Romulus,
by the
Roman Emperor the third
century for refusing to
between fathers and
of France,
to death
Diocletian
la Vnlliere,
XIII
was
condemned
to prevent slaughter
Phelypeaux de
state to Louis
Act of charity St Sebastian
in
the work of the French
renounce
a holy
canvases, which celebrated
is
Shot
to die,
left
found and tended by
he
has replaced the harsher
Roman
Christianity.
with arrows and
painter David. Here he
style of his earlier
in
woman,
Irene,
who
her daughters,
and
nurse
him back to health. The
republican virtue, with
image of Sebastian mirrors
Greek refinement and a
Christ
message of
mirror the three sorrowing
reconciliation
and
his
nurses
sweeps onto centre stage
and forgiveness. The Greek
Marys. The interior and the
to prevent her husband
theme
discarded armour remind
from fighting
the nudity of the
Tacitus.
Her
is
also reflected in
men and
the viewer that this
is
the
and the
the arrangement of the
Classical world,
between the Romans and
crowd, which resembles
French
Sabines" that provided the
the continuous horizontal
uses these details to meld
band of a Greek
the notions of Christian
action creates "the peace
painting with
Guercino,
its
subtitle.
Hersilia
Separating Romulus from Tacitus,
1645
HISTORY PAINTING
frieze.
artist
Blanchard
and Roman
Jacques-Louis David, The
charity
Intervention of the Sabine
Jacques Blanchard
Women, 1799
St Sebastian, 1600-38.
duty.
A
daughter's love
In this
scene, taken by
Rubens from Valerius Maximus, Pero
visits
her
Gmon,
imprisoned father
sentenced to starve to death, and breastfeeds
he were an
him as
if
infant.
The
subject's
combination of a
and
idea of
to
titillating
secretive act with the
its
devotion led
filial
being painted
in
the seventeenth century
by
many
both
artists in
northern and southern Europe, including the
Dutch followers of Caravaggio
Utrecht.
in
Peter Paul Rubens
Roman
Charity, 1612.
Academic study
Final parting
lit
Hector, son of King Priam,
The
and the bravest of the
Wright of Derby painted
Trojan warriors, played a
this
major role
in
the Trojan
English painter Joseph
scene using
war against the Greeks.
contrast of light and darks.
history painter
Lesenko
The academy
question
is
on a
raised
down
on the assembled group of admirers,
his
who
sketch
her beauty and discuss her
trademark dramatic
This scene by the Russian
and
pedestal. She looks
form. This work related to in
an intimate
the topical issue of the
foundation of a national
group of friends meeting
academy
to his wife, Andromache,
to discuss and sketch
Academy was founded
before returning with Paris
Classical statuary and,
in
to the battlefield after
by extension, to gain
promote an English school
making offerings to the
enlightenment through
of history painting
gods. Soon afterward
the study of ancient
grand manner.
shows him bidding
Hector meets
his
farewell
death
hands of
in battle
at the
Achilles.
The contemporary
viewer would have this
and have read
sculpture.
The antique
figure of a young, semi-
dressed
woman
is
centrally
of
London
art.
in
The Royal
1768 to
in
the
Joseph Wright of Derby
An Academy by Lamplight,
c.
1768-9.
known into
the painting the couple's
understanding that
was
this
Self-control their last farewell.
Anton Lesenko, Hector Taking Leave of
Andromache, 1772-3
This scene,
which derives
from many sources, including Livy
and
Plutarch,
was painted many times
in
the seventeenth century.
The Roman general is
Scipio
shown being crowned
with the
victor's
wreath
after his defeat of the
Carthaginians. But he
achieves a further victory
by overcoming
his
own
passions. Instead of taking for himself a desirable
female captive as the
spoils
of war, he restores her to
her intended husband. Poussin paints the episode in
the style of a Classical
frieze set against a
dramatic backlight of
stormcloud and sunburst. Nicolas Poussin The
Continence of
Scipio,
1640
SCENES OF VIRTUE
Painting for the public After the French Revolution of 1789 the founders of the
new
church patronage: both continued to exist alongside
Republic looked to the antique model of
the virtues associated with Classical Greece and Rome. Aristocratic patronage
was superseded by
aim of providing an
age, with the
civic patron-
art for the people,
although this was more apparent in theory than in practice.
from
Even
so, the eighteenth
aristocratic
display of
art.
century saw a shift
and church patronage
From
to the public
the later part of the century the
Academy in London staged in which the work of selected artists
Salon in Paris and the Royal
annual exhibitions
was placed on In
these
public view institutions
This extraordinary
chose and
planned the subjects they themselves wished to paint
French painter Girodet contains
(sometimes
in fierce competition
with one another),
executing commissions.
However,
this
development did not mean the end of aristocratic and
be accepted, exhibited, and
Classical
world without depicting
a particular episode
ancient text. The
from an
artist also
creates resonances of the story of
the Flood, described
Testament.
When
in
the Old
of
work
1806 he expressed
power
would
capital cities led not only to a
public that included a large
critic,
the
kind of viewing
growth of the powerful
lovers, but also to the
the
new
number of middle-class
art
figure of
maker and breaker of reputations and
creator of taste.
the great
at the Paris Salon
admiration for the
it
The annual public
exhibitions held in London, Paris, and other European
Good
French Neoclassical painter David this
submitted their work
sold.
echoes of figures from the
his pupil
rather than
work by the
artists
committee in the hope that
to a selection
Power and grace
saw
the painters
new system by which
the
in
were the focus of most
Diderot (1713-84) was one of the most influential
his
way
history paintings
public and critical attention. The French writer Denis
which
He urged artists to abandon the Rococo painting for a more worthwhile style
reviewers of the Salon.
had combined the
of Michelangelo with
froth of
the grace of Raphael.
and subject: to "paint as they spoke
Girodet, The Deluge, 1806.
he
said,
and
in Sparta." Artists,
should take the ancients as models of sobriety
The French painter Girodet, a was an artist who looked back to the
virtue.
David,
world
in
works such as
Tlie
pupil of Classical
Deluge but also heralded
the Romanticism of painters of the following generation,
such as his compatriot Delacroix.
Private and public commissions Popularity and critical acclaim at the Salon or the
Academy provided
painters with an opportunity for
commissioned work, and the success of such work often led to a public commission. Delacroix's reputation as a history painter
was already
established
when
he received commissions from the state to supply substantial Paris.
canvases on historical themes for locations
The works he painted
and the Hall of Peace
for the
in the Hotel
in
Luxembourg Palace
de
Ville
mirrored the
content and context of earlier examples of political histoiy painting such as that of
who,
Ambrogio
in thirteenth-century Italy, painted
Lorenzetti,
an allegorical
work on the theme of the effects of good and bad government for the town hall in Siena (see page 176). Many Salon paintings were immense - the French described them as grandes machines - and functioned as dramatic, theatrical tableaux that were, in cases, intended to be read as
many
commentaries on contem-
porary events. These canvases also served to advertise the talents of the artists in particular
fields,
such as the
depiction of scenes of noble restraint, the wild and dramatic, the imaginative, or the minutely observed.
The Raft of the Medusa, a huge canvas by Gericault, violated the conventions of history painting.
The French
artist
was
inspired not by a great national
victory or campaign, but by a real event from
which
morality and virtue were conspicuously absent.
An
account by two of the survivors of the shipwrecked
French vessel Medusa was published
HISTORY PAINTING
in
1818 and
inspired Gericault to paint this disaster. While the artist
incorporated dead or dying figures in the foreground in
order to involve the viewer
gruesome experience,
fully in
the survivors'
powerful and emotional
this
work focuses on the moment of salvation. Gericault treats a
potential rescue and
contemporary event as a
grand episode from ancient history, and indeed the
name
very
approach dead
face resembles that of the
Sex and death The source of
this painting
was
a
painter, provides a single
play by the English poet Byron
calm.
that concludes with the ritual
setting the ruler
suicide of the Assyrian
Sardanapalus.
Amid
monarch
Delacroix's
scene of violence and
carnality,
the eastern potentate,
whose
In this
exotic
as his
and opulent
watches with
composure an orgy killing
note of
harem
of frenzied is
put to
by the horses racing left,
the
right,
a naked
murdered
a bejewelled
on
woman
being
nude
expiring
voluptuously on the silken bed.
Eugene
confusion and terror
of Sardanapalus,
increased
from
the forefront, and
in
death The impression of is
in
figures crying out
the
Delacroix, The Death 1
82 7
of the wrecked ship suggests a Classical
that is reinforced
by the nude and heroically
figures.
When The Raft of the Medusa was shown at the Salon in the summer of 1819 it was seen an explicit criticism of
contemporary France and as such attracted
adverse and positive criticism alike from those on both the right and the
left
of the political spectrum. In April
1820 Gericault took the
work
to London,
where
it
was exhibited in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly and attracted more than 50,000 paying visitors.
Entertainment and education In
England
in the late eighteenth
century commercial
exhibition halls, such as London's Egyptian Hall and the
Pantheon, allowed the paying public, at this time entirely middle-class, to
cated by
art.
be both entertained and edu-
These venues date from the period when
Museum was founded and anticipate the many other museums and art galleries that opened in the British
the following century.
century
it
was
By
the end of the nineteenth
in the art gallery, rather
castle, palace, or
town
hall, that
than the church,
most
artists
choose to have their work displayed, for that
it
it
would
was here
could most easily be viewed by the public.
Prospect of salvation In this
large
work Gericault
depicts a contemporary disaster
and format
at sea using the scale
that the public
seeing
in
was used
to
paintings of ancient
the
history. In
summer
of
1816
the French ship Medusa, carrying soldiers
and
settlers to
the French colony of Senegal,
was wrecked Africa.
off the coast of
The captain,
saved himself lifeboats,
in
nobleman,
a
one
of the
abandoning
inferiors to
few
his social
fend for themselves
as best they could.
The remaining
150 souls
built a primitive raft
and were
adrift for nearly
two
weeks before being rescued by a sister ship, the Argus. Only fifteen
people survived to
tell
of
the horrors of the cannibalism
and
insanity they
Theodore
had witnessed.
Gericault, The Raft
of the Medusa, 1819.
PAINTING FOR THE PUBLIC
Contemporary heroes For
centuries artists were commissioned to com-
memorate events,
and
rather than simply record contemporary
this
requirement led them in most cases to
idealize the subject.
record
made
this
The absence of any photographic
more
natural,
even though there are
Christ in Michelangelo's Pieta. David's interpretation of his subject suggests that
Marat
is
to be regarded as
a Christ-like martyr of the Revolution. The austerity, clarity,
and serenity of this scene, painted
Marat's death, also
seem
to associate the
in the year of
work with
the
Dramatic licence Copley created
onward of
in the early fifteenth century
artists mercilessly depicting the
weight and dignity of the Classical world.
victory over the French
on the
Elevated status
expected to conform to an antique prototype of heroic
Painters have traditionally integrated contemporary
capital, St Helier,
myth and legend
valour in which references to ancient heroes or to Christ
figures with those of
were
enhance the standing of the former. This device was
figures could
be made. For
this
reason
many scenes
depicting the death of contemporary figures, such as Tlie
Death of Major Peirson, 6th January, 1781, painted
in
order to
The
artist
John Singleton Copley
in 1783,
most commonly used
in paintings of
monarchs and
other rulers, as in Rubens 's Marie de Medici cycle (see
page
103,
Henry TV Receives
the Portrait of
Marie de
who was
Medici), in which the gods of antiquity play an ennobling
dead by
the
which the symbol of the eagle was painted above him
moment
Christ after his removal
from the
cross.
French queen.
Similarly,
so that he would be associated in the educated viewer's
island.
and the Jersey
shot dead by a sniper
while positioning his
the French emperor Napoleon commissioned works in
pose of the deposed
soon
small
year-old Major Francis Peirson,
alluded to the deaths of its heroes. Copley's dying British in the familiar
A
spearheaded a counter-
role in the earthly life of the
shown
.
attack led by the twenty-three-
looked back to the ancient world or the Bible and
soldier is
781
and forced the
British garrison
final assault.
by the American
1
governor to surrender the
militia
and a comparison with these
Island of Jersey very
men
for the
The sniper was shot
Peirson's black servant,
Pompey. Copley has heightened
drama by transposing the
later
of Peirson's death to the
moment
of victory.
John Singleton Copley, The
In Tlie
Death of Marat by the French painter
David, the dead revolutionary resembles the figure of
HISTORY PAINTING
had
French army marched on the
war and the random operation of justice. Paintings were
readily understood
who
British
after this event of
horrors of
dramatic
heard the news of the
Channel
examples from Pisanello
this
tableau for John Boydell,
mind with the Roman god marshals depicted
He had his fallen work Ossian Receiving
Jupiter.
in Girodet's
Death of Major January,
1
Peirson, 6th
781, 1783
Death of a hero
seen
the inscription on the
in
plinth in the foreground:
"A
MARAT. DAVID." Marat,
[TO]
whose
Corday,
letter
an audience
is
whose
lies
knife
in his
away
all
but
infirmities,
such
as the skin complaint that Marat tried to alleviate
bath by Charlotte
in his
strips
Even
simplicity
wooden
murdered
David
Christ
essential detail to create a noble
David's republican sympathies are
himself
by immersing
water and wearing a
in
requesting
vinegar-soaked turban, are
hand and
transformed into heroic imagery
on the
floor,
Jacques-Louis David, The Death
is
painted to resemble the dead
of Marat, 1793.
events until the fourth decade of the twentieth century,
when
the notions of tradition, power, duty, and honour
were revived
for
propaganda purposes
The
spirit
in art officially Girodet
the
Shades of French Heroes as part of his beloved also page 96), so they were
produced between 1930 and
endowed with
the valour of this legendary figure.
Gericault's Die Raft of the
Medusa
tion
(see page 127)
used the heroic form of history painting to depict a scene that
was the
result of actions that
were
far
from heroic.
His painting of the aftermath of a shipwreck that had
taken place only three years earlier bears
all
the hall-
in Soviet art
1950.
paintings
of proscribed
exhibiin 1937
artists.
The
Third Reich considered these non-naturalistic works to
be morally degrading and many were destroyed. The Nazis favoured images of
power and heroism and
Rome and Greece
looked to ancient
order to immortalize
in
his marshals, recently fallen in
battle. Painted
The "Entartete Kunst" (Degenerate Art) held by the Nazi government in Munich
displayed the
this
painting from his compatriot
sanctioned by Germany's Third Reich and
myth of Ossian (see
world
Napoleon commissioned
for
examples of
on the
ceiling
of the emperor's library
chateau of Malmaison the work
is
in
in
the France,
a fusion of Celtic
Classical mythology.
and
Napoleon's
warriors, like players in a pan-
mythological setting, stride
through a sea of
spirits,
guided
by the wingless Victory, to be greeted by the blind bard Ossian,
marks of the
light,
classic history painting: the
drama of
action.
the pose, and the triangular composition.
Gericault's subversion of the genre of history painting led to a greater individualism
among
artists,
7
It
was testimony not only to
art.
sculpture,
result. Neoclassical, idealized,
and architecture. As a and heroic forms
proliferated in twentieth-century
German
briefly
the painter's
Elevated status In the
USSR, from the
world was seen as the model for the construction of the
work preceded
Delacroix's Greece
state.
was
a natural choice of subject
by the state with the task of
political allegory
matter for
personifying Greece as a mourning
woman.
showing post-revolutionary Russia
cept of the heroic
became an outdated model and the was called
very notion of the heroic history painting into question. Heroic subject matter, scale,
rarely
appeared
in
the
and gesture
depiction of contemporary
802
Soviet peasants and workers
artists entrusted
painted as such. Sport
contemporary events into a heroic
As the nineteenth century progressed, the con-
1
were the modern heroes, and they were invariably
on the Ruins of Missolonghi of 1826, which turned
by
beneath the
1930s, the heroism of the ancient
new Communist
masterpiece. This
Valhalla
Girodet, Ossian Receiving the
dence that he was able to create
unprecedented
sits in
eagle of Jupiter and a helmet-
Shades of French Heroes,
daring individualism but also to his financial indepenthis
who
bearing Athena.
painting.
who began
to allow themselves greater liberty in their choice of
subject matter.
excellence in
it
in a heroic light, as
lent itself to the depiction of the perfect body, vigor-
ous action, team
spirit,
and healthy, happy competition.
Painters sought to reflect glory idealizing their compatriots'
on the Soviet
state
by
sporting abilities and
physical attributes.
CONTEMPORARY HEROES
History in the making Recording history
event. Although he read
The news of the execution on
newspaper reports and worked
June 19, 1867, of Emperor
from photographs of Maximilian
Maximilian of Mexico received
in Paris
was
while the
celebrated the World's
The
Miracle worker in
dress
For Napoleon, painting was
rate.
On
from the actual
scene of the execution because
hearing of the shooting by firing
he used Goya's
3rd May, 1808 as
earlier
work
his inspiration
emperor," Manet set to work at
Edouard Manet, The Execution
once to portray
of Maximilian, 1867
this
dramatic
?;&.
role of the history painter before the age of
photography was to document and to
uniform, seemingly as invincible
Fair.
his generals, this painting
differs radically
squad of the "marionette
;
Gros shows Napoleon
and city
commemo-
at the service of the
as Christ, touching with his
French Empire as
bare hand the sore of a soldier
it
had been
at the service of the
suffering from bubonic plague.
Church
The arcaded courtyard of the
House
mosque, converted
reminiscent of biblical scenes that
commemorates a particular event but interprets it in heroic style. The emperor, surrounded by the sick, seems almost divine, immune to disease, and able to
describe Christ healing the sick.
heal miraculously by his
military hospital
into a
and
naked and semi-clad
The
parallel
and Christ
filled
Middle Ages. Napoleon
i)i
Ike Plague
by the French painter Antoine-Jean
Gros,
with
figures,
is
mere presence.
between Napoleon
is
emphasized by the
emperor's fearlessness and
Challenging the genre
his
In the eighteenth
gesture toward the plague sufferers,
in the
at Jaffa,
was considered the noblest genre of art and were under pressure to uphold this hierarchy. However, there were methods of painting in painting
which deliberately
echoes that of Christ performing a miracle at the Pool of Bethesda.
Antoine-Jean Gros, Napoleon
and nineteenth centuries history
history painters
in
the Plague House at Jaffa, 1804.
a heroic style while not actually depicting a heroic
John Singleton Copley, a Boston
event.
who
portrait painter
established himself in London, extended the genre
in this
way and
declared:
"I
have as much as possible have happened
my
employed myself
in events that
own
Brook Watson and the Shark depicts
lifetime." His
an event that had taken place time. This history,
modem tant it
own
life-
work does not show a scene from ancient
or a Classical hero, or even a well-known figure,
and does not seek to impart an impor-
moral lesson, as many history paintings do. Instead
shows a
life-threatening incident that
to a friend of the painter, its
in the artist's
in
way
had happened
one that was as
terrifying in
as any gory tale from antiquity.
In the early years of the nineteenth century the
A modern
HISTORY PAINTING
six
years after
The man wears an expression of
the event, Goya's work conveys
haunting
the horrors of the retaliatory
arms, reminiscent of the crucified
execution of hundreds of
Christ,
his
terror. His
make
this
crucifixion
French army. He uses the
painter's political
light
from a giant lantern to highlight in
a white shirt
who
outstretched
work
a
modern
and demonstrate the
compatriots by the occupying
the figure
Spanish painter Goya recorded events in his country's
stands before the firing squad.
crucifixion
Although painted
sympathies
Francisco de Goya, 3rd May, 1808, 1814.
A modern drama
Warrior, spears the shark while
Brook Watson was a friend of
others attempt to reach for
Copley and told him about a
their
terrifying incident of his youth,
the boat. Copley applied the
when he was shark
in
to
him
lift
into
attacked by a
principles of history painting to
Havana Harbour. Copley
an everyday subject and was a
illustrates
the naked
the scene, showing
Watson
forerunner of the great French
modern
the water,
in
perilously close to the shark's
jaws.
companion
From the boat
companion,
John Singleton Copley, Brook
a
Watson and the Shark,
a heroic gesture
in
history painters of the
early nineteenth century
1
778.
that mirrors the pose of the
famous
Borghese
Classical
war of liberation against the French army of occupation.
He executed
war etchings as an independent
his
observer and for this reason they are free of the restraints that
would have been imposed by an
commission. Although
seem
these works
made
radically
official
nearly two centuries ago,
modern and have something
Goya
of the cool detachment of the camera. However,
to wait six years, until the restoration of King
had
Ferdinand
VII,
before he
felt free
to paint his
most
dra-
matic depiction of this troubled period. Painted in 1814,
3rd May, 1808 shows a scene from the execution of hundreds of Spanish insurgents and innocent bystanders by
a French firing squad in retaliation for a popular uprising.
Art as propaganda This
work shows
the
Kirov,
Secretary of the Central
Committe, on a raised platform receiving a
Painting after photography
Even
after the advent of
continue to
document
from
photography incidents,
artists
partly,
chose to perhaps,
bouquet of flowers
team
a
of female gymnasts.
In this frieze-like
composition the
dominant
is
figure
who
Lenin,
is
seen on the red flag hanging
because the camera appeared to record them without Painters often used photographs to
interpretation.
supply details of background or physiognomy. In 1867 the French artist
Manet was fascinated by newspaper
accounts of the execution of Emperor Maximilian of
On
from a
Classical building.
right a
male and a female athlete
bear a flag that shows
USSR beneath
its
emblem.
sickle
In
in
the
part the
hammer-andthe background
the formal pose of the rowing
Mexico.
He began composing
the scene before he had
seen photographs of the emperor or the After reading a report in the
firing
squad.
newspaper Le Figaro
that
described the firing squad's uniform as similar to that of the French army, he persuaded an influential military
team
contrasts with the
movements
women
friend to dispatch a group of soldiers to
finished canvas
was seen
Samokhvalov,
a criticism of Napoleon
and Manet intended
III.
The
artist
Kirov at the
Day Parade, 1935.
pose for him.
as a political allegory in
which Manet had depicted France as essentially responsible for Maximilian's death,
young
presenting flowers.
Alexandr Nikolaiewitsch
Sports
The
lively
of the seven
it
as
painted four
of Lenin, the
new nation's first leader, and later himself,
as heroes, presiding over political congresses, concerts,
ceremonies, and sports events. The job of the state artist in Soviet
Russia was to peddle to the public
canvases of the scene; the huge painting shown here,
images, in the form of posters used to decorate the
which Manet regarded as his final version,
walls of public buildings such as metro stations, of
illustrates the
cool matter-of-factness of the composition. It is
to
typical of Manet's individualism that he
make a dramatic contemporary event
painting, a genre considered his deliberate
healthy comrades engaged in earnest
chose
into a history
redundant by that time. In
undermining of the heroic approach to
under the supervision of Father Lenin.
Samokhvalov produced at the Sports
field hospitals, also
state.
was never more In the
himself."
USSR of the middle decades of the twentieth
century Stalin's cult of personality spawned depictions
in 1935, after Stalin
had
ordered Kirov's assassination.
homage, remarking: "This
pure Goya, and yet Manet
Interestingly,
propaganda painting Kirov
Day Parade
was also looking back to Goya's 3rd May, 1808, which he had seen in 1865 and greatly admired. The Impressionist painter Renoir noted the history painting he
is
his
work or play
Official
war
artists,
commissioned
to
depict
scenes ranging from frontline action to the work of the record events at the request of the
Forbidden to depict corpses, because
held to lower morale,
some have
was
instead painted alle-
gorical landscapes of a world blasted
shrapnel, such as Paul Nash's Totes
this
by bomb and
Meer (see page
133).
HISTORY IN THE MAKING
31
.
Painting as protest From
the nineteenth century painters enjoyed a
intelligent
growing independence from the patronage of the
and other sources and since then they have
state
way because
the
The
made
portraits
Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo
and landscapes but also used the
painted canvas as a tool for political campaigning. political activist
who
A
workers out of a sympathy with their problems.
Outraged
the massacre of workers in Milan in 1898.
at
he began his
Tfie
retrograde
or to clear
power cannot stop them."
Liberty Leading the People (see page 119) and indeed
Political protest
This painting, the Pellizza
title
of which
da Volpedo took from
his
da Volpedo was inspired by the example of
Pellizza
revolutionary France with
its
tenets of equality, liberty,
reading about the history of the
joined his local workers' and
peasants' party early in 1890, he depicted striking agricultural
tenacity" of
men to follow them
Visually The Fourth Estate evokes Delacroix's
increasingly adopted anti-establishment stances. Italian artist
and good workers who, with the
their ideals, oblige other
Fourth Estate as a work
in
which he
was
French Revolution, his
manifesto of
He wrote of wanting "a
to be
political intent.
to paint
crowd of people, workers
of the
soil,
who
are intelligent,
and
However, the painting was poorly
fraternity.
received as political protest Turin in 1902.
One
"leave the spectator cold, as
whom
authority toward
when
described
critic
it
it
it
was exhibited in work that will
as a
will the capitalist or the
this collective
demonstration
strong, robust, united." In this
spoke, as though for the proletariat oppressors. like
canvas
He made three versions in
which the
It
against
its
of this huge, frieze-
proletariat
illustrated as warriors of antiquity.
itself,
is
ennobled and
was both a rallying
directed, indifferent." Although the socialist press
is
depiction of the marching
masses, fronted by a working
made use
man and woman,
political
the
artist
created proletarian figures
has
who
Rome
in
of the painting,
message made in
its
size
and uncompromising
hard to exhibit.
it
1907 to mainstream
It
was shown
critical indifference,
are as heroic as any from
cry and a protest against the injustice suffered by the working class. The work's piupose, the painter wrote,
was
to
show
that "true force lies in the
hands of
and that same year the
Classical antiquity.
Giuseppe
Pellizza
The Fourth
Estate,
da Volpedo 1
artist killed
himself after the
deaths of his youngest child and his wife.
898-1 901
War and
its
aftermath
In the years following the First
World War George Grosz,
works such as Circe (see page
in
91), satirized the
corruption of Weimar Germany, using savage caricature
show
to
tutes
the
war profiteers, corrupt
who were
military,
and
prosti-
bleeding the war-ruined country dry.
His activities led to prosecution and with the rise of
Pathos of war In this
it
chain of figures,
wounded
and blinded by mustard gas the
First
in
World War, Sargent
looked to the antique imagery of the frieze to lend gravitas to the scene.
The procession
also has
religious associations, as field hospital
HISTORY PAINTING
on the
does the
right in that
is
a place of both healing
and -
salvation. In this large canvas
intended to be the central work a projected Hall of
in
Remembrance
- the painter also incorporated imagery of the blind leading the blind
and the Dance of Death.
John Singer Sargent, Gassed, 1918.
Destruction of a city Picasso executed this large
one
painting,
of his
works, very swiftly studio
best-known
m
his
Pans
response to the
in
German bombing
in April
1937
of Guernica, in the Basque region
A
of northern Spain. anti-fascist,
the
republican
intended
artist
the painting to provoke outrage at the dreadful events of the
Spanish
Civil
War
1936-9
of
He uses jagged shapes and screaming mouths to evoke the nightmare of war, and the terrified figure
arms
his
is
with outstretched
reworking of Goya's
3rd May, 1808
horrific
Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937
Enduring threat Nash's inspiration for this
as they
had
from above. Nash was an
that he
taken of wrecked
German
deposited England. a
in
a
field
He saw
in
aircraft
War
Artist during
World War, and,
these shapes
of the
title
suggests, of harsh, moonlit metal parts that, even in their
wrecked
appeared to reconstitute
First
threatened
earlier
near Oxford,
"dead sea," as the German
state,
had
work
was photographs
it
official
the Second as in his pictures
World War, he often
used landscapes to express horror at the destruction
his
wrought
by large-scale armed conflict Paul Nash, Totes Meer. 1940-1.
gave his works bitterly ironic
Making a New
titles
such as We Are
The paintings he made during the
Worfd.
Second World War, such as Totes Meer. speak of a par-
Allegory of
war
painting Picasso refers
In this
directly to events in
the war
in
Korea, which mirrored those
ticularly twentieth-century sensibility
and empty Nazism his work was in 1933 to
classified "degenerate."
He moved
New York, where he dissociated himself from
Germany by becoming an American citizen. John Singer Sargent's Gassed was not conceived or painted as a protest against war but was commissioned from the American artist by Britain's War Office to commemorate those who had served their country in Hitlers
quality, a
with their
numbed
kind of shell-shocked vacuity.
The imagery of devastation Picasso's Guernica, one of the
is
his native
when
also the subject of
most memorable images
homeland. The imagery
is
abstracted but sufficiently
readable to suggest an immense and crude shattering.
the late
the forces of
left
and in
in
930s,
1
right
which
countless innocent victims suffered.
shows two groups of naked
- on the
figures
German bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica in 1937. it was the artist's response to this attack on his
in
fought a bloody battle
It
of the twentieth century. Painted immediately after the
Spain
right, soldiers in
helmets, bearing arms, and
the
left
defenceless
children.
on
women and
The nudity and the
sword-bearing figure on the far right are allusions to the Classical
the First World War. However, the pathos of the
work
Colour
is
expunged
like a
and hope. Guernica was exhibited
evoked powerful responses, including a questioning of
life
the sentiments of honour, glory, and patriotism for
Pa\ilion of the Paris
which men were urged to give
creation.
their lives.
metaphorical banishment of
Worlds Fair
in the
in the
Spanish
year of
its
After 1934 Picasso never returned to his
native land and stipulated that the
work should not
world, and as such give the
an
allegorical flavour,
places
it
firmly in
Paul Nash
is
the best-known
return to Spain until General Franco had ceased to be
modern
British painter of
scenes of war. His powerful images of the devastated battlefields of
both World Wars, although showing no
corpses, convey the
damage done not only
to the land
in
power. After the dictator's death in 1975
it
was
trans-
Fourteen years after Guernica Picasso created
much
known Massacre
plete his portrayal of landscapes laid waste
suggest the perennial themes of antiquity and war.
by war. he
in
his
Korea uses Classical imagery
in
compatriot
Goya, and Manet's The Execution
of Maximilian (see page 130). in
Korea, 1951.
less well-
but also to the bodies of countless combatants. To com-
title
history.
Picasso also quotes from the
Pablo Picasso, Massacre
ferred to the Prado in Madrid
another work of outraged protest. His
modern
scenes of execution depicted
3rd May, 1808 by
Symbolic landscapes
work
but the
to
PAINTING AS PROTEST
"What .
.
.
it is
is
the art of portrait painting?
the art of presenting, on the
glance of an eye, the form of a traits,
which
it
J.
C. Lavater,
man by
would be impossible
convey
first
to
in words."
Essays in Physiognomy, 1775-8
Portraiture
Of
all
the types of painting discussed in this book,
portraits might appear to
After
all
everyone
these are
now more
need the
least explanation.
used to seeing portraits - even
is
- and the aims of portraiture certainly seem forward. However, defining exactly what a portrait
problems. For example,
if
often photographs than paintings straight-
some many paintings have portraits in them but are is
raises
not portraits themselves: Botticelli's The Adoration of the Magi,
painted in Florence in the fifteenth century, contains portraits of the himself and three generations of his patrons, the powerful
artist
Medici family. But even
clear
if it is
why
as a portrait, denning a portrait remains
this picture is not classed difficult.
We
might assume
that a portrait painting could be described as a likeness of an individual,
but even this straightforward definition runs into trouble.
Ignoring resemblance Not every
portrait is a likeness. Early ruler portraits are often
more
concerned with depicting the office of kingship than the face of a particular king (see page 138, School of Tours, The Emperor Lothaif).
Resemblance may be ignored
for other reasons: in the sixteenth
century the Italian painter Armenini wrote that "portraits by excellent artists are
considered to be painted with better style and greater
perfection than others, but
more
often than not they are less good
likenesses." At this time in Italy an "excellent artist"
expected to idealize or ennoble a
sitter's
would have been
appearance along Classical
Roman
adopting the facial types and poses of Greek and
lines,
sculpture. Ideas of beauty might change, but idealization has often
been expected of the
features for other ends. In the early
sitter's Primitive inspiration
1900s Picasso gave Gertrude Stein a face
Picasso struggled with this
inspired by primitive Iberian
After an
Titian's ravishing picture of
traits.
On
return he "sat
the head
a wide-
his
eyed beauty known as La Bella
down and
called Portrait of a
head painted in
are not likenesses
portraits
there are also likenesses that are not por-
daily sittings Picasso left
Pans for Spain.
some
If
intensive period of almost
his
an
her essence.
over a year while both
out of
in
attempt to capture not her appearance but
writer Gertrude Stein for
in Paris.
masks
American
portrait of the
were
have also on occasion altered a
artist. Artists
no
without seeing
Gertrude Stein again,"
lady.
sometimes
is
Noblewoman, but
this is
The model for the painting - probably
a prostitute - posed nude for Titian on other
basing her features on the
occasions.
The painting
is
probably an accu-
primitive Iberian sculpture
he had seen on travels.
When
his
rate likeness of
recent
an actual
woman
but
it
is
not
a portrait. What was important for Titian and
people
who commissioned the painting was
complained that the
the duke
picture looked nothing like
not the woman's identity but her exceptional
her he apparently replied,
"Never mind, she
will
The
artist's
now
look just
fulfilled, for
It
like it."
prophecy
many
who
Gertrude Stein was
women
is
people with only the vaguest idea of
beauty and the beauty of the picture.
the end
in
know
fortune and power
Adoration The
earliest descriptions of
this painting claim that
it
figure
in
in
yellow on the
and looking
fifteenth-century Florence,
extreme
who
out of the picture
died ten years
was
probably
right
is
Botticelli himself.
is
not only paintings of beautiful
that can appear to be portraits with-
out being so. In the seventeenth century there
was a huge demand
for paintings of
characterful heads - often in exotic or
contains portraits of the
before the picture
her through this painting.
Medici family but they do
painted. Lorenzo "The
Sandro
She has become her
not agree as to which
Magnificent," Cosimo's
Adoration of the Magi,
tions of expression,
grandson and
c.1476.
character types. These works were produced
portrait.
Pablo Picasso,
members. However, Portrait of
Gertrude Stein, 1906.
is
Botticelli's
generally accepted that
most important patron,
the old king kneeling
may be
before Christ
PORTRAITURE
it
is
Cosimo
Botticelli,
The
historical garb
- which were prized as depic-
mood, or particular
throughout Europe but are perhaps particu-
the dark-haired
figure with the red stripe
who
de' Medici, the principal
on
founder of the family's
standing on the
his sleeve
associated with Rembrandt and his
school
is
right.
larly
The
in
the
northern
Netherlands.
In
Rembrandt's case one can often recognize
Portrait or passerby?
combines a
This picture
scene of Parisian
and a
city life
portrait of the
aristocratic artist Ludovic-
Napoleon Lepic and
his
daughters. The cropping of the figure on the
and
left
the composition's apparent
randomness, with
open
its
expanse of the square, suggest a snapshot, and
Degas was
certainly
new
influenced by the art of
photography
Edgar Degas, Place de la
Concorde. (The Viscount
and
Lepic
His Daughters),
1875.
The Venetian painter
made
used are traditionally identified as his mother
and
But again, even
father.
are
not
portraits,
themselves. Their identity
like
for,
This
one was commissioned
by Francesco Maria della
Titian,
Rovere, the
Rembrandt was not painting
his sitters as Urbino,
was
entirely unim-
in
of
May 1636 his
agents
urging him to persuade Titian to
bought the paintings. In the inventories of
Dutch collections paintings of
Duke
who
wrote to one of
who
portant to both him and the people
than once,
both clothed and naked.
are accurate likenesses of particular people
they
Titian
portraits of this
woman more
these pictures
if
beauty
Ideal
same model being used from painting to painting, and indeed two of the models he the
picture
this kind are
complete
his
showing "that lady
wearing the blue garment."
simply called "tronies," or "heads."
With these anomalies
Titian, Portrait of a
mind we may
in
Noblewoman
prefer a definition of a portrait which does not rely entirely
on the idea of likeness.
(La Bella),
1537.
A portrait
might be described as an image in which the
main concern
artist's
sitter as
restrict ical
is
to characterize the
an individual. While some portraits
themselves to the description of phys-
appearance, most attempt rather more,
conveying the
in the world,
sitter's status
personality or at least their state of
mind
or characterizing their
Faux Oriental This
time of the portrait.
at the
is
not a painting of an
Oriental potentate
who
strayed into Amsterdam,
Approved view
where Rembrandt painted
But even armed with this definition refuse to be pigeonholed. This
when
artists,
is
we
find
some
pictures which
particularly true in the
modern
era.
operating in the world of picture dealers and the art
him. The man's features are clearly European
model. The
market, have been less reliant than their predecessors on accepting portrait
commissions
in order to survive.
painting Place de la Concorde
and a remarkably portrait that
an
commissioned in the
is
incisive portrait, but
artist
For example, Edgar Degas 's
both a scene of everyday Parisian
what
it
is
not
is
life
the kind of
would be inclined to produce to commission.
portrait -
which
is
to say
A
most of the portraits painted
period covered by this book - will in nearly every case present
an approved view of the
sitter.
To use a
literary analogy,
the "authorized" than the "unofficial" biography. But
it
will
be more
more importantly
and
he was probably a paid
way such
a
picture
would have been
seen
well conveyed by
is
Rembrandt's friend Jan Livens, writing of a similar
painting: "the likeness of a so-called Turkish potentate,
done from the head
some Dutchman
of
or other."
The Amsterdam merchant
who bought
this
work had
himself painted by the it
will
In a
always give the
number of
no longer the is
sitter
or sitters the central role in the painting.
paintings from the nineteenth century
case: in
onward
this is
Degas 's picture, for example, the Parisian square
as important as any figure in
artist in
the
same
year.
Rembrandt, A Man
in
Oriental Dress: "The Noble Slav." 1632.
it.
INTRODUCTION
The
origins of portraiture
The wish to commemorate the through representation
we
if
is
living
made from
Egyptian portrait statues and
its
we
a
Petrarch's revelation that he always carried Laura's
survive
many highly individualized heads from ancient Greece and Rome. If we
by
number
this
from well before the period encompassed
book. Some, dating from the
first
century ad, are
painted portraits from second-century Egypt survives.
Early survivals is
much damaged and much
a painting,
restored,
new demand and use We do not know in what
likeness perhaps reflects a
small private portraits.
cumstances John size
IPs portrait
was
painted, but
and the absence of any regalia make
it
its
Many portraits
earliest survivor
cir-
small
know who
of King John
may
that
well be the earliest surviving independent
Dating from the mid-fourteenth century,
John
II
it
was
certainly not the first portrait to be
made. There are a few descriptions of
Imperial portrait
The school of
artists
and
scribes
attached to the monastery of St Martin in Tours, northern
France, all
was the most
prolific
of
the ninth-century Carolmgian
artistic studios.
This magnificent
full-page illumination opens a
book of Gospels dedicated to the Emperor Lothair,
who was
probably never seen by the
who
artist
depicted him. Although this
painting
show
is
clearly
intended to
the emperor,
it
not a
is
portrait in the sense of being a
deliberate likeness.
Wearing
crown and holding
his sceptre,
Lothair points with his
to the dedicatory
left
poem
his
hand
that
appears on the opposite page
School of Tours, The Emperor Lothair.
earlier lost por-
such as two sonnets of 1336 by the
traits,
shows King
of France (1319-64) and can be seen below
But
right.
it
849-51.
PORTRAITURE
Italian
poet
II
of France.
been suggested that the
may have come from
is
chosen
from Rome to Avignon, southern France, and
its
depictions in the pages of manuscripts, or they are
influence.
in religious paintings.
portraits of
is
many
earlier
medieval survivals, this
type. In the mid-ninth century the
is
no generic
Emperor Lothair was
shown simply as a man on a throne with
imperial guard,
crown, and sceptre. In contrast, the painter of John
seemed
to
wish to create a likeness, even
if
- as
is
II
often
style
Italian
The absence of any
mark of kingship
But John lis
portrait provides a useful starting point. In contrast to
the
has
the papal
and technique suggest
donors that appear
It
artist
court, at that time relocated
survive from the medieval West
works - such as the
not
painted this portrait
before 1350, but these are either sculpted likenesses or
features within larger
the
in
we do
history of portraiture,
The most
painted portrait in the period covered by this book.
importance
its
for
possible that
The term "independent painted portrait" carefully.
The
Despite
even here the purpose was more private than dynastic.
preserved on the walls of Pompeii, and a group of
There
suggests that this
from
reliefs
turn to the rare survivals of painted portraits, there are still
poem
was probably a large-scale miniature painted on parchment rather than a painting on a wooden panel. But
civilization
before 3000 bc, and there are portrait
Petrarch (1304-74) praising a painting of his beloved
Laura by Simone Martini. One
very beginnings.
our survey to Western
restrict
see that portraits were
and the dead
an ancient one, and even
is
curious.
plausible explanation
that the picture
before John
1350 and the inscription
was painted
became
king
slightly
"John King of France"
was added
later.
Unknown
artist, Portrait
John
II
in
crooked
"the
Good
France, c.1360.
of
King" of
3
Donor Those
Early mastery
portrait
who commissioned
religious paintings often
These portraits of an unidentified
asked
be included,
for their portraits to
man and
painted by the
his wife,
fifteenth-century Netherlandish
portraits"
artist
Robert Campin, display
survive
from well before the
great
skill
earliest
independent painted
contrasts
and these "donor
The kneeling figure
portraits
is
jowly
and subtlety The
between the
man and
older,
his bright-eyed,
Robert of Anjou, King of Naples,
smooth-skinned wife are
who commissioned
wonderfully observed and
painter this
Simone Martini to paint
work. Robert
profile
the Sienese
and
is
his face
characterized.
shown is
in
strongly
The features of the
seated St Louis, canonized
in
1317, are typical of the idealized faces that
Simone
Simone gave
his saints.
Martini, Altarpiece of
St Louis of Toulouse,
c.
1
1
7.
recorded.
From the evidence of
the couple's dress
it
is
clear that
they were not especially wealthy
nor of elevated status Even as early as this date, portraiture
was
not the exclusive preserve of the royal,
the noble, or the very
Robert Campin. A
A Woman,
rich
Man and
c.1430.
the case - the identification inscription.
The king
is
seen
was
later reinforced
in profile,
a view
in early portraiture, particularly in Italy,
were
portraits
The The
much used
where nearly
all
profiles until about 1500.
profile early popularity of the profile needs
can be argued that painting a
tion. It
in
with an
some ways
some explana-
profile portrait is
less complicated than depicting the face
frontally or in three-quarters
view because a
profile
essentially reduces the face to a single outline describ-
ing the forehead, nose, profile
is
it
shadow, although did so.
It
lips,
and
chin. In
drawing a
even possible to trace round the subject's
may
we do
not
know
early portraitists
if
was a
also be that the profile view
conventional means of identifying a figure as a portrait,
and
seems
this
paintings
to be the case in the
many
where donors are shown in profile,
to the saints
religious
in contrast
and holy personages surrounding them.
as in Simone Martini's altarpiece. Finally, in painting
John
in profile the artist
II
emulating
the
survived on
profile
Roman
may have been
portraits
of
deliberately
emperors that
coins. This appeal to Classical
precedent was certainly important for the continued popularity of the profile in fifteenth-century
common
In
face
is
Italy.
with most early portraits, the king's
shown against a blank background - here expenmark of the sitter's royal status - and
sively gilded as a
we
are given a very restricted view of the sitter
shows only the head and shoulders.
In general
which it
was
not until the fifteenth century that portraits began to include
sitters'
hands, but from around 1450 artists
extended the view to the waist and beyond.
We can be sure that many portraits from the teenth and fifteenth centuries have been
lost,
four-
but the
few survivals show a remarkably rapid development. Within less than one hundred years of John artists in
II's
portrait,
northern Europe, such as Robert Campin and
Jan van Eyck (see page 146), were painting sophisticated portraits of a virtuosity scarcely equalled since.
THE ORIGINS OF PORTRAITURE
13
Catching a likeness A
An unusual view
familiar face
From 1632 Van Dyck worked
Peter Lely
as King Charles
the Netherlands
I
of England's
"principalle Paynter"
on very
1
generous terms, and received a
same
knighthood
in
painted this
triple portrait as
model be
the
made by
the
the
purpose
by, for
is
portrait
This
II.
his earliest
dated English works.
Lely's
version of Charles has far coarser
features than those
its
example,
accustomed to
in
we
are
Van Dyck's
portraits of the king: his
longer and more bulbous, his
Bernini's bust arrived in it
was admired
eyebrows
for "the
and nere resemblance
thicker, his
narrower, and his
it
had to the King's countenance."
Peter Lely, Charles his
Charles
in
I
c.1
nose
is
forehead
lips fuller.
Anthony Van Dyck,
Three Positions, 1635-6.
it
one of
including his royal patron's hands.
likenesse
hen someone has a
is
later
principal painter to
When
England
painted,
the early
son, Charles
I's
painting
doing so he produced
a painting that surpassed
become
Charles
sculptor
Italian
in
640s, around the time of the
to
for a bust of Charles to
Bernini. In
to England from
death of Van Dyck, and was
He
year.
came
I
with
Son James Duke of
York,
648.
of themselves
usually expected to look like them.
But this apparently straightforward demand raises
all
sorts of complications. Personal experience tells us that
we can
alter
our appearance:
photograph we may suck "best side" to the camera;
most of us
instinctively
"minor face"
in
when we
us,
in
and so we may be surprised by pho-
painting
them from
different angles.
We
true likeness because certainly softened
at the nose,
The
lips
look
are asymmetrical in
it
is
often impossible to say in the past
Portrait of a the chin.
and the
shape
It
is
because of these distortions that the portrait convinces us that
Young
how
own
The
inter-
artist This is true of
closely a portrait
resembles the
Man
is
sitter.
the only record
anonymous youth who posed
that
fact
it
but the
is familiar,
and refined the
Van
artist
almost
king's features.
Dyck
idealized
Charles's
recognize.
Flemish
I
ways
mean
We
that the king's portraits did not
have only to think of the wildly
which contemporary cartoonists
different
the features of their subjects into instantly recognizable
of
many portraits, but there are some we are confident we would artist Sir
look like him.
Botticelli's
for the Florentine
The many paintings of Charles
it
features does not
we have
figures of the past that
painter, the is
not the photographer) records dispassion-
but painters have always brought their
executed
slightly
mouth, and
eyes are different
(if
pretations to the depiction of a subject. For this reason
them by
straight at the eyes but slightly
up
us.
we know but Van Dyck's version of him, and it can be a shock when we see another artist's interpretation of the same face, as we do in Peter Lely's portrait. We cling to Van Dyck's image as a not Charles himself that
sitter's
proportion to his
face and exaggerated
how most
this is not
Interpreting the subject
ately, features
features into a
that accords as closely as possible to our
A camera Exaggeration has enlarged the
look in the minor
compose our
tographs that do not look like
Botticelli
for a
our cheeks or turn our
image of ourselves. Inevitably people see
when we pose
by his court
Anthony Van Dyck, have
in
caricatures to realize that there are
construct a likeness.
A
many ways
- for example, Mick
Jagger's lips or Prince Charles's ears. Botticelli's is
to
caricaturist will grotesquely
distort notable features of the sitter
man
distil
young
not obviously grotesque, but an examination of
a likeness
Sandro :
Botticelli. Portrait
Man,
c
of a
1480-5.
PORTRAITURE
made him perhaps
the most familiar of
all
the English
monarchs before the age of photography. However,
it
is
his features suggests that here too the artist has distortion,
used
although far more subtly. The subject's
features
seem enlarged
their irregularities
cisely in
proportion to his face and
in
have been exaggerated.
asymmetries and
is
It
pre-
irregularities that likenesses
be deliberately destructive of her features, wilfully erasing or distorting elements of her face. Yet. astonishingly,
her physical presence
is
strongly conveyed.
are caught and the portraitist often slightly overempha-
Concentrating only on her appearance, the portrait
sizes these to secure the resemblance.
clearly tells us
The
portrait painter's quest for likeness is also
helped by the
fact that
A
ognize a face.
we
skilled
require so few clues to rec-
draughtsman can encapsulate
an individual with a few swift strokes of the pen and
have exploited
artists
number of
this fact in a
different
how
her hair was parted and shows us
the shape of her nose and lips and the elegant arch of
her painted eyebrows. portraiture
was
distort the thing far
tortion to bring
For Bacon, resemblance
in
important, his stated aim being "to
it
beyond appearance but
in the dis-
back to a recording of appearance."
ways. The British eighteenth-century painter Sir Joshua
Reynolds believed that his contemporary and
Thomas Gainsborough
rival
exploited our facility for recog-
nizing likenesses by painting his portraits in his charac-
Simplification
Modighani's elegant portrait is
as
much concerned with
rhythms of teristically
He used
sketchy manner (see page 157).
fluid
and loose brushwork to simplify the face and reduce to
schematized the face
essentials, just as Botticelli
its
in his portrait, albeit in a far
it
more
the
design as with
creating a likeness.
emphasized the
He has
irregularities of
The between the eyes -
Soutine's appearance.
differences
linear manner.
its
one
is
higher - and the arches of
the eyebrows are exaggerated, as
Radical simplification
are the
More extreme examples of simplification and reduction are found in much twentieth-century portraiture, most strikingly in the portraits of Modigliani.
The
Italian
the
asymmetry of the
full lips,
long neck. This
ture during his short
Soutine
artist
is
life,
and the
is
a likeness
on
the very brink of caricature.
Amadeo painter devoted himself almost exclusively to portrai-
nostrils,
pointed chin, and
Modigliani, Chaim
Soutine, 1917.
portrait of his fellow
typical of his stylized, elegant,
and
elongated figures. While Modigliani has reduced the
Distortion Bacon's triple portrait of Isabel
sitter's
face to
its
bare essentials, there
same concentration on the tries of the features that
of
irregularities
we saw
more than four centuries
is
exactly the
and asymme-
in Botticelli's painting
Dyck's triple portrait of Charles
I,
but the format and the sweeping strokes of the brush over the
earlier.
Although catching a likeness often depends upon
some cases we
Rawsthorne reminds us of Van
three heads also suggest a face
in
movement. The paintings seem
find a likeness surviving
perfectly to reflect Bacon's claim
despite distortion. In the portraits of the twentieth-
that he painted his friends as he
century British painter Francis Bacon the likenesses of
wouldn't want to paint someone
distortion, in
his subjects
-
who were
usually his close friends - are
"unless [and]
retained even though they have been mauled by the brush.
Many
Isabel
Rawsthorne
of the strokes of paint across the face of in his triple portrait of her
seem
to
I
had seen a
watched
lot
of
them
their contours."
Francis Bacon, Three Studies for a Portrait of Isabel
Rawsthorne, 1965.
CATCHING A LIKENESS
Exploring poses Even
the earliest surviving writings on painting
suggest that a portrait should attempt more than
simply representing the
outward appearance.
sitter's
A
number of ancient Greek and Roman poems on portraiture make it clear that even then an artist was expected to try to paint the subject's "soul" as well.
rediscovered during the Renaissance,
lem of how an
These were
when
the prob-
or, as we would became a preoccupation of painters. But while portraitists aim to capture more than mere appearance, the means at their disposal are
now
could depict soul
artist
say, character, again
Broadly speaking, they have three areas of
limited.
manoeuvre, the subjects of
and the following
this
Raphael's portrait of the poet, courtier, and of letters Baldassare Castiglione directness. Castiglione
is
is
man
a model of intimate
seated - the arm and back of
a chair are just visible - and turns his hands, which are gently linked, toward us. But
it is
not just in the
sitter's
pose that engagement and intimacy are suggested; also in our position in relation to him. close, as
eye.
if
We
it
is
are very
beside him, meeting his gaze eye to
sitting
Our implied position is often every bit as important
as the pose struck by the sitter in suggesting the subject's attitude in
toward us and by extension the world
which he or she
ple
we
lives; in portraits
of rulers for exam-
invariably find ourselves looking at
them from
Directness Bertin
was one
below (see page
156,
Hyacinthe Rigaud, Louis
XIV
in
Royal Costume).
Connection The
profile portrait favoured in Italy until
may have
some advantages
offered
about 1500
(see page 139) but
it
The gripping portrait of Monsieur Bertin by Ingres owes much to Raphael's picture. We are again faced with a seated figure in sombre clothes turning toward us but, in contrast,
between the subject and the person looking
we have pushed
Connection
is
only possible
able to turn toward the viewer, and
when it
is
at the
the sitter
is
through the
between the two that character (and
relationship
status) is so often conveyed.
was favoured
The three-quarter view
the Netherlands from the early
in
but in Italy
fifteenth century,
it
was not
until
the
we
are forced to keep our distance;
our chairs back to become Bertin 's
audience rather than his confidant. Ingres uses pose to
convey the exceptional power of the in other
viction
way. There directly,
this quality is is
much-
had so
difficulty arriving at a
conveyed
sitter's
down
in tears.
One
had an epiphany when he saw Bertin
adopt
this very
during a heated discussion.
The
story
true (and versions of is
posture
political
may not be it
differ)
but
not surprising that legends
personality should have grown up around
in a straightforward
nothing relaxed here: the subject faces us
he leans forward from his
he broke
evening, however, he apparently
it
ways. Everything about Bertin suggests con-
and
much
story, Ingres
suitable pose for this portrait that
provided no opportunity for a psychological connection
picture.
most
of his age. According to a
repeated
pages: pose, expression, and setting.
of the
powerful French newspapermen
chair, his legs are
such a striking and eloquent pose. At the beginning of the
twentieth century Picasso to adapt
it
in his portrait
was of
Gertrude Stem (see page 136).
of artists such as Antonello da Messina,
portraits
Leonardo da sitters
Sandro
Vinci,
turned to address the viewer.
Intimacy
The implied intimacy and
engagement
of the Italian painter
were celebrated
Raphael's portrait
and exploited
in
a
poem
by Castiglione himself
he imagined
his
in
written
which
wife writing to
him while he was away:
When
alone the portrait by
Raphael's hand. Recalls
your face and
relieves
my cares, I
it
play with
it
and laugh with
and joke, I
speak to
could It
it
as though
it
reply.
often
seems
to
me
to
nod
and motion. To
Botticelli,
want
to say
something
and speak your words. Your boy knows and greets his father babbling.
Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione,
1514-15.
PORTRAITURE
and Raphael that
apart,
and
his great clawlike
hands are planted on
knees as he fixes us with his gaze. This that
needs no translation.
is
his
body language
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Louis-Francois Bertin,
1833.
Melancholy The
Amelia van Buren was
artist
American
a close friend of the
painter
Thomas Eakms, and the
connection makes this,
one
itself felt in
of his greatest portraits
Eakms has painted
his sitter
not
as an artist but as a powerfully intelligent
captured
woman,
in
a
apparently
moment
contemplation. There
of
is
more
than a suggestion of sadness
in
the picture and Eakms, having
taught at the Arts
in
Academy
Philadelphia,
almost certainly have the pose his
sitter
of Fine
would
known
that
adopts - her
head supported by her hand was, from the Renaissance
onward, seen as the
traditional
pose of the melancholic.
Thomas
Eakins, Miss Amelia
van Buren, c.1891.
Once
Action
The German
Otto
artist
Dix's
emancipated
portrait of the
shows the monocled
is
expected that the
sitter will face the
expectation for a variety of ends. In depicting someone
von Harden
journalist Sylvia
it
viewer the portrait painter may choose to confound this
intellectual
directing their attention elsewhere a portraitist can sug-
talking animatedly. Her great,
gest that the sitter has
bony hands are remarkably
repose (above
eloquent; while her right hand
left)
been caught unaware, whether in
or in action (above right), or can
imply a deliberate pose of indifference toward the viewer
gestures outward, reinforcing her point, her left
(left).
hand and arm
In
each case
we draw
different conclusions as to
appear defensive. The fact that
the sitter's character, although these are based on the
she appears to be speaking
assumption that the pose
very unusual is
is
is
typical of that person.
a portrait, but she
in
we
not addressing us and
are
The
practicalities of posing
certainly not seated at her table.
Otto
Dix, Portrait
In
of the
Thomas
Eakins's portrait of his former pupil Amelia
away from
Journalist Sylvia von Harden,
van Buren the
1926
perhaps surprisingly the effect than distance.
Display of beauty
"Madame X" was no anonymous model, but Madame Pierre Gautreau, an American married
A
to a Frenchman.
star of the
Parisian society pages, she
famed
for her
exploited
crescent
it:
beauty and
the
moon
was
looks
We seem
is
the viewer, but
one of intimacy rather
placed in the privileged posi-
tion of witnessing her reverie.
The chair she
by Eakins. This reminds us of another important,
mundane, aspect of the poses adopted
Usually they must be positions that a sitter can hold for several hours. Eakins has here used the tedium of the
her head-dress,
sitting in the interest of characterization,
but there
danger for the painter that the boredom of the
was her own The pose she
make
is
designed to display her
beauty but also evident tension of
is
at the
back of her
neck and of her arm are strained
and taut - perhaps betraying a hint of vulnerability
beneath the
proud aloofness
is
a
sitter will
itself felt unintentionally.
The
artificiality
of posing for an artist can be
the
someone on show.
The muscles
if
in portraits.
symbol of the Goddess Diana,
adopts
sits in
appears in a number of other paintings and portraits
clearly
diamond
in
sitter
exploited in other ways. In John Singer Sargent's icily
sexy portrait of
Madame
X, he deliberately returns to
the perfect-profile view found in early portraiture, but
with an entirely different aim.
Madame X shows
The proudly aloof
us her "best side" in a pose that
is
John Singer Sargent,
contrived, self-conscious, and deliberately distancing.
Madame
This
X,
1883-4
is
a portrait of a poseur.
EXPLORING POSES
Expression When we
meet people we may
first
how that we
take in what they are wearing and
hold themselves, but
to the face
is
it
they
main subject
scene a
painter can depict exaggerated facial expression to
convey strong emotion, but portrait. Just as
this is hardly effective in a
dynamic poses are rare
pronounced
are
is
the tiring of a
moment and
hold one for any length of time
but
we have
facial expres-
lively,
only relatively recently
It is
age of photography, that
to
da Messina's unusual
man might seem natural and
soon appears inane.
it
in the
we have become used to
seeing the fleeting expression captured in an instant. As a result, portraits painted during the last hundred years
more comfortable with the flash of teeth and with marked facial expressions (see page 143, Otto Dix, or so are
Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden).
The smile Leonardo's
Mona
duced
it
that
is
Lisa
is
so famous and widely repro-
almost impossible to look
fresh eye; indeed
it
remember
to
is difficult
after all "just" another portrait.
at
But
if
we
with a
it
that this
why
ask
is
this
enigmatic smile has captured the imagination of generations the tion.
answer seems
to
lie in its
very lack of defini-
Leonardo manages to convey the impression of a
fleeting,
moving expression, and he does so by
refusing to fix the edges of the smile.
da Messina carefully delineated the and the corners of her eyes,
in
literally
Where Antonello
lips
of his smiling
man, Leonardo loses the comers of Mona
Lisa's
mouth,
shadow, suggesting
at
the possibility of movement. Another device
least
exploited by Leonardo, and one that appears to have
been deliberately or is
to give the
instinctively
used by many
two halves of a face
artists,
different expressive
qualities, again
adding to the illusion of an expression
playing across
it.
In the case of the
Mona
Lisa, the
"smile" - the upward turn of the mouth and the shadow
around the eyes side of the lace, as
is far
we
more pronounced on
look at
it,
than on the
the right
left.
The same techniques can be found used differenl effect in Velazquez's
the seventeenth-century
here
I
lie
to very
mesmerizing portrait of
Pope Innocent
X,
although
corners of the mouth are obscured not by
sli;nlo\\ hut
by the moustache. Where the
PORTRAITURE
Mona
Italy.
The influence
evident
is
portraits, in
which he abandoned
in his
the traditional profile view of Italian portraiture for
the three-
quarter view popular
in
northern
Europe, which allowed the portrayal of facial expression. This
work
is
generally regarded as the
but
it
is
not the only one which displays a
look at those rare
marked and unambiguous
sions. At first glance Antonello
painting of a smiling
if
painting to
of this style
smile,
becomes an unnatural
it
how we
grimace. This also affects portraits with
so
oil
earliest of his portraits,
A
movements.
reasons. Facial expressions are for example,
in portraits,
expressions, and for similar
facial
Antonello da Messina
the Netherlandish technique of
for the portrait painter,
hi portraying a mythological or biblical
Sicilian
usually credited with bringing
look
extremely versatile and subtle communicators and they are, of course, the
The is
and mood. Faces are
for clues as to character
first
Capturing expression
instinctively
Lisa's
marked
facial expression.
Antonello da Messina, of a Man, c.1470.
Portrait
Innocent's
expression suggests serenity,
one of
is
penetrating intelligence, an impression reinforced by
common
the strongly illuminated forehead, a
page
the portraits of strong intellects (see
Eakins, Miss Amelia van Bureri). But
much
that
power of
of the
most naturally
device
to the eyes that
we
his gaze
is in
it
and
this portrait lies
in
Thomas
143,
it
is
look for illumination
as to character.
Windows of the soul Eyes
in
artist
might
themselves
but on the whole
brows and
us very
tell
little.
Occasionally an
make them appear peculiarly
lids
it
bright or dull,
what surrounds the eyes - the
is
- and the direction
which the eyes are
in
looking that reveal the most information. The eyes of
Innocent
X
beneath a
in Velazquez's portrait are set
furrowed forehead and eyebrows that excited comment
among his contemporaries: the nose .
"thick
eyebrows bent above
.
and harshness
that revealed his severity
.]
Eyes can look out from a portrait
." .
[.
.
ways.
in various
Monsieur Bertin (see page 142)
In Ingress portrait of
the sitter stares straight at us, and his gaze
is
both frank
and confrontational. In contrast, Innocent looks out from the comer of his eye
in a
manner
that can be read
as disdainful or even shifty. In portraits where the sitter's
eyes do not meet ours, again
possible. In Eakins's painting of sitter
is
way
staring into space in a
pensiveness. The opposite effect Cassatt's Portrait of
many meanings are
Amelia van Buren, the
Madame J
that suggests
achieved in Maiy
is
(see page 147),
where
the subject's attention seems to have been caught by
something "offstage," so that
we
receive an impression
of her liveliness and interest in her surroundings.
Oscar Kokoschka's portrait of Joseph de
In
Montesquiou-Fezensac the eyes behave
way. The painter exploits the asymmetries of the face, as Leonardo did in the
Mona
Lisa.
An
a disturbing
in
Although the
arresting gaze
Innocent X was no beauty, but
we
might hesitate before
agreeing with
marquis's bulging and red-rimmed right eye stares straight at us, his left eye, smaller drift
away. As a result,
we do
in relation to this trussed
not
and
duller,
appears to
know where we
and buck-toothed
stand
aristocrat.
who
his
contemporary
claimed that "his face was
the most deformed ever born
among men." -
portrait
all
Velazquez's
reds, pinks,
whites - was
made
Spanish
was
artist
and
while the
in
Rome. The
painter does not disguise the
An enduring mystery This famous woman is probably Mona Lisa, wife of the Florentine
ways than one.
Francesco del Giocondo and so
portrait the Austrian painter
difficult to
known
Oskar Kokoschka has
from the severe and penetrating
exaggerated certain aspects of
gaze, the large nose, and the
earliest surviving description of
the face - the bulging cranium
great, lopsided slash of a
what
and pronounced overbite - to
In his
hand Innocent holds
the point of deformity. His
letter
addressed to himself from
as La Gioconda.
identification rests
is
probably
written about
was date
The
on the
this painting,
fifty
years after
it
painted. Even at this early
Mona
subject of
Lisa's
smile
was the
comment and
the
Degeneracy Faces can be expressive
his sitter
amused while he
c
1503-6.
Vinci,
of them.
It
is
drag one's eyes away
mouth. a
an
Diego Velazquez,
Ironically,
the
most distinguishing
artist
to sign a painting.
Pope Innocent
Portrait
of
X, 1650.
high-domed
forehead - would,
as a
Mona
makes use
in
the
Renaissance, have been seen
painted her portrait
Leonardo da
rather
inbred aristocrat.
feature - his
not be true) that
pope's physical shortcomings, but
Velazquez - an elaborate way for
may
may
more
purpose seems to have been
subject's
or
in
disturbing
to characterize the sitter as an
account includes the story (which
Leonardo had musicians keep
In this
Lisa,
mark
of great intelligence.
Oskar Kokoschka, Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac, 1911.
EXPRESSION
The use
of setting background
detail
may focus attention on the sitter,
but
the main reasons for the use of neutral backgrounds are
more mundane: they are
easier to paint and cheaper
to commission.
Possessions What may be the
be set
portrait to
first
domestic
in a
one of the most elaborate: the enigmatic
interior is also
picture of the Italian merchant Giovanni Arnolfini and
by Jan van Eyck
his wife painted
probably invented - there
is
no
The
in 1434.
setting is
which would
fireplace,
have been highly unusual - but the space
certainly
is
intended to stand for the couple's properly-. Despite the
conspicuous bed, room,
this is not a
bedroom but a reception
which beds were considered an
in
essential part
of the furnishings. Almost everything visible can be
seen as reflecting the couple's wealth and are both richly dressed; the
status.
woman's dress
They
made
is
from an exorbitant amount of cloth, some of which she has to gather to her waist, leading some observers to believe her pregnant.
were the
Similarly luxurious
brass chandelier; the large, convex mirror; the draped,
caned
furniture;
the oriental carpet; and even the
oranges, which were prohibitively expensive in north-
ern Europe at this time.
Where the
Arnolfinis
had themselves painted
in
a
richly furnished interior, the eighteenth-century English
couple Robert and Frances Andrews sought the same statement of wealth by having Gainsborough paint
them on
their land.
The strangely elaborate bench
placed incongruously in the middle of a that here too there has
the landscape
is
been a degree of invention, but
a specific one and
as the figures of
suggests
field
Andrews and
is
as
much
his wife.
a portrait
shows
It
property: the Auberies estate in Essex, the
their
two halves
of which were united at the couple's marriage.
Possessions are not the only thing that the settings of portraits can indicate:
interests,
beliefs,
accomplishments, and profession are often alluded Image
in
a mirror
Many commentators
suggest that
The
portrait painter
rely exclusively
on the
face and figure to convey information about the
the couple's
this painting records
need not
sitter.
Dress,
whether
official
uniform,
fashionable
Holbein, painting in the
was among the
first
first
to.
half of the sixteenth century,
to develop the professional portrait
- a figure surrounded with the tools or attributes of his
marriage, arguing that this explains their gestures, the
s
garb, or everyday attire, often carries as
much
informa-
ingle lighted candle,
and other
tion about social standing or professional position as a
symbolic
more
face.
details.
It is
that Giovanni's gesture greeting. in
The scene
is
is
likely
one of
which
we
also see
two
figures entering the room,
one
of
whom may
be the
is
true of the setting and the objects
with which a painter surrounds the subject. Given
how
Gisze, a
German merchant
his office
stationed in London, as
if
in
surrounded by objects that identify him and
his profession
and point
to his business
acumen, his
reflected
the convex mirror on the back
wall, in
The same
one of the most elaborate he painted Georg
trade. In
artist.
Jan van Eyck, Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife,
1434
eloquent settings can be, portrait painters
my
seems surprising how often
have chosen not to exploit them.
Portraits frequently
show
the sitter against either an
painting
is
more than a simple record of a merchant
his desk. Inscribed
on the wall
is
the sitter's
at
motto "No
joy without sorrow" and beside this warning against
Baroque portraiture, generic and unspecific
earthly pleasure hangs a precarious pair of scales -
ground
or,
as in
backdrops of drapes, columns, or landscapes often painted bj studio assistants.
PORTRAITURE
much
wealth, and his love of beautiful things. But Holbein's
seventeenth-
entirely neutral
cent
it
A
portrait with little or
no
perhaps intended as a reminder of the scales
humanity
will
be weighed
at
in
the Last Judgement.
which
The merchant's In this portrait,
inkstand, ledgers,
office
painted
London, Holbein shows
does the elaborate spherical
his
dispenser that hangs on the right.
Georg
A somewhat
Gisze, surrounded by
name can be
define him. Gisze's
found on
the letters stuffed
all
into the racks beside
the one
The symbolism of a particular although
it
room Still
can
hand
Seals,
an
engagement
Georg's
to be married
Hans Holbein the Younger Georg
Gisze. a
Merchant
in
German
London,
1
532
The landed
painter Gainsborough
often difficult to be certain whether or not
is
argument (see page
162,
we know
if
the dog - a
common symbol
ness - in the portrait of the Arnolfinis for marital fidelity or
if it is
stately
is
was
of faithful-
meant
to stand
simply a much-loved pet?
com
sheaves of
Similarly, the
of portraits of landowners on their estates or in front of their
Young Painter). But how
Life with a Portrait of a
Mr and Mrs Andrews may be an
homes.
the portrait
who had been
to school with
Gainsborough
in his
3000
we
allusion to the
When
painted, Robert Andrews,
Sudbury
Gainsborough's paint-
in
Suffolk,
in
acres
native
owned about
and most of the land
see belonged to him.
a landscape that both
hoped-for fecundity of their union, or record a
it
one
charming - of a large number
Vanitos
Bailly,
just
is
- although one of the most
The inclusion of a
David
classes
This early portrait by the English
to a picture,
an equally obvious symbolic object leaves no
for
ing of
in his
him and on
incongruous vase of
may symbolize
carnations
setting or certain
meaning
the artist intends a symbolic reading. skull or
string
fellow German, the merchant
objects that both identify and
objects can add another level of
and gold coins
point to his business interests, as
in
could simply
common summer sight.
known
all
may
behind the
lie
their lives
It
was
men had
and
this
uncommon
attention that Gainsborough
paid to
Additional elements In devising settings, portrait painters often
have con-
cerns other than the characterization of their
Important
among
also include
these
sitter's
setting of a portrait
Madame
may
Mary
office. it
sitter,
and
certainly
subject's personality.
Japanese
trees,
Sudbury, where the
couple were married
in
1748.
Thomas Gainsborough, Mr and Mrs Andrews,
The
c.
1748-9.
may
Cassatt's portrait of
artist rather
than the
more important as an element
of the painting's design than as an indicator of the
for
These include,
framed fan - painted by Degas - hanging
background belonged to the is
All Saints,
may
portraits are
relate to the sitter, or
in the
it
most
home, garden, or
artist's studio. In
J the
for
details.
the steeple of the church of
sitters.
composition, but they
mere convenience,
not painted in the
record the
is
its
glimpsed through the
art,
And
yet
its
suggestion of a taste
along with the stylish hat and the
strik-
ing floral covering of the armchair, reflects the fashion-
An imposing background When this portrait by the
insistent floral print, the straight
American Mary Cassatt was
the fan. Cassatt places her subject
exhibited for
its
in
middle class to which
Madame
J clearly belonged.
it
was
criticized
background. The figure of
Madame J (who identified)
able preferences of the late nineteenth-century Parisian
Pans
"too prominent"
has not been
seems almost
swamped by
lines of
in
the dado, and the arch of
a very shallow space and gives
much
the background almost as attention as she does the
Mary
sitter.
Cassatt, Portrait of
Madame
J,
c.1883
the bold, abstract
designs of her surroundings: the
THE USE OF SETTING
Self-portraiture Tt
not surprising that, from early in the history of portraiture,
is
painters have turned their attention to themselves.
mundane
painting oneself
level,
is
On the most
convenient. In the words of the
wish-fulfilment, with the result that painters have often depicted
themselves as they wish to be rather than as they
Renaissance
until well into the eighteenth
century
French nineteenth-century painter Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904),
concerned that their profession be recognized as a
"The model
and learned profession, rather than a mere
always ready and offers
is
exact, submissive,
all
sorts of advantages; he is
and one knows him before painting." For the same
artist's
liberal art, a
noble
craft. Self-portraits
often
worldly success or suggest social or intellectual
make surprisingly little allusion to the act of painting. Many fewer self-portraits would have been painted if there were
But the reasons for self-portraiture go beyond convenience.
not a market for them. Since the Renaissance, interest in the achieve-
facial expressions or lighting effects or generally to perfect their
Self-promotion has long been an important impulse, and self-portraits
allow artists to advertise their
skill.
Although
self-portraits
can be
private exercises in self-examination and scrutiny, they are in fact
means of self-presentation. They
often a
also permit a degree of
pretensions, but
ments of the individual has encouraged the collection of
portraits of
the famous and the great. In a self-portrait by a successful artist a collector has something doubly valuable: a portrait of the painter
example of the work responsible
and an
for the artist's claim to greatness.
Self-exaltation
Self-reflection
had painted
This striking self-portrait
Artists
was painted by the
portraits before the
artist
Italian
Parmigianino, at the
advertise his
skill
and
to
invention.
He has depicted
himself as
if
reflected in a
convex mirror (the only
made
make
was the
A number
and
and
last
this
is
the third
paintings of himself. striking in
his
to representations of Christ, especially to the "Veronica
image," said to have been
perhaps an allusion to the
miraculously imprinted
exceptional manual
on a
skill
cloth belonging to
with which he produced
St Veronica.
this painting.
reads:
Parmigianino, in
Self-Portrait
a Convex Mirror,
1
is
The
-
larger than his face
It
resemblance
its
hand
surface.
makes
of
of his magnificent
he painted the picture
distortion
first
drawings
his self-portrait
To increase the illusion
on a convex
German
a habit of self-
portrayal.
survive
at this date).
self-
Renaissance master Durer did so, but he
age of twenty-one, to
kind
the
were
artists
art.
reason painters used themselves as convenient models to explore
more
proclaim an
From
are.
many
523-4.
The
"Thus
I,
inscription
Albrecht
Durer from Nuremberg, painted myself with indelible colours at the
age of 28 years." Self-satisfaction
Albrecht
The most famous and
Diirer, Self-
Portrait at 28, 1500.
successful painter of the
seventeenth century, the Flemish Rubens
was
Self-obsession
far
The seventeenth-century
from the stereotype of the tortured
Dutch
His
artist.
self-portraits celebrate
either his worldly success or,
artist
virtually
portrait as
domestic contentment.
shows him
etchings,
with
his first
wife and
was probably painted their
marriage
couple
link
year.
in
may be
hands, and the
read as a symbol of
Rubens paints
himself not as an
artist
and drawings -
made throughout
his career.
Few confront
the viewer as directly as
The
honeysuckle around them
fruitful love
self-
- paintings,
portraits
survive,
self-
an independent
genre. Nearly eighty
as seen here, his
This picture
Rembrandt
created the
but
as an elegant gentleman.
Peter Paul Rubens Self-Portrait with Isabella
Brandt, 1609.
PORTRAITURE
one. The subject
is
this
close to
the picture plane, and the artist
meticulously and
mercilessly records the details of his
ageing face.
Rembrandt,
Self-Portrait
with Beret
and Turned-Up
Collar, 1659(7).
Paris
Self-promotion Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun
was one
most
of the
successful
women
painters
of the eighteenth century.
which
In this self-portrait,
contributed to that fame
and caused
when
a sensation
exhibited
the
in
Salon
in
1783, the
Hat" - an allusion that
Self-assertion
The German Expressionist
French painter has clearly
was appreciated by the
exploited her physical
viewers of her day.
Max Beckmann
charms. She also holds a
Elisabeth Louise Vigee-
again and again to
Lebrun,
portraiture throughout his
palette, a
testament to
her acknowledged
artistry.
Self-Portrait in
a Straw Hat,
c.
1782-3
famous
known
portrait
as
and
career,
The picture derives from a by Rubens
image
this
is
self-
most
his
and self-confident
assertive
"The Straw
returned
of himself. Elegantly
dressed
black
in
hand on
his hip,
tie,
his
he seems
to be the master of his
world. As with Rubens (opposite),
success
is
Beckmann
's
evidently social
as well as artistic.
However,
such a pose was surprising in
the twentieth century,
when
artists
were more
often expected to be
bohemian non-conformists than
Indeed the
socialites.
painter
was
criticized at
the time by those
him as claiming
who saw
his
innate
superiority in the portrait.
Max Beckmann,
Self-
Portrait in Tuxedo, 1927.
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quarrelling with his fellow artist
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paintings he
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bandaged wound. Where once
artists
Self-aggrandizement
had aspired to
Gogh
painterly than his earlier
paintings of faces,
The American painter
including his
wears peasant clothes and
Chuck Close has
Self-Portrait of
refers directly to the act of
concentrated almost
1988 Close was paralyzed
of coloured squares, each
by a blood
filled
courtly status, van
on the human
painting by including a
exclusively
blank canvas behind him.
face, usually
Vincent van Gogh,
scale.
Self-Portrait with a
in
Bandaged
monochrome
Ear,
1889
on
He made
a vast his
name
the late 1960s with hyperreal
famous Big 1967-8.
clot.
techniques. His faces are In
After
now made up
of mosaics
with squirming
recovering the partial use
multicoloured doughnuts,
of his arms he developed
circles,
a
manner
ironically,
of painting that, is
freer
and more
and figures of
Chuck Close, Portrait,
eight.
Self-
1997.
SELF-PORTRAITURE
Double portraits Evidence of double portraits survives from the fourteenth century, and although one of the earliest survivals,
Jan van Eyck's portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini
and his wife (see page
146), is
unusual
in other
ways,
it
was probably not exceptional in being a full-length double portrait. Nor were early double portraits conshowing family members:
fined to
knew
said at her trial that she
in 1431
which showed her kneeling
herself,
Joan of Arc
of only one portrait of in full
armour as
she presented a letter to King Charles VII of France.
Marriage While other kinds of double portrait existed, portraits
married
of
have
couples
always
been the most
common. Often these were painted to celebrate the itself, being made at the time or shortly after-
marriage
ward. This
is
the case in Lorenzo Lotto's charming
portrait of Marsilio Cassotti
Marsilio
is
shown
and
his bride in
which
in the act of placing the ring
Faustina's finger. Marriage portraits
on
were often painted
as pendants - to be hung side by side - but a double portrait provided a greater opportunity to describe a
couple's relationship.
showing two friends together have
Portraits
always been less ties,
common
than those depicting family
but there are examples from the sixteenth century
by Raphael and Holbein (see page The Ambassadors), among others.
162,
Hans Holbein,
It is
no surprise that
emphasis on Platonic ship. In the
who
placed particular
ideals, including
those of friend-
seventeenth centuiy the writers and poets
of the court of King Charles
I
of England also set great
store by Platonic friendship - "the sweet union or
communion
of mind" - and found in the Flemish artist
Van Dyck one of
Thomas
its
great portrayers. His portrait of
Killigrew and an
unknown man is a particularly
moving depiction of the consolations and support can bring.
that friendship figure
on the
is
left,
in
Killigrew, the disconsolate
mourning for
his recently
deceased wife. He looks out wearily from the painting, but his friend seems to offer the possibility of recovery.
Where
Killigrew slumps, the other
man
alert;
is
he
looks not toward us but to his friend, and he points to a The duties of marriage
of Love, hovers
above the young
The Venetian Lorenzo Lotto was
couple and holds a yoke above
one
them -
of the
most inventive and
eccentric portrait painters of the sixteenth century.
He
revelled in
dutiful
a clear reference to the
bond
that
lies
ahead.
Sprouting from the yoke and on
the language of symbols, and
Cupid's head, laurel branches
although their meaning
symbolize virtue
is
often
unfathomable, here they seem straightforward Cupid, the
God
PORTRAITURE
Lorenzo Lotto,
and
Marsilio Cassotti
his Bride Faustina,
1
523
the Queen's ladies-in-waiting,
in loss
Killigrew
the young
Raphael's portraits of friends were of the humanist scholars and poets of his circle,
Friendship
Thomas
was
typical of
men who peopled
the court of King Charles
I.
playwright and courtier, he
whose death he mourning.
A
is
small gold
A
cross engraved with her
was
attached to
married to Cecilia Crofts, one of
wedding
his sleeve
ring
ribbon at his wrist. His wistful
shown and
pose contrasts with that of silver
initials
is
and her
hangs from a black
alert
and
solicitous
his
companion.
Anthony Van Dyck, Thomas Killigrew
and an Unidentified
Man, 1638.
blank sheet of paper - perhaps a symbol of a
life
yet to
be lived and an indication of hope for the future. The fascination of double portraits most often
playing with the rela-
figure, the artist is restricted to
tionship between
lies
they set up. In painting a single
in the relationships
and viewer, but with a double
sitter
portrait the options include exploration of the
connec-
Some
aspects
between the
tions and contrasts
sitters.
of the relative positions of the sitters in double portraits
were
From the Renaissance until was customary in portraits place the man in the more
in fact formalized.
the nineteenth century
it
of married couples to
"honourable" position on the
and
above
slightly raised
(on his wife's right)
left
Lorenzo Lotto's
her, as in
was
This hierarchy of position
portrait.
also often
followed in portraits of siblings or friends, with the
on the
elder or the one of higher rank placed
left.
Contrasts It
not just in positional relationships that double
is
convey
portraits
many
meaning;
their
differences, or indeed similarities,
most
conveyed
effectively
if
they have contrast-
ing qualities placed beside them. In the British painter
exploit
their sitters
The nuances of character are
to characterize them.
often
also
between
contemporary
David Hockney's portrait of his parents
the apparently neutral expression and pose of his
mother are extraordinarily eloquent when seen against those of her husband hunched over his book. Her face
becomes charged with meaning because of what we
now
can a
see that she
book and she
is
is
not doing: she
is
not looking at
not looking at her partner.
It is
also in
Three-way relationship Hockney has painted many double portraits,
contrast to Hockney's father that
what she sitting
is
doing (and he
it
she
is not):
becomes is
facing outward,
primly upright, and her feet are planted firmly on
the ground. She
is
also looking at us and, of course, at
her son the painter. Hockney's portrait
is
a model of
understatement centred on disconnection, relationship far
clearer
between
more dynamic.
sitters in
In the
but the
a double portrait can be
double portrait of Heinrich
and Otto Benesch by the Austrian painter Egon Schiele the contrasts between the thick-set, red-faced Heinrich, his eye swivelling to confront the viewer,
thin
son Otto are marked. But
father
toward his son that
embody
is
it
most
and
his pale,
the gesture of the
is
intriguing.
It
seems
to
a certain kind of paternal love: protective yet
dominating, the hand reaching out toward the son but
with closed rather than open fingers - shielding but also blocking the way.
Paternal protection
to
Heinrich Benesch, a Viennese servant,
was
Schiele,
whose
civil
the father seated,
relationship several times before
a supporter of brief,
show
Schiele altered the couple's
troubled
arriving at the final
arrangement.
career included imprisonment for
The outstretched arm was one of
making immoral drawings.
His
the
last alterations
when
this
late
stage
son Otto, seventeen portrait
become
was
painted, had also
friends with the
painter Having
initially
young
planned
in
had both hands
Egon
- even
at a
the painting Heinrich in his
pockets.
Schiele, Double Portrait of
Heinrich
and Otto Benesch, 1913.
and
this
is
the second of
his large-scale portraits
parents.
The
the painting
title is
of his
makes
it
actually as
clear that
much
about
how Hockney how they
parents as other.
The
relates to his relate to
stillness of life
each
seems to
be one of the themes of the picture.
as the
The objects on view, such
book on the French
still-life
painter
Chardm and the volumes
Remembrance of
of Proust's novel
Things Past, also refer as the
artist's
own
they do to the
much
to
preoccupations as
sitters
David Hockney,
My
themselves. Parents, 1977.
Group
portraits ew group portraits survive from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but there is plenty of evidence
were being made from the fourteenth century
that they
onward. Group portraits are perhaps less
likely to sur-
\ive than others, as they are often large and unwieldy
and
Implied nobility
One
of the aims of the Spanish
Velazquez
artist
Meninas was to of his his
art. In this
in
painting Las
group
in
the
company
of the reflection
mirror, implies
in
the
the presence of
the king and queen themselves. (It
figures within them,
whereas an individual
be treasured by the
sitter's
one or two
portrait
may
would have been unthinkable
and
variety,
show
some
the subjects within
sort of
narrative context. In contrast to single portraits (and
even most double portraits) such portraits often show the sitters in action, relating to one another to suggest hierarchies, allegiances, is this
more
and divisions within the group.
clearly seen than in the
group
teenth century. The Dutch invented and developed the
Princes and lords of the courts of Europe were often
large-scale group portrait
painted surrounded by their court and servants and
board of directors, or
engaged
in
some
characteristic activity. In
where
Italy,
painted frescoes frequently served as a cheaper substitute for tapestries,
examples of these courtly scenes
The decorations of the Palazzo Schifanoia
survive.
Ferrara by Francesco del Cossa (see page 194) include
of his career Velazquez
portraits of
Duke Borso
knighted and succeeded two
frescoes by Mantegna painted in Mantua in 1474
show
Marquis Ludovico Gonzaga, together with his family
years after completing this
The red cross of the
courtiers,
Order of Santiago - the badge
- was added
in
d*Este with his attendants, and
campaigned to have himself
of knighthood
interest,
Royalty and aristocracy
the royal couple.) Throughout the
picture.
pictorial
portraits painted in northern Holland in the seven-
actually to place himself next to
latter part
portraits to
Nowhere
descendants.
for
portrait
of a royal princess but also, by
means
in only
stress the nobility
ingenious composition not
only places him
owners may be interested
their
The need
characterization often encouraged painters of group
and
visitors to the court.
From
the sixteenth
century artists were painting independent family
to
portraits,
such as Holbein's famous
showing members of a
guild,
company (an armed Chilian group which could be called upon in times of popular unrest). The earliest paintings of militia companies were produced in Amsterdam in the early sixteenth century and show ranks of heads and shoulmilitia
By the
occasionally grouped around a table.
ders,
seventeenth century this type of picture had developed into
animated scenes of feasting and parading, exem-
plified
by Frans Hals's famous series of paintings of the
Haarlem chic guard banquets, which are among the finest
lost painting of
group portraits ever painted. In
Rembrandt's
Tlie
Xighturitch. showing a similar
the painting afterward.
Thomas More and
his family,
Diego Velazquez Las Meninas,
Sir
1656.
tory drawings and later copies.
known from
prepara-
company, the excitement and even greater and threatens to
Placement of figures This painting,
which
is
not a
night scene - there are no lanterns -
company
shows the
was commissioned However,
one of Rembrandt's
will outlive all its
"In the opinion of
he went too
pupils:
many
paying
far.
more attention to the overall subject
members
paid
.
.
than to
the individual portraits he
because
is
the individuals
included. According to
seen with
his lieutenant.
swamp
to have their portraits
Cocq, the red-sashed figure,
Sixteen other
PORTRAITURE
militia
of Frans Banning
scene
activity of the
it is
ingenious
to do.
this painting
in
.
.
.
competitors
... so the varied
placement of figures."
Rembrandt The Nightwatch, 1642.
depicted.
Indeed the painter was criticized by his
contemporaries
for
sacrificing
the
requirements of
portraiture to the overall conception in this picture.
may
Conflict
well arise between an
artist's
desire to
display his or her invention in a group portrait and the
demands of the
whom
will
individual
want
members
be
to
of a group, each of
recognizable,
visible,
and
of King Philip IV and his queen. But
couple that Velazquez viewers, have
somehow
them and the scene hand,
when
that
is
if it is
the royal
painting, then we,
as the
interposed ourselves between
we
are looking
at.
On the other
the king and queen stood in front of
Las Meninas, as they must have done, they would have felt
that they
were seeing themselves
Individuals within a group Hals's great
achievement was to
give his
group
natural
and
critics
portraits such a
lively air
near-photographic record. this
work
is
Rembrandt no doubt included,
was
artists,
in the opportuni-
such invention that the appeal of group portrai-
ties for
ture
it
many
lay.
In depicting a
group in action or within a
that both offers animated
reflected in the
show himself
narrative context the portraitist could
equal in imagination and
skill to
the painter of "histories"
minor within the painting. These and similar conceits abound in this picture, and its influence has been immense. It was copied by among many others, the American echoed
portraitist
John Singer Sargent
in the portrait
fart
In
a careful construction
and portrays
individual portraits
portrayed to their best advantage. But for
many
that
have taken them to be a
in 1879
he made three years
and
the hierarchy within this Haarlem civic
guard company, of which
Hals
was
a
member.
Frans Hals, Banquet of the is
Jorisdoelen Officers at Haarlem.
later of the
1616.
wealthy Bostonian Edward Darley Boit's daughters.
- scenes from history, mythology, and the Bible - which
from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century were seen as the noblest and highest form of
Growing apart Sargent's portrait
art.
shows the four
daughters of the Darley Boits their
Masterpiece of illusionism One of the supreme achievements of Western group
portrait.
("the
it
is
known today
as Las
Meninas
maids of honour"). This masterpiece of
nearly square format, the vertical strip
on the
left,
Luca Giordano when he saw is
a visit of the
young Spanish princess, surrounded by her
in the 1690s.
both court scene and portrait and shows
also about the art of
painting and the act of looking. Velazquez himself the
on
work on a huge canvas. He scruus as if we were the subject of his painting, but
left,
tinizes
is
apparently at
on the rear wall we see
in a
and the
principal focus of a small girl in
spreading
skirts are
both pictures.
Some
found
in
critics
have
seen the painting as evoking a child passing
maids, servants, and dwarfs, to Velazquez's studio in the is
the dark recesses
a small patch of light,
Italian artist
it
to
Velazquez's Las Meninas. The
illusion-
The picture
Spanish royal palace. But
much
in
The
of the background opening onto
ism was described as "the theology of painting" by the it
in Paris.
composition owes
art is a
Painted by Velazquez toward the end of
his career in 1656,
apartment
from infancy to
adolescence, equating this
development with a
retreat into
darkness and introspection.
John Singer Sargent, The Daughters of Edward Darley
Boit,
1882
mirror the dim reflections
GROUP PORTRAITS
Ruler portraits queens, and princes of the past needed
Kings,
A
portraits.
know
portrait let a ruler's subjects
what he or she looked
and ro\ing ambassadors
like,
whom
often carried portraits of those
they served.
Dynastic allegiances with foreign powers caused royal families
be
to
throughout
scattered
portraits allowed relations to see
looked
like
but
or even what sort of health they were
Queen of Fiance, wrote
Catherine de Medici,
her children's governor:
"I
in.
in 1548 to
have received the pictures of
my children which you had done for me they are
Europe,
what family members
.
.
and see that
.
much recovered since I saw them." When royal
marriages were being negotiated,
portraits
of the
prospective bride were often commissioned so that the
man
could gain an idea of what she looked
like.
Famously, Henry VIII of England had his court painter
Hans Holbein paint
portraits of
his prospective
seldom neutral likenesses. The
are
Portraits
two of
Denmark and Anne of Cleves.
wives, Christina of
image they present
often revealing and for this
is
reason leaders have long recognized the importance of controlling
important and so
source of restrict
A
what they show.
ruler's public
subsidiary images.
all
themselves to a single
persona
is
were often the
"official likenesses"
Rulers might also
portraitist, as Philip
IV of
Spain did with Velazquez (see page 163). In the era of
mechanical reproduction an
official
reproduced by the thousand: Gilbert Stuart's portrait of
we cannot now escape
George Washington, which
perhaps the most reproduced likeness
though his wife
felt
it
image could be
in history
is
- even
did not look like him.
Propaganda Imperial
Ruler portraits often do more than merely present an official likeness:
they can also be used as propaganda to
In
power
Royal insignia
adopting the form of the
This portrait of King Richard
imperial equestrian portrait Titian
promote an image
that emphasizes such virtues as
wisdom, majesty, and military prowess.
Ironically,
one
clearly
wished to suggest that
Charles
V was
Roman
be placed on the back of the king's
Empire. The
London.
of the
much damaged and
allusions to the Classical past also
shows a monarch whose authority was far who was put to death a few years after
from secure and it
was
painted.
Richard
portrait harks
and imperial portraits (see page kings, emperors, and,
been able to
call
more
upon a
back to
138).
great rulers of the past.
earlier royal
The portraitists of
recently, presidents
have
rich iconography of ruler
portraits to suggest continuity or
When
comparisons with
the Venetian
artist Titian
painted his huge portrait of the Holy
Roman Emperor
Charles V on horseback,
was consciously
in
1548, he
recalling a tradition of imperial equestrian portraiture thai
vvcnl
Emperoi
not the short
weapon
hack to the himoiis statue of the Roman
Marcus Aurelius on the Capitol
PORTRAITURE
in
Rome.
was
Westminster Abbey,
one of three
exceptional images of the king that survive from his reign; the
carried by
Charles but a long one of the
type favoured by the II's
in is
It
II
included the spear, which
of England,
pew
reviving the glories
of the earliest and most imposing royal portraits, a
restored painting of King Richard
of
II
England was possibly painted to
other
two
are the effigy of his
tomb, also
Roman
in
Westminster Abbey,
and the Wilton Diptych.
In all
emperors. But Charles was also a
three portraits care
Catholic Emperor and he appears
to capture the details of his
as a Christian warrior, wearing
appearance, but
the armour
in
which he fought
the Battle of Muhlberg his greatest victory
German
in
at
1547,
over the
Protestant princes.
Titian, The
Emperor Charles V on
Horseback at Muhlberg,
1
548.
was taken
this
one
emphasizes kingship: Richard surrounded with
and
royal
is
symbols
attributes such as his crown,
orb, sceptre, throne,
Unknown Richard
II,
c
English 1395.
and
robes.
artist,
.
The
President
real president
Mrs Washington, but kept
embodiment
it
in
likenesses.
It
repeated of
is
image
Titian's
the original version of the
French painter David's portrait of Napoleon,
was the
David and
his
were
to
Alps.
produce four other versions of it
the
of
makes
the in
Gilbert Stuart, George
"Athenaeum
became the most
Washington
(the
portraits of the
Washington
Original"),
all
it
Washington
1796.
genre of the
entire
years later the form
Two
was used
to
and clear propaganda purposes by
Jacques-Louis David in his Bonaparte Crossing the
picture that
studio
fifty
dazzling effect
King Charles IV of Spain. So
initiated
equestrian ruler portrait in European painting.
hundred and
commissioned by
successful
painting
presence on
bill
the popular imagination.
the model
for seventy-two of his later
Idealized
its
the one-dollar
his studio to act as
This
and
Stuart painted this portrait for
Ostensibly David
military leader
shows Napoleon as a great
whose bold decision
to cross central
over the next three years.
Napoleon
is
Europe's Alps led to victory against the Austrians at
shown calm and
masterful on his wild steed as he points the Alps.
way forward over the
The painting
fiction:
is
Mont
Saint Bernard
later.
aiming for
The
artist
his
them some
was not
historical accuracy,
an idealized leader
Jacques-Louis David, Bonaparte Crossing the Alps,
1
800-1
imperial associations: Bonaparte's
name
joins
on
the
rocks
beneath
the
horse's
was borrowed from another Emperor Peter the Great. Napoleon was not yet emperor, nor even First Consul of France, but the picture was part of his campaign for recognition. David's portrait was painted for Spain's royal palace, where - it is no coincidence - Titian's painting of Charles V also hung. Napoleon's horse
At home
feet.
a
but painted instead an idealized vision of
its
those of Hannibal and Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus)
carved
on
mule and did not accompany troops but followed
days
are
an elaborate
Napoleon crossed the
perilous
Marengo. But as clear as the painting's military import
masculine pursuits with the
one
Landseer,
of
Queen
Victoria's
itself
imperial image, Falconet's statue of the Russian
favourite
artists,
came
scene, set
Room
at
in
Windsor
Castle,
is
scattered
overbearing ways, nor has every royal portrait been
room. Albert
portraits of royal families exist
from the eighteenth cen-
Edwin Landseer, Windsor
he
Castle in
Modern
Times, 1840-5.
pastime for princes appears in Edwin Landseer's
Rulers have not always presented themselves in such
More informal
stares lovingly at her daughter,
the one-year-old Victoria.
contrasts Prince Albert's outdoor,
Informality
intent.
In this
the Green Drawing
Windsor Castle
conceived with propagandist^
The Queen holds a posy and
to her
court as an animal painter.
feminine virtues of the home.
in
Modern Times, where Prince Albert
surrounded by his favourite dogs, and dead birds are
somewhat incongruously about the drawing while Queen Victoria stands, the only more elevated status. Although Victoria
sits
hint as to her
certainly exploited the idea of the royal family as a
was not
tury as a result of the development of the "conversation
model of domestic
piece" (see page 158). This form recalls early group por-
intended for the public's eyes but was hung in the
traits
showing princes and
their courts hunting
and
indulging in other pursuits of the nobility. Hunting as a
sitting
room
virtue, Landseer's painting
at Windsor,
where, the Queen remarked,
looked "altogether very cheerful and pleasing."
RULER PORTRAITS
it
.
Swagger
portraits
behind the commissionOne of the main impulses has always been ing of portraits
\Yhile
many
ostentation.
portraits are private statements intended
to address a single viewer - for example, an absent
purpose of
was
this portraiture of display
reinforce the status quo. But
it
political, to
wish to believe themselves exalted. The the
moneyed
Grandeur
who
not only royally
is
Rigaud was one of the foremost French painters during the reign
and
titled
of Louis XIV of France. This
are equally likely to want to present
encapsulation of regal grandeur
friend or a loved
one - many more are directed
larger public, painted to dominate the
address a crowd.
Few
at a
room and
to
types of portrait proclaim a
sitters grandeur, glamour,
and superiority to greater
themselves to the best effect even mislead. In fact swagger portraits ately:
if
such images can
may
and majesty
seizing the attention, the very scale of such
contrary to appearances, Gainsborough's famous
of almost
all
Full-length portraits superiority.
Once a
figure
on the
"scale of life" is
to look
up
upon a wall we are forced
rooms of palaces and
this necessity is often exploited
homes, not for the
bedroom or study. The grand full-length was often used royalty
at that
by the
hung
idealized
image of kingship, the
swagger of the pose
person and
artist. It is
similarly immortalized.
While the painting. presents an
if
true
when we look at the faces in each of the portraits on this page we appear to meet them eye to eye. but if we look to the background it is clear that the artist has
.
is
tempered,
not undermined, by the intense
individualization of Louis' features
that to portray
and other powerful figures because the main
Passion
to her
tamed
Van Dyck shows Henrietta Maria, queen to Charles
I
of England,
in
an informal
hunting dress, but alludes to her royal status through the
The dwarf,
PORTRAITURE
the ruling houses of
Europe to Rigaud's studio to have
almost inevitably suggest
portraits calls for a grand setting: they are for the public stately
and
brought representatives
themselves
As well as
pose, dress,
attributes
"Blue Boy" portrays the son of an ironmonger.
effect than the life-size, full-length "swagger" portrait.
in
deceive deliber-
crown on the ledge
Sir Jeffrey
Hudson, was served
beneath
full-bottomed wig.
Royal Costume,
in
a pie, and
favourites. lust
his
Hyacinthe Rigaud, Louis XIV in 1
701
became one
of her
The monkey may symbolize
and Henrietta Maria's gesture her
control of such passions.
Anthony Van Dyck, Queen Maria with
Sir Jeffrey
Henrietta
Hudson, 1633.
Dressed to deceive Gainsborough apparently kept a set of "Van Dyck" clothes
the
his studio in
benefit of those
be painted painting
portrait
who
wished to
This
may have been wishing to
was not
It
famous the
them
try
a commissioned
Gainsborough reused an
and
old canvas for the painting
the
in
770s for the
them
in
result of his
out
1
sitter,
Jonathan
was
Buttall,
a friend, the son of a
London
who owned property Gainsborough's home in
ironmonger near
Gainsborough,
Suffolk. Like
the young Buttall had a strong interest in music,
one
wished to attend
However
casual
the portrait
is
like
artist
his funeral
its
beginnings,
a bravura display
of both painting
The pose,
and he was
few people the
of the
and
portraiture.
the dress, derives
from Van Dyck, but the figure has
none
of the languid grace of the
earlier artist direct,
- he
is
forthright,
and compelling.
Thomas Gainsborough, Jonathan
Buttall ("The Blue Boy"),
c.1770.
movement
Elegant
The American
placed our eye level well below that of the
portraitist Gilbert
at Stuart
is
page
1
George Washington
55),
painting that It
We are
most famous as the
portraitist of
(see
sitter.
about the level of King Louis XTV's waist in Rigaud's
but
made
was painted
in
this his
the
is
and
above William Grant's knee as he
just
skates toward us in Stuart's painting.
Scottish
Blue Boy") -
in
which the
case
The
artist's
earliest surviving independent, life-size, full-length
seems
it
splendour of a
Jonathan Buttall
artist's
("77?e
virtuoso rendition of
miraculous as that of his predecessor -
most famous example of
Van Dyck
sitter the
age. Gainsborough's
silk is as
name.
London and
shows the wealthy
portrait
an attempt to claim for the
bygone
this trend,
that the portrait
the
is
although in this
was painted
for the
pleasure rather than commissioned.
lawyer William Grant. According to
one
colourful account Grant
arrived for a sitting
one
winter's
day complaining that the weather
was much
better suited to
portraits date
from the sixteenth century and were
painted by artists such as Lucas Cranach the Elder, Holbein,
and
Titian,
Anthonis Mor. But
it
Netherlandish
the
was
in the
portraitist
seventeenth century,
was not only in England that Van Dyck's influence was felt. Rigaud's fantastically grand portrait of Louis XIV, for example, borrows its pose from Van It
Dyck's painting of Charles
I
as a hunter which
is in
skating than to posing for a portrait. Stuart
agreed and their
morning's sport provided the inspiration for this pose.
scene
is
full-length
swagger portrait found
in
shows
greatest master.
his predecessors.
The majority of the poses he gave
his sitters derived
from such
Kensington Gardens, and the picture
its
Van Dyck adopted and adapted many of the formulas of
The
the Serpentine lake
with the paintings of Anthony Van Dyck, that the grand
thrusting toward us. But while
Van Dyck shows Charles
dressed for the hunt, Rigaud exploits every aspect of his
clothing to enhance the majesty and
subject's
and Mor,
grandeur of the "Sun King." Swathes of ermine and
imbue them with a languid grace or
cloth embroidered with fleurs-de-lis drape the monarch,
was new
except where they are drawn apart to reveal elegant
artists as Titian
Stuart, in his first
managed
full-length portrait, imaginatively
but he
reworking the tradition to depict
elegant dash that
action.
exploited the glamour of dress to the
Gilbert Stuart, The Skater, Portrait
the Louvre, with the familiar hand on hip and elbow
of William Grant,
1
portrait of
to
Queen Henrietta
to portraiture. full,
He
also
as in his
Maria. His painting of the
royal legs balancing effect
on a pair of red-heeled shoes. The
may now seem somewhat
ridiculous, but
it
was
782
texture and sheen of fabrics relies
is
often miraculous and
on the viewer stepping away from the canvas to
achieve
its full
effect -
itself
a
way
ers maintain a respectful distance
to ensure that view-
from
his grand sitters.
Van Dyck's influence on European portraiture
was immense.
It
made
itself
most keenly
is
many grand
present in
often
"fancy"
around the
swagger
theatrical. This full-lengths,
sense of "show"
where dress
is
and curtains billow or clouds blow
sitter.
Indeed the wind often blows
portraits, to
in
add dash and verve. In Gilbert
in
Stuart's portrait of William Grant, a breeze lifts a corner
many portraits were
of the skater's coat and a lock of his hair, to suggest a
felt
eighteenth-century England, where
always intended to be
painted of figures in "Van Dyck" costume and poses, in
figure
both elegant and
full
of vitality and purpose.
SWAGGER PORTRAITS
Intimate images manner are by power and
portraits in the grand
Full-length
portraying
ostentatious,
definition
importance. Other forms of portraiture exploit the informal and domestic to suggest different virtues.
The "conversation piece" emerged
A fine
eighteenth century.
Bradshaw
of the
portrait
member
is
example
engaged
in
family,
some form
England
in is
in the
Johann Zoffany's which every
in
of domestic or recre-
ational activity, giving an impression of an informal
group captured
everyday pursuits. But, as so often
in
conversation piece, the portrait
in the
altogether
is
more considered than it may at first appear. Thomas Bradshaw is clearly presented as the head of the apex of the composition and
family, at the
at the top of
an insistent diagonal made by the three heads on right.
Even the
on the
The fly
left, is
his
flown by his son Barrington,
not entirely carefree in
perhaps suggests
artist
when
kite being
its
associations.
that, just as kites
can only
restrained by their strings, so children will
nourish only
if
they are denied free
rein.
Although conversation pieces were domestic subject and often painted on a domestic scale,
in
many Family reunion
were nevertheless intended as public statements, presenting an ideal of harmonious family
life
Born
or com-
in
Boston, Copley
leading portraitist
panionship to the wider world. These intimate virtues
own
portraitist
America but moved to England
the
in
John Singleton Copley painted
his
Revolution. The portrait
family in 1776 he chose a canvas over
wide on which to portray an
him - standing at the
two metres
ideal of family love
viewer
ance.
A
is
portrait
and
his father-in-law,
family's reunion in
London,
celebrates mutual affection,
particularly in the
can only be
a portrait
is
is
and Child seen by Copley
a public image. Whether
It
to
"private" or "public" is often difficult to
judge, for what
it
looks like
now
is less
group around
may have been
based on images of the Madonna
studied by one person at a time and at close quarters. But
not every large-scale portrait
Richard
mark the
Susanna, which
portrait miniature, for example,
was
way
announce
his arrival in a
which
important than
it
in
portraits of Philip IV (see page 163)
rulers.
In contrast,
the most famous and most reproduced portraits of the
Renaissance, was apparently used to console the wife for
when
alone.
Leonardo da
portraitist
was
Nor was
Vinci,
it
sitter's
the only portrait to do so;
one of the principal goals of the
to "place the true image of the beloved
before the lover,
who
often kisses
it
and speaks
to
it."
Sonic portraits reflect and explore the relationship between the painter and the sitter rather than that
between
Sitter
and viewer. This
PORTRAITURE
is
clearest in artists'
it
was
painted.
Copley Family, 1776-7
Raphael's portrait of
Baldassare Castiglione (see page 142), although one of
the year
The
son
artist's
but they are ambiguous
portraits,
one
Although Rembrandt painted him
and
on numerous occasions and
Titus, familiar
many
in
guises, Titus remains a
shadowy
appearing
figure,
documents as a working for
his
dutiful
father
in
son
He appears
this
curls,
is
no exception.
from
his
thirteen or fourteen he
the picture
was
no paintings
a
before Titus
a
survive,
and he died
young man the year
his father
we must
To learn about
turn to the
and
Rembrandt may have painted from memory, perhaps
still
was when
painted,
to have trained as a painter but
while
golden
appears younger than the
moment he once
it
recalling
witnessed or
a familiar attitude-
Rembrandt, his Desk,
Portrait of Titus at
1655
was
Academy
John Singleton Copley The
much-reproduced likenesses of one of Europe's most powerful
new
marketplace, and the picture
was once looked at. Velazquez's late seem to be personal images of an ageing man but were in fact the official and in
in Italy.
also the painter's intention
exhibited at the Royal
the
- with
Clarke. Painted to
it
often dictated by scale rather than appear-
shows
rear
wife Susanna, their children,
and
Public and private
its
1774 to escape the impending
his
The sense of intimacy generated between a
was the
colonial
when
could also be celebrated on the grand scale:
American
in
Conversation piece Johann Zoffany, a German
who life
artist
spent most of his working
m
England,
is
best
known
for his "conversation pieces" of
wealthy and aristocratic English patrons,
among them
the royal
He was not the inventor
family
of the conversation piece - artists
such as
Philip
Mercier and
William Hogarth preceded him but he was one of
exponents.
its
principal
careful
In its
construction and meticulous attention to the details of dress,
example
this
work
It
is
typical of his
shows the wealthy and
distinguished
who was
to
Thomas Bradshaw,
become
Lord of
First
the Admiralty a few years
with
his wife, sister,
and
later,
children.
Bradshaw's eldest son, Robert,
on the
right,
aristocratic
resting
on
adopts a suitably
pose with
his
arm
a horse.
Johann Zoffany, The Bradshaw Family, 1769.
informal portraits of their
own
sioned works executed for the
than to present the
love, rather
public.
families,
Few
uncommisout of
artist's benefit
sitter to a
broader
have painted their loved ones
artists
with more frequency and intensity than Rembrandt.
Although he often used members of his family as
models for his paintings of
and mythological
biblical
scenes and characterful heads,
at
other times he
painted and drew them as themselves.
have done so
thumb on chin apparent than
son
to
Titus,
as he pauses in his writing. But even artist
may be more
Some commentators
believe that
here the intimacy between sitter and
the picture
He appears
in the beautiful portrait of his
real.
was
less a portrait than a study of
melan-
choly thoughtfulness, intended for sale on the open
market as a characterful but anonymous head.
Friends and family Since the early twentieth century, the importance placed
upon subjective experience has
led
many
artists to find
subjects in their immediate surroundings and private lives.
Contemporary portraits are
because the
artist
request of the
typically painted
chooses to do so rather than
at the
In the twentieth century,
more
sitter.
than ever before, painters portrayed friends, as in Modiglianis study of Soutine (see page 141), or on the family, as in
page
151).
David Hockney's portrait of his parents (see
The
British painter Lucian
greatest portraitists of the
Freud - one of the
second half of the twentieth
A
mother's image
Lucian Freud painted his mother Lucie
many
after she
century - has explored his relationship with his mother in
a string of pictures painted over several years.
times
in
the 1970s
was widowed.
Here, as
so often, posed on a bed studio, she adopts a
in his
pose that
almost seems one of blessing;
for his
indeed she has been likened
a tender familiarity,
this portrait to
"an
in
idol
his
reverently laid flat for packing as
a treasured masterpiece."
was
If
this
Freud's intention, reverence
mother
is
combined with apparent
intense concentration
in
on her
blotched and ageing features.
Lucian Freud, The Painter's
Mother Resting
III,
1977.
INTIMATE IMAGES
15
Abstract portraits The
aims of portraiture and the means by which
they were achieved remained remarkably constant
end of the nineteenth centuiy. Fashions
the
until
changed, but none appeared that altered either the essentials
of portraiture or the assumption that a
portrait's
principal
the appearance -
was
purpose
communicate
to
however tempered by
idealization - and the personality of the In the closing
and
flattery
sitter.
decades of the nineteenth centuiy,
however, the priorities of portraiture underwent a change,
due largely to the invention of
photography. This
new medium had a profound impact
dramatic
on
all
branches of painting, but
it
was most keenly
where many of the
in portraiture,
roles
once
felt
filled
by
the painted portrait were almost instantly usurped by the photograph. Today no one
sioning a painter
one looked
like;
if
would dream of commis-
they wanted to discover what some-
we
carry photographs, not painted
miniatures, of our family
and loved ones, and
it
is
through photographs that leaders and celebrities project their
images to the public. In fact most people,
upon
to
century,
list
called
if
the great portraitists of the twentieth
would think of photographers before
painters.
Toward abstraction Portraitists
met the challenge presented by photography
many ways. One of the main responses was to play down painting's representational role and emphasize in
instead
its
approach
is
compositional
qualities.
This
encapsulated in the provocative
title,
formal,
Arrangement in Grey and Black,
that the
Golden mosaic This masterpiece of Klimt's
American
"golden
painter Whistler gave to his famous portrait of his
mother when he exhibited
London
in 1871.
it
at the
Royal Academy
The title suggested that the
importance of the picture lay
and colours rather than
interest
in the disposition of
in the sitter. In other
in
Italy,
and
A m
it
was a
painting
first
and a
portrait second.
one of
and
the
became
sitter.
swirls,
increasingly prevalent toward the end of the nineteenth is
is
his
first
of
main patrons,
two
studies of
Adele emerges from a
plethora of geometric shapes and
This emphasis on design and pattern
century and
by
Ravenna,
Ferdinand Bloch-
Bauer,
the
in
portrays the wife of the
industrialist
tones
words,
style," influenced
mosaics he had seen
particularly well illustrated
some
of
which contain the
letter B for Bloch-Bauer.
Although
seemingly abstract, these shapes
by the Art
describe the dress, armchair,
Nouveau movement. artist
In the portraits
Gustav Klimt, the
swamped by
sitters
by the Viennese
are
often
cushions,
nearly
and there
glimpse through the
the extravagant, almost abstract, designs
is
even a
window
of the green world outside.
of their clothes and the background. But while Whistler
Gustav Klimt, Adele Bloch-
and Klimt may have claimed that
Bauer
more
in formal, abstract qualities
portray their
sitters,
their priorities lay
than in the desire to
both produced images that were
powerful and recognizable likenesses.
The decisive break between
portraiture
and
representation took place in the early years of the
work. Whistler, however, dismissed
Tonal arrangement Whistler's portrait less as
was
praised
an "arrangement of grey
and black" than
for
its
"powerful
grasp of the Protestant character,"
twentieth century with the portraits of Matisse and Picasso. Picasso's cubist portrait of
one of
his dealers,
Henry Kahnweiler, clearly does not represent the
PORTRAITURE
sitter
while stories about
Anna Matilda
McNeill's relationship with her
son attached themselves to the
the notion of a picture's "dramatic or legendary or local interest."
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement
and
in
Black: Portrait of the
Painter's Mother, 1871.
Grey
I,
1907.
and
a
in
The aim of Cubism was
way.
literal
reproduce visual
object - whether
still
life,
was developed over time and was both
that
not
to
record a response to an landscape, or individual -
reality but to
visual, in
reflecting different angles of vision, and intellectual.
What was important was
not the sitter as he appeared
world but the painter's conception of him.
to the
Kahnweiler likened the process to that of poetry, quoting the French nineteenth-century poet Mallarme,
who
claimed that his poetic goal was "to describe not
the thing
itself
but the effect
Once
produces."
it
photography had freed painters from the obligation
to
create a likeness, they could abstract the portrait in a variety of ways. For example, throughout his career
Picasso adopted different strategies of distortion to
communicate
A
his feelings
toward his
sitters.
changing balance of power
In order for the artist's subjective response to be
considered the most important aspect of a portrait,
was necessary
it
for a change to occur in the circum-
stances in which portraits were made. In previous centuries the relationship between sitter and artist had
been dominated by the
sitter:
it
was
person commissioning the portrait)
the sitter (or the
who
how
dictated
was represented, and it was the sitter's selfimage that the portraitist was employed to convey. But
the sitter
when
artists,
represented by dealers, began to paint
almost exclusively for the open market, portrait
commissions gradually became
artists
less important to their
Since the late nineteenth century
financial survival.
whom
have been increasingly able to choose
they paint. (Picasso's portraits were almost
when some-
friends, wives, lovers, and children.) Today
one commissions a
portrait
of his
all
from a leading
artist
he or
she usually does so on the understanding that he or she
submit uncomplainingly to the
will Shattered image It
is
perhaps surprising that
the imposition of the
in
the early stages of Cubism Picasso should have turned to portraiture. Nevertheless, this
one of three great produced If
could
make
portraits
1910.
In
he was testing his
It
almost as
is
how
abstract he
images while
and
Here, despite the
still
Picasso's
skill
in
transaction. However,
the
it
always depends on the
when
looking at portraits
it
is
as
remember how recent such a view is. Today we may remember Mona Lisa only because she was painted by Leonardo, and Mr and Mrs Andrews simply well to
because they had the foresight to ask Gainsborough to
doubt that
as a caricaturist
features he later
wave
being seen as the more powerful partner in the
it
was they who were
calling the shots.
recognizable,
A
allowing him to summarize the
"the
artist
portray them, but at the time they would have had no
deliberately confusing
is still
own personal vision on the
- has many sources, but
complex
construction of the painting,
Kahnweiler
artist's
sitter
is
he
retaining a resemblance to the sitter.
artist's vision.
Abstraction in portraiture - which results from
summed up hair,
and the clasped hands." Pablo Picasso, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, 1910.
as
an earlobe,
This
personal response is
one of many
Picasso artist
made
and,
in
of Dora Maar, an
the 1930s and 40s,
his mistress. In nearly
Maar's face if
in profile
portraits
is
all
of these
wildly distorted even
her rounded features and dark
arched eyebrows usually
make
her recognizable. Often, as here, Picasso
while the other stares
straight out at us. But the
intention here,
in
contrast to his
angular and fragmented Cubist images, seems to be to impart
mood, the
soft contours
and
limpid eyes suggesting tenderness.
Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar Seated, 1937
seems to adopt more than
one viewpoint - we see one eye
ABSTRACT PORTRAITS
The passage Portraits have many aims and always been commemorative.
uses, but their
of time
main function has
A portrait preserves a likeness that may be
were also often painted to commemorate particular
Portraits
moments, such as marriage (see page
150,
Lorenzo Lotto. Marsilio
with a Young
and his Bride Faustina) or professional promotion. The very act of preservation performed by a portrait brings to mind what the picture is not able to preserve. In Oscar Wilde's classic
sitters
tale
the
remains unaffected by time and experience, but in real
endures after the
sitter is
long gone. Indeed a portrait
after the sitter's death. In both Ghirlandaio's Portrait of
painted
an Old
Man
Boy and Hogarth's Tlte Graham Children one of the was painted after his death. Portraits are always painted with future in mind, although the future emisaged by the painter, and
who commissions such a picture, may be generations may be more immediate. We now rely on photographs to show us what we looked like at
the person
hence - or
it
different stages in our lives, but for centuries portraits fulfilled this role. Artists often
displayed the date of the painting or the ages of the
prominently in them, as Holbein did in
sitters
the
portrait left,
shows, on
Jean de Dinteville,
French ambassador to
the court of Henry
is
the portrait of Dorian Gray that ages while the
less
passage of time by including symbols of transience and mortality
such as skulls and hourglasses. At the same time they remind us of their
own
ultimate
ance, they suggest, itself, like
futility.
is
To preserve someone's outward appear-
to preserve nothing but an image: the portrait
the person depicted, will eventually fade and crumble.
man was dead when
it
The coupling of an old man
made. The Florentine
artist
with a child suggests both
Ghirlandaio recorded the
the ageing process and the
man's nose, disfigured by
Where the
England, and his friend
two people
George de
they almost certainly are
of Lavaur.
Selve, Bishop
The objects
man himself we know
life
that the opposite is true. Portraits themselves often hint at the relent-
passing of time.
of
VIII
Ambassadors.
it
Generations
Time and mortality The
Tlie
Cassotti
here,
we
are related, as
are also reminded
was
disease, preserving as
accurately as possible the
appearance of a now-dead, but -
if
we
believe the
between them point
of the continuity of families.
evidence of the painting -
to their learning and
The ideas of continuity and
much-loved
accomplishments, but they
inheritance
also suggest the futility of
central to the purpose of
such achievements, the
this portrait, for
may have been the old
Portrait of
an Old
sitters' mortality.
The object
at the
of the painting
is
bottom a skull -
the ultimate reminder of
death - distorted so that
it
can be seen correctly only
when
^^8
looked at from the
right of the picture.
Hans Holbein the Younger, The Ambassadors, 1533.
Vanity
work by the
In this
known Dutch David
Bailly
familiar
little-
^"^T
painter
we
"^
see the
symbols of
life's *
transience, such as a skull
and an extinguished candle. The picture self-portrait Bailly
as a
is
a
and shows
young
(identified as
artist
such by
his
mahlstick) holding a picture of himself painted
twenty years
David Life
later.
Bailly, Vanitas
Still
with a Portrait of a
Young
Painter,
1651
PORTRAITURE
Man
a Young Boy, c.1490.
inexorable passing of time,
and the
relative.
Domenico Ghirlandaio with
An ageing
4
^^K^
face
Velazquez's portraits
f*3|
of Philip IV of Spain
4
( 1
605-65) provide one of
the rare instances where
-4kB
we
can watch a single
age over a sustained
figure
"^
period through the eyes
'—
of a single artist
^^+
more often
is
It
possible
in self-
portraiture, as in the case i
§
W M
with Rembrandt (see page 148, Self-Portrait with
and Tumed-up
Beret
Velazquez
Collar)
established himself at the
Spanish court >
v
was
in
1623 and
to paint the king over
the following thirty-four
The three
years.
show
here
Death In
in
infancy
all
the bottom-left corner
sits a
basket of
flowers which,
fruit like
and
the
too pertinent
when
child mortality rates
and indeed the
a small figure of
baby,
Thomas
holding a scythe - a
(a
boy
despite his
wrinkle and wither
before the picture
too
soon. Such messages were
above him surmounted by
high,
fresh-faced children, will all
Hogarth placed a clock
were
completed.
skirts),
In
Cupid
died
symbol of death.
was
William Hogarth, The
Graham
response
portraits
the king as a
nineteen-year-old; dressed as a hunter, in his late
twenties;
about
and
finally at
They are
fifty.
restrained for royal
Children, 1742.
portraits
on the
and concentrate
sitter's
features,
which they
treat with
remarkably
little
This
flattery.
was probably on
Philip's insistence.
He
seems to have been particularly
concerned
about accuracy
in royal
portraiture, writing in the
1630s:
"It is
not suitable
that portraits be made, sold,
and displayed
public
in
which are not well
made and
like
the person
represented." This unflinching approach had its
drawbacks, however,
which
it
is
clear that the
A
king also recognized. letter life
from the end of
states that
his
he did not
wish to be painted again,
because of
his
age.
Diego Velazquez, Philip IV in Philip
1632-3;
Agelessness
this
generalized vision also
The French nineteenth-
reflects the
century painter Ingres
in
deliberately idealized this
made. Ingres worked on
sitter's
features. Her face
shows no
sign of
age But
circumstances
which the picture was
1
624;
Philip IV,
1652-5.
banker's wife aged from
twenty-three to
Here she it
Armour,
IV as a Hunter,
is
thirty-five.
literally
ageless
Jean-Auguste-Dominique
Madame
for twelve years, during
Ingres,
which time the wealthy
Moitessier,
1856
THE PASSAGE OF TIME
".
.
.
but
still
every thing in nature has
something to say to us." George Inness, "A painter on painting," Harper's
New Monthly Magazine,
56, February 1878
Landscape
Fishers of This
is
men
a predella panel
from the Maesta, the high altarpiece
The
Western tradition
the Sea of Galilee,
for the cathedral of Siena.
and bring out
meaning.
its
religious imagery. In medieval art
demanded
Garden of Eden or
at least a
cursory landscape
century these settings became
setting. In the fifteenth
details are
essential to the subject
lie in
certain biblical subjects, such as the
commissioned
The landscape
origins of landscape painting in the post-Classical
increasingly descriptive of the physical world and
assumed ever
and Andrew, who are
German artist Albrecht Durer noted that the Fleming Joachim Patenier was a good "landscape painter," and around the same time the writer on art Marcantonio Michiel used the word "landscape" of the Venetian artist Giorgione's Tlie Tempest
casting a net into the Sea of
(see page 182). Both
Christ, his
hand
over the water gesture, invites
jutting out in
a calling
Simon
Galilee, to follow
become
fishers of
Duccio
di
(Peter)
him and men.
"landscape" also
were
means
referring to the paintings themselves, but
the scene represented. Whether the term
describes a painting or the land
human view-
always implies a
itself, it
Buoninsegna.
The Calling of the Apostles Peter
greater significance. In 1521 the
and Andrew,
er.
Even when no one
been and
is
is
present in a landscape painting, the work has
to be understood in terms of
human
existence.
1308-11
Constructing the world Understanding nature The German
artist Durer's
watercolour depicts the Italian hilltop
town
site
phenomenon.
was In
a
new
exploring
the physical world's structure, Durer
reflect attitudes it.
in
toward the natural world and
The recording of the material world
never
is
wholly objective or neutral. Until the end of the eighteenth century these works of art were painted in the studio, even
from the
if
of
Arco. Such a recording of
an actual
Landscape paintings humankind's place
shows how
fifteenth century artists
had sketched out of doors from nature
for the
purposes of private study. Landscape paintings can honour and celebrate the physical appearance of the natural environment in a variety
of ways. In the eighteenth century the awe-inspiring forces of nature
were prized as "sublime" (see page
By
189).
contrast, depictions of
the natural and the man-
made have been combined He
still,
though, omits the
cultivated land suggest a nature.
more ordered
between man and
relationship
They may demonstrate changes
made by
to the countryside
mountains that flank the
humans, such as
town and so makes the
sion by roads and boundaries. Although paintings of such features
citadel
more imposing.
may
fortifications, buildings,
challenge, they
more
and towns, as well as
its divi-
often support claims to ownership of the
Albrecht Durer, View of the Arco Valley, 1495.
countryside, reinforcing property rights, and suggest appropriate
ways of
living
on and from the
land. In Gainsborough's Tlie
view reveals much about a particular
Place, the
Watering
estate, but
it
also
conceals a great deal about the processes and social structures that
have gone into making such a pleasant rural environment. More recently the scenic view has been used to In attempting to depict space
warn of ecological
and the
disaster.
fleeting effects of light
and
atmosphere, landscape painters have used certain conventions, including the device of a strong foreground motif to give a sense of recession
and the framing of views with trees or buildings. Tonal bands
into space
of
brown
to indicate the foreground, then green,
and then blue for the
distance are often used to create a sense of spacial depth in what called aerial perspective. Winding features, such as paths
also often
Many
made
have made use of the extensive landscape, where the
artists
filled skies.
was the
greatest
may
prosperity By depicting
Here massive clouds hang
linen being
native Haarlem, with their
LANDSCAPE
to look
and darks being
also used
that moral purity
the seventeenth century.
his
was
Haarlem was noted for linen, a
above
it
reflected in the land below.
Dutch landscape painter of
lights
made
This compositional device structured the world views of
Land and morality
majestically
is
land that stretches back to a distant horizon beneath cloud-
Patenier (see page 168, St Jerome in the Desert), but
Ruisdael
rivers, are
to recede, linking the foreground to the background.
viewer, adopting an often impossibly high viewpoint,
down onto
and
is
its
major source of
bleached
surrounding
fields,
in
its
also be suggesting is
to be
found there too
Jacob van Ruisdael. the
Ruisdael
View of Haarlem from the North-west with the the
shows how the land has
Bleaching Fields
been put to good use He
Foreground, c 1670
in
wheatstacks or gramstacks
Variations
Monet painted
a series of
as symbols of the land's
wheatstacks
1890-91,
prosperity,
in
showing them
at different
times of the day and
While
and atmospheres He was in
capturing the
landscape's variability
and
is
a long
contentment
Bucolic
in
their thirst
the waters of a gentle
stream, Gainsborough
shows nature
as
abundant
and calm. The open,
freely
Landscape with a Rainbow (see
page
172),
which the
common
land
in
taken away from the
poor
well-being
depended on
nostalgic.
who had
some
it still
extent
depends
upon
it.
Wheatstacks,
Snow Effect,
used
rural
it
and
it.
Thomas Gainsborough,
At the time
flowing brushstrokes
when Gainsborough
The Watering
imitate Rubens's earlier
painted this picture,
1774-7.
by Jacob van Ruisdael and,
to
England
English painter admired.
essentially
painting does not exemplify this tradition,
was being enclosed and
This glowing view of rustic is
and protection
this Impressionist
Morning, 1891
tradition of painting
As cows slake
their roof-
Claude Monet
the sensations that this
prompted There
and
shapes also suggest
shelter
in
different seasons, lights,
interested
like
Place,
in the late twenti-
eth century, by the Canadian artist Jeff Wall.
Landscape paintings became very popular in the Netherlands in the seventeent
century,
when
the emergence of a
new
mercantile art-buying public encouraged the
development of many kinds of painting and led artists to specialize in certain genres.
An
explanation of the appeal of landscape
views
is
suggested by Claes. Jansz. Visscher,
one of the most important publishers of prints,
maps, and topographical views
Amsterdam during the century.
In the text
first
in
half of that
accompanying eleven
small etched views of the scenery around
Haarlem he noted that they gave a quick look at
pleasant places for art lovers with no time
to travel.
Landscape paintings were an urban
commodity, bought to be \iewed indoors.
They allowed the dramatic rain,
effects of storms,
and snow to be contemplated
in the
comfort of the
home and
gave access to places that might otherwise have remained unknown.
Cinematic instant Jeff Wall's
image
is
sheets of paper blow about,
suggesting the randomness
a
conventional landscape that
Ideal and sacred places that has
been
or even one that has never existed, to be evoked. In such ideal-
ized views of nature the
town tends
to be contrasted with the less
tainted surroundings of the natural world.
The landscape
artist
even seek to imitate divine creative powers, conferring sacred
cance on a location so that
look across land to
a far horizon
The landscape painting also permits an environment lost,
we
it
may be seen
may
signifi-
as the material expression
of a non-physical, spiritual world, or indeed of God.
in
expanse of
below an
sky,
a pale distance,
merge and
medium
of photography gives
the incident instantaneity
the canal
recedes, colours
of nuclear fallout. The
into
a large
and cinematic coolness. The work both celebrates
and subverts the beauty and
much
tree links foreground to
nostalgia of
background. But,
landscape painting.
in
a
reference to the Japanese artist
Hokusai's print
Wind
in Yeijiri(c
A
High
1831-3),
Jeff Wall,
of Wind
traditional
A Sudden Gust
(after Hokusai),
1993
INTRODUCTION
)
t
God Certain
in nature
events in the Bible have subjects that
depend on a landscape times episodes such as
setting.
Adam and Eve
Eden, the Baptism of Christ
in the
Since medieval in the
Garden of
waters of the Jordan,
up to the skies and, by association, heavenward. In 57
Jerome
in
the Desert
by the Flemish landscape
Joachim Patenier,
specialist
it is
mountains that
in the
the hermit seeks spiritual consolation.
The
artist
prob-
or the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (see page 45) have
ably intended this landscape to be viewed symbolically:
been depicted
the steep
in religious paintings in settings that
ural world
may
way
to salvation - the rocky, winding path
nat-
leading to the saint's monastery on the right - contrasts
also be seen as God's creation, suggest-
with the distractions of the lush contemporary Flemish
evoke the untarnished beauties of nature. But the
ing his presence in less explicit ways. In Protestant lands, especially during the seventeenth
landscape stretching away to the
left.
and nineteenth
centuries, depictions of the observed world
were often
In religious paintings of the Renaissance,
Worship of the out-of-doors Coming
intended to denote the presence of the divine.
both
to the fore in the early nineteenth century,
particularly in
America and Germany, where there was
north and south of the European Alps, biblical events
a strong Protestant heritage, a related tradition of
are usually set in local scenery rather than that of the
in nature
Middle East. The inclusion of local detail was not acci-
scape but as existing
shows God not as a physical
God
figure in a land-
For
in the beauties of his creation.
Mappa Mundi The composition of
dental, but served to bring the stories into the present
these artists the deciphering of nature as a visible sign
and to make the presence of God more immediate.
of the invisible powers and mysteries of the divine
the Syrian desert
becomes a pathway
century,
T)ie
Baptism of Christ the Flemish painter Gerard
to possible salvation.
However,
possible to look at almost any landscape as
David transposed the waters of the Jordan into a green
because
valley bounded by coniferous trees and the verdant
a depiction of God's creation, one cannot always be
is
it
Even though
we
figures
associate with mainland Europe. Similarly, the
wear clothes
that
would have been
familiar to
God himself appears in does when he is depicted as a
the painting's earliest viewers. the skies, as he usually
sure whether this
was
the artist's intention. In those
where we are
paintings
clearly
meant
to
merge the
it is
see on the
atmosphere, the seemingly
become
infinite
an ethereal
expanses above us
as one with the heavens. Mountains, too, reach
in
shows a monastery with
the late-Gothic architecture of his day.
The
saint
is
cut off from both
a crude hut.
scape painter often makes emphatic use of
kneels before a crucifix,
light. In his
Mountains the German
artist
in
Joachim Patenier, the Desert, c.1525.
Christ Spirit
Here
when
setting
in
to descend from
the form of a dove.
Christ's
grave appearance
matched, above the
the figure of
God
bird,
by
the Father
in
Heaven, surrounded by wingless angels,
and
in
the act of
Thus the
below
is
naturalistic
also being
blessed by God. The familiar
was baptized the Holy was seen
Heaven
is
blessing.
Bible tells us that
scenery would have brought the
episode to in
life
for worshippers
sixteenth-century Flanders.
Gerard David, The Baptism of Christ,
c 1502-7.
He a pose
and holds a stone
on the Cross against an unnaturalistic radiance and
The blessed
in
with which to chastise himself.
Caspar David Friedrieh silhouettes the figure of Christ in
we
while on the right
these sights
painting Cross in the
lived in
the fourth
worship of nature with the worship of God, the land-
The
LANDSCAPE
to accept.
Jerome
the landscape of
left,
of devotion
figure in biblical paintings. Suffused with
St
sixteenth-century Flanders that
Patenier
flora
landscape
what the
penitent has chosen to reject with
what he has chosen In
this
allows us to contrast
St
Jerome
in
Garden of Eden
but the couple have not yet eaten
from
This painting by the French artist
Nicolas Poussin
is
one of a
shows Adam and Eve
firmament, bestowing
light
in early-
before the
on the
Eve
Fall
on
the process
place
sacredness to this harmonious spot.
On
Hebrew and,
a
hill in
it
with visionary, supernatural
Landscape painters often bathe their views
golden and benevolent
light,
as
if
in a
such scenes were
letters spell
specially blessed
"Noah"
upside down,
"Shaddai" ("Almighty") The left
foreground
by God. Friedrich's paintings of the
sandstone mountains of Saxony in Germany, or Thomas Cole's of the
banks and
hilly plains
of the Connecticut
River in America, thus lay claim to a special sacredness
contrasts with the peaceful, cultivated land below,
through
which flows an oxbow
river in
the shape of the Almighty's
all-
in their regaining
who
live in
the
new
of Paradise after the expulsion of
Adam and Eve from
the Garden of Eden, as related
in the Bible.
seeing eye. The view thus claims that those
The
rays of the
from
below so that the image of the
and wine
Crucified Christ also
and an arch
becomes
that of the Resurrected Christ.
Caspar David Friedrich, Cross
Christ's Passion
hamlets, and farms in what
in
is
the Mountains, 1808
clearly
an amalgamated,
synthetic view, assembled by the painter to stand in for all
of creation. Viewers of such paintings were probably
the background
when viewed
wildness of the
force.
endows
These locate
1660-4
setting sun light the earth
with palm leaves, cherubs, and a star.
the
his earthly paradise.
natural world.
wheat and grapevines
of the Eucharist),
in
his blessing
within a pantheistic vision of the
this painting
(alluding to the bread
in their
Eden God hovers above
Earthly Paradise, c
evil,
has the eye of all-seeing God, grains of
a state
Nicolas Poussin, Spring or The
tree of
Pantheistic meditation
The golden frame of
in
temperate Garden
naked of
the knowledge of good and
spirit of
still
to depict the four seasons Spring
points to the fruit
The
for they are
of four that use biblical episodes
morning
God's implied presence gives a
it,
of innocence, unselfconsciously
series
intended to marvel at the unity and variety of the created world. Later the
world on panel or canvas could
In the sixteenth century the
most characteristic vista in
itself
representing this
come
to be seen
as imitative of God. In Cole's panoramic View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Tliunderstorm Tfie
form of landscape painting was the panoramic
artist's role in
Oxbow
the tiny detail of the
the darker, wilder, and
artist's
umbrella links
untamed foreground wood with
the sunlit and domesticated pastures of the valley and
nation of America can belong to
the Promised Land of the righteous
Thomas Mount
Cole, View from
Holyoke, Northampton,
Massachusetts, after a
Thunderstorm - The Oxbow, 1836.
which the viewer
is
presented with a vast array of
different types of scenery as its
minute
detail
were
if
the whole world in
laid out
all
before the eyes. In
Patenier's St Jerome in the Desert, for example, we are shown mountains, plains, rivers, valleys, cities, towns,
hills
below. Cole has included himself as almost sub-
merged within the scene. This
tiny figure is
no anecdotal
or decorative detail, but serves to highlight the mediation of the landscape painter,
who
is
able to recreate for
us the splendours of God's original creation.
GOD
IN
NATURE
L69
raphy The word topography derives from the Greek topos (place) and graphos (writing).
topographical landscape
is
The main aim of a
the portrayal of a place.
and other
Cultivated property This castle, built
between 1600
and 1608 as a country seat
for
the Flemish Archduke Albert and
This role of landscape has always been important,
although perhaps
has more often been the province
it
Infanta Isabella,
no longer
but the painted prospect
exists,
still
of printmakers than of painters. Painted prospects of
maps out
country estates were popular in Britain from the seven-
demonstrates the benign effects
teenth century, while in the eighteenth century wealthy
its
of central rule. Ordered lines of cultivation
travellers
took
home
as souvenirs views of popular
sites abroad.
A
landscape painting can never be an entirely
their advantage, painters often provide
medium
to
more informa-
ened painted prospect, which combines the overhead plan with the profile of a frontal elevation. The Flemish court artist Jan Brueghel's View
of the Castle of
Manemont
is
an early example of this type of painting,
offering as
it
does a map-like overview. This estate
no longer
exists but the viewer of the. painting
is still
converge on the focal
point of the castle. The territory stretches
accurate copy of a place, but turning the
domain and
local features to identify parts of the world,
and from these there developed the angled, foreshort-
beyond the horizon and
provided with information as to what might once have
been present.
also terminates at the foreground
palisade
and gate that mark out
ownership and contribute to the
Interpretation
More than 250 years
later the
French
artist
Berthe
shaping of the land as an ordered
tion
and sense of place than
it
ture from a single viewpoint.
maps
would be possible to cap-
Some
sixteenth-century
included superimposed elevations of architecture
and harmonious
social division.
Morisot, in her View of Paris
from
D'oeadero,
the
Jan Brueghel, View of the Castle
painted an extensive city view using similar composi-
of Manemont, 1612.
tional principles.
Both
this
and Brueghel's painting are
organized in broad bands of brown, green, and blue
according to well-established formulae for the creation of aerial perspective, and both contain anecdotal detail
and touches of colour to enliven and give human interest. But while the two landscapes share certain compositional features, they are radically different in subject
matter and aim. In the early view - as in so
many paint-
ings of property - rights, duties, and divisions are regis-
We how ownership of the estate has entailed its cultivation and how the formal garden in front
tered in a geometric and rigidly hierarchical system.
can see ordered
of the castle gives
way
that contrast with the
to tended fields and
common
woodland
and haphazard peasant
farming outside the privileged domain. Morisot, on the other hand, recreates a whole fully in silvery sunlight. In
city,
stretched out peace-
doing this she masks the
recent devastation of Paris wrought by the FrancoPrussian
Foreign views In
the eighteenth century
artists,
many
including the French
painter Claude-Joseph Vernet,
congregated
in
fashionable
Naples and painted the famous sight of Vesuvius erupting.
contemplating
this painting
too, can travel
in
the pleasure of cargo,
a
craft,
wide
arc
we,
from
the unloading
and the drawing-in of
fishing nets in the bay,
the
In
Dome
round to
of San Giuseppe a
Chiaia with the Castel Sant'
Elmo above, and then along the peninsula to the mighty volcano
Claude-Joseph Vernet, View of Naples with Vesuvius, 1748
LANDSCAPE
War and
the
Communard
uprising.
Training ground
Park scenery
The patrons and owners of
To complete
Wivenhoe
landscape painting, the French
Park, the Slater-
Rebows, made Constable initial
design for
this
alter his
painting to
include the grotto with elms
the
the right To
accommodate these
features the painter strips of In
on
and the deer house on
left
canvas to
added wide
left
and
right
air
and
on the
other, the Slater-Rebows's
daughter driving her donkey cart
John Constable, Wivenhoe
Park,
from nature
inhabited dwelling, the
made
and inanimate with the organic flourishing
stone of
boat and,
where
the open
with modern, empty ruin with
added the pleasant pastimes side, a fishing
Italy,
in oil in
combines ancient
Colosseum
of,
visited
directly
This view
and
so doing he enhanced the
Corot
he sketched
scene's gentrification, for he also
on one
Although the
lies in ruins,
this
landmark
the pink still
evokes
the grandeur of ancient Rome.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
Study of the Colosseum or
View from the Farnese Gardens (Noon), 1826.
Essex, 1816.
Much favoured
artist
his training in
eighteenth century, the
in the
veduto (from the Italian word for "view")
is
another
type of topographical landscape painting (see page 177, Canaletto, Tiie Piozzetta, Venice,
veduta offers a view, usually of a site,
Looking North). The
famous beauty spot or
to be taken in at a single glance.
It
was painted
according to a fixed perspective and controlled by wide, left-to-right sweeps. These views
were purchased
and collected by those on the Grand Tour who travelled
and modern
to Italy in search of antique
culture. In
coming to be known as a popular and picturesque beauty spot, a particular location, such as the Bay of
Naples with
its
view of Vesuvius or the Colosseum
Rome viewed from be recognized as a
the
Famese Gardens,
also
fine subject for painting
came
in
to
and started
a tradition of familiar prospects that continues to be
followed in picture-postcard views today.
Immediacy The
done
sketch,
oil
in the
open
air in front
of the
view being recorded, often possesses an immediacy not found in landscape paintings done in the studio's artificial light.
Painting directly from nature did not
become common until the end of the eighteenth century, when the direct observation of nature, whether for scientific or
educational ends or simply for enjoyment
(see pages 182-3),
became widespread.
The celebrated English painter John Constable did
much
out-of-doors
the vitality of natural
oil
sketching, capturing in paint
phenomena.
from nature, he would
directly
combining elements drawn from sketches.
studio, often
The apparent realism of example,
is
But, having sketched
finish his paintings in his
his
Wivenhoe Park, Essex, for
deceptive. While Constable has carefully
recorded the
Placing site's
topography, he provides a deliberIn this
ately contrived vision of the ease of the gentleman's estate.
There
hillocks
is
no indication
that the park's gentle
and copses were created by moving earth and
planting trees, and require maintenance. This display
again contrasts with Brueghel's depiction of the Castle of Mariemont,
where the
distinct
boundaries clearly
reflect a well-defined social hierarchy.
women
women and
bird's-eye view of Paris
a
girl,
perhaps
suggesting that the place of the
landmarks such as the towers of
well-to-do and leisured
Notre-Dame, the church of
young
Sulpice,
St
and the gilded dome of
or old,
of the city but
is
not
in
in
woman, the heart
an outlying
Les Invahdes are silhouetted
on
luxurious residential quarter.
the skyline. Behind a barrier
in
Berthe Morisot, View of
the green suburb of Paissy, far
from the Trocadero, 1872.
Paris
from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis, Morisot places
two
TOPOGRAPHY
17
-^
The Golden Age The idea of the countryside as a delightful and relaxing place of retreat from the cares of the city
an
is
old one and of great importance for landscape painting.
During the
Italian
Renaissance, villas were used as
country houses by the wealthy and educated,
began
to
who
also
enjoy paintings that offered playful and
dialogue on sensual love set in an idealized garden retreat of
shaded groves and a soothing fountain, based
on the one
at the
Palace of Asolo in northern
Italy,
where the sophisticated court of the exiled queen of Cyprus, Caterina Cornaro,
was
to be found. Allied to
this poetry, a tradition of painting arose in Venice that
untroubling images of rural leisure and pleasure. This
evoked visually the sensuous mood and
view of the countryside revived attitudes found
of the garden retreat. This tradition, exemplified by
writings of antiquity.
Of
in the
particular importance
was
the Latin poetry of Virgil's Eclogues, which combine descriptions of the countryside with accounts of the lives
and loves of shepherds.
Virgil's
poems
inspired
rural delights
Giorgione's or Titian's painting Concert offers
Champetre,
views of figures within scenery that are not
intended as faithfully observed reality but provide us
with the visual equivalent of pastoral poetry.
Renaissance equivalents, notably Jacopo Sannazaro's pastoral
romance Arcadia, published
in Venice in 1502,
and The Asolani, by another Venetian
writer, Pietro
Bembo. This second work, published
in
1505,
is
a
The pastoral The word
"pastoral" derives
from "pasture" - which
sustains grazing animals - and the pastoral tradition in
both
art
and
literature deals with benevolent, although
essentially secular, feelings about
how
nature provides
Pastoral idyll This image, attributed variously to
Giorgione and
Titian, rejoices in
uncorrupt pleasure, love, music, leisure.
dressed
The
like a
lute player
fashionable young
may be
and
elements into a harmonious whole, evoking a
"Golden Age." Nature
is lush,
flourishing,
and green and
is
his clothes
contrasted with the
peasant dress and bare feet of adjacent companion and the
the sky pale blue. Sunlight
is
temperate and golden,
bathing even shaded areas in gentle warmth. Roads,
Venetian patrician of the early sixteenth century
restoration. Pastoral landscape paintings fuse certain
common
the countryside as a place of
and
humankind with soothing refreshment and delightful
paths,
and bridges give easy access, winding
stretches of his
still
rivers
and
water are cool places of refreshment
and trees frame, protect, and provide welcome shade.
nakedness of the two women.
Roads, rivers, and trees also link the foreground space
Giorgione or
to distant mountains, creating seemingly endless vistas
Titian, Concert
Champetre, 1508.
of pleasing harmony. This rich tradition continued into
Fullness In this
Rubens
idealized view
celebrates the fullness of creation
and
at the
same time
invests
the land with social and moral
purpose. The abundance displayed here as partly
may be regarded
due to the proper
cultivation
and harvesting of
the land, and partly to the
benevolence of God, for the distant
rainbow
is
a visible sign
of the covenant
between God
and humankind
(see
page 180,
Ruisdael, The Jewish Cemetery).
The land can see,
exists, as far as in
peaceful
the eye
harmony
with the people and animals supports, and
it
reflects
it
nothing
of the hard social realities that prevailed in the war-torn Flanders
of the early seventeenth century.
Peter Paul Rubens, Landscape with a Rainbow, 1636-7.
LANDSCAPE
Object of delight
Sunlit bathers
Claude's paintings evoke the
Patches of pure, complementary
landscape of the countryside
colour are here juxtaposed to
around Rome
and
create smooth, flowing line
which he
in
and sketched However,
form This technique allows the
travelled
imagery of a seaside bathing
he never produced documentary
away from
scene to break
records of particular locations This view
naturalistic description, as in the
was constructed
stylized outlines
and condensed
according to well-established
tonalities of the
framing
compositional formulae:
tree.
framed by
Yet the fresh radiance of this sunlit
view
still
relies
on the
Even
and
Rome and
temples of Vesta Tivoli
Arcadia were being evoked.
to a ruined medieval
Henri Matisse, Luxe, Calme et
and near a watermill.
{.•VV-aV
:o'
is
based on the ancient Roman
in
pleasures of a distant, golden
1904
hills
temple
circular
the early twentieth century, the
Volupte,
is
it
a stretch of
water leads to blue distant
The ruined
evocative and sanctioned leitmotifs of the past.
trees
but
is
Claude, The
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the
in
placed here next
Mill,
tower
1648.
works
of the American painter George Inness, such as Tlie
Lackwanna
Valley,
and the paintings of the Frenchman
Henri Matisse, such as Luxe, filled
Calme
et Volupte,
which
is
with yellow, green, blue, and pink radiance in
touches of
light,
In a related poetic tradition
it
was not
and loves of shepherds but the agricultural
pastel pigment.
the lives activities
of the farmer's year that were celebrated (see pages
Integrated progress
Commissioned by the Delaware
Lackwanna and Western Company,
Bucolic pleasures
184-5). Virgil's Georgics,
which were imitated
in the
goods
Railroad
this painting depicts a
steaming through
train
world as one of unity, harmony,
poetry of sixteenth-century Italy and seventeenth-
wide pastures and cultivated
and peace, such works also suggest that the pleasures
century Netherlands, gave practical advice on and
fields.
In depicting the natural
that they
show can be enjoyed by
all,
irrespective of
tilling
and planting of the land and the
rearing of livestock.
The landscapes of the Flemish
celebrated the
It
suggests that the
progress of civilization depends
on technological advance
wealth, status, and occupation.
The French
Claude (born Claude Gellee) specialized
artist
in painting
artist
Peter Paul Rubens present a famously idealized
Golden Age landscapes and even during his lifetime his
vision of these rural activities.
works were highly sought
artist
paintings Tlie Mill,
after.
Although some of his
show a range of social types - for example, where seated and
richly dressed spectators
of a country dance have been placed beneath the figure of a
more
works of
rustically clad this type
onlooker - his works, and
by many other
artists,
were pur-
of his day, the highly educated Rubens
many major European
foreground and background,
links
and
is lit
manner
from behind
in
the
of Claude. This conscious
reference to earlier conventions gives authority to the increasing
depicts a land of plenty where peasants
work without
breaking sweat, haystacks are piled high, and a plump,
woman
industrialization depicted here. It
bathes the scene
light,
smiles fulsomely as she
proffered by these idyllic views of the countryside.
courts before retiring to his
finest landscapes. His
barefooted
as one of the delights
for
domestication of the land. The tree at the left frames the view,
Landscape with a Rainbow
and
by the peasants they depict. Indeed the inclusion of
was regarded
worked
as well
on the ordered settlement and
country estate, where he painted some of his largest
chased and enjoyed exclusively by the wealthy and not
labouring peasants
The most distinguished
as
with a is
full
pitcher on her head
propositioned by a
man
with
and makes
it
in
golden
appear
to harmonize with, and be
integrated into,
a pitchfork. In Rubens 's hands his native land becomes
George
a haven of rustic peace and plenty.
Valley,
its
surroundings
Inness, The
Lackwanna
1856
THE GOLDEN AGE
i
6
Heroic landscapes
Many landscape paintings attempt to show nature not as
ordered by the
it
is,
artist.
but consciously transformed and In paintings of an imagined
Golden
Poussin exploited the story of the Athenian general in order to contrast the fickleness of
human
fate with the
The gather-
indifference of nature to blows of fortune.
Nobility in death
The subject of
this painting
taken from Plutarch's
Lives,
is
shown
as a place of untroubled
delight (see pages 172-3), but this is not the only in
which
artists
way
ing of the general's ashes
is
a ritual that
the dignity of the surroundings in which
is it
matched by is set.
The heroic landscape presents nature not as fleet-
have idealized nature. Painters of the
movement and passing phenomena but
"heroic landscape" have tried to impose a logical and
ing
austere order on nature, in carefully constructed works
aloof,
as majestic,
which
exemplary
offers pairs of ethically
Age the countryside
is
figures
from Greek and Roman
history.
Here the Greek general
Phocion
Roman
paired with the
is
statesman Cato the Younger. Phocion had been unjustly
that ignore the transitory
and accidental. In depicting the
and imperturbable.
In
this
austere
tradition
formal properties are imposed upon and reconfigure
shown
underlying structures rather than the details of the three-
the natural world. Mountains are
dimensional world, they intend to elevate us to a nobler
frontal masses rising up out of surrounding lowlands, to
and more cerebral plane, free of
life's
give form and structure to the worlds in
imperfections.
exist. Buildings
Origins
The heroic landscape had
its
beginnings in the seven-
teenth century, most importantly in the landscapes of
as stable,
which they
in ruins,
are similarly interlocked within the balanced
symme-
make up
to death
body cremated. gathered
his
these works. In a painting such as
and
his
His wife secretly
ashes and took them
to Athens, where, after a
change
of political opinion, they received
an honourable
and made features such as roads, paths,
and stone monuments, whether complete or
tries that
condemned
burial. Poussin
locates the clandestine gathering
of the ashes within a landscape of great formal refinement. While
the figures
in
the foreground
appear small and insignificant
the French
artist
Nicolas Poussin, the most famous pro-
ponent of the form. The subjects of ings
many
of his paint-
were taken from the histories of antiquity and,
like
dramatic tragedy or epic verse, they were intended to
prompt reflection on the human predicament.
Landscape with
In
the Ashes of Phocion, for example,
LANDSCAPE
Landscape with flit
the
Ashes of Phocion, clouds do not
across the sky but are static and mirror the solid,
architectonic forms of surrounding trees and
temple
in
the centre links the
two foreground
hills.
A
figures
with the rocks above the city and then further with the
clouds above the rocks.
relation to the
in
grandeur of the
setting, the ashes are not left
here merely to decay as ashes but are being
endowed with noble
ideas of purpose
and
dignity.
Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with the Ashes of Phocion,
1
648
^
4
Pattern in nature
Cezanne painted so many views of
|
Samte-Victoire seen from
Mont
town
the south-west of his native
where the
of Aix-en-Provence,
mountain
rises
above the
•*ta
HI
valley
of the River Arc, that this particular viewpoint has
p
become
identified with the artist. In this
which
version,
painter's
is
one of the
.
'tP*
most monumental,
M
imposing, grand, and austere,
\\
and
of the trees, buildings,
intersect to create a
1
L II
imperfections removed.
Victoire,
c.
___
+t-£r
*
»
of nature's
Mont
" '"'
2LIM
1
on three-dimensional geometric
Paul Cezanne,
.,,/
•f>4.
1 *
interlocking structures, based
all
1
H
1
dynamic surface pattern of
forms, with
V
11
railway bridge are integrated
and
1 1
1
the vertical and horizontal lines
„
.•>
.
ill
Sainte-
1882-5.
\
'..L
1 "
JL "1 '^M^
i
1 1
i
^jfi?.
I
»^»
^m
'tfL,
dfefe
k&J!
l
objects, ideal truth could never exist but
Civic virtue
The
citizens of the ancient Sicilian
town
of
Agngento were famous
depended on
the amalgamation of a range of perfections into one
model, and composite truth was composed from a
for their hospitality. In keeping
combination of simple and ideal truth to give credible
with this tradition, the slave
one
of Gelha,
jjj^H
Br
prominent
of the town's
citizens,
is
shown
master's
welcome
itself.
his
truth in
to passing
De Valenciennes
combines the demonstration of a
!
T
ri
model of
civic virtue
with the
depiction of a city of antiquity,
7**.
known and
for
ruins.
ancient
its
monuments
is
Similar underlying structures can be found in the
landscapes of the French painter Paul Cezanne,
who
visit
to Sicily
first
exhibited at the Pans
is
his
many views
of
Mont
centrally placed tree
one of
Sainte-Victoire the branch of a
echoes the shape of a bend
in the
road below and also responds to the colour and hori-
highly praised
to the
and extraordinary
composed
composite
in art
together.
and nature and then drawn and
Some
of this theorizing
may be
traced back to Classical treatises on rhetoric and to
Renaissance and post-Renaissance Italian writings
on
painting, but
work
when
it
was
and compared
of Poussin.
Pierre-Henri
writers on
it
was
also developed further by later
de Valenciennes,
View of the Ancient Town of
art.
In 1800 the
1779,
above the town. The painting
Salon of 1787,
often seen as one of Poussin's spiritual heirs. In
in
included on the mountain top
was
Piles linked the heroic style to
which objects were taken from what was great
Agngento's Temple of
Concord, which the painter drew during a
De
to
be offering the generosity of
travellers.
which often appeared more true than truth
beauty,
French landscape painter Pierre-Henri
de Valenciennes wrote a also
made
treatise
on
painting,
constant reference to Poussin.
He
which consid-
ered that his predecessor had been one of the most exceptional proponents of the art of depicting nature
not as
it
was but as
it
should be. He also suggested
how
painters should prepare to paint the ideal beauties to be
found
in nature. First
they should read, absorb, and
Agngento, 1787.
zontal forms of a viaduct above. Similarly, the line of
meditate on the verses of the most sublime poets; then
matched by the contour of the vegetation
they should close their eyes and imagine an ideal
the horizon in the
is
lower foreground.
nature, although this
was something
that only painters
of genius, such as Poussin, could do. After opening
Ideal beauty
their eyes again, they should look at nature and, in
was -
Theorists on painting began to praise the heroic land-
being disappointed with nature as
scape
ness of the rocks, the depressions of the mountains,
at the
end of the seventeenth century, using
works of Poussin as examples.
it
the mean-
French
the shallowness of the precipices - they should disas-
connoisseur Roger de Piles identified three types of
sociate themselves from these minute truths that held
the
In 1708 the
was a simple and faithful expressive movements of nature and
truth in painting: simple truth
them
imitation of the
to precipices the depths of the abyss.
in
chains and aggrandize the mountains and give
HEROIC LANDSCAPES
L
75
Towns capes
a benign social order based
Social order Lorenzetti's
view of
efficient
his subject
commerce between the
places the Tuscan city of Siena at the heart of the painting.
city,
Ambrogio
Government in the
right side of the
1338-40.
whole represents
a
celebratory,
Good
City
(detail of central two-thirds)
fresco, are also the smallest.
The scene as
Lorenzetti
The Effects of Peace or
those furthest from the
on the
city
and the countryside.
He
depicts the people at different scales:
on
government and easy
townscapes were painted both as \isual
souvenirs for the traveller and to reflect local and chic pride in the particular urban environment and. by extension, in the the social and political structures that
maintained
it.
Town and country Images of the town the
city,
reflect
which since
changing attitudes toward
been seen
antiquity has
in opposi-
may be
tion to the countryside. Positively, the city
viewed as a sophisticated and relation to the rural scene;
seen as an
Towns and cities had appeared in the backgrounds of religious pictures from the Middle Ages, often
Republican grandeur Amsterdam's town in
1648,
of
its
including identifiable landmarks (see page 168, David,
hall,
With
its
architecture,
increased travel encouraged the production of printed
sculpted decoration,
town
monument
"portraits," that
is,
silhouettes of skylines and
bird's-eye views, as well as depictions of individual
The
artist
town as
their
main subject
Netherlands and
Italy
seventeenth century.
first
became popular
in the
during the second half of the
Some townscapes show
imagi-
nary views with both actual and invented buildings, but
more
often they depict specific cities, identified by dis-
tinctive buildings, streets,
LANDSCAPE
and public squares. Usually
with a
In
one of the
it
was
albeit
a
portrays the majesty of
city.
one
He
in
which the country
to the countryside
in the
showed
is
a
dependent on the
and providing access to a
a
in its
commercial exchange for peasants who, with cultural produce, are
town houses a
hide the pretensions of the
market, a lecture
site of
on
their
way
their agri-
to the city.
Here the
variety of crafts, a grain and livestock hall,
a cobbler, grocery shops, and
governed here
Jan van der Heyden, The
New Town
Amsterdam, 1688
townscapes. painted
depicts a road linking the walled city of Siena
best light while doing nothing to
with the
may be
Palace
brilliant clarity, befitting
great city centre viewed
who
earliest
fourteenth century, Ambrogio Lorenzetti
to municipal freedom.
burgomasters
it
harmonious relationship between town and country,
windows, and
what became the Royal
buildings (see pages 170-1). Paintings that took the
negatively,
classicizing
The Baptism of Christ). In the sixteenth century
tall
more
environment, subject to rapidly
changing fashions.
begun
was the grandest one
day.
artificial
civilized place in its
Hall in
Dam
builders on a scaffold, and these urban occupations
contrast with the farming, hawking, and hunting taking
place in the countryside.
Until the nineteenth century
showed ful
streets
and squares
townseapes usually
in bright light
and harmonious public spaces.
and as peace-
no surprise
open areas
Flat,
that
townseapes were often referred
In the nineteenth
Machine aesthetic
to as
"perspectives" in the seventeenth-century Netherlands.
century the city was a principal
Technology, mechanization,
and the modern in this
were bounded by
well-positioned buildings and
tall,
subject of the Impressionists.
The cityscapes of
artists
Pans. Strong, simple forms,
contained well-behaved citizens, as in the work of one
such as Monet and Cainille Pissarro share with their
flat,
townseapes.
predecessors an often insistently constructed perspec-
planes,
of the
first
Dutch painters to specialize
in
Jan van der Heyden. Many also contained "portraits" of buildings that had symbolic importance in their
own
tive.
However,
their
emphasis
is
not the well-ordered
harmony of earlier townseapes, but the teeming masses
the
city.
ways they functioned
the
in
in the
running of
The scenes of Siena and Amsterdam shown
here reveal
much about
the social order that gave rise to
the meeting places depicted.
A town
hall,
library,
or
of the industrial
city.
Increasingly the city has been seen
as chaotic, alienating, and isolating, a vision suited to the fragmented paintings of the French artists
Femand
Leger and Robert Delaunay. Leger evokes these
dis-
munity; such buildings tures and showing
may be seen
them
principles of chic virtue.
off
can also serve to extol the
components
city's
into a coherent whole.
Eiffel
Tower, a
and
torso, the stencilled letters
of billboard
art,
and roads and
stairs are isolated as silhouettes
also fused together,
becoming both staccato rhythm and
film-like
Fernand Leger, The
montage. City,
1919
was promoted
city republic
by Canaletto and his followers such as
simple segments to remodel and reintegrate the
from the
framed, disembodied head
A similar vision of an ideal har-
monious and sun-drenched
In paintings
as expensive ges-
junctions in his painting Tlie City, but also uses strong,
compartmented
and pure, unmodulated,
and welded together. A lower
and
clock tower has a useful purpose and serves the com-
angular,
saturated colours are juxtaposed
strut
and
right
are evoked
city
fragmented image of
views of Venice.
in their
Tlie Piazzetta,
Looking
Venice.
shows the people posed with elegant
Xortli Canaletto
self-consciousness as they congregate, go about their business, and participate in animated, easy exchanges.
The
and the
architectural beauties of St Mark's Square
Piazzetta stand for the beauty of Venice as a whole.
Formal values Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century townscape paintings
show
off the discipline that
urban environment. The
cities
can be imposed on the
they present are usually
tamed and unblemished, belying the disorder,
and
lated, details
dirt
of city
life.
hustle,
bustle,
Views were often manipu-
suppressed, buildings moved, and impossi-
ble vantage points assumed. Figures in the city
view are
rarely in correct proportion to their backgrounds. in
Jan van der Heyden's
Hall in
Amsterdam
tectural setting.
Tiie
Dam
with the Nexc
Town
are dwarfed by the enclosing archi-
Jewel-like and kaleidoscopic, such
carefully modelled constructions contain
precise detail.
Those
much
minute,
Strong vertical and horizontal lines
suggest the rigid boundaries of urban experience.
It is
Dazzling perspective
here, at the heart of Venice, the
Views of Venice were purchased as souvenirs by those
Grand Tour
who
a
harmonious urban design, to be taken
beautiful
the eighteenth century.
The viewpoint
in this
its
painting by
master of the townscape
public space of the Piazzetta
appears as a masterpiece of
the
visited
famous and uniquely city in
on the
is
one
in
and admired for
all
finery at a glance.
Canaletto, The Piazzetta, Venice,
Looking North, early
1
730s.
with which such travellers would
have been familiar - that of the Piazzetta seen
from the Mola
on
arrival
by water
in fine, clear light.
The square has on one
side the
Doge's Palace and St Mark's
and on the other the
Library
and
Mint, and the vista terminates
in
the clock tower at the entrance to the commercial thoroughfare of the Rialto.
In spite
of the
variety of building styles
shown
TOWNSCAPES
Seascapes The
Dutch painter Hendrik Vroom created the
genie of seascape at the end of the sixteenth century. Before then artists
had painted the
Sea power Hendrik
the
first
sea: certain
and
religious subjects,
Vroom was
painter of the seascape genre
such as the story of Jonah and the
of
key features. Ships
Whale, called for shipwrecks and storms; maps were
windswept water across
often decorated with pictures of boats, sea monsters
expanses of sea beneath
and other marine symbols; and
cloudy
aerial
towns ine\itably included stretches of
was Vroom and
views of port
However,
it
his seventeenth-century successors in
who
the Netherlands and Britain
established the
seascape as a recognized and popular type of painting.
That the genre originated in the Netherlands and enjoyed immense and long-lasting popularity in Britain is
skies. This
for the Dutch,
sea.
some
this picture established
its
sail
on
limitless
large,
image claims
who
relied
on
the sea for food, defence, and
commercial expansion, a mastery
and control beyond that of
own
their
flat land.
Hendrik Vroom, Dutch Man-of-
War and c.1
Fishing Boat in a Breeze.
590.
not entirely surprising. Besides depending on the sea
for food, both these nations relied, for their wealth
command
power, on their
Dutch and
British seascape painting
may be
and
much
of the oceans, and
linked to
the promotion of national interests and identities.
The elements Seascapes presented
many
with
artists
and opportunities. The vastness of the
challenges
almost
sea.
unbounded and unframable. frequently extends horizon,
far-distant
and
so
to a
appropriate
requires
compositional strategies. Instead of using one-point perspective, artists often adopt a horizontal, panoramic
sweep, with the
relief profile of ships, masts,
prodding structure and a sense of the sea's changeability and the
weather that
Wind It fills
sails
specificity.
way
it
But
sails it is
responds to the
often the focus of the marine painter.
is
an almost tangible presence
is
and
under
in the variety of
Waves ebb and
in
many seascapes.
cloud-filled skies, but is
wave imagery
flow, roll
and change
both ephemeral and endless
most evident
that artists exploited. direction,
and are
in their repetition.
Dutch Man -of-War and Fishing Boat in a Vroom shows waves propelling the fishing In contrast, the German painter Emil Nolde, in
In
Breeze, vessel.
The Sea
I,
uses their swelling restlessness to suggest
the immeasurable voids beneath boat's
them and the small
seeming lack of movement within
and
spectacle
bracing
commerce and voyages
exercise,
from
travel
for
of discovery to battles between
the Battle of Trafalgar for Britain.
their swirling,
opposing
fleets.
Most seascapes are indeed painted as
if
organic turbulence. Opposite effects were exploited in
from the land and depend upon the contrast between
the popular tradition of becalmed vessels on glassy
the
waters.
Marine painters explore the nature of the
differing
Journey's end
The Temeraire had helped to win
waters that vessels have to
negotiate
-
human environment and
the free, untrammelled
space of the oceans. In seventeenth-century France
Claude developed the popular genre of a view out to
Thirty-three years later the
was tugged place.
to
its last
The masts had
gunboat
resting in fact
removed but Turner shows majestic ghost ship, masts
it
in
been as a place,
contrasting with the tug's black
whether river estuary, rocky coast, sandy beach, or open sea - and some also convey stunning effects of light
on water, as
in
the burnished reflections seen in
Joseph Turner's The Fighting "T&meraire" Tugged
to
sea from an ordered imaginary harbour bathed in
Embarkation of the Queen the beach scenes of Eugene
sunlight (see page 122, Hie
of Sheba
).
However,
Boudin, the sea
is
in
shown only
as a narrow strip of water
funnel and
The
lively
setting sun
stream of smoke.
is
well suited to
the subject and the elegaic mood, suggesting the end of the fighting ship's usefulness.
her Last Berth
to be
Broken
The sea provides activities
and
ii
is
I
between the beach and the
p.
a selling for a range of
human
these thai are often the subject of
seascapes: from boat buUding and fishing to pleasurable
LANDSCAPE
sky. In Boudin's paintings
the breezy, windy atmosphere of Frances coast boats.
is
vividly
Buttering
Normandy
evoked by human elements flags,
and
the
bulging
sailing
capes and
Joseph Mallord William Turner The Fighting "Temeraire" Tugged to her Last Berth to
1839.
be Broken Up,
Drowning
crinolines of the fashionable visitors to the seaside.
Even the depiction of a single wave in Gustave Couibet's desolate The Ware relies for its structure and sense on the narrow strip of land
at
the painting's base.
The sea as symbol The sea
also a rich source of symbolism. Voyages to
is
mysterious and distant lands across treacherous seas
were commonly used journey of
life.
in paintings as
In Christian
metaphors of the
human
in
ruler at its helm.
affairs
Courbet painted
paint
power and grandeur At the
Gustave
point of breaking
this
dramatic
the
wave -
a
full,
on the
shore,
frontal, dark,
paint he conveys his intense physical
and emotional
experience of the brooding,
bold mass - threatens to burst
cold climate of
over and engulf the viewer
Gustave Courbet, The Wave.
coast of France. From a low
Courbet represents the
1870.
vantage point, the painter
lowering clouds above the sea
seascape while he was staying at Etretat
on
the north Atlantic
such a
way
that they
echo
focuses on a small section of
in
the sea, making
the forms of the water and
it
stand
in
for
the ocean as a natural element of potentially
overwhelming
surf below,
them
in
Normandy
and by depicting
thick dark globs of
Christ,
was
while in a secular metaphor the ship of State
chance
in
artist
imagery the ship of the
Church was steered through the stormy seas by
shown with the wise
The French
The element of
could also be personified as
Fortuna or Tempesta, a nude female
standing on
figure,
a globe and holding between her outstretched hands a billowing sail that propels her across the ocean.
Some
of these resonances were exploited in the
nineteenth century by Turner in the imagery and
title
of his Tiie Fighting "Temeraire" Tugged to her Lost
Berth
on
be Broken Up. The defunct gunship
to
its final
is
towed
journey to dismemberment, powerless in
old age. Another frequently exploited
theme was the
dramatic vulnerability of those shipwrecked off a storm-ravaged coast or adrift in a small boat on vast sea;
it
was used
some
to suggest humanity's insignifi-
cance, nature's terrifying power, or fate's vagaries. This
was popular with
subject in the
painters of the "sublime"
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (see page
182, Vernet,
A
Storm with a Shipwreck) and
twentieth century Emil Nolde used a
approach to explore the same theme such d&Tlie Sea
in the
more personal in
paintings
I.
Raw energy
nature
Emil Nolde gives to this scene a
turbulence that expresses his
Recreation
a distant horizon
and elegantly
dressed holidaymakers enjoy
French painter Eugene Boudin
the spectacle of the
specialized in
beach scenes
or
the Impressionists, notably
air.
Monet
anonymous
visitors
shore - the
women,
This
beach scene,
which depicts a fashionable
moving about
the fresh
in
The groups of modish,
on the children,
France's
dog, and rider - are set
shows the
characteristic poses
and with
seaside as a site of recreation
distinctive gestures
Above the
where
narrow band of
holiday resort
Normandy
on
coast,
sailing
boats scud across
is,
in
horizon nearly forces the boat
with
the endlessly shifting rhythms of
waves, but the glowing amber
the sea. The bold, sweeping
sail
brushstrokes fuse the forms and
strange world, pushing onward.
and waves,
for here
its
passengers beneath the
breaks out from this dark,
Emil Nolde, The Sea
I,
1912
contrast, filled
with freely floating clouds. Light dabs of paint give an
flat,
coastal setting, sitting, standing
and seascapes and influenced
open sky
experienced as an
strong emotional responses to
forces of sky
The nineteenth-century
own
is
elemental oneness. The high
appropriately
light,
or gently
shaded, touch to the breezy, airy
spaciousness of the setting.
Eugene Boudin, The Beach Trouville,
at
1864-5
in
sea, the large,
SEASCAPES
The
transient world A macabre dance
The head from a colossal statue
Three pyramids diminish
^^Bj^tfe^'.-Af^.
in
and indicate the vastness of
.
lies in
scale
desert setting. The stone sphinx,
4MS
suggests that the ruins
in
not openly
the
foreground are due not to the ravages of time but to j*^9B
intervention.
right.
capture of Cairo, the picture
perhaps
bizarrely sliced in two,
the shadows to the
Painted the year of Bonaparte's
their
human
critical
is
of recent
French history but
events
in
clearly
emphasizes the transience
of worldly ambition and power.
Hubert Robert, Young
The strange dance
Girls
i of the
A
1 K^TJ
women
Dancing Around an Obelisk,
accompanied by
is
1798.
musicians perched above them.
Kl
/r
-
/flflfrf'
;-.p.
4 .
»^
,
—^ae
<4#
.
-
-
Painters have
human life and the futility of human endeavour when measured against the permanence and self-renewing cycles of the natural world. The metaphor of
life
as a journey through the
world - a "walk through the valley of the shadow of death" -
may
is
common enough and depictions of landscape
In this
work the Dutch
painter
van Ruisdael has depicted the expensive marble tombs of the
Portuguese Jewish community of
Amsterdam out
of context:
before the ruins of a Gothic
church and by a flowing stream bridged by a blasted tree.
suggest such a reading.
Together with the rainbow,
However, landscape paintings are seldom overtly allegorical.
A
painting like View of Schroon Mountain.
by the English-bom American painter Thomas Cole, with
The new order
often used the subject of landscape
to suggest the brevity of
its
passing storm,
its
dead and
living trees,
and the
which
hidden meanings, but
decode them
we do
may
well hint at
not need to be able to
in order to appreciate the visual beauties
of the scenery that the painting depicts. In contrast to
example
the blatant allegorizing of a vanitas
still life,
(see pages 228-9), with landscapes
we cannot always be
sure whether such a meaning
was
for
intended, even
if
mentioned
in
the Bible
than flowers, they stand upright
like
humans
and, like
them, have branching limbs. They are also potentially
covenant promised by God after
fragile
the Flood, these elements -
tombs,
huge, immovable mountain behind,
is
as an enduring sign of the
and vulnerable to the elements. For these
reasons they
and stream - may
ruins,
imply the promise of passage
and
qualities.
may
suggest a variety of
For example,
human emotions
in Patenier's St
Jerome
i)i
page 168) a lone tree grows near the
into the afterlife for the soul
the Desert (see
of the Christian.
hermit's hideaway, mirroring the saint's tenacity and
Jacob van Ruisdael, The Jewish Cemetery,
c 655-60.
strength in adversity. Blasted trunks, rooted or not,
1
broken stumps, and skeletal branches have associated with
life's
transience, just as
been
all
new growth
reaching to the heavens can express spiritual aspirations.
Cole's intense response to nature suggests that such a
meaning may be present
The
here.
living
and the dead
In the nineteenth century the
Humankind and nature (
lole
was
not alone in his use of living
David Friedrich,
and dead trees to
in
A
Walk
visionary power, setting
suggest both the cycles of nature and the passing of
Nearly two centuries
human life. In landscape imagery, trees have often been made to stand for the human element More organically
Jewish
alive than rocks
and mountains, and more permanent
LANDSCAPE
(
'emetery, the
it
at
German
against an earthly stone tomb.
earlier,
in his painting of
Dutch landscape
van Ruisdael juxtaposed
painter Caspar
Dusk, endowed a tree with
living
specialist
Die
Jacob
and dead trees among
ruins and within a cemetery. This painting has always
The wilderness In
a
poem
inspired by his
experience on Schroon Mountain,
Thomas Cole peak
Between
life
and death
As day gradually merges
into
describes
of a lone spirit
sings
how
a lofty
the eternal dwelling place
hymns
who
contentedly
of gladness
and
is
impervious to tempests,
an isolated figure
night,
is
contemplates a prehistoric grave.
earthquakes, and floods Similar
The stones of the tomb have
sentiments imbue the
been
and
carefully balanced
behind their horizontal placement
artist's
painting of the mountain,
where
a
storm passes over blasted trees
the skeletal branches of a tree
but does not touch the majesty of
reach up into the
sky.
the pyramid-like and, by
depicts a scene
which
still
in
Friednch all is
and peaceful, but we are
caught
in
an intense emotional
dialogue with nature and can experience
between
how
life
the threshold
and death
is
a
crossing
between the
scale of
humankind and the
infinite
physical
expanse of the
divine.
Caspar David Friedrich, A Walk at Dusk,
c.
1830-5.
implication, eternal
wild
site
is
hand, but
summit The
untouched by human in its
confrontation with
the powerful, untrammelled forces of nature
it
may
reflecting the
also
be seen as
enduring and
weather-beaten qualities of the
American people.
Thomas
Cole, View of Schroon
Mountain, Essex County,
New
York, After a Storm, 1838.
been recognized as carrying an allegorical meaning.
One of the
earliest descriptions of
"evidently intended as an allegory of
flow of life
is
describes
it
human
life."
it
as
The
perhaps suggested by the stream that runs
through the cemetery, while the painting combines obvious signs of death and transience - dead trees, tombs, and ruins - with those of clouds,
new
life
and hope - passing
growth, and the rainbow.
Passing glory
Many
artists
have included ruins and tombs
in their
paintings to suggest that even the most monumental
works of humankind are ephemeral and perishable.
None used such symbols more often than the eighteenth-century French painter Hubert Robert,
became known
who
to contemporaries as "Robert of the
Ruins." His paintings inspired the influential philoso-
pher and writer on the brevity of
art
human
Denis Diderot to thoughts about life in
world. In his Young Girls
an unstoppable, ceaseless
Some
Dancing Around an Obelisk
thirty years later
Caspar David Friedrich
Robert subverted the most enduring of
human monu-
used another ancient tomb to different ends, but again
ments - the pyramids - by placing them,
in the vastness
possibly with reference to contemporary politics. In
of the desert, behind other, broken relics from Egypt's distant past.
But the picture carries with
it
political resonances. It was painted in when Napoleon had taken Cairo in the
and
Pyramids. The young
wear the
girls
red, white,
more
topical
his painting
.4
Walk
a prehistoric tomb.
Dusk a lone figure contemplates The man - as in a number of
at
1798, the year
Friedrich's paintings -
Battle of the
German
who dance round
the obelisk
and blue of post-revolutionary
France, and during the French Revolution, a few years
garb, the
who yearned ined,
is
dressed in old-fashioned
costume adopted
for the revival of a past
Germany had been
suggests that the
man
is
strength from a lost homeland.
liberty.
The meaning of Robert's mysterious painting
figure
itation
it
is
clearly a
on the transience of human endeavours
uity as well as,
we may assume,
med-
in antiq-
those of recent times.
The loneliness of the
as the light fades perhaps also reflects the
painter's
own pessimism
sition to this it
when, they imag-
meditating on and seeking
people had danced round maypoles and trees of
elusive - probably intentionally - but
time by those
great and unified. This imagery
earlier,
is
at this
at
a time
when
political
oppo-
form of nostalgic nationalism had rendered
increasingly irrelevant and impotent.
THE TRANSIENT WORLD
IS!
Weather Landscape ways
weather and
its
often elusive atmospheric effects. During the Italian
Renaissance
artists
began to use the changeability of
the
1
One
of the earliest written accounts of landscape paint-
ing,
a chapter by the Dutch
and theorist Karel
artist
van Mander
teenth and nineteenth centuries the extreme and
ning and a sudden storm, were exploited by artists in an
recommends the painting of hazy atmospheres, with sunbeams filtering through the clouds and shining on towns and mountains, and also the more extreme
attempt to inspire the emotional experience of the "sub-
conditions of thunder and lightning, storms at sea,
lime." In the
Flashpoint
one of the main challenges facing the landscape painter.
the skies as a major expressive resource. In the eigh-
uncontrollable forces of nature, such as those of light-
In
Depiction of the weather has long been considered
painters have responded in a variety of
to the challenge of depicting
second half of the nineteenth century the
snow,
hail,
in his
The Book on Picturing of 1604,
gloomy weather, and
fog.
Such
Impressionists were concerned with capturing in pig-
a demonstration of the painter's
skill in
ment
and recording of nature, even
if
in
landscape painting was
done
their perception of the fleeting effects of weather.
still
were
effects
the observation
van Mander's day
all
The
in the studio.
subject of the painting usually called The Tempest, by
52 1 inventory of the
art
the Venetian Renaissance painter Giorgione, remains
collection of Cardinal Grimani,
mysterious, but the buildings, caught in startling high-
the Venetian writer on art
lights
Marcantonio Michiel gave to this
work one of the
descriptions of a painting as a
landscape by referring to
it
beneath a flash of lightning, belong to the tradition
of depicting weather based on careful observation of its
earliest
changing
by van Mander.
effects, later extolled
as
"a small landscape [paesetto],
on canvas, with a thunderstorm, a gypsy,
and a
soldier."
to define
what
between the the
left
woman right,
is
In the nineteenth century the fixing in paint of the
Many
other attempts have been
made
going on here
soldier standing
suckling a child artist's
on the
precise
intention remains elusive. Perhaps
we
should simply be content to
admire the
how
brittle
momentary
effects of
preoccupation of
weather increasingly became the
artists
who had begun
to
make
their
on
and the seated, naked
but the
Working out of doors
finished paintings out of doors. Sketching out of doors
had been part of standard
artistic practice
from well
before that period, and examples survive by artists as diverse as Durer (see page 166, View oftheArco Valley)
and Claude. At the beginning of the nineteenth century
Giorgione conveys
atmosphere that
the English landscape painter John Constable had also
among
usually precedes a storm.
painted extensively out of doors, producing,
Giorgione, The Tempest,
other things, an extraordinary collection of swiftly
c.
1505-10.
painted studies of clouds. But, like those before him, he
produced his finished works
in the studio; later in the
century the Impressionists insisted that a sketch outside from nature
was
itself
made
a finished painting. They
wished to present more direct visual impressions as equivalences for the impact of the surface sensations offered by the out of doors.
has on people and on the works
Storm at sea In this
imaginary disaster people
of
humankind. The painting
is
example of the taste
strain to hold fast a sailing ship
also a fine
that has been dashed onto a
for the sublime, an artistic
rocky coast by a passing storm.
literary
A
most intense expression during
fishing boat retrieves
some
of
passengers, and a
two
A Storm
rescuers, appears
to be either in a faint or dead.
Crowds descend from the fortified
tower to aid the
survivors further.
The French
painter Vernet interprets the
storm
in
relation to the effects
and its
Claude-Joseph Vernet,
woman,
saved and hauled onto the shore by
impulse that found
the eighteenth century.
the wrecked vessel's goods and
LANDSCAPE
Many Impressionists chose
it
with a Shipwreck, 1754.
Pure and powerful This passionate view of the aftereffects of a
thunderstorm shows
landscape with energy.
vital,
even
the
Erich
Snow
Dresden
in
of
artists
planes,
pictorial
expressed their inner
raw
lines,
angular
and luminous colour
Erich Heckel, Landscape in
1905, which
in
the
spiritual
and going back to what
feelings with
Die Brucke, a group of artists
formed
art
they perceived as purer origins,
hilly
member
Heckel was a founder
new
structure
ecstatic,
The German painter
its
threshhold of a
dawn. Simplifying
the sun bursting through the dark clouds to suffuse the lush,
aimed to make
Thunderstorm, 1959
cover
Monet captures the appearance of
snow
that has covered the
natural world beneath a uniform
blanket. Even the tops of the railings
their
and the gate posts have
own
little
patches of snow.
The momentarily perching
magpie has been made to stand out from this scene - not by
ominous
giving
significance
to the deadening effects of winter, but as part of the artist's
eloquent description of direct visual perception.
Claude Monet, The Magpie, c.1869.
to live in northern France, in the eountiyside
Paris
and
in
Normandy and
Brittany.
There the
around
fluctuat-
and often sharply distinguishable
ing temperatures
experiment
page
in this trapping of
185, Camille Pissarro,
weather on canvas (see
Woman
in
an Enclosure,
Spring Sun, Eragny Field). In 1868 a journalist from Le
Havre reported that the French painter Claude Monet
most Impressionist works,
Sisley's is
weather patterns gave them ample opportunity to
such as
Nebulousness Like
painting of foggy weather
quite small,
him both to
and
this
lack of clear
focus conveys the
way
fog dissolves form.
A
in
which
pastel
Denis Diderot
in
prompted. By presenting the viewer
it
with scenes in which
carry the canvas
The
delightful fear
allowed
outdoors and to complete the picture quickly.
Edmund Burke in England and
France valued the sublime because of the feelings of
human
life is
threatened by the
uncontrollable forces of nature - for example
a ship
A
is
Sto)-m
prompt a
wrecked
when
in storm-tossed seas, as in Vernet's
with a Shipwreck - painters were able to
response
fearful
in the viewer.
Fear could be
silvery-blue greyness fuses the
had been seen painting
at
an easel out
in the
frozen, wearing several layers of clothing
The
results
can be seen
handled his colours in
in the T7ie
way
snow,
half-
and gloves.
that the artist has
Magpie, where he shows
and yellow patches of snow and
white, white-yellow,
same time fixes on the snow-covered ground blue shadows cast by the cold, flat light of winter.
the
at
the
trees, flowers, a fence,
woman. The woman flowers
in
and
the enclosed seclusion
of a garden, her
movement
echoing the
twisted
still,
branches of the tree behind
Alfred Sisley, The Fog, 1874.
a
gathers
tinged with delight because not only had the scene been
imagined and the also the viewer
artist's life
was
not been put in danger, but
safely indoors, far
from the kind of
perilous scene that inspired the painting. her.
Voisins,
Elemental force Storms were particularly popular vehicles for the prompting of such emotions, for they can be seen as the
The sublime Extreme
product of nature's elemental force, whose explosive
effects of
weather can also be used to com-
municate a sense of what,
was considered
to
in the
eighteenth century,
be sublime. At this time "the
sublime" was an aesthetic category that resided not in
violence can have an overwhelming impact on life.
At the
start
such as Erich Heckel's Landscape expressed more subjectively than
the object. In the tradition of the first-century literary
the eighteenth century, and
On
the Sublime, attributed to Longinus, writers
in
Thunderstorm,
the powerful emotion that a storm can inspire was
the observed object but in the observer's response to
treatise
human
of the twentieth century, in a painting
it
would have been
may be seen
in
as a pure,
purged, and heightened force of nature.
WEATHER
The seasons many
centuries there has been a tradition in the visual arts of
long been the subject of series of paintings. Those that depict rather
celebrating the changing but eternally recurring annual pattern
than personify the seasons tend to be straightforward and precise in
or
showing the
of the four seasons and the out-of-door activities traditionally associ-
ated with them. Linked to the twelve signs of the zodiac, images of the rural labours regarded as characteristic of the various
sowing seeds and harvesting crops, were carved medieval cathedrals as symbols of both
human
life
in the
tion caused such cycles to
the seasons. Spring
summer
plates,
and tapestries and served as decorated
is
and
with
industrializa-
rarer. is
the powerful symbolism of
seen as a time of
and
birth, flowers,
love;
as a time of heat, refreshing bathing, ripeness, maturity,
while winter
calendars of Church feast days in manuscripts. The seasons have also
Summer
activities associated
and the harvest; autumn as the time of the vine but also of
Depictions of the seasons occurred on domestic items such as
wooden
become
Also long established in painting
stones of
on earth and the
cycle of the seasons themselves.
furniture,
and other
In the nineteenth century increasing urbanization
it.
months, such as
land, its cultivation,
is
a time of cold, with snow,
ice,
decline;
and skating, and may
symbolize death.
Working the land
Winter
The seasons often provide
These two paintings are
In
the subject of series of four
part of a series of Labours
Jan van Goyen's pendant
paintings, or of pairs, as
pendant
of the
shown below by
the Dutch
artist
Jan van
shield-shaped.
shows
two
Van Goyen
similar scenes at
contrasting seasons,
Book of Hours,
or prayer book,
the
as here, oval, or
pair the artist depicts a
that
accompanied the Calendar of a lavish
Goyen. These works can be circular,
Month
Duke
June
is
made
of Berry
in
represented by the
staking.
October
up
While the burghers of enjoy their
painting
occupations of summer;
leisure,
Paris
one
peasant cultivates the
soil
on horseback and the
shows the peaceful all
at the time of year
and
and tonal
first
the seventeenth century
water froze
characterized by sowing.
other, in
ragged leggings,
activities
of the Dutch people of
mowing,
raking,
with
filled
the typical leisure
harvest:
are similar, the activities
The
wintry scene
work of the
is
different.
for
France.
but while the compositions
qualities are
the second painting of
over.
when
Wrapped
thick clothing as
in
protection against the cold,
people walk, skate,
or are pulled along
in
horse-drawn
The
sleds.
trees are bare,
smoke
rises
toward the heavy clouds,
is
harmonious and bathed
sows seeds.
and the sky
in
warm, gentle
The Limbourg Brothers,
pale, flat light.
Jan van Goyen, Summer,
June and October, from the
Jan van Goyen, Winter,
1625.
Tres Riches Heures,
light.
LANDSCAPE
1410-16.
1625.
gives off a
f
Spring light
Autumnal labours
vines hanging from
The vine and the grape
willows, the use of long
the French Impressionist
harvest are traditional
ladders,
and the
Camille Pissarro responding
attributes of
away
vats of the
to the theories of colour
here the
This painting
shows the
emerging at the time
in
France and Germany. The result
is
a
work
which the
in
local colours of objects are
autumn, but
German
artist
in
after the grapes
carting
must
have been
Hacked combines the
trampled were
traditional with a recording
to the region of Naples
of distinctive regional practice
The costume, the
peculiar
all
Jakob Philipp Hackert Autumn, 1784.
modified by the light that falls
upon them so that the
spring foliage of the trees
appears darker on
its
underside and shadows cast by the sun are flecked
with patches of colour.
Woman
Camille Pissarro, in
an Enclosure, Spring
Sun, Eragny Field, 1887.
»
Summer
This
is
idyll
•
one of the
cycle of
Cosmic detail
The Netherlandish painter
four canvases on the
Pieter Brueghel uses
theme of the seasons that
bare trees to
the French
artist
painted for
Boucher
hunters
Madame de
the foreground
to the mighty backdrop
Pompadour, the mistress
XV of and Autumn
in
tall,
the
link
and
of a coastal plain
of King Louis
France
jagged mountain peaks.
Spring
are
The scene combines the
pastoral scenes. Winter
leisure activity of skating
shows
on one
a lady in a fur-
trimmed robe seated sleigh.
The
Summer
women river
fountain. Solid their
of cooking a pig
of
enjoy the cooling
waters of a
naked
and
though
flesh
other side. The of a
it
is,
highly
is
side of the
composition with the work
a
in
contrived and contrasts
fire
on the
warmth
burns against
the dull greyness of the
pervading cold. The
artist
structures detail, giving
with the abundant foliage,
scale
the orange,
the humblest of rural
green,
violet,
and gold
and the
draperies,
pastel pink
blue ribbons carefully
white,
in
and
the
powdered
Francois Boucher.
occupations, to humans, birds,
the hair.
and significance to
and
beasts,
made and
and to
the natural.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder,
Hunters
in
the Snow,
1
565.
Summer, c.1755.
THE SEASONS 185
Times of the day and night For the fiery
one of the principal characteristics of
artist
any place
the nature of
is
and intense or pale and
light is especially
moon
it
is
The depiction of
is
to capture the
way
in
which the
illuminates a subject. For example, in
Summer
Kitty Kielland's painter's
diffuse.
whether
important for the landscape painter,
among whose aims sun or
its light,
Night, a landscape of the
Norwegian homeland, we are shown
modulated tones the
distinctive white light of a north-
ern summer's night in which the sun does not light of the night
sky gives each reed
refinement and
reflects the
it
cold, crystalline,
in finely
its
own
set.
The
value and
green of the land onto the
and smooth water.
Sunlight changes in intensity, partly in response to
changes tions,
in
cloud cover and other atmospheric condi-
one of the
dawn
how
Many artists have Agony in the Garden,
but also as part of a daily cycle.
been drawn to
this variability. In
earliest
and most beautiful depictions of a Giovanni Bellini shows
sky, the Venetian painter
the
dawn
rays of sunlight at
first
streak through a
night sky to strike the undersides of clouds and the
buildings
on a
dawn almost
hilltop
came
be seen
Bellini's
certainly has symbolic significance, but
later the observation
of day
above shaded slopes.
and recording of particular times
own
to be admired for their
in the tradition,
popular
sake. This can
seventeenth
in the
century and beyond, of creating pairs of paintings that illustrate the contrast
between night and day or dawn
and dusk. At the head of
French
this tradition, the
painter Claude produced harbour scenes, with departure bathed in the cold blue-green light of morning and
and disembarkation bathed
arrival
orange
light
w arm
in the
yellow-
r
of the setting sun. But whether the light
came from
the rising sun or the setting sun, Claude
always used
it
to give focus to his compositions, to unify
and harmonize, and to
fix in
paint the fleeting
moments
of day passing into night and night passing into day.
Changing
light
Later treatises on landscape painting began to recom-
mend day.
the painting of different and distinct times of the
The French landscape painter and
theorist of art
Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (see page 175, View of the
Ancient Town of Agrigento) noted that sunlight and
Dawn
Splendour at sunset
breaking
Christ prays to
God
for strength
on the Mount of Olives
in Bellini's
powerful landscape. The painter
marks the ending of in
this vigil
Christ
in
the
first light
arrest
in profile
cherub
who
the praying
Christ.
appears
in
The
the sky
belongs to the visionary events of the night that is,
in
is
now
ending and
contrast to the rest of the
scene, illuminated by the silvery light of
Bellini,
Cleopatra was
The Egyptian queen put attire that
Agony
in
Garden, c.1465.
of the three people
time ruled the
moment
who
Roman
of captivation
on the
harbour steps of a landing stage, in
showing Antony caught
awestruck admiration as
he comes to meet Cleopatra.
The
setting sun illuminates
the queen's retinue of
whose splendour
is
the
which the party has
women,
matched
LANDSCAPE
travelled.
Claude, The Landing of Cleopatra at Tarsus,
8f;
she
by that of the sailing ships on
the moon.
Giovanni
bc,
to Tarsus, on the
Empire. Claude has set this
town and the pink
hands and face of
44
immediately captivated Antony,
at that
undersides of feathery clouds and silhouettes
in
south coast of modern-day
one
of
daybreak. This light strikes a hilltop
Caesar
summoned
on such splendid
arrival of soldiers,
coming along a path to
After the death of Julius
Turkey.
two ways. He shows the
impending
its
c
1648
Blazing
moon
This disturbing nocturnal
landscape was painted last life
in
the
year of Vincent van Gogh's
and suggests the deep
mysteries that he behind the
commonplace The crescent
sun-like stars
Quiet night light The northern phenomenon of the white
summer
night
is
depicted
here with honest, quiet realism
by
spent her summers with a group
Cyprus tree
Norwegian
artists
the smaller,
appear as almost
in
The
the
sky,
contrast to the smaller,
earthbound church steeple if still
infused by the energy
on of the sun, the stars
a farm near Chnstiania
tall
the foreground
rises flame-like into
As of fellow
blazing
visionary presences
in
The painter
Kitty Kielland
moon and
and moon -
(now created out of the stylized dots,
Oslo),
where she painted
this
dashes, and curving lines of
landscape The subject has
thick, textured paint
nationalistic implications, but
painting
in this
it
together
receives a
experience of the painter
Summer Night,
including those of the
amount of moisture and
tions
movement of
in the
Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889.
1886.
shadows change constantly because of many
- flow
pulsating, undulating
rhythms, reflecting the intense
subdued and tonal treatment. Kitty Kielland,
in
factors,
the earth, the
atmosphere, and the
reflec-
reflective qualities of a particular site.
He
proposed to his students that they should paint the
same view
at different times of the
differences that light
mended four
day to observe the
produces on forms, and he recom-
most
particular times as the
clearly
distinctive parts of the cycle: the freshness of morning;
noonday
the heavy atmosphere and dazzling rays of the sun; the burning horizon of evening;
night with
its soft,
and the calm of
silvery moonlight. In the 1880s the
French Impressionist painter Monet took to
its
extreme
this
approach
in his series of paintings of single motifs,
such as wheatstacks (see page 167, Wfieatstacks,
Morning), which he portrayed
Effect,
in
Snow
a seemingly
endless variety of light conditions. Descriptions of
Monet
at
work on these
each change
him with a
paintings portray
stack of canvases by his easel, taking up a
new one
with
in the light.
Symbol and metaphor Light
and darkness are also powerful symbolic tools
and have been used painting, to ing.
In
in landscape, as in other
kinds of
imbue a motif with deep, symbolic mean-
both secular and religious works landscape
painters have used the ceaseless passing from night to
day to suggest a divine plan or a cosmic system that is
eternal
and greater than our own limited human
existence. In Bellini's painting
coming of the dawn
Agony
will bring
with
in the
it
suffusing the natural world with life-giving energy. In contrast, the
by
more
its
cold, silvery light,
spiritual
Friedrich,
has
feminine, silent, and subdued,
with night perceived as a time of
Garden the
Christ's arrest
moon, with
often been seen as
rest, sleep,
dreaming,
contemplation (see page 181, Caspar David
A
Walk at Dusk), and even death.
Occasionally such associations are subverted.
The
sun, for example,
may be
depicted accurately as
the soldiers who, in the middle distance, are being led
scorching and destructive. Similarly, departing from the
toward him by his betrayer, Judas. But the rising sun
usual treatment of night as a time of tranquillity,
also suggests the
themes of the renewal and redemption
that Christ's death offers to believers. In a further
symbolic use of
light,
Vincent van Gogh, in his painting depicts
the sun has
frequently been painted as an active, masculine force,
with visionary
intensity
vibrant, swirling night sky
Rhone
Tiie St
any
Night,
an extraordinarily
above the strongly illumined
valley of southern France.
TIMES OF THE DAY AND NIGHT
18'
Wildness Much landscape painting presents an ordered view of the world, of idealized places bathed in golden light
or of a countryside that bears the marks of habita-
tion.
But another strand of landscape painting has
and others
century, Albrecht Altdorfer
School painted a number of scenes set
Danube
in the
in dense, dripping
forests peopled
by hermits escaping the world or wild
men and
untouched by
satyrs
civilization. Forests, like
concentrated on wilderness and wildness. Remote and
mountains, have long associations with mystery, magic,
inaccessible regions
may be seen as savage and danmay also be celebrated as uncorrupted
and danger. Their thick vegetation can hide the strange
gerous, but they
and unknown or protect the
or even as sacred sanctuaries untouched by the evils of civilization.
fearful
and
isolated.
But for
may also have suggested an imagined German past of uncorrupted simplicity. His wild men and
Altdorfer they
satyrs
formed a stark contrast to the
city of
Difficult terrain
Regensburg,
In this
Contrasting sites
where Altdorfer worked, and the princely courts
Long before the Romantic landscape
artists to paint
tion, painters
Italian
attitude to nature inspired
wild regions far from
civiliza-
had responded to untamed nature. One
commentator of the sixteenth century praised the
landscapes of northern
The organic, pagan setting
and sylvan simplicity of
Satyr Family provide an
alternative ideal of a
by virtue of its wildness."
offers
most
In the middle of
Golden Age to the Classical Arcadia
When
the Alps in the eighteenth century artist
but an Italian
whom
it
was not a northern
he called to mind when
that century Pieter Brueghel drew- landscapes in the Alps
he wTote:
when he
rumblings - Salvator Rosa." Others, particularly
travelled to
Italy.
In
Germany
early in the
same
on horseback have been abruptly halted on their journey by the
One appears
the English writer Horace Walpole crossed
"precipices,
mountains,
torrents,
wolves, in
Italian
painter Salvator Rosa travellers
rickety state of a
of the Italianate tradition (see pages 172-3).
because "they portray the
own homeland, which
scenery of their suitable motifs
artists
seventeenth-century
collected such painted panels. his
landscape by the
that
broken bridge.
to gesture
toward
another possible crossing place.
The
terrain across the river that
the horsemen intend to enter is
more remote, savage, and
seemingly inhospitable. Trees near the far side of the bridge
England, also held Rosa up as a wild eccentric, admiring his paintings for their savage, desolate beauty
and
their
wild beasts and bandits. Today Rosa's landscapes, such as Tlie Broken Bridge, appear to conform settled
harmonies of Claude (see page
more
to the
173, Tlie Mill)
and there
is
usually
little
evidence that they contain wild
beasts or that the figures they depict are outlaws.
Primeval innocence Hidden within dark
male armed with
satyr family, the
a club, listen
and wait
On
a
the
dress if
right,
1
88
anxiously.
woman
moves toward the
in
a red
forest as
it;
behind her
man
holding a
about to enter
stands a naked
long
foliage, a
LANDSCAPE
stick.
The relationship
between these two is
figures
unclear, but their intrusion
threatens to disrupt the peace
and
primitive innocence of the
satyr family's
haven
Albrecht Altdorfer, Satyr Family,
1507
scarred.
The
path above leads those on foot
through a rocky opening formed by craggy overhanging
whose echoed
than to the distortions of some recent landscape painting
and
are broken
cliffs,
extraordinary shapes are in
the arches of the
bridge below.
Salvator Rosa, The Broken Bridge, c.1640.
1
animated by the diagonal
Electrifying primitivism First
given the
(Surprised!)
when
Independants of 1891
of scale, stylized outlines,
known
and symmetry, highest peak
Andes.
On
is
in
for
the second
visit
erupting volcano. Here he
sulphuric eruption as
the Ecuadorean
second
his
its
land even as
captures the effects of the
beauty
its
there
it
the
colours
artist
it is
made.
In this
richly
and
saturated blocks of colour
painter Rousseau depicts a tiger
give this fantasized jungle scene
caught, as
electrified, in a
a dense, airless feeling.
The striped
Henri Rousseau, Tiger
if
is
both trapped and
Tropical
Storm
in
a
(Surprised'),
1
89
way
evokes the primordial
processes of creation and
the pale sky with huge clouds of
destruction that take place across
brown smoke.
vast tracts of geological time.
This outpouring
in Paris,
landscape by the French
creature
and remote
branches, and the giant fronds. The
was
evenly painted surface, distortions
tropical storm.
Exotic
it
thrusts
of the driving ram, the tree's
Surpris!
exhibited at the Salon des
this
Cotopaxi,
title
Edwin Church,
the American painter Frederic
contrasts with the waters of a
Frederic
Church was struck by the sight of
rocky chasm, which erode the
Cotopaxi, 1862.
The celebration of nature's violence and grandeur is
usually seen as a product of the Romantic era of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which also
saw
the development of theories of the sublime. This
was
late
often defined in relation
to beauty, from which
it
differed
by evoking the more intense emotion of awe. Beauty might be found
in the small, familiar,
and
friendly,
but the
sublime lay in the vast, the irregular, and the obscure.
The period
certainly
inspiring landscapes
saw a new enthusiasm
for awe-
and a proliferation of paintings of
rocky caverns, plummeting waterfalls, erupting volcanoes, and towering
cliffs,
by
artists
such as Caspar David
Friedrich (see page 169, Cross in the Mountains) and
Thomas Cole
(see page 169, View from
Mount Hoi yoke,
Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Tliunderstorm). Cole's pupil Frederic Church, inspired naturalist
by the German
von Humboldt's description of the South
American tropics as a subject worthy of a in
found
painter,
Ecuador a landscape as wild and remote as possible
and painted the erupting volcano Cotopaxi.
Rousseau match form to content. Rousseau painted
Primitivism Wildness has often been associated with a simple life,
close to nature.
way of
The uncontrolled, primeval forces of
nature can be allied to powerfully erotic, lustful creative urges, free
from social constraint and bursting with
energy. This aspect of the wild
is
tropical jungles without ever leaving Paris
and they are
and wild places.
In rejecting
fantasies of uncivilized
Simplification
his
and
it
has a long history that continues
in the
German
Amselfluh
it
finds expression
painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's The
in the figure
of the lone cowherd with his horn
set within distorted Alpine scenery.
Primitivism
may be expressed
disruptive colours that are
makes
disturbing
the unfamiliar appear
and singular than
When
it
more
exotic, unexpected,
other ways. The
is
a dominant feature, writers have often
attributed wild behaviour to the artist. Often they
wrong, but Kirchner never matic experience serving
fully
in
an
were
recovered from his trauartillery
regiment in the
World War, and shot himself in 1938. The anguish of
this artist's
life,
which
A cowherd blows contrast to
departure from
and
his in
horn both analogy with
the strident, aggressive rhythms of his surroundings. Infused with ecstatic,
though frightening,
distortions, the landscape
expresses powerful emotion.
Ernst is
in their
bold,
empirically observed description.
might otherwise be.
analyzing the subject matter of paintings in
which wildness
First in
and
one-point perspective and naturalistic description he
present in Altdorfer's
today. In the early twentieth century
valleys of the Swiss Alps to
curving, angular lines
in
satyr family, but
and distortion
Kirchner reduces the mountains
Ludwig
Kirchner, The
also reflected in his death, can, Amselfluh, 1922.
deliberately naive style of the jungle scenes
by Henri
therefore, be associated with the wildness of his work.
WILDNESS
181
.
Apocalyptic landscapes Although
The world torn apart This
huge painting
is
one of three
based on the Book of Revelation
The destruction of the universe as described
landscape painting has concentrated on
the beauties and wonders of the world, painters
have also depicted
its
destruction.
The end of the world
the Apocalypse ".
.
.
was a
there
became moon became as
great earthquake; and the sun
that John Martin painted at the
end of
his
life.
The
artist closely
is
described in tenifying detail in the last book of the
known
as both the
Book
of Revelation of St John
follows the Bible's account of
Bible,
God's anger. Below
and the Apocalypse. By extension, the term "apocalyp-
this
cosmic
upheaval cower the people of the earth,
from kings to
slaves,
the Book of Revelation "hid themselves in
in
who,
tic" refers to
prophecies of prodigious events that will
bring about the end of the world and
its
replacement by
black as sackcloth of hair and the blood;
And
And
in
seems almost beyond representation:
the stars of heaven
unto the earth ....
fell
the heaven departed as a scroll
when
rolled
is
it
and every mountain and island were moved
together;
out of their places." Indeed few artists have attempted
tells us,
the dens and
the rocks of the mountains"
attempting to hide from the
wrath of God.
John Martin, The Great Day of His Wrath, 1851-3.
another. In landscape painting, these prophecies have
found expression
in
an emphasis on the destruction of
the present world rather than the coming of a
new
Nowadays this catastrophe is usually seen being caused by humans rather than by God. world.
as
to paint this particular extraordinary
A
notable,
cosmic upheaval.
eccentric, exception is the nineteenth-
if
awesome
century English painter John Martin. His
Day
depiction of Tfie Great
of His Wrath follows the
description in the Bible closely and
and awe-inspiring
an outstanding
is
example of the Romantic enthusiasm
for the terrifying
in nature.
The apocalypse in religious imagery Although the moment of destruction has seldom been illustrated in paintings, the
Apocalypse has been an
extremely rich source of imagery for
much
the basis of
Judgement (see pages
tions of the Last it
forms
artists. It
religious imagery, including depic-
underlies such extraordinary scenes as
Brueghel's terrifying Tlie
Netherlandish
riding
on
biblical vision of the
- seen
in the
European
tradi-
his pale horse
painting's centre - with the northern
tion of "The
Pieter
Triumph of Death. Here the
combines the
artist
Triumph of Death
and
68-9),
Dance of Death,"
in
which a
series of
scenes showed death carrying off people from every
walk and stage of of death
shown
is
life.
In Brueghel's painting the
as the great leveller as
army
overwhelms
it
the land and sea. This consuming comprehensiveness,
from which
all flee in
vain, is a feature of apocalyptic
The panoramic viewpoint of both Brueghel and Martin underlies the universal significance of what imagery.
they set before us. The theme of death stalking the land further
makes the landscape itself horrifying, broken, The terrain is black, grey,
barren, desolate, and bleak.
brown, or red and devoid of
lush,
In the twentieth century
some power
two
green vegetation.
w orld w ars, the fearr
of nuclear weapons, and,
more
recently,
the degradation of the environment have led to paintings that have suggested that
humans
are destroying
The English painter Paul Nash's
the world.
Tiie
Men in
Road shows the barren waste of no-man's-land, from
Multitudes encompassed To convey
how
arbitrary death
combines
universal is,
have
panoramic view over both
land and sea
encyclopedic
LANDSCAPE
we
He
includes an
compendium
different
ways of
dying, from
passive acceptance td'the
opposite extreme, exemplified
Brueghel
a high viewpoint with
a high horizon so that a
and
of
by the figure at the bottom right
who
futilely
draws
his
sword
against the overwhelming
army
Pieter Brueghel the Elder
The Triumph of Death,
c.
1
562
after
work, painted
Max
The waste land
beyond painting
Painting In this
Ernst
USA
Commissioned
to
British Ministry of Information,
the
in
was forced
leave Europe during the
in
1918 by the
Paul Nash's bleak painting
Second
shows
World War, the painter scratched
the devastating effects of the
through the
First
paint to reveal
oil
darker,
to subconscious impulse.
but
among
the pools of water
concrete, discarded corrugated
also
tangled barbed wire, and an
created strange plants and
iron,
beings which uncannily suggest
empty box,
the physical and ecological
the destruction perpetrated on
deformities of a post-nuclear era.
the land by
Max
Ernst, Europe after the
Paul Nash, The
Rain,
1940-2.
1919.
which blasted trees lights that
petrified
rise in front of
a sky
lit
by search-
parody the rays of a setting sun. The strange
wasteland of the Swiss Surrealist
Max
Endings, old and Kiefer's fusion of
lead,
'•
Ernst's
Rain was painted during the Second which its title makes clear reference.
after- the
.
World War, to
More recently painter
for example, the
in,
Anselm
Kiefer, artists
work
of the
German
have used apocalyptic
imagery to sound warnings about the destruction of the
on one
level,
planet.
Such works are intended
to
shock
us into
The work's
title
I
'
^\
Exodus
biblical
after the Holocaust.
Kiefer, The
Red
ibBS
Sea,
Beyond the world
£.
k$l
r
'
;.
.
,,
' .
With the exception of Nash's The Menin Road, the apocalyptic visions represented here are inventions.
the conventions of landscape painting of the past.
However, beyond the imaginary and fantastic visions
The compositions have high horizons, which serve
that they incorporate, they are
differentiate land
ralistic, for
world that
intentionally unnatu-
they deal with things that supersede the
we can
see and
know
with our senses. They
suggest nothing less than the transformation of matter into void,
in making this more immediate and expreswritten or spoken word can. But
and perhaps they succeed
black emptiness vivid in sive
what
ways than the is
surprising
is
that these apocalyptic hallucina-
tions are deeply rooted in both perceived reality
and
to
from sky and land from water; they
use devices of contrast, comparison, and juxtaposition to
'
"vi"^ i
1984-5.
all
*
gft*'
also refers,
the Jews during the
Anselm
1
h
„?>
though, to both the pollution of
and
%
:
the world's seas and the saving of
despoiling of the environment.
i.
soil
humankind as a
our past and continuing
\
>.
caused by
forests
awareness of the catastrophic loss that threatens result of
Road,
<_^_
industry's emission of sulphur
dioxide.
warfare.
Menm
war and, on
another, the corruption of the
and the death of
modern
testify to
.
.
the scorched-earth
policies of total
which
...
emulsion, shellac, and
oil
of
all
£y£|P?Pfc :JL
new
woodcut,
photograph on canvas evokes,
Europe
lie
an upturned helmet, blocks of
open It
laid
waste. There are no dead people
turns the act of painting into a process,
soldiers
are enveloped
within land that has been
superimposed surface
colours. This technique, grattage,
more automatic
World War. Tiny
move on and
brighter pigments beneath
exemplify and amplify;
and symmetries and vertical lines are all
and
their curves
their
basic
imities
and horizontal and
framed within the rectangular and
horizontal format of the "landscape" view, which, for centuries, has
format used by
been the recognized and established artists in the
Western world to depict
the natural world.
APOCALYPTIC LANDSCAPES
|
!•
" .
.
.
however much we may love general
beauty, as
poets and
it is
expressed by Classical
artists,
we
are no less
wrong
to neglect particular beauty,
the beauty of circumstance and the sketch of manners." Charles Baudelaire, "The Painter of Modern
Life,"
1863
Genre
The months
t is
a basic
human
desire to represent
own
reality,
and depictions of
This fifteenth-century fresco
one's from the Palazzo Schifanoia
and
commonplace
draws
in Ferrara, Italy,
on mythology,
The vineyard
history.
month
is
and sculptures from the
pots, wall paintings,
observed; the nature of
showing
were popular
early as the sixth century bc. Vases,
workers are carefully
ancient Greek and
which
their task reveals
activities
as a form of decoration at least as
astrology,
Roman
civilizations
took
depicted. Scenes
as their subjects sport, love, business, and
rural labourers
pleasure. This depiction of scenes from every-
were popular
medieval
in
day
manuscripts, functioning
life is
known
The word
as genre painting.
which derives from the Latin word
"genre,"
as calendars. Later
they provided detail
genus, meaning "kind" or "variety," means
in
different things in different centuries,
Renaissance paintings,
often used
imbued
their labours often
with religious significance.
it
is
style or type.
Francesco del Cossa, The
Month of March
and
now to refer to a literary or artistic
With reference to painting, the term was
(detail),
first
c.1469.
used to describe those works which dealt
with subjects considered to be of lesser
importance - ordinary pastimes,
moment
Capturing a
animals,
- rather than heroic
The Carracci family
landscapes, and
founded
a school for
deeds taken from history and mythology, the
artists in
Bologna,
lives of saints
and prophets, or the portraits of
rich clients.
By the end of the eighteenth
and were
Italy,
influential in
still lifes
the painting of everyday
century, however, the use of the
work by
subjects. In this
Annibale the foodstuffs
been refined and was applied
are represented with quick
works
brushstrokes
During the nineteenth century
naturalistic
unrealized mid-action
in
a direct,
way and
man in
is
the
Eater,
1
life.
was
in
life.
Classical writers
Annibale Carracci, The
it
usage for paintings that showed
scenes of everyday
comical fashion.
Bean
that depicted familiar or rustic
common
caught
an almost
word had
in particular to
and thinkers argued
about the moral value of popular themes in
580-90.
painting,
many
suggesting that the highest
kind of art should represent values and ideals
beyond the realm of the
that are
toward painting daily
life
ordinary. This superior attitude
persisted until the nineteenth century.
Pictures of genre subjects remained popular, yet were considered to be less meaningful or of less
consequence than paintings of religious or
mythological subjects.
The changing nature of genre painting This exploration of genre painting looks at developments that took place over time and highlights the different themes that have emerged
over the centuries. These themes help to reveal changes in attitude
toward the painting of everyday
life
and show how social climates
in
Europe and America have influenced both the choice of subjects and the relative popularity of the works. Images of food and drink, and of leisure
and labour, for example, were as
common
in the nineteenth
century as they had been in the sixteenth century, and they share
many
characteristics. Yet the reasons they
were chosen, the tech-
niques artists employed in painting them, and the public for which
they were intended were often quite different.
No are, art is
A
morality tale
characteristics.
Genre painting flourished in
the seventeenth-century
Netherlands and
this
embodies many of
work
its
It
contains
life
enabled him to show
moral examples,
his skill at painting
naturalistic description,
textures
and symbolism. Steen's
Jan Steen, The Dissolute
humorous scenes
Household, c.1660.
of daily
and
light.
how
important social attitudes and preoccupations
never only about
its
social context.
Some
of the works in this
chapter were never intended for public viewing, but rather helped artists to practise their skills
of observation and imitation.
Many show
harmonious compositions,
varieties of
the delight that artists took in
texture and the effects of familiar
(,f:nrk
matter
and close to hand.
light,
and
in
using subject matter that
was
this
Physical labour
the French
advocacy for the
genre works from previous
artist Millet,
is
proletariat
direct In
the conservative Parisian art world, subjects
These scenes of everyday
mentary evidence; example,
we can
was
most
exactly
life
many
centuries such as Carracci's
The Bean Eater
state-
run art exhibitions This
Jean-Francois Millet
roughshod and brutish
Man
with a Hoe, 1860-2
paintings, for
it
is
important to remember that even those
brilliantly
how
observe nature are
to imagine that real it
still
life at
representations.
the Street
appears in genre works.
Boccioni
the
Genre subjects Many genre paintings It is
through our senses that
world around
a
member
Italian Futurist
life.
of
group, city
Here he conjures up an
exuberant street
festival,
contrasting the interior world
we experience the
of the
Higher ideals and intangible or
us.
life
was
which loved speed and
explore our sensual experience
of the world, especially those that celebrate food or
music.
in
can even be used as docu-
Dutch seventeenth-century genre
in
would be a mistake
time
and were thus
excluded from
evident
learn a great deal about costumes and daily practices
of the time. However,
paintings that It
such as
rural
very nature, genre painting takes contemporary reality as
its
subject.
not viewed with
the
observation and realism.
its
is
humour
being seen as tokens of
an example of
By
peasant
created a great outcry,
This peasant, painted by
woman on
a balcony
with the swirl of colour and
conceptual subjects were more often explored in history paintings, 7
which showed heroic deeds or
movement
lofty
and
sacrificing.
lines
Genre painting has
and
always been more rooted in the contemporary world. It
through the use of signs and symbols or by
Yet
it
and a rush of shapes colours, creating a
the spectator into the whirl of
modern
Umberto
showing archetypal situations within an everyday setting.
gives
dynamic energy that draws
can allude to the intangible or to the more "univer-
sal" values
He
space through intersecting
aspirations for an ideal world and portrayed characters suffering
outside.
a sense of different kinds of
life.
Boccioni, The
Street Enters the House,
tends to concentrate less on the
1911.
extremes of human behaviour and more on commonplace experience familiar to both artist and viewer.
Modern
Experimentation Finally, many of these genre scenes allow ment with
still-life
artists
freedom to experiand surfaces
can be explored, a freer style and more spontaneous brushstrokes light
and shadow playing over
familiar-
objects depicted. History painting often refused to pay attention to the particular or the detail, feeling that
status of the subject.
so clearly
Genre
painting,
illustrates, delighted in
it.
it
artist
Roy Lichtenstem drew on
subjects. Different textures, materials,
employed, or the effects of
is
life
The American Pop
detracted from the intellectual
on the other hand, as
this
chapter
images from advertising or,
as here, comic strips to
create art about rather than Stressing
artificiality
we
means
colour,
that
often find his striking
images of modern
life
funny rather than emotive.
The couple enclosed their car look as
reality.
form and
frozen; the ironic tone
of the artist
have
if
in
they
just argued: the
he used simple contrasts
feeling of claustrophobia
and
is
print processes
taken
from comic books. Scenes are stylized
and the action
instantly recognizable.
Roy Lichtenstein
In
the
Car, 1963.
INTRODUCTION
The poor used geometric compositions
Charity Sweerts was one of a group of
and
painters from the Netherlands
to create figures with a solid
who the
settled
dolls") after
Rome. Known
as
"little
the nickname of one
members, they
of their in
in
Bambocaate (meaning
specialized
painting genre scenes for
Roman
collectors.
Although they
painted ordinary people, they
During
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
genie painting generally depicted scenes of the
Summer
in
The
leisure pursuits of the very poor.
and buyers of these
typical patrons
"low-life"
marked art
a departure
life,
its
their
Paintings of the poor exploited the curiosity of
shrink from in real representation.
in
that patrons might
could provide great pleasure
life
a painting included humorous
If
peasant types, often as caricatures,
comedy.
Aristotle, the
comedy
defined
tist,
it
could work as
Greek philosopher and drama-
who are we can look down on them, theory, we can also laugh at
as showing us people
as the Seven Acts of Mercy, which
shows place
religious in
a
deeds taking
contemporary context.
Michiel Sweerts, Feeding the
Hungry, 1645-50.
Western
Brueghel's pictures take country
one class about another. Scenes
street
known
because they were painted
contrast between the themes portrayed in such
out most of the history of this thread of genre painting.
Roman
taken from a series
times of year in
without religious pretext.
and the social status of their owners persisted through-
is
the fields
subjects were upper or middle class. This pronounced
works
monumentality. This
scene
and shadow
Independent paintings of peasant activities at different
working routines and
effects of light
are
labours and pleasures, as
main
The peasants
subject.
shown here
harmony with
in
the seasons, and there
is
no
poverty or hardship. The balance
between work and bright tones,
rest,
the
and the peaceful
background combine to present a pleasant
and ordered
vision.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Harvesters, 1565.
lesser than ourselves. If then, according to his
them.
A
comic or ridiculous note
in a painting of the
Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio, the two great innovators of late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century
worked
from what they observed
poor probably enhanced the viewers' enjoyment by
Italy,
encouraging feelings of moral and social superiority.
public places around them. Both artists had a variety of
directly
in the
The virtuous poor Louis Le Nain
in
motives for depicting everyday
Drawing from nature In
work drew upon the bawdy
Catholic countries such as Italy or Spain, genre paint-
ing
was an
antidote to the grandeur of Renaissance
common
life.
Some
of Carraeci's
subjects and erotic humour
in literature at the time, while Caravaggio's
genre work
may have had
moralizing intentions.
More
and
his
brothers
helped popularize genre scenes France. The peasants here
are
still
conveyed. The young
importantly, however, they paved the
the Renaissance masters who urged artists to
naturalism in
streets
enced
and draw what they saw, and later painters
go into the
life
to
improve
for a greater
the
Madonna and
Child,
beautifully painted yet
and the
meagre
famous painter
in
fire
adds a
warm
seventeenth-century Spain, allowed
despite the
The
atmosphere, and
the music hints at a happy
art.
The genre paintings of Diego Velazquez, the most
his advice influ-
who sketched from
way
girl
holds a baby, reminding us of
rations suggest the Eucharist.
and Baroque church art Leonardo da Vinci was among
may
be ragged, but noble overtones
mood
humble surroundings.
Louis Le Nain, Peasant Interior with an Old Flute-Player, c.1642.
theii
observational
c;i:nre
skills
and
artistic
techniques.
him
to tackle quintessentially Spanish subjects while
The humorous poor These peasants making merry
have neither
nobility nor religious
significance.
Any moral purpose
is
hard to
identify,
squalid interiors
although the
and mean-
looking faces could be seen as typifying a world
where absence
of virtue has reduced figures to
most elemental. Works by
their this
Flemish
artist,
Adnaen
Brouwer, were largely comic
in
with their close
intent, and,
observation of grotesque low-life
were
characters,
certainly popular
with patrons. Rembrandt and
Rubens both admired the Flemish artist's
delicate
brushwork and
which seemed
refined style,
incongruous given
his
rough
subject matter.
Adriaen Brouwer, Peasants Carousing
in
a Tavern, after
1633.
also depicting different textures, materials,
and
effects
of light. His bodegones - kitchen or tavern scenes -
function as a record of time and place, ennobling the people
who
them and showing Spanish
inhabited
produce (see page 202,
Waterseller of Seville).
Tlie
Representing the poor as proud national types shifted the
emphasis
in genre painting
away from the purely comic.
Morality in genre painting
Comments on
morality were important in genre scenes.
The poor were often shown depraved and foolish Northern European
or
artists
in
one of two
sanitized
guises:
and deserving.
tended more to the former,
portraying rough and often
rowdy peasants
in tavern
brawls and brutish quarrels. The scenes were comic, but were also intended as a warning against the dangers of excess and of animal-like behaviour. At
warnings might be directed riotous subjects
were
is
whom
these
not clear; the drunk and
certainly not the intended
market Scenes of the poor were often based on Biblical
for these paintings.
A more
sentimental image of the poor
is
typified
texts. Charity is the virtue
most stressed by
Christ,
and
Reform Fildes
was
a leading figure
social realist
by the works of the seventeenth-century Spanish
artist
Murillo and his French contemporary Louis Le Nain.
We
the "blessed poor" or the
"meek inheriting the earth" were
often illustrated by genre painters.
The Roman patrons
shown the needy and deserving poor making the most of humble surroundings and ensuring that,
who commissioned works like Sweerts's Feeding the Hungry used them as meditations on the necessity of
despite their poverty, their prettified children learn the
charity in society, while in Victorian Britain, social real-
are
movement
in
the
in Britain
toward the end of the nineteenth century. This work, an unrelenting portrayal of the destitute, refers to
the Houseless Poor Act of 1869,
which allowed some of the homeless the right to shelter for the night.
difference
between
vision continued into
paintings
were
and wrong. This idealized the eighteenth century - Murillo's
right
such as
art to bring
Sir
Luke Fildes
tried to exploit the
power of
about social reform.
come
as a surprise.
Fildes believed in
The art-buying public would
per-
and hoped to
injustice.
rustic
certain
dwellings.
strands
suggested that civilization
of
In
eighteenth-century
philosophical
was a corrupting
thought
haps have preferred to imagine the peasants
influence,
and that the poor were closer to man's "natural"
Such
state.
beliefs influenced aristocrats to play at being
and may explain the taste for such subjects
poor
working
living
work
is
and
social
social political
document,
unsentimental and
These paintings were intended
sober
in its
enjoyment as well as for meditative or moral purposes
Luke
Fildes, Applicants for
sense of social for
this
and
Intended as both
and
in the conditions portrayed, reinforcing their
inspire charitable
action against poverty
intervention
France,
the power of the
visual to influence public opinion,
The general lack of unrelenting realism should not
particularly popular in Britain, influenc-
ing Gainsborough's pictures of rosy-cheeked urchins
and sanitized
ists
- the
stability.
realities of poverty, hunger,
and
illness
were not
treatment.
Admission to a Casual Ward, 1872-4.
in art,
generally seen as subjects for aesthetic contemplation.
THE POOR
97
Virtue Devotion to work The young
woman
intently to her
applies herself
needlework,
few
of de Hooch's, has depicted
much
Family values unit
was
rhetorically central to the
The seventeenth century saw the introduction of a hierarchy of thematic genres in painting that
was to
endure for two centuries. Biblical and Classical narra-
is
and
at
moment
any
if
she does
being observed
style of painting
them
could look
emphasizes
the tranquillity of the subject.
Jan Vermeer, The Lacemaker,
attention to detail
as the lacemaker herself gives to
The intimate family
she
edges or rough contours - the
objects,
Vermeer, a Dutch contemporary
with as
feel as
know
calm, and there are no sharp
accomplishment. Although the painting contains
We
not
up The colours are muted and
and
revealing her industry
her work.
c.
1669-70.
teenth century resulted in a drop in the market for large-scale religious
and Classical works. Genre scenes
flourished, along with local landscapes
and portrait paint-
increasingly middle-class Dutch
tives
society of the seventeenth
century. Here a
cot while the
symbol of
mother
dog - a
fidelity
toddler stands
in
sits
by a
traditional
- looks on. The the background,
looking through the
open door
were placed
effect.
at the top,
favoured for their edifying
According to much theoretical and philosophical
thought
at the time, art
had a moral purpose.
ples of heroic behaviour or great deeds
was thought
that the viewing public
If
exam-
were depicted,
it
ing.
The Dutch,
especially the emerging mercantile
own country, and in its people, and wanted to support their own national painting rather than look to the past or to Rome for inspiration. gentiy.
would be morally
took great pride
in their
Except for portrait painters,
artists
no longer
They now had
that represents the outside world.
elevated, inspired by the scenes of courage, selflessness,
worked
De Hooch has
and suffering before them.
and
duce works that would appeal to the new market, and
lower. Tied to the real
the customer would decide whether or not to buy. The
reinforced the
tender atmosphere by using simple lines and forms, while the
genre paintings came world, they were
felt
Portraits, landscapes,
much
to be less intellectual,
more about
solely to commission.
size of paintings
was
also affected:
to pro-
most Dutch genre
elaborate perspective emphasizes the space and solidity of the
domestic
interior.
The subject may
be read as an example of "good practice," but the artist
concerned with moral
He obviously delighted
is
not only
pan and the
in
so,
many
scenes are small in comparison with histoiy paintings.
genre paintings contained didactic messages, often
A
through the depiction of idealized contemporary scenes
bakers" and "blacksmithes and cobblers" had paintings
and of individuals whose behaviour was commendable.
contemporary source
in their
tells
us that "butchers and
houses and undoubtedly their tastes and homes
would have been
different
from those of the
nobility.
the play
floor tiles to
display the quiet beauty of
everyday scenes and objects Pieter
Even
qualities.
of light over the interior, reflecting off the
the depiction of reality than the ideal.
The market for genre paintings Those who bought and enjoyed genre paintings were not necessarily from the same social groups as those who
for predominantly middle-class buyers.
chose grand history paintings. The decline of the
new patrons
Similarly,
genre painting in eighteenth-century
France and nineteenth-century England was produced
did not
know Greek
Most of these
or Latin, and such
de Hooch, The Mother,
1661-3
GENRE
Catholic Spanish nobility and their subsequent ejection
paintings reflect the world of proverbs and idiomatic
by the predominantly Protestant Dutch
speech, of popular theatre and daily tasks.
in
the seven-
Virtue in daily
Women's domestic
life
messages
moral
Placing
in
contemporary settings
were
abilities
extremely important by the middle
considered
class,
women
many
so
allowed them to be more instantly appreciated by their viewers. The characters depicted are generic types -
moralising genre scenes depict
the mother, the governess, the labourer, the kitchen
duty and caring for their work, the implication being
household tasks. These
women
are
absorbed
in
shown devoted
to
do the same.
maid, the innkeeper, and so on. They function not as
that those looking at the painting should
individuals but as vessels bearing required meanings
Often children are learning a lesson or being taught a
for specific contexts.
taverns, in houses,
able streets.
Scenes are set
in kitchens
and
and school rooms, and on recogniz-
The use of modest characters and
settings
simple task. Education
is
are not educated in the society might
fall
into
a
common
ways of
theme:
right
if
children
and wrong, a
chaos and immorality.
Men were shown
made the paintings seem more realistic and also made it more likely that that they would be understood by a
ing in the streets and, like the
broader stratum of society.
expressions or smiling faces, indicating a well-ordered society in which
with their
lot.
all
labouring
knew
in
the fields or work-
women, had
their place
gentle
and were contenl
Although an overt religious message
such paintings was
rare, their subjects
can
still
be
in
inter-
preted as having a spiritual tone: in the seventeenth-
century Dutch Republic, contentment
in
industry were essential to the Protestant
labour and
work
ethic:.
Victorian painters also often chose subjects showing
the improvement of society through work, as in Ford
Madox Brown's Work, and the moral value of labour was much discussed by reformers and critics at the time. Many genre paintings which depict virtuous examples are also very serene and ordered. Spaces are uncluttered and
rooms neatly arranged. The objects
depicted are often simple, geometric, and smoothly
rounded, balancing the composition and making the paintings easy to understand.
Brown's
Work,
perspective.
A
painters
true
to
is
seen
often
in
Ford Madox
concerned with
convincing depiction of real space and
well-calculated perspective
more
As
are
life
made
the paintings
seem
by contemporary standards. The
satisfaction of a well-ordered composition suggests to
the viewer a well-ordered world. The harmonious use of
colour and the tranquil atmosphere created by gentle lighting
and muted colour also helped to suggest how
desirable the subjects depicted were.
The serving-maid The French
artist
various textures
and
this painting of a
The heroic worker
Chardin explores reflections in
serving-maid
The depth created by the
It
is
unclear
how
much Chardin intended
his
painting depicting the
comes from
was explained
open door makes the space more believable.
in this
virtue that
drawing water from a copper cistern.
The significance of the characters
the
work
a
industry
pamphlet by
The hard-working
artist.
one clenching
labourers,
between
in
his teeth,
a rose
depicted as a
noble ancient hero, contrast with
to provide a moral example.
the
Subsequent viewers have
two gentlemen standing on the
certainly
seen virtuousness and humility his
in
observations of daily routine,
just as
they see the transience
of
reflected
life
in his
scenes of
idle rich
right are middle-class intellectuals
F.
D. Maurice. In
society
who
of the Dutch genre painters, his
system.
who
were mainly the
aristocracy,
also enjoyed paintings in the
extravagant Rococo
style.
it
is
Carlyle
and
Brown's vision of
these "brainworkers"
maintain a thriving social In
addition, the
frame
is
decorated with verses from the Bible
about the moral significance
of hard work.
Jean Baptiste-Simeon Chardin,
Ford
The Cistern, 1733 or
1852-65.
later.
Thomas
of the day,
children playing. Unlike those
clients
on horses behind. The
Madox Brown,
Work,
VIRTUE
:
Vice A old
The dangers of drink
fool in love
This painting
shows
man behaving
way with She
a
a lecherous
in
a ridiculous
young woman.
distracts
children steal her purse,
his
roses at a pig,
manages
to grab his purse with
dinner to a kitten. The serving
and
theme
literature.
coins
in
on the
of wine. Parrots symbolized
The cards and
the idea of learning by example (they can only copy
table allude to
ways
quite different
do so
from those used to depict
\irtu-
reflect
Massys has used drawings of a
and
distorted face by Leonardo da
basket hint at the family's
who
also explored
fate,
symbol of vanitas.
work out what
exactly
is
what has gone
improper or wrong. They
also avoid potential difficulties. For example, an explicit
depiction of the loss of virtue or \ irginity (a
theme
and would
message consid-
to provide the moral
fail
common
would be too shocking
in paintings of this kind)
ered intrinsic to the status of genre painting as
art. If
a painting containing the epitome of social evil had
nothing to redeem
it
artistically or intellectually,
instead merely disgusted
very
little
Alternatively,
certain thrill
can
but
viewers, there would be
its
pleasure to be gained from looking at
titillate
some viewers might have derived
it.
a
from such vicious examples. Such works
as well as condemn.
Objects of satire Even
conveyed
in Classical times, foolish
in literature
presented social,
and
in the theatre. Satire
human
folly
- and
and moral problems -
laugh. At the
same time
such behaviour,
behaviour was ridiculed
its
it
its
in
or satirical
and
(see
front,
perhaps alluding to the tradition of comedy
great competition
page 224), while
as to instruct their viewers. Love and marriage
were
themes. Moral ugliness was often
in the
theatre. This might suggest realism, reminding us of tite
artists as
J
Man)
Steen presents an interior with a curtain draped at the
consequences.
to delight
GENB
show people
warned against
much
common
to
love.
In Tlie World as a Stage (Tlie Life of
was often used as a source by such
particular!)
common way
page 192) the seventeenth-century Dutch painter Jan
Literary satire, such as Erasmus's In Praise of Folly 1509),
a
make people
its
Quentin Massys. whose purpose was as
through physical ugliness, and harsh
making fools of themselves over
attendant political,
order to
implicitly
foolishness,
comedy
in paint
caricatures were
and is
theatricality.
between Zeuxis and Parrhasius (see also, paradoxically, hinting at artifice
More
specifically
it
acting as a
Intemperance, 1663.
awry. Such suggestions can be subtle, inviting the viewer to
skull,
Jan Steen, The Effects of
Ill-
520-5.
puns, and slang. In most instances these paintings also to indicate
the hanging
while the half-eaten loaf
implications.
c. 1
reminds us that
art
representation and should be viewed with some
said
The beggar's crutch
judicial birch in
resembles a
Lovers,
is
on the bad examples
display.
grotesque subjects with moral
ous subjects. They often make use of humour, proverbs,
employ signs and symbols
what
making the viewer
on
Matched
in
to them),
for satire. For the old man's face,
Quentin Massys, The
order
sprawls across the steps,
girl
which was also a favourite topic
Vinci,
in
and feed the
encouraging a parrot to a glass
sixteenth-
gambling, the foolishness of
their protagonists
throw
one hand, she
century northern European art
condemnation of
slumped by a
chin with
a popular
to invite
is
bowl of burning coals while her
the other. Unequal couples were
Paintings which convey "wrong" behaviour
at the effects of drunkenness:
the mother
him with her
charms, and by cupping
work takes a comic look
This
shown
The end of a family This
is
the
first in
hangs to
paintings warning of the effects
now
foot.
She pleads for forgiveness,
crushed under
on top of a novel by the author
his
Balzac, suggesting the artist's
disapproval of novels with
woman,
adulterous heroines.
literally
and
figuratively,
Augustus Leopold Egg,
that he can cast her out
Pasf
(symbolized by the open door
by a basket of
broken eggs, symbolizing the
man
of her virtue to the
Her mother looks on
and a small boy
and
Present, No.
7,
1858
Reinventing the genre
Broken eggs girl sits
house of
but her status as a "fallen"
means
A young
Eve that
The two
cards, representing instability,
intercepted a love letter to his wife,
Adam and its left).
children build a
The husband has
of adultery
the mirror and the
in
picture of
a series of three
in
In the eighteenth century, the English painter Hogarth
loss
subject."
dismay
vainly attempts to
patch an egg together, showing the innocence of childhood.
new theme for his work, the "modern moral He painted several series of such paintings
invented a
behind.
A bow
improper behaviour and
of
tales
telling
its
dire
consequences. His paintings are loaded with symbols, leitmotifs,
and hints of the bad character of the protag-
and arrow beside the boy remind us of Cupid and the mischief he causes. Despite the contemporary interior
and
artistic influences, this
eighteenth-century French work
was made Italian
for exhibition
and uses
paintings are little
The
rendered ridiculous in some way. This links back to
a series of
first in
six
paintings
two
disharmony here reign
pictorially as well as
morally The
scattering of oyster shells in the foreground gives the
- one with money
fathers
and one with an
aristocratic title
-
scene an untidy appearance: the world of those
who
set
make arrangements while the
a bad example can be a cluttered and chaotic place. The
prospective bridegroom primps
shells also refer to the reputed aphrodisiac
before a mirror. His pathetic
shellfish,
fiancee
sits listlessly
behind him,
suggesting sexual
about comedy - viewers are able to
laugh since they do not identify with the subjects.
ued Hogarth's theme, perhaps with
detachment, as one might view a play. Disorder and
about an ill-matched couple: the
all
English artists in the nineteenth century contin-
Broken Eggs, 1756
marriage of convenience
we have
sympathy with the characters, who are
Aristotle's ideas
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The
A
horrible events arise, the
amusing, perhaps because
still
costumes with poses and
gestures typical of history painting,
a
Even though the most
onists.
immorality,
powers of
and
all
the
less
humour. They
showed scenes of gambling, adultery, and prostitution that were not intended to make the public laugh but were serious attempts to warn about the evils of licentious behaviour. Today they can seem judgemental or sentimental, but they do function as social docu-
ments. They
tell
of a society with a strict moral code
and make us aware of the potential
pitfalls for
anyone
stepping outside the accepted codes of behaviour.
Today we are
people display a coarse manner, driven by base instincts.
less likely to think of art as having
horrified at being married to a
when
vain playboy
she loves the
silver-tongued lawyer to her
The room
is
left.
cluttered with objects
Other
common symbols
for the loss of virginity in
paintings are cracked eggs, dead birds, jugs without spilt liquids,
holding wider meaning: the dogs
A
and broken
such lids,
vessels.
a moral impact. However, in 1997 the "Sensation" exhibition of
work from
British artists
close look at the upstairs balcony in Tfie World
exhibition
the Saatchi Collection by young
caused an outcry. Some works in the
showed
children engaged in sexual acts and
linked at the throat signify the
One
as a Stage reveals a young boy hiding, blowing bubbles,
bodies dismembered by war.
the black spot on the groom's
and a human
These are vanitas
depicted the Virgin Mary encrusted with elephant dung
neck indicates
symbols (see pages 228-9),
or objects that hint
and with pornographic photographs worked into her
irrevocable
refers to
bond being
syphilis.
sealed;
Hogarth
popular expressions and
foolish fashions, follies typical
commenting on
of his
own
7,
la
The Marriage Contract,
before 1743
activities
at the transience of human life
the need for religious belief.
and therefore
implicitly at
Many genre works use
clothing; another,
notorious
Marcus Harvey, made a
child-murderer
out
of the
portrait of a
handprints
of
society
William Hogarth, Marriage a
Mode:
skull lying next to him.
Chris OfUi,
artist,
objects to suggest ple,
life's
brevity and fragility - for
exam-
a child building a house of cards, playing with a
flimsy shuttlecock, or blowing bubbles.
children. Both works had to be protected by guards, the first
in
New
York, the second in London.
Many
still
respond to paintings on moral grounds.
vice
201
Food and drink Eating and drinking are common to everyone across all centuries, cultures,
and
classes. Very different attitudes
and social concerns
can be conveyed through representations of these universal necessi-
Many
ties.
paintings depicting people eating and drinking convey a
moral message - for example, peasants praying over their meagre
and teaching
rations
their children to
do
likewise.
Conversely,
paintings often strike a moral note about indulging the senses,
cautioning the viewer not to be driven by sensuality. Often artists
ing a powerful sense of reality and of the appeal of such indulgences.
Food and drink can have other symbolic meanings have a sexual connotation
pleasure with merry indulgence and with
the bar in Edouard Manet's painting Ttie
The
senses were
five
medieval times. In painting,
all
common
subjects
known
is
in
the senses with which
the world must be conjured up through the
This
concern for morality.
medium
painting
we
from
experience
of sight alone.
as synaesthesia - a sensation of one kind being
suggested by experiencing another. Scenes of eating and drinking in
in painting.
Bread and wine often refer to the sacrament of the Eucharist; oysters
paintings of great banquets and parties can celebrate the pursuit of little
who
painted these moralistic scenes would sharpen their message by creat-
in
Dutch
painting; the bottles
Bar
and
fruits
on
at the Folies-Bergeres
suggest the importance of consumer goods to an increasingly mercantile society. Finally,
to include
still-life
foodstuffs and containers pro\ide the opportunity
elements in genre paintings, allowing
artists to
enjoy various textures and shapes, and show off their ability to observe 7
and represent. A The
noble pursuit waterseller, a
proud
and monumental
figure,
hands a
glass to the boy
with solemnity. The subject
and colours are
typically
Spanish and represent the dignity of the nation.
Velazquez has used the painting to observe surfaces, suggesting the
water by white
glass of
highlights.
The water
down
dripping
the carafe
is
the side of
consummately
painted, stimulating our
senses of taste and touch as well as sight.
Diego Velazquez, The Waterseller of
A
the
a comic note,
left strike
referring to the
alcohol
623.
The most famous genre
vessels to be
by the serving boy on
filled
1
Painting flesh
village feast
The empty
Seville,
amount
of
consumed by the
scene by the sixteenthcentury
Italian
painter
Annibale Carracci,
work
is
this
as large as a grand
As both
rosy-cheeked peasants. This
history painting.
Netherlandish painting has a
Annibale and
beautifully observed child at
advocated drawing from
the front,
blissfully
unaware
life, it
his
brothers
has been suggested
an allegory of
and obviously content. The
that this
colour red runs through the
those aims - the butchers
is
the brothers, while
composition, suggesting
are
like
good
the
Italian
and the simple
cheer,
shapes of the costumes
and
make
furniture
the
scene pleasant to look
at,
while the plentiful food and drink
make
world for
it
its
an
ideal
inhabitants.
meat on carne,
"
term for the red
display
is
"viva
which also means
"live flesh."
The message
of truth to nature gives this
immediate and fresh
scene a more complex
meaning.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder
artistic
The Peasant Wedding,
Annibale Carracci, The
c.
1568-9.
c;knrk
Butcher's Shop, early
1
580s
.
The While
Aristocratic revels
Five Senses in
Rome,
Commissioned by King
Ribera,
shows in
aristocrats feasting
beautiful parkland
figure standing
table
is
on the
crowned with
surroundings They have
vine leaves, a reference
dining-room at the palace
obviously been indulging
to Classical paintings of
century, painted a series of
of Versailles, this painting
for
the five senses, departing
by the eighteenth-century
foreground
from Renaissance tradition
French
broken china. The central
a Spanish artist
Louis
working
the seventeenth
in Italy in
XV
for his
own
artist Lancret,
some
time, is
and the
strewn with
Bacchus, the god of wine.
Nicolas Lancret, The Breakfast of
Ham. 1735.
by using working-class
models Ribera was a talented draughtsman, praised for his ability to
copy accurately from nature, obvious here in the tactile qualities of
on the
table.
He
the foods
also used
dramatic contrasts of
light
and dark, suggesting the influence of Caravaggio
and
his followers.
Jusepe de Ribera, The Sense of
Taste,
c.
1614-1
5.
Breaking bread This painting, unlike
by
its
not
Dutch
show
artist,
many
does
comical or
reprehensible behaviour,
but rather an intimate
scene of peasants praying before a sparse meal. The
bread reminds us of the Eucharist,
and there
didactic text
is
a
on the wall
which reinforces the idea of instruction and morality.
The key on the wall
is
perhaps a reference to
Heaven humility,
a suggestion that
goodness, and
prayer are essential to
gam
entrance there.
Jan Steen, Grace before Meat, 1660.
The Folies-Bergeres
A
densely packed and noisy
bar
is
reflected in the mirror.
Drinks are laid out to tempt
customers. Are
we
to
imagine the barmaid herself as a or
commodity? She may
may
not be a prostitute,
an uncertainty of which viewers would have been
aware. The reflection
man
in
her than he could reality.
Are
different
the
looms closer to
we
do
in
seeing a
moment,
or her
potential "fate"? Her
expression reveals
little,
and the painting plays with these and other ambiguities, highlighting
the uncertainty of
life in
Pans at the time.
Edouard Manet, The Bar at the Folies-Bergeres.
1
88 -2 1
FOOD AND DRINK
203
Leisure Peasants carousing and dancing to comic effect were common feature in the genre painting of Northern Europe
and seventeenth centuries (see
in the sixteenth
page 202, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Wedding). Scenes showing
men and women
enjoying themselves are meant to well. In eighteenth-century
in the Netherlands,
patrons. style fell style
obviously
amuse the viewer as
was not as popular as
it
even though Dutch genre paint-
were collected by
ings
Peasant
France the representation
of lower-class entertainment
was
Tli e
aristocratic
and middle-class
or beautiful parks. Couples this
often
ideal world,
wear
far
theatrical
stroll, sing,
removed from
and dance
real
life.
in
They
costume - many of the scenes
draw on theatre, such as the popular Italian Renaissance comedies,
known
hedonism of court is
as life,
the
cow/media
particularly
delVarte.
The
under King Louis XV,
captured in paintings of parties,
balls,
and
picnics.
Rococo genre scenes were extremely popular with both aristocratic
and bourgeois patrons, and were often
engraved, making them available to a wider public.
As the pomp and ceremony of the Baroque from favour, the more light-hearted Rococo
took
the gaiety,
its
place, characterized
frivolity,
by works
reflecting
and voluptuousness of the period.
Aristocratic pursuits
Hunting was King Louis XV's favourite sport,
and
this subject,
the repas de chasse,
Rococo paintings appear spontaneous. Figures are graceful, nature is allowed to run wild,
and loose,
was
invented
especially for him. Fashionable ladies
and gentlemen
a
rest after
morning's hunting while servants
flowing lines and gay colours abound.
attend to horses and prepare food.
The aristocracy
The brushwork,
at play
foliage,
is
particularly in the
typically
Rococo, with
Informal scenes showing the rich at play are closely
light,
associated with the Rococo style. Influenced by the
edges. Van Loo uses strong primary
pastoral tradition of sixteenth-century Venetian painting,
as seen in the
Titian,
work of such
artists as
genre painting took the leisured
French aristocracy as
its
Giorgione and lifestyle
of the
predominant subject. Watteau,
Boucher, Lancret, and van Loo based their works on the idylls of
a Golden Age, setting them in shady
feathery strokes and no sharp
colours for clothes. Engravings of this subject
were very popular -
aristocracy
and bourgeoisie were
quick to emulate their
ruler's tastes
Carle van Loo, The Rest During the Hunt, 1737.
woods Sunday afternoon At
first sight, this
seems to be a
harmonious representation of leisure in late nineteenth-century
Sun
France. strolling
falls
and
on people
lazing
on the
bank. The atmosphere still.
However,
closely,
is
when we
river
calm and look
more
the work reveals Seurat's
concerns about contemporary society Figures
seem
stiffly
poised
and mechanically positioned, and there
is
no
social interaction. Faces
are generalized.
The minute dots
of which the painting
is
comprised
suggest an absence of feeling technical accuracy, scientific precision,
and
skilled
observation
have combined to create a detached mood. Leisure pursuits are said to reveal society's true nature. Seurat presents a troubling
glimpse of the new, depersonalized industrial world.
Georges Seurat, Jatte,
204
GENRE
1884-6
La
Grande
Social critique
California sunshine
Max Beckmann
Hockney moved from England to
The German
California in 1963, seeking the
captures the atmosphere at a rich
escapist pleasures of
and sunbathing world of palm beautiful
in
swimming
an almost
idyllic
trees, cocktails,
young men. With
and
artist
high-society soiree
party-goer
in Paris.
Each
a caricature, and
is
the thick black outlines give the
impression of a spontaneous
its
strong colours and geometric
charcoal-like sketch. Just as this
forms, the painting appeals to our
rough
style contrasts
senses, evoking the ripple of cool
polish
and veneer
water, the heat, the bare skin,
and
the beauty of the surroundings.
The smoothness and
brilliance of
the grotesque faces contrast with
the elegant clothing of the partygoers,
who
push against each
the acrylic paint reinforce the
other
basic nature of the pleasurable
seem not to
experience.
Many
of Hockney's
with the
of the party,
and
the
in
cramped space. Most notice
certainly
one another,
no one
paying
is
swimming-pool scenes were based
any attention to the singer
in
on snapshots - records of
background. This society
shown
real
experiences reproduced on canvas.
David Hockney, Artist (Pool with
Portrait of
Two
Figures),
as
fragmented and
is
the
hypocritical.
an
Max Beckmann,
1972.
1931 (reworked 1947).
Paris Society,
opportunity to create a dazzling display of costumes, glittering surfaces,
and sumptuous
settings, or a good,
old-fashioned get-together. Such paintings can create a nostalgia for good times remembered, or an Arcadia,
an ideal world where
life
is
complicated and
less
come unencumbered with moral warnings
pleasures
or unpleasant consequences. Even in the twentieth century,
on the sensual
leisure scenes often focus
pleasures in
swimming
life,
as with David Hockney's paintings of
pools.
The bright colours of Impressionist scenes can suggest the gaiety and liveliness of people enjoying their free time; the swirl of line
and colour can also
convey the hazy atmosphere of crowded, smoky bars
The rebuilding of
or packed open-air restaurants. the centre of Paris under Baron
Haussman
in the
nineteenth century led to a profusion of social spaces, especially broad boulevards lined with
pavement
Impressionist paintings celebrated the
new
cafes.
diversions.
Scenes of cafe-concerts, theatres, and operas
reflect a
world where sensual and visual pleasures dominate. People view the world around them and are themselves
These paintings showed privileged
few could hope
activities in
to participate.
social divisions in France led to
which only a
observed. In view of the destruction wrought by the
The extreme
Franco-Prussian War and the
growing unrest among
the peasants and middle classes, culminating in 1789
with the French Revolution. The Rococo style had
many
Commune
the rebirth of leisure. In general, the colours that artists use in paintings
already begun to disappear in the latter half of the
of leisure scenes are bright and cheerful.
century and was succeeded by the Neoclassical revival
tary colours
- scenes of heroic deeds from ancient history replaced
strong primary colours are employed.
the frivolous activities of aristocrats at play. critics
labelled
"loose"
Many
Rococo immoral and degenerate, a
or "careless" style appropriate to a purely
Scenes of people subjects
for
at
life
leisure
paintings.
bounce
off
each other;
Complemen-
brilliant If
hues and an
artist
introduces dark clouds or an overcast sky, or depicts a party where
some
than happy, there
of the participants
may
seem
to be less
well be a symbolic meaning.
Leisure scenes are usually about an ideal world where
pleasure-seeking society.
Escaping everyday
of 1870-71,
Impressionist works can be read as a record of
A
can provide delightful
party,
whether
and elegant or basic and rowdy, allows the
opulent artist
an
the weather
is
escapism
a
in
always
fine,
providing a touch of
more mundane
attempt to burst the bubble
and forceful point about
is
Any
artistic
making a
specific
reality.
usually
society, as
can be seen
in the
works of Seurat and Beckmann.
LEISURE
Rural
life
The nineteenth century saw the tion, the abolition
of labour.
Many
which
came
and social and governmental
to the fore. Traditional occupations,
denoted the labours of the
in earlier paintings
months or provided material political
of industrializa-
post-revolutionary questions about the
rights of the individual
structures
rise
of slavery, and the modernization
and social
for comedy,
significance.
now
took on
Changing representa-
tions of the rural labourer over the course of the
century reflected both this social and political context
and the fundamental changes techniques employed in
in the subject
matter and
art.
European transition and working
Artists living
in Italy in the nineteenth
century, such as the Swiss painter Leopold Robert,
drawn with
Italy's
and
Classical
Although the figures
were
image of the peasant, and painted
to an idealized
in
artistic
heritage in mind.
such works are contemporary
peasants, they are overlaid with the beauty, piety, and dignity usually given to religious or mythological subjects.
Although realism became increasingly prominent
in the late nineteenth century, the idealized
mother and
Italianate peasant
image of the Romantic visions
child persisted in the
Leopold Robert
work of artists such as Adolphe William Bouguereau. In France the image of the peasant had a more political tone. Between 1789 and 1871 France endured
for
most of
were \iewed as a dangerous force with the potential to
in
was
and
in this
precedents and the work of
Old Masters
It
lived in Italy life,
painting draws on both Classical
four revolutions, and in Paris, in particular, peasants
threaten the social structure.
his
who
had painted
Rome. The peasant
woman
holding her baby at the apex
infinitely preferable
of the central group echoes
to
see paintings of rosy-cheeked peasants working,
Raphael's idealized images of
dancing, and content with their lot than to encounter
the
the large, rough, heavy-shod, and brutish creations of
the harmony of the figures
Madonna and
while
child,
with their environment, and the
controversial painters such as Millet and Courbet. These
composition's balance, remind us
realistic
images of peasants seemed to tlueaten the
where
archical structure of art,
biblical
hier-
and mythological
subjects provided moral and intellectual stimulation.
challenging the
norms of the
of Poussin's carefully constructed scenes. This
By
work was
a great
success at the French Salon
traditional art world, the
paintings seemed, by extension, to threaten society.
of 1831, presenting an
image
of industrious, healthy,
and
contented
Italian
peasants which
complied with current ideas about
Market forces
suitable subjects for painting,
The simple faces of
Millet's
peasants
appealed to public taste
were also
Arriving in the Pontine Marshes,
1830.
portrayals, not aesthetically pleasing. In fact, because
of the need to sell his work, Millet, himself the son of
compared by
Timeless labours
a peasant, eventually toned
down
his
more graphic
The coarse features of
Millet's
depictions of the
numbing and harsh labours of the
imposing sower would have
countryside and
turned to slightly more
signified his
scenes of rura]
Some
idealized
Realist artists
chose to exhibit their work
generic, basic,
there
independent^
aware
thai
rather
than
their subjects
GENRE
low
in
the
traditional
Salon.
and styles were considered
is
social position to
and rough. Yet
something almost sacred
about the
man and
his
work, for
the spreading of the gospel
of sowing.
Christ to the act
The labourer
is
an
essential part of the cyclical
the French public. His clothes are
life.
and
France.
Leopold Robert, Harvesters
was potentially many who favoured more restrained
perceived as having a quality which upsetting and, for
in
is
processes of the land and of France's agrarian tradition.
Jean-Francois Millet, The Sower, 1850.
Rural devotions
Country routines As
in
German
Leopold Robert's work,
peasants return from the local
Where in
the characters and setting
the earlier work are idealized,
the peasant
here
is
in
the scene seems more mIi
and
real as
a
proved controversial
the conservative
art
artist
who
show in Paris was the "peasant painter" Gustave Courbet. He encouraged a reputation as a Bohemian provincial, shocking the bour-
organised a notorious one-man
geoisie.
Even
and lack of
his technique, with its loose
finish,
perfection of
seemed
brushwork
to challenge the polish
more conventional
and
life in
would
them
images of modern
Millet celebrated
to be. Their observations of the natural
Post-Impressionist artists such as Pissarro, van Gogh,
and Gauguin. By the time these three were exhibiting latter
half of the
the
century,
changed again as industry and rapidly,
and
and with changes
in religious
experience across generations.
women
at prayer raises issues of
education for
women and
peasant
and allows
class,
the
for close
angles,
showing the influence of
such as Hans Holbein.
Gustave Courbet, The Peasants
artists
of Flagey Returning from the
Wilhelm
Fair,
in
Leibl, Three
Women
a Church, 1882.
was one
of Homer's
"farm pictures" of the 1870s, typically
showing tasks from the
farming day. the
artist's
Many
that
critics felt
main aim
at that time,
especially with this picture,
was
not simply to represent everyday
world helped prepare the way for Impressionist and
the
here
artists.
France - things as they were rather than as people like
is
Formal experiment This painting
life
Courbet and
Leibl
Northern European Renaissance
world.
1850-5
shocking and were likely to be ridiculed. One
Wilhelm
observation of faces at different
Such frank depictions of
rural realities in
The
less orchestrated,
is
artist
concerned with Bavarian costumes
The different attitudes of the
the foreground
realistically heavy-set.
composition
u
fair.
they, like the Realists,
countryside had
railways
used
in
expanded
new artistic tech-
but to experiment within
traditional formal conventions.
is
interesting that
The horizontal fence that cuts
It
across the painting's surface
presented
in
three large sections caused
confusion
saw
its
in artistic circles.
Some
new world full of opportunities. when the Civil War of 1861-5
flourished, celebrating a
Homer
new
subject matter to the artist Winslow
(then at the beginning of his long career), he did
not focus on the suffering of war. For the most part he
inclusion as innovative,
while others thought shockingly ugly.
it
Homer
observed the military behind the front
was uses the
fence to provide a background for the figures that
makes them
resting, or is
best
amusing themselves. After
known
lines,
talking,
Homer summer days,
this period
for his paintings of hazy
innocent pastimes, and labours in the countryside.
stand out, but he also conveys
niques and subjects to portray the dramatic transitions.
referring to the space
The American experience In contrast to
French genre paintings, American paint-
However, he did continue to paint more challenging sub-
the depth of the scene by
Winslow Homer, 1875
beyond
it
Milking Time,
jects such as his observations of slaves in the South.
like his
The
had many connotations, and Homer,
role of the labourer
European counterparts, used the
ings of different classes and diverse occupations are a
and references
to
record of a socially optimistic period. Genre painting
concerns about
this
contemporary events
ari
of the past
to
convey
century of dramatic change.
RURAL LIFE
his
Urban
life Catching a train
panorama of
This
Victorian
society epitomizes the bustle of
nineteenth-century urban
crammed with
life. It is
from the
detail,
impish pickpocketing child to the
and her upper-class
bride Frith
himself
family.
the centre of
is in
the painting surrounded by his family. This realistic life
huge painting
not a
is
observation of everyday
but a carefully constructed
social
microcosm:
Frith
was
a
contemporary of Charles Dickens,
and
this painting
is
the pictorial
equivalent of the descriptive Victorian novel.
William Powell
Frith,
The
Railway Station, 1862
City
has often promised bright
life
ment,
new
dangers and potential tried to
pitfalls also
abound. Artists have
convey the impressions and sensations of
everyday urban
life
through a variety of means. They
have painted on a large
many
lights, excite-
pleasures, and future success, yet
scale, a device
Victorian painters,
employed by
used loose brushwork or
untraditional compositions as the Impressionists did,
or employed dramatic and unsettling contrasts of light
and dark, as
in the
work of Munch and Hopper.
The growth of the The hubbub of the nineteenth
century.
city
city
was new and
exciting in the
Industrialization
led
to
people
flocking to the city from the country, assisted by the
growth of the railway, an important symbol of change
which fascinated such
artists as
Turner and Monet. In
France, cafes, theatres, and watering holes proliferated in the
second half of the century. The
city
became a
space for people to see one another and be seen. Paintings of crowds, confusion, and excitement give
us a sense of the hustle and bustle of a big
city,
often
represented from a distance, as in Monet's Boulevard //is
(
Boccioni was not concerned with representing city
landmarks or precise incident but instead with convey-
'apucines.
City
life
Painted from a high vantage point, this elegant Pans boulevard
In the early twentieth century, the Italian artist
ing to the viewer the
sometimes
sometimes
thrilling,
is
I'mberto Boccioni found that distinct detail was inca-
disorientating feelings experienced in a crowd.
pable of expressing the sense of a busy throng and
chose a swirl of colour and angular shapes to suggest
movement and hubbub
(see page 195, Th< Sired Enters
City
life
also encouraged different classes to rub
shoulders, meeting in
crowded
boulevards. In a Victorian
stations or
work
on broad
like William
filled
with citizens milling
around, observed by those
Powell
leaning out over a balcony on
the
right. This
painted with a
wintry scene
restricted palette. I
lie
House). His works ate an assault on our senses, just
as the real world might be, and are
filled
with incident.
all
spaces of the canvas
Compared with
Canaletto's scenes of Venice
in
the precision of
(he eighteenth century,
Friths Tlie Railway Station, classes mingle but remain distinct, their
status.
more
costumes and manners indicating
However,
difficult to
in Impressionist
works
discern status, just as
it
it
is
their
sometimes
was becoming
is
muted and It
is
to decipher class, and
impossible
Monet
makes no moral comment, presenting the scene before him as a uniformly blurred tableau.
Claude Monet, Boulevard des
with their wealth of anecdotal detail, this
phobic,
confusing
(;knre
world.
Like
the
is
a claustro-
Impressionists,
harder to read society the prostitute
itself. In
was often used
particular, the figure of
to
embody
a
new
social
Capucines. 1873.
unease. Prostitutes dressed for evening entertainment
Fear and anxiety This painting
the
mam
shows
Norway.
deep
art
horrors,
and foreboding. Here he
of
m
and sombre clothes
menacing environment. The
a
strange black
and
things
commodity
in
to
an increasingly
its
sinister note.
on the faces of the
less tightly knit in cities,
village
which welcomed
became
transience
popular theme of nineteenth-
a
century French novels, and artists depicted the perils of the
city,
often showing pleasures that
became
may have
been age-old, but increasing populations and
disparities
factor in
in cities
increased the numbers practising
it.
many
life,
a constant stream of people seeking their fortune. This
consumer-driven society The occupation
to create
is
with
through abuse or disenchantment. Alcohol
The crowds and clamour of
towering
from the windows
was
society
Compared
pavements.
many
of these representations -
tainted
a key
is
moods can
be
altered for the better in the chatter and cheer of the cafe, or for the
worse
in the depression, addiction,
and
loneliness of the drinker, as in the painting Absinthe city life also led artists
by Edgar Degas.
paintings in which an atmosphere of
anxiety, alienation,
not comforting and casts a yellow glare
city,
Urban alienation
houses
uncivilized than the
light
lived inde-
monument on
presence adds a
The
from gentlewomen;
not prostitutes. In the
represent the ultimate
of wealth
the right seems more primal
opposite and
who were
anxieties,
depicts a group of people with staring eyes
now women who worked and
were not always as they seemed. The prostitute came
Munch's
is full
difficult to distinguish
there were
pendently
Karl Johan,
street in Oslo,
were often
crowded
and loneliness
is
evoked. The street
scenes of the Norwegian painter Edvard
Munch convey
Pictorial poetry
A
similar sense of solitude and detachment pervades
passers-by.
Edvard Munch, Evening on
Karl
the anxiety of the individual in a crowd. His figures
seem
Johan. 1892
like
automatons, following one another
down
paintings in urban settings by the twentieth-cent ury
American found
artist
Edward Hopper, a despondency not of the countryside. He was seen
in his paintings
as a "pictorial poet," the voice of a vast and often bleak
America
in the fust half
of the century. His characters
do not communicate, remaining isolated from one another
in their quintessential^
urban surroimdings.
Service stations, hotels, cinemas, diners, and streets
provided him with settings for the everyday situations
he observed. Strong colours and unusual angles lend a sense of unease to his urban genre scenes, while dramatic
light contrasts
and garish colours convey the
harsh, modern, electric glare
which pervades
city* life.
Drinking absinthe Urban despair
is
pared
Degas to two figures The man and
woman
down
in
by
a cafe.
next to
sit
one another but do not speak.
He looks away while she dully in front.
been
instantly
woman, in
It
apparent that
drinking alone
the early morning,
this
a cafe
in
was not
respectable The absinthe glass
stares
would have
seems to glow before her
The focus
in this
American
artist
is
"the green fairy" provided an
work by the
Edward Hopper
not on the faceless audience
watching the
escape from the harsh existence
film,
solitary figure of
but on the
the usherette,
whereas modern viewers see all
the isolation and melancholy
of urban
condensed
life
into
the solitary figure of the usherette,
many
of Hopper's
in Paris
Alcoholism was a great problem this city at
Ironically,
the
Highly addictive and stupefying,
endured by many
influenced by film.
Loneliness in
illuminated
with green, perhaps to extent of absinthe's
permeating French
is
tinged
show
power
the
cannot even see the screen from her position - her thoughts are
turned inward reflection.
society.
c
contemporaries saw
in
boredom and
The cinema
is
as romantic
and
his
works
idealizing.
Edward Hopper, New
York
Movie, 1939
only
in
half
Edgar Degas, Absinthe,
the doorway. She
in
the end of the century,
and the whole painting
in
1876
full,
adding to the sense of
desolation Hopper's compositions
often have this cinematographic quality as
he was much
URBAN LIFE
Travel and the exotic he highlights the domestic quality
Ancient pleasures This
Roman
bathing scene
carefully researched
was
of
from new
is
ancient
the atmosphere. Choosing poses
to Victorian Britain.
and
artist
Toward Delacroix had a
long-standing interest culture
and
visited
North Africa
in
in
Oriental
Morocco
in
acceptable
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The
life
Baths of Caracalla, 1899
the foreground,
of worlds outside the experience of artists and viewers
in
1832. He was
became an
increasingly popular subject for genre
and military conquests
and architecture he encountered
(especially those spearheaded
by Napoleon) had made
there and kept journals on his
Europe more
familiar with
and interested
in far-flung
recording his appreciation
travels,
and wonder
reminiscent of
at this
world
Homer and
based on drawings he in
had the gathering forces of colonialism.
locales, as
Whether exploring exotic
of
ancient civilization. This painting is
women
set in
the end of the eighteenth century and
paintings. Travel, excavation,
while
from everyday
activities
it
was
throughout the nineteenth century, the depiction
inspired by the people, colours,
of
Rome was
Alma-Tadema could only imagine
for the
Exotic worlds
the ancient world. There
only because the scene
archaeological discoveries, but
The French
life in
also a strong erotic charge
made
Morocco, and the
artists
vistas or past civilizations,
found new ways to depict the inhabitants of
these distant worlds, far removed from the day-to-day realities of
Western
life.
details of the setting are carefully
observed. However, the
composition and colouring also reflect
the influence of Venetian
painters of the sixteenth century
such as Giorgione and
Eugene
Delacroix,
Exploring the past Historical genre paintings allowed the "high art" of
history painting to
meet the "low
genre work.
art" of
Titian.
Women
of
Algiers in their Apartment, 1834.
Most
artists
considered their calling to be diminished
by painting anything too contemporary or everyday, yet they needed to earn a
living.
Most compromised by
painting portraits or smaller genre
works
for a wider
market. These works had less grandiose subjects than the heroic ones depicted in history paintings, but
high-minded
artists felt that
with history rather than
they were
reality.
still
many
engaged
The nineteenth-century
French painter Ingres produced many such works with subjects
drawn from the everyday
life
of famous artists
of the past such as Raphael, or great poets such as Dante.
more
Owing
to their small size these
works were also
affordable.
The subjects
in all
of these genre scenes were
distanced from the viewers, as can be seen from the
(iKNRE
works
here.
illustrated
This
distancing
was
often
temporal, as in Ingress painting Henri PV of France
Playing
with
his
geographical, as in
by
his
Children,
Women
It
it
contemporary, and
The distancing
to depict scenes
within
a
effect
artist
working
in
made it possible for artists
which would have been inappropriate
contemporary context.
century, the
rival
could even be both, as in Baths of
Caracalla by Alma-Tadema, a Dutch Britain.
could also be
of Algiers in their Apartment
fellow Frenchman,
Delacroix.
but
In
the
twentieth
Mexican painter Diego Rivera showed how
he imagined society to be
in his
country before the
he made a
arrival of the Spanish. In
doing
statement about what
had now become. This work
it
so,
political
was often considered polemical or inflammatory.
^
-
•
Popular history
History as manifesto
Although Rivera depicted some of the in
most
Mexican
significant history,
moments
he also took
great interest in the everyday of farmers, priests, jewellers,
of
life
as here,
or,
and with the customs
Mexican society before the of the Spanish
arrival
are simple
and
and
forceful
message was contained
in his
paintings,
them
in
in
and displayed
public spaces,
buildings,
on
streets,
some were
destroyed or defaced. Although
born and trained
in
IV,
arriving to visit Henri
him as he
interrupting
with
painting, based
plays
This sentimental
his children
on anecdote,
demonstrates the king's reputedly sympathetic character. Henri
who became
the
king of France
famed
for his
in
first 1
and France, where
was
589,
common
touch,
monarchy had been restored
in
France at the time that Ingres painted this subject, so he clearly
intended
it
for a royalist clientele
popular with patrons, both France and
was
in
Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique
styles.
Civilisation
Zapotheque, 1929-35.
living at
in
where
Florence,
modernist
ET{i.T
many
legends surround him. The
he became acquainted with
Diego Rivera, La
IV,
Bourbon
Such scenes were extremely
Mexico,
Diego Rivera also travelled to Spain, Italy
ambassador
courage, and grandeur, and
Rivera believed that a
political
and
and he
bright,
paints in a direct style.
His colours
Ingres depicts the Spanish
the time.
Ingres, Henri IV of France Playing
with His Children, 1817.
fashion.
$^*S\frsr,
The intrusion of Western characters
paintings v.
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J
themselves remain intact and unspoiled.
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is
into these
solely through their viewership - the scenes
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The world of the exotic genre painting
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erotically,
£=1, -•
and half-naked
would have appealed
A;
was an attempt
charged
is
women and free sexual mores Alma-Tadema's work
to many.
to recreate a world
where
was
life
thought to be more simple. He distanced himself
through both geography and time from his subjects, satisfying both the prurience
I
his contemporaries.
I
Herculaneum
mm
k
^
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of,
and
interest
how
in,
the
Alma-Tadema was concerned with the
lived.
tiles,
objects,
and archi-
tecture to construct imaginary settings from
vJ«i2>-HB MF'
had
early nineteenth century
accuracy of his scenes, copying
\jm
morals of
strict
The discovery of Pompeii and
in the
increased knowledge
Romans
and the
all
these
elements. This Classical authenticity gives his paintings
r ~^>
which use scrupulously observed everyday objects to
1
\ S*vL'.s_j5fiSik.
a conviction similar to that of Dutch genre works,
V
create the effect of reality. Curiosity also lies behind
scenes.
The
allure of the exotic
many
exotic genre
The world was becoming more
navigable;
people could travel further and report back about
Keyhole views of Turkish baths and luxuriant paintings
what they had
of recumbent female slaves were extremely popular
America and Australia functioned as a form of docu-
with collectors, both male and female. The nudity
mentary reportage. In the
would have been provocative
a contemporary setting,
nineteenth centuries the American artist George Catlin
but an Oriental setting allowed artists more freedom
produced more than 350 scenes of native American
from these constraints. Delacroix's work during and
Indians and their daily
after his trip to
erotic
in
North Africa
in 1832
shows both the
and the violent potential of these exotic yet con-
seen.
Genre scenes of native peoples late eighteenth
life,
making
it
people to conjure up visions of the
American Indians were
way
in
and early
possible for
New
World.
at times painted sympatheti-
temporary subjects. The different culture allowed
cally, their
Delacroix to paint the kind of fantasies forbidden in
them as savages. Native Americans appeared as either welcoming or savage; the implication was that either they were happy
respectable Western society. Interestingly the violence that is often
shown
is
rarely that of the colonial French,
is
of
also true that
life
recorded with
some
dignity,
but rather that of the local inhabitants, implying that no
to see the colonials in their land or they
Westerner would ever behave
enough
in
such an "uncivilized"
although
it
artists treated
to deserve the crushing
were brutish
outcome of conflict.
TRAVEL AND THE EXOTIC
Music Music-making
has always been one of the most
popular subjects for painting, allowing the
artist
to extend a work's scope to include hearing as well as sight.
Descriptions of art and music share a vocabulary.
We speak
celebrate special events.
reduced,
as in Le
Even
if
circumstances are
Nain's peasant
groups such as
Peasant Interior with an Old Flute-Player (see page 196),
music
present as a reminder that even
is still
of colour tones and harmonies and of the
the poor can attain happiness in the humblest sur-
musical terms. James
roundings. In mythology stringed instruments were
Abbott McNeill Whistler, a nineteenth-century American
considered more lofty than their wind counterparts,
composition of a painting,
artist
working
in
all
Europe, even entitled several of his
landscape works which expressed
mood through
and
this distinction
can
would be appropriate
still
to
but less so to give him a
colour harmonies "Symphony" or "Nocturne."
be seen
in genre
works - it
show a peasant playing a r
pipe,
Two
visions of music
This painting by the Dutch artist
Jan Vermeer
lute.
shows a young
woman poised as A viola da gamba
propped
the foreground, which might
many
Music lessons were commonly used as the setting for
suggest that she expects
concerns and the social
seductions in the novels of the eighteenth and nine-
someone
teenth centuries, since the young male teacher enjoyed
is
Depictions of music in genre painting artists'
ready to
is
Music and love
Music in genre scenes forms, reflecting both
if
come
in
contexts in which paintings were made. In Greek
mythology, music possessed a magical and redemptive
the unusual privilege of spending time alone in the
company
music, suggesting a celestial celebration or heralding a
Music engenders harmony between
event.
special
of young
century Dutch sitting
women. Scenes by
artist
the seventeenth-
Jan Vermeer of women standing or
by musical instruments have been interpreted as
containing moral meanings about
life
and
is
used as a way of showing goodwill and
Moor medium
major concern
is
virtue.
However, on the wall
a copy
is
the Utrecht
artist Dirck
Baburen.
shows a
in
It
van
prostitute
a low-cut dress playing the
love, but his
the play of different forms and
of
air
of The Procuress, a painting by
lute,
people and
in
The room
to join her.
ordered, giving an
accomplishment and
power - Orpheus charmed wild beasts with his lyre. Religious paintings often show angels making heavenly
play.
crammed together
roguish
man
with a
money and
offering
happiness. In the thirteenth-century painting of a
textures against each other. In the world of eighteenth-
an aged procuress demanding a
and a Christian shown below, music
century French painting, music again reinforces the
share.
is
the
which allows
idea of pleasure and indulgence. The
cultures,
fancy dress
another.
"low
links to be established between the two more usually known for making war on one Harmony also prevails in Pieter Brueghel's
life"
Musical
scenes, in which peasants play music to
harmony
This thirteenth
shows a
harmony between time
when
in
vision of
religions at a
crusades raged across
the Holy Land, plays,
lute's direct ancestor,
when
the Christian
he cannot reach
for his
sword The instruments seem to be a kind of
lute,
the Arab
GENRE
oud
and
is
considered the king of instruments
book
is
the
the Muslim tradition
Muslim musicians were
Many invited
t
o the court of Alfonso the Wise,
whom this book was made. Unknown Spanish artist, A Moor and a Christian Playing for
Lutes, c. 122 1-84.
aristocrats in
The contrast between
Baburen's painting and Vermeer's establishes the
shown
in Watteau's Tlie
Pleasures of the
and
Ball delight in their senses, dancing and courting to the
Jan Vermeer,
sound of elegantly plucked
Seated at a
strings.
theme
of profane
ideal love.
A Young Woman
Virginal,
c.
1
670.
»
Musicians at a wedding
Music and nature This pleasure-seeking
crowd seems
Russian
almost impromptu, way to enjoy
newly-weds fused together,
decorative arches,
stroll
and
and dance
the
outside The musicians are almost
hidden from view; the
right,
we
pillars
mind
called to
The
rustling leaves.
seem to mingle, and the
art,
from medieval scenes of
cancan dancers
Parisian bars. Oipheus's lyre
in
fertility,
to
in
his instrument,
and a
of heavenly harmony. Chagall's
expressive use of colour gives us
a sense of folklore and traditional
light,
but also prefigures the
ritual,
paintings of the Expressionists
who
sound
that attempt to recreate
enjoy them.
Antoine Watteau. The Pleasures
Marc Chagall, The Wedding.
of the
c.
Ball,
c.1714.
1961
their
base,
/
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Bacchus and Pan, used percussion
more sensual
^
rituals,
natures.
'..
i
The
connotations of music as a seducer's tool were often
used
become
nineteenth-century
may have caused peace
instrument and pipes to create wild, frenzied alluding
no
fleeting nature of these pleasures
and harmony around him, but the Classical gods of
wine and
is
dove hovers above him, symbolic
art
*&&& ^^H Sr
troubadours, and wandering minstrels to depicof the
and
scale than the
between romantic love and music
appears everywhere in
tions
m
delicate painting suggests the
and of those
ladies,
has
first
and the
Nature and
of the painting
left half
longer a recognisable figure but
are those
of the gushing fountain
man
The musicians occupy
couple The cello player
see them to
sounds
wife.
are larger
tucked into the shadow
of the grandiose
artist
representing their union as
music, and dance. Watteau's
characters, although sheltered by
link
Marc Chagall shows
to have gathered in an informal,
talk,
The
wedding scene by the
This Jewish
Ik^^G* fl
?
If
seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting and
eighteenth-century
Rococo
French
whose
scenes,
1
II
worlds were otherwise far apart.
/
1
i if
m
A
Music in a modern age In the
second half of the nineteenth century, the
contemporary
which
subjects
the
A£g#5
Impressionists
portrayed were as revolutionary as their techniques.
The cafe-concert was one of the most popular venues - customers would enjoy their drinks against a background of singing and playing -
I
for socializing in Paris
and opera and
ballet
were also popular
Degas painted many scenes
leisure pursuits.
set at the ballet or
>^
showing
orchestras and singers, trying to recreate the atmosphere
Parisian night
our \iew as
if
we were
in the
life
This late nineteenth-century
by using his Impressionist technique and by cutting into
painting
audience straining to see
communicates the loud
and smoky atmosphere of a
from behind other people or objects. In
Dog he
ruthlessly exposes
Tiie
Song of the
how unglamorous
can look when distorted by the
entertainment thought to be
effort of singing.
Expressionists such as the Russian artist Wassily
Kandinsky took these scenes a step further
in
the
twentieth century. Instead of recreating the world as
it
looked and reproducing an impression of it, they tried to paint
how music sounded and
shape
in
a far more abstract way.
felt, It is
using colour and difficult to qualify
these works as genre because the recognisable shapes of
V
•"
«
lv
tawdry and the singer as they
sit,
close
We
presume
crowd
entertaining a
chatting and drinking. is
intimidatmgly
- Degas's preoccupation
the garishly coloured scene and
with the creation of sound.
p.
feel as
though the
sittings,
they continue to reflect our
artist
observing this moment.
as scenes from everyday
came
We
is
present
In
fact the
to his studio for
and the work took
longer than
experience and as such can be as expressive as the genre
is
with conveying the atmosphere of
singer
works of previous centuries.
vulgar.
is
Our viewpoint
people and instruments have often disappeared. However, life
form of
Parisian cafe-concert, a
the face
is
far
apparent.
Edgar Degas. The Song of the
^^sii
Dog.
c 1876-7.
:
Animal painting Animals frequently take second place to humans in art. paintings, for instance, they usually narrative,
form part of the
In religious
setting for the
such as the ox and ass present when Christ was bom. Real
and arcadian landscapes often include animals; for example, grazing herds can indicate the wealth of the landowner whose estate depicted, and
vanishing
when
is
John Constable's working farm animals represent a
way of life
at the
time of the Industrial Revolution.
stand for virtues and morals. As a result, in Renaissance and Baroque portraits, the sitter is often
accompanied by an animal
his or her character or reinforces social status.
example, was depicted with an ermine, representing exceptions,
it
is
not until the eighteenth century, with
the
work of
artists
such as George Stubbs. In the nineteenth century
Delacroix's lion fights celebrate the beauty and strength of wild animals,
while artists such as Landseer invested animals with sentimentality and
lamb
that represents Christ
emblem books
include
is full
of symbolic
and the winged
lion
anthropomorphism. Hockney's paintings of his dogs, however, are true
many animals
that
portraits of individuals,
who happen to be
animals.
Anatomical accuracy
Symbolic animals This graceful white hart,
or stag, decorates the exterior of a small folding
altarpiece belonging to
King Richard
of England
II
The hart
(see
page
was
Richard's personal
28).
symbol. Figures appearing inside panels of the
altarpiece
wear badges
displaying the white hart,
and Richard himself sports
image. Here the
white hart
is
a symbol
of regal power;
announces the royal
hart
it
clearly
altarpiece's
however, also
beautifully observed,
suggesting that the
may have used
own
white
he kept
in
George Stubbs
a highly successful
built
and
career painting horses
owners. This
their
and remarkably
life
size
lifelike
portrait of a racehorse
one of
is
his masterpieces.
It
displays his understanding
of the anatomy,
movement,
and psychology of
horses,
based on rigorous study
perfectly captures the
muscular energy beneath the animal's glossy coat, the veins standing out
his leg
on
his
in his
which
tendons, and the
nervous tension expressed
artist
the king's
hart,
English artist
haunch, the tautness of
ownership. The is,
The eighteenth
and observation. Stubbs
a cloak embroidered its
interest in
its
natural history, that animals are treated as subjects in themselves, in
they are employed symbolically. Christian art
of St Mark. Renaissance
with
for
I,
With a few
purity.
Animals can, however, have greater prominence, particularly
creatures, such as the
on the
that suggests
Queen Elizabeth
eye.
George Stubbs Whistlejacket, 1762.
the Forest of
Agricultural prosperity
Windsor, as a model.
English or French School, The Wilton Diptych, 1395-9.
This portrayal of rural in
life
the seventeenth
Netherlands can be interpreted
in
several ways.
Most obviously
it is
a
virtuoso display of artistic
achievement, showing the artist's ability
to recreate
the forms and textures of the external world; the
viewer can almost touch the
soft,
shaggy coat of
the young
bull. Potter's
work was based on careful observation of
nature.
The
bull's health
and strength might
also
be read as a metaphor for
contemporary Dutch
prosperity,
much
of
which was based on agricultural
its
economy.
Paulus Potter, The Young Bull.
dE\ B
i
1647.
National pride
-
Landseer's stag
is
portrayed
with anatomical accuracy
and assurance, but far
it
is
from being simply an Nobility in labour
exercise in recording natural history This
famous image
This
enormous painting
power and
seems to encapsulate the
celebrates the
confidence and national
beauty of working animals.
pride of Victorian Britain.
The magnificent oxen are
The stag stands
a
viewed across an expanse
and
of rich earth, towering
in
romantically grand
misty Scottish landscape.
Crowned with
majestic
entitled
Monarch of the
Glen, he
king of
presented as the
is
all
he surveys. The
low viewpoint makes the viewer
literally
up to
look
him. This anthropomorphism,
human
or application of
values and sentiments to
the animal world, of Landseer,
is
and of
animal painting
in
horizon. The arrangement of the
and pointedly
antlers
above a deliberately low
typical
Victorian
general.
oxen m'a
line
the picture space
across
recalls
the composition of a Classical frieze, reinforcing their status as heroic
creatures. Rosa Bonheur,
one of the most eminent French
artists in
her day,
specialized in paintings
based on her meticulous
and
lifelong study of the
animal world.
Edwin Landseer,
Rosa Bonheur, Ploughing
Monarch of the
in
Glen,
the Nivemais, 1849.
1851.
Animal portraits David Hockney often uses his pet
dachshunds as the
subjects of his paintings
and drawings. Here you can sense the intimacy and trust
and
between the his
artist
dog, which creates
an informal, affectionate, but unsentimental portrait.
There
is
also a great
feeling of spontaneity
about the painting, with
its
unconventional viewpoint,
both low up,
and
down and
its
close
cropped edges,
suggesting a snapshot.
David Hockney, Dog Painting 30, 1995
-
Dream creatures
This picture presents a
world
far
external
removed from
reality.
the Spanish
At
artist
this time,
Joan Miro
was making what he called
"dream paintings,"
which experimented with ideas originating in his
subconscious. Here Miro
seems to explore human dreams and
desires.
The
comical, cartoon-like
barking at the
dog
moon may
be read as a metaphor for any creature, animal or
human, consciously or unconsciously longing for
something beautiful,
mysterious,
and forever
beyond reach
Joan Miro, Dog Barking at the
Moon, 1926.
ANIMAL PAINTING
Sporting paintin,
•
-
.-•„ **
•?
V
~
:
:
5
Staged action Florentine
servants
stags
the animals' bodies are played
their
and dogs converge from
each side of
this
against the straight lines of the
scene on the
trees
the centre. Instead of
in
,
The curving forms of
servants.
huntsmen and
v
m
.
and
patterns
lances,
all
forming subtle
over the picture.
In
portraying the stags' violent
the middle, the stags and dogs
death, however, Uccello creates a
follow each other
poetic fairytale-like image of the
zigzagging procession into
Symmetry
hunt. in
everywhere -
is
the distance. This
the grouping of the huntsmen,
is
many ways
is
it
was very popular
the
it
resembles
the true pastime of great lords,
a suitable pursuit for a courtier, and
it
in
Forest, c.1460.
the most important, since in it
sport as
Paolo Uccello, Hunt
dogs and
warfare; moreover,
is
a graceful
decoration.
the placing of the trees, and the pairing of the hunting
in
we know
that
in the ancient world."
Hunting scenes usually depict the upper levels of society as the Day
at the races
Pollard's
ince Neolithic times,
the
middle the starter his
horses to
to convey
start.
It
this.
In
is
walls of caves with images of the animals by which
the
in his
Hunt
in the
Hunters
signal for the
sporting subjects have featured in the art of most
series
made
a dramatic
cultures and societies.
chant, so
artist
has tried
The waiting
start. Pollard's
view, however, which
is
trained
wide-angle
makes both
encouraged to
it
for the
is
in the
one of a
townhouse of an Antwerp mer-
must be seen as an idealized view of
rural
pursuits, rather than as a realistic picture of country
The hunting
instinct
life.
Up
the
to
nineteenth
century the principle sport
depicted in painting appears to be hunting. this is
No doubt
because hunting was the favoured sport of the
wealthy,
who were
also in
many
cases the people
commissioned works of
art.
The Renaissance
Many
of Rubens's landscapes, and other Flemish
and Dutch seventeenth-century views of the countryside,
feature ordinary people hunting. Again, these
were paintings made
who
horses and spectators extremely small, diffuses the tension of the is
dogs
(see page 185). Brueghel's painting
around the racecourse the
Our eye
their
Snow
spectators' attention
scene.
from a winter hunt with
they were surrounded, and which they often hunted,
racehorses prance impatiently
on the
in Uccello's
about to
is
arm - the
moment, and the
All
huntsmen - as
Forest, although Brueghel depicted peasants returning
scene shows us a horse
race about to begin.
lower
when people decorated
Paintings
for wealthy city dwellers.
show the hunting of many different kinds
ideal,
of creatures - most commonly, stags and boars, but also
was
foxes and birds. Rubens, in the seventeenth century, and
codified by Baldassare Castiglione (see page 142)
roam across the racecourse, past
that a
in physical as well as
Delacroix in the nineteenth century, also depicted the
the private grandstand and into
mental pursuits. In The Book of the Courtier, published
hunting of wild lions, which are fantasy paintings,
the distance
in
James
gentleman should excel
L528, Castiglione
speaks of spoils that
are: "closely
although Delacroix drew on studies of zoo animals.
Pollard, Doncaster Races,
related to Horses Starting for the St Leger.
1831
(iKNRE
exertion.
arms and demand a
Among
these
it
seems
great to
me
The hunting
deal of manly that
hunting
is
It
presented the
pott rait sitter as
was
also extremely popular.
a fully rounded man,
who
9
Life
was
and
and death
American
artist
picture
is
about shooting -
therefore plummeting
downward
inspired by the conflict
hunter?
between man and nature. This
title
is
toward the water, or
Winslow Homer
with separate barrels of a
and death reminds us of
the
fragility
of
full
duck on the
right
of our
Winslow Homer,
been shot
around which the crowd marks out a circular arena.
Homer's reflection on
life
own
confronts the
behind the
and
horse,
1909.
Left,
all
In
the
mounted picador
middle, the
lives
Right
drama
bullfight takes place in a
traditional Spanish village square,
away from the next
bullet?
is
The
mate extending
shooting one duck after another,
shotgun. The image
scene with
this
a compelling sense of
the throws of death,
in
or twisting
tension and ambiguity. Has the
Intense encounter
Goya constructs
flying
to escape the
Is its
neck
its
its
alludes to the practice of
is it
The men
bull.
and the
bull
picador's
facing the conflict,
increase the sharpness of focus
on
this intense
moment,
as does
the empty area of clear ground
might be a king, statesman, or gentleman the running of his estate, but ical pursuits, in
the
in
charge of
around the
who also excelled at phys-
manner of the
is
ideal Renaissance
strength.
The
bull himself
and
He and the horse seem
to confront each other
man. Velazquez's portrait of King Philip IV of Spain of 1632-3. for instance, (see page 163)
bull.
a figure of great dignity
in
an
impassive stand-off.
shows him standing
Francisco de Goya, Bullfight
outside, in hunting dress. His pose carries a long, elegant
is
comes
indicated by the low horizon
towers. The portrait
was made
line,
This
is
above which he
for Philip's
new
hunting
members
Mr Andrews, who
death for the bulls but also possible death for their
stands casually with his shotgun, seems to have been
human opponents
hunting on his own, but during the latter half of the
and etched images of bullfighting are powerful psycho-
popular. This generated a
in
became extremely
minor genre of paintings of its their horses
and dogs, which continued to nourish throughout the
in the ring.
logical studies of the conflict
and
his bulls are often given
Goya's extensive painted
between men and animals,
more
nobility than the
men
who surround them. They also exhibit Goya's attraction to
what was popular rather than
nineteenth century, with the growth of foxhunting as a
to
what was
elitist.
In the nineteenth century, horse racing
became
established as a favourite sport, especially in England.
fashionable sport in Britain.
France, and the United States. Racing began as an
Popular and
elitist
upper class
activity,
but evolved into an event attended
With a few exceptions, group hunting scenes shy away
by people from
from showing the
with the opportunity to paint scenes combining sport-
killing of the
show
hunted animal, and
the sitter before or after
the chase. Goya's images of the Spanish bullfight,
however, are
full
of drama, tension and violence.
bullfight takes place in
is
restless.
enhanced by Degas's
behind the starting pole, which
surface, forcing our eye to
around the picture space similarly unsettled
way.
In
in
move a
the
middle distance a jockey gallops away. The front of the horse's
and
is
hidden from our view
this,
combined with Degas's
sketchy brushstrokes, gives a feeling of swift
The scene's
movement.
informality
and
viewpoint were probably influenced by photography
sport
hunting portraits tend to
a race begins.
the foreground
cuts right through the picture
body
own, featuring members of the hunt with
in
see
the
unusual viewpoint of him, from
by rows of transfixed spectators, and offers certain
eighteenth century, the group hunt
We
jockeys and their horses
This effect
importance of hunting as a gentlemanly accomplishcentury England.
one of Degas's many
seems nervous and
Mr and Mrs Andrews
(see page 147), painted around 1750. underlines the
in eighteenth
is
images of horse racing.
The horse
of Philip's family as huntsmen.
Gainsborough's portrait of
ment
in
181 2-1
paddock before
lodge outside Madrid, for which Velazquez also painted other
c.
Manipulation of viewpoint
easily to
king of all the hunting land he surveys
is
a Village,
gun with nonchalance, indicating
that hunting, like every other activity,
him. That he
relaxed and he
The
an enclosed space, surrounded
all
levels of society, providing artists
ing action with social observation. In France.
and Manet enthusiastically took up racing as an ing
new
explore
subject,
and
in particular, as
movement and speed
Edgar Degas, Jockeys before the Race, c 1869-72.
Degas excit-
an opportunity To
in painting.
SPORTING PAINTING
"Sweeping festoons, braided wreaths of flowers
.
.
apricots, or
.
eternity
.
.
and
melons and lemons, and a
clear glass of ... or a
beautiful peaches
wine on a
fully
laden table
music book and vanitas .
everything that
under the name of
is
in
contained
still life."
Samuel van Hoogstraten, Introduction
to the
noble school of the art of painting, or the visible world, 1678
Still
Life
Roman This
still
A
realism
life is
a
fragment
of a wall painting from
the ancient
Roman town
of Pompeii, which
buried
in lava
was
when
Vesuvius erupted
79
in
ad.
of everyday objects
Pompeii were painted
in
a highly
and
many
in
form of
Roman Pliny
realistic
painting
still-life
ward as
bald definition suggests.
this
Unlike mythological or religious painting,
rooted in the real world, which
is
some
as straightfor-
is
often
it
been held against
and many
it,
theorists have seen such paintings as "mere" copies,
manner,
calling for
images
But
manual
still life's
skill
simplicity
but no imagination or is
intellect.
deceptive because the objects
writers such as
depicted are seldom neutral. Many, such as skulls or
(23/24-79 ad) praised
still-life
ways,
simplicity has often
cases take the
illusionistic
might be simply defined as a
life
painting of inanimate objects and, in
describes with mesmerizing illusionism. This apparent
found
at
life
still
and other depictions
This
still
withered flowers, carry overt symbolical meaning, while
painters for their
images
others have different connotations - a painting showing
that could fool viewers
a lavish display of luxury objects (see page 223, Willem
skill
at creating
into believing that the
Unknown
Ming Ginger
with a Late
Kalf, Still Life painted objects were
Jar) suggests
real.
very different aims and concerns from an austere
artist, Still Life
with Marine Creatures,
depiction of a cabbage (see page 223, Juan Sanchez
before 79 ad.
Cotan, Quince, Cabbage, Melon,
The depiction of
still-life
back to Classical antiquity but the term the mid-seventeenth century.
It
and Cucumber). subjects can be traced
"still life"
was only
was not coined
at this
until
period that artists
began to produce depictions of flowers, food, and other objects as independent paintings, intended to stand on their own. Given the
importance of the Netherlandish painters
in this
development,
is
it
not
surprising that the English term derives from the Dutch "still-leveu,"
but this description paintings are
is
known
morta" meaning "dead
Precursors of the
not universal: in France and Italy
as, respectively,
nature."
still life
Although the modern era of teenth century,
still-life
painting dates from the seven-
precursors can be traced back
its
still-life
"nature morte" and "natura
much
further. In
ancient Greece artists represented humble, everyday objects in mural decorations, mosaics, and panel paintings. They also painted pictures of food,
known
was the word
as "xenia," which
offered his guests. Although
no
still lifes
they were described by several Classical authors,
above
all
for their realism
characteristic of still-life artists,
life
ability to
who
praised them
deceive the viewers eye, a
taken up with enthusiasm by
many
later
such as William Harnett.
The Greek ued by the
still
and
meal a host
for a
from ancient Greece survive,
tradition of illusionistic
artists
of ancient Rome,
and everyday items as decorative mosaics, but always,
it
still-life
who
painting
was
details
in
wall paintings and
seems, as part of larger works of
Middle Ages and the Renaissance
artists
contin-
also painted food, flowers,
art.
continued to paint
In the
still-life
objects but not as independent paintings: flowers appear in the
margins of medieval manuscripts, for example, and some century church decorations include depictions of
still-life
fifteenth-
objects in
painted niches.
At the same time
still-life
arrangements were also among the
subjects of the elaborate marquetry decorations found in
some noble
private residences. In panel paintings, however, depictions of Symbolic detail In this
large Renaissance
the foreground are a
stands for
gourd and an apple,
gourd
is
sin,
while the
a symbol of the
objects appeared only as details within larger paintings.
still-life
When
artists
represented religious scenes within domestic settings they often
which are among a
Resurrection
seen receiving the news of
number
Carlo
her miraculous pregnancy
picture to have symbolic
Annunciation with
symbolic meaning. Toward the end of the sixteenth century details of
significance: the apple
St Emidius, 1486.
this kind
painting the Virgin
Mary
the angel Gabriel
is
In
STILL LIFE
of objects in the
Crivelli,
The
included objects which both added anecdotal interest and conveyed
began
to
appear as subjects
in their
own
right but these
A new approach
Early flower painting
Flowers were '
earliest
among
still-life
The paintings of the French
the
subjects
and the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel
the
m
was one
first artists
s
*
Cezanne broke with
many
of the conventions
of
still
life.
Earlier still-life
painters strove to recreate
to specialize
convincingly and accurately
the genre This painting
was owned by
*i%4
of
artist
the textures and details of
Cardinal
he was more
Fedenco Borromeo, the
objects, but
Archbishop of Milan, to
concerned with conveying
whom
the solidity of their forms.
Brueghel wrote
draw
explaining that he began
His bold brushstrokes
the work
attention to the picture
finished
in
it
spring
in
and
autumn:
"I
compromise
surface and
do
not believe that a bouquet
the sense of
has ever been created with
Here
illusion.
and
he also seems to combine several points of view -
with such an abundance
tabletops slope and floors
of detail. They will look
tip
beautiful in winter."
hitherto
Jan Brueghel, Large
maintaining the
so
many
rare plants
Bouquet of Flowers
Wooden
in
a
- unsettling the
a single
dominant
vantage point.
Paul Cezanne,
Tub, 1606-7.
style of
illusion of
Still
Life
with Plaster Cupid, c 1895
Informal composition
were usually attached to other works; they survive, for example,
Anne
on the reverse sides
one
and the covers of portraits.
As century
still life
emerged
most
painters
in
was
prolific
and accomplished
seventeenth
in the
France
still-life
in
the
eighteenth century. Her
became an immensely
rapidly
it
Valleyer-Coster
of the
intimate depictions
popular type of painting, produced for the
show
the influence of Chardin
most part
for
the
newly developing
art (see
market rather than on commission; but from the
the
first it
was
Dutch
also looked
artist
down
on. In 1678
many
Like him,
into simple yet carefully
staged compositions which
and writer Samuel van
Hoogstraten described the
page 232).
she organized her objects
have a deliberately informal
painters of
appearance. During
as "the
still life
common
foot soldiers in the
period
army of art" - even though he painted a number of still lifes himself (see page 231, Trompe I'Oeil Still Life (Pinboard)). Still life was regarded simply as an art of imitation,
as the
Still
and
Academy
of Painting and Sculpture in
A
with Ham, Bottles,
Radishes, 1767.
the 1660s, and adopted by the art academies of eighteenth-century
Europe, "history painting" was established as the pinnacle of
achievement and
still life
officially relegated to the
lowest
lesson from history
Although the objects this
all
Life
and sophisticated technical
established by the French
of
suitable genre
women artists. Anne Valleyer-Coster,
for
but no originality of thought. In the hierarchy of genres
artistic
most
this
was seen
which required good hand-to-eye
co-ordination skills
still life
realistically,
and
in
are represented
with a detailed
illusionistic
treatment
of textures, the space they
occupy
the categories of painting.
life
still
is
compressed.
Flack includes objects with
contrasted connotations:
Individual expression
the plate of heavily iced
The nineteenth century saw dramatic changes and the prestige of in the
power of the
still-life
art
painting.
in
both the aims
The century saw the decline
academies and the growth of an indepen-
cakes
is
juxtaposed with
the photograph of starving prisoners
in
a Nazi camp.
The candle and clock are
dent art market. At the
same time many
artists
were challenging
traditional vanitas symbols,
academic doctrine. Increasingly, painting was claimed as a realm
reminding us of the
of individual expression and creativity which did not have to rely
transience of
on grand subject matter to achieve
painting they refer to the
mended
itself to artists
who were
its
ends.
exploring
Still life
also recom-
new ways
world made
it
appealing to painters such as Cezanne
and the Cubists as a vehicle for
in this
fate of those killed during
of seeing
and recording the observable world. The genre's very rootedness in the real
life;
their artistic experiments.
the Holocaust and the
Second World War.
Audrey
War
II
Flack,
(Vanitas),
World
1976-7
INTRODUCTION
The independent
still life Banquet Like
many women
of the
artists
seventeenth century, the Flemish painter Clara Peeters specialized in
the
Although almost
still life.
nothing
known about
is
or training, her
work
her
life
attests to
her versatility within the genre:
she painted flower-pieces and
game
pieces as well as luxurious
displays of food. In this painting
the wide range of objects depicted demonstrates her
skill
at representing different textures
and
visual effects,
and
crusty bread
from the
oily olives
to the reflections on the shiny silver plates
The
artist
and
in
the wine.
signed her
name on
the side of the fine knife which
she placed prominently at the
bottom centre of the painting. Clara Peeters,
Still
Life
with
Pie,
1640.
Realism
The seventeenth century was a time of extraordinary importance for
still-life
painting,
from
its
The
emer-
Italian artist
realistic
gence as a distinct category of painting of the century to
its
at the
beginning
of the fruit basket gives great
acceptance by the French Academy
immediacy to
still lifes
if
lowly, genre.
became
increasingly popular
emerging middle
market for lands,
art.
where
class,
This
still-life
the painting into our space. This
the painting
and princes, and the
who formed
was
among both
a burgeoning
may have been made
emulation of the
new
especially true in the Nether-
in various directions.
Secular subjects flourishing of the
still life
in the
Dutch Republic
coincided with major social and economic change.
ait
Having been under Catholic Spanish
houses, which allowed
rule, the
northern
Netherlands gained a measure of independence
The powerful
in 1609.
Calvinist reformed church of the
market, including both picture dealers and auction
ing for the
new
many artists to
survive by paint-
open market.
Much of the prosperity of the Dutch Republic was
republic prohibited the production of religious images.
based on
With few commissions coming from churches, Dutch
teous results of which were often depicted in
artists
concentrated on the domestic and private
markets and on secular subject matter of portraiture, landscape, and
still
life.
in the
genres
While some
its
international trading activities, the boun-
Sumptuous arrays of precious
objects,
still lifes.
such as those
represented by Willem Kalf, reflect the quality and variety of
goods
of these were direct commissions, the seventeenth
beneficiaries
century Netherlands saw the emergence of a modern
could
STILL LIFE
lifes
in
of
aimed to deceive
depiction of objects.
Caravaggio, c.1596-7.
The
still
the viewer's eye through their
paintings were produced in ever-
numbers and developed
lost
Classical antiquity, which, in a similar way,
illusionistic
increasing
work. Set
basket seems to project out of
As the century proceeded,
traditional patrons of art, the rulers
this
against a plain background, the
of Painting and Sculpture in the 1660s as an officially recognized,
Caravaggio's
and accurate depiction
available. Merchants, burghers,
of the
now purchase
country's
and other
new-found affluence
luxury items, including paintings.
Fruit Basket,
the princely patrons of the past,
I'nlike
who had
favoured grand portraits or mythological paintings, the
new
works based on the
collectors preferred smaller
real world,
which did not require knowledge of learned
were more immediate
texts,
more
intimate scale were
houses.
Still lifes
in their appeal,
in their
suitable for modest-sized
had the added benefit of being able
display expensive objects which
to
and
means of many of those who could
were beyond the
afford paintings.
turning to the genre. surviving examples
another was painted
In
Italy
one of the
was painted by Caravaggio, and in
Spain by Juan Sanchez Cotan.
Unlike the appetizing displays found
in
Netherlandish
the foods depicted by these artists were not
still lifes,
chosen
earliest
for their
gastronomic or sensory appeal. They
are ordinary and familiar fruit and vegetables, dis-
played
simple settings. Although the two artists were
in
working
in different countries,
they shared the aim of
representing the natural world in a realistic way.
Specialization
austerity of
The pressures of the open market types of
ize in particular
the vanitas
piece,
still
led artists to special-
such as the flower-
still life,
life,
the breakfast-piece (an
arrangement of modest foods), or the "pronk"
still
Melon, and
The
works such as Cotan's Quince, Cabbage.
Cucumber
often attributed to his associ-
is
ation with the strict Carthusian monastic order. His
paintings are
composed with
discipline, restraint,
and
concentration; he arranged his objects according to
Exotic rarities
Willem Kalf developed a type of still life
known
as the "pronk"
which derives from the
still life,
Dutch verb "pronken," meaning "to' display" or "to
show
off."
show sumptuous
His paintings
collections of exotic objects
and
luxury foods, of the kind that
were imported
into the
Dutch
Republic during the seventeenth
(a display of luxury objects). Before about 1650
life
the term
"still life"
was not
used, and paintings were
usually described, as above, according to the objects that
strict
still
makes
a carpet
his banal foodstuffs
appear laden with meaning.
Caravaggio's Fruit Basket also focuses on ordi-
in the ancient
world, the
still-life
painter's skill
The arrangement
century.
lous accuracy. Tins intensity of \ision and execution
were shown.
As
geometrical rules, and painted them with meticu-
nary
fruit,
some
of which
is
old and
damaged by
life
glass
from the Middle
from Venice, and
southern Europe.
features
These imperfections are typical of the
most admired by seventeenth-century \iewers.
In order
to painting,
to represent objects of varying forms
and textures,
needed mastery and knowledge of sophisticated
artists
painting techniques. Visual effects such as the gleam of silver,
the transparency of glass, and the juiciness of a
lemon, for example, painting,
and
all
in
approach
which challenged accepted notions of ideal
favour of an uncompromising realism. Indeed
Caravaggio's desire to record the material world as accurately as possible tion for painting
may
still lifes.
itself
from
Kalf's skill at
have been his motiva-
wide
variety of
textures can be seen throughout
the painting, and
technique in
is
his virtuoso
particularly evident
the curling lemon rind
hanging
off the tray.
Willem
Kalf,
Late
Still
Life
with a
Ming Ginger Jar, 1669.
required different methods of
artists often
suit the subject.
beauty
artist's
East, a
fruit
insects. recreating a
was one of the
at creating the illusion of reality
in this
includes a jar from China,
adapted their technique to
While a thick, paste-like paint might be
used to render lemon peel, thin glazes were better suited to the representation of smooth silk or porcelain.
Although the largest number and greatest variety of
still
were produced
lifes
in the Netherlands,
the
seventeenth century saw artists throughout Europe
Aestheticism
The
distinctive
Cotan's
still
their sparse
the homeliness of the objects
appearance of
lifes
derives from
and measured
compositions, which follow a strict
geometrical order - the
quince, cabbage, melon, and
cucumber form a
perfect arc
This arresting contrast
between
and
their
modest
settings,
one hand, and the
of the compositions, other, artist's
is
on the
eccentricity
on the
the hallmark of this
still
lifes
Juan Sanchez Cotan, Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, c.1600.
THE INDEPENDENT STILL LIFE
Creating an illusion of the main goals of One deceive and make
still-life
the eye
painting has always been to
viewers forget that the picture
is
an
many
later treatises
on
art,
which encouraged painters to emulate the
technical accomplishments of the artists of the Classical era.
illusion of reality. Since Classical antiquity, the artist's skill at creating
In order to create illusionistic images, artists
had to have knowl-
has been discussed and admired. In his Natural History, the
edge of the rules of perspective, as well as the
ability to recreate
illusions
Roman
author Pliny (ad 23/24-79) described a contest that took place
between two prominent ancient Greek
artists of the fifth
century bc,
Zeuxis and Parrhasius. According to this famous story Zeuxis painted grapes with such
and succeeded
skill,
illusion, that birds flew
down from
who
painter,
tried to
it
it
to
challenge of depicting the varied textures and details of their subjects,
and they often demonstrated
their technical skill
of shining metal or the transparency of glass - effects that were very
one side to reveal the picture he
was repeated
in
difficult to
achieve until the development of
extreme incidents of illusionism, where the given the appearance of a
"trompe
l'oeil,"
which
real,
literally
means
and
Trompe
l'oeil
the best-known American
depict grapes.
still-life
painters of the
nineteenth century,
realism, they rival the
legendary illusionism of
specialized
the grapes painted by
paintings. His
fruit it
in
strong
gave
relief
using layer
its
upon
in
trompe
l'oeil
images are
painted with such a high
his
degree of illusionism and
by setting
close attention to detail
a dark, shallow space,
and recreated
sheen by
that they deceive viewers
layer of
into believing that the
translucent paint. The
painted surface
fashion for paintings of
shallow space. He often
grapes
in
Spain
is
William Harnett, one of
their great accuracy
Zeuxis. Espinosa
The most
picture surface
"fools the eye."
Zeuxis's grapes
all
oil paint.
flat
shallow space, are referred to as
Espmosa's surviving paintings
by
virtuosity
the sky to peck at them. Not
believed to be hidden underneath. This anecdote
With
and
reproducing complicated visual effects, such as the reflective surface
fooled even the discerning eye of his fellow-
draw
painters faced the further
light. Still-life
such a convincing
in creating
wishing to be outdone, Parrhasius responded by painting a curtain that looked so real that
the appearance of natural
a real,
depicted objects hanging
the
in
is
1630s may have been
from wooden walls
influenced by the
here,
as
or,
cupboard doors, on
translation of Pliny's
which objects are hung
Natural History into Spanish
from
around the beginning of
shelves. Harnett's careful
the seventeenth century.
depiction of textures, from
Juan de Espinosa,
splintered
Life
with Grapes,
1
Still
nails
or placed on
wood and
rusty
hinges to the resin-covered
630.
violin strings,
imbue
his
paintings with a strong
degree of realism and credibility. His
success
was
derived from his ability to create layers of puzzling
and deeply
satisfying
illusionistic effects.
William Harnett, Old Models. 1892.
Parrhasius's curtain
Adriaen van der
tactility
of the fabric
painting reminds us of
convinces us that
how
and tempts us to draw
Zeuxis
was deceived
it
is
real it
more of the
by Parrhasius's accurately
aside to reveal
painted curtain
flower-piece that seems to
story. Here,
in Pliny's
be partly hidden behind
the texture
and sheen of the blue
silk
are skilfully recreated,
STILL LIFE
with remarkable accuracy.
The
Spelt's
it.
Adriaen van der Spelt and Frans van Mieris,
capturing details such as
Trompe
the horizontal creases and
a Flower Garland
gold-embroidered borders
Curtain.
I'Oeil Still Life
1658
and
with a
their
illusions of reality
by
including
paintings
in their
objects that
seem
the surface.
In this
to
lie
Desportes used the
The eighteenth-century
demonstrated
at creating
skill
objects depicted, but
Extended view
Deception Artists often
painter Francois Desportes
reflective silver surfaces
was renowned
of the plates to provide
for his
a
lavish "buffet" paintings.
This type of
on
still
was popular
work
life,
in his
more ample view
front of them.
native
A
France during that century,
example of
Huysum,
depicted sumptuous
depicting textures
displays of food
flower paintings, the
receptacles.
below)
illusionistic fly (see
tempts us to reach out to
The
and
costly
remarkable
between what
to represent a
is
clearly a
painted image and
smooth,
mirror-like plates
heads that decorate the
Jan van Huysum, Flowers
tureen.
A
shows
just
a Terracotta Vase, 1736.
Light
complex
and
on glass
still
life
reflection, a
Hoch explored the
effects of transparency
reflection.
She defined
vase at the centre. Like Jan van Eyck and Pieter Claesz, Hoch
image of
studying the reflection of light
herself, reflected in
one
legible
usually
one view of the
paned window and
also included an
is
life
still
blue sky, on the long-necked
the forms of the decanters by
on them. There
Tureen
to the intricate hogs'
set the fly in strong relief.
In this
Silver
with Peaches, 1733-4.
wide range
convincingly, from the
by painting
prominent shadows which
in
Desportes,
ability
of reflective surfaces
what
might be perceived as a real object
bottom
Alexandre-Francois
painting reveal the
artist
birds at the
right of the picture.
in this
away. The
seen
and golden objects
artist's
it
is
the rich plumage of the
game
silver
his skill at
plates
suggests a distinction
brush
in
in
further
by the Dutchman Jan van a specialist in
of
the peaches piled up
which
Hannah Hoch,
the glass.
Glasses,
1927
Reflections
give their
Artists often exploited
the
still
lifes
an added
like
(see
reflective quality of shining
source of
surfaces to suggest the world
Claesz ingeniously included a
beyond the
glass ball that reflects the
picture frame.
They
would include
details
reflection of a
window, which
such as the
view of the
dimension and identify the
in
light. In this
painting,
room
which the objects are
displayed.
It
offers
an extensive
artist's
Jan van Eyck's
page
146),
it
studio,
and
famous mirror includes a
portrait of the artist, standing at his easel.
Pieter Claesz.,
Still
Life
with
Glass Sphere, 1630s
CREATING AN ILLUSION
Flower painting have been one of tl lowers and compelling themes. They
most persistent
still life's
and
ful,
has
this quality alone
are obviously beauti-
commended them
and
fleeting, a painting of
flowers themselves. The early seventeenth century
brought great advances in the study of botany and
and numerous new species of flowers
were imported
rich symbolism, both religious
and
have exploited them for
purpose as well as for
secular,
and
artists
purely \isual reasons.
subject
The novelty and
including the
rarity of
Europe
some flowers conferred
Ambrosius Bosschaert, the
great founder of a dynasty of
enjoyed great fame during
came
first
to
tulip,
imported from Turkey into Europe
command
in
exorbitant prices, and by the
1630s - the height
of "tulip-mania"
in
the
Dutch
piece" emerged at the end of the sixteenth century.
sions for a single bulb of the right kind. This in turn led
Before that time flowers had appeared as decorations
to the tulip being used by
borders of medieval manuscripts and
some people were
trading
some
artists
all
their posses-
and moralists as
a symbol of foolish and covetous behaviour.
within larger paintings of religious or mythological subjects.
A
famous painting from the end of the
century
sometimes claimed to be the
is
fifteenth
earliest
known
if
not most, seventeenth-century
flower paintings would have been
much cheaper than
the arrangements they represented. The preciousness
of flowers encouraged their botanically exact recording
home
botanists.
to
own. Painted by the fifteenth-century
such as those of/ the Flemish painter Ambrosius
independent flower-piece, but
to several
its
it
was never intended
Netherlandish of
and
lilies
this picture of a jug
Bosschaert. The illusion of reality in these paintings can
appears on the reverse of a portrait.
be misleading, however, as the arrangements of many
which symbolize the Virgin
seventeenth-century' flower-pieces could never have
artist
irises
The painting of the
Hans Memlinc,
flowers,
is
reflected
paintings,
They are often imaginary,
Mary, and the portrait were both originally attached to
existed in
assembled over several months,
Floral
symbols
Although credited as the
earliest
surviving independent flower painting, this
decorates portrait
u t
image
in
fact
e reverse side of a
which was
originally
attached to a devotional image, probably depicting the Virgin Mary. The
lilies
for the Virgin purity
and the
suffering in
and
- the irises
irises
stand
lilies
for her
for her
- and are often present
scenes of the Annunciation
(see
page
two
of the
43).
They are
many
just
flowers with
symbolic significance. For
example, the Virgin was also represented by a thornless rose, while roses with their thorns
have long been symbols of love,
which also contains both
pleasure and pain.
Hans Memlinc, Marian Flower-Piece c.1485 ,
STILL LIFE
life.
in
ideal bouquets,
which flowers of
interest
in
Bosschaert's
which render flowers
a precise
and accurate way.
bouquets were never painted
His
from
life
but were assembled
from studies of individual flowers,
and
this gives his
compositions a
Each flower has
place and there
is
almost no
overlapping. Here the subject is
shown
within an
open niche
that looks out onto a pleasant
landscape which, offers
another image, believed to have shown the Virgin.
renowned
flowers within academic
circles
its
stand on
the Dutch
in
The growth of
stylized quality.
- a characteristic of even the earliest flower paintings,
his
about 1614 he
of Middelburg, at that
period
in
flower painting and
and worked
lived
in
In fact many,
in
lifetime. Until
town
Republic -
as small, although often symbolically important, details
artists,
other collectables such as shells and jewels. The
depiction of food and precious objects, the "flower-
in the illuminated
lllusionism
for the first time.
specialized
1554,
painting,
into western
value on them and they were often painted alongside
for example,
still-life
his work,
in earnest, its
usually
is
horticulture,
Like other types of
Memlinc painted
flowers has the
ephemeral blooms, hi addition, certain flowers cany a
An emerging
after
began to develop
progress aided by an ever-increasing fascination with
advantage of being able to capture and preserve their
this
life
still
as a
subject for painters. But while their beauty short-lived
About a century the flower
like
the flowers,
an idealized view of nature.
Ambrosius Bosschaert Vase with Flowers, c.1620.
suggested happiness and
Personal expression
Van Gogh wrote: "To get up
optimism.
enough heat to melt those
yellow-dommated palette
golds,
and the tones of those flowers it's
it.
not everyone that can do It
concentration of a person's
whole being
"
The colour of
sunflowers was particularly
important for the painter,
who
developed a personal colour
symbolism
were combined
different seasons
in
a single image. The
decaying effects of time are frozen and the flowers captured for ever If
at
Expressive colour Matisse visited southern Spain in
the height of their beauty.
flower paintings can celebrate flowers at their
1910-1
1
,
and while he was
two
there he painted
still
lifes
of
flowers with luxuriant Spanish
brief
moment
also
be exploited.
of
full
bloom,
this
Flowers,
very transience could
sometimes wilting or
shedding petals, became one of
many symbols
of the
bre\ity of earthly existence found in vanitas images
shawls. The rich palette and
show both
exotic patterns
the
artist's
work and
commitment to the
^see pages 228-9). They also often appear in portraits
reminders of mortality (see page
as
Hogarth. T)ie
Graham
163,
William
Children). In the late nineteenth
the
impart of the Moorish culture on
and expressive
his
decorative
role of painting.
Henri Matisse,
Still Life,
Seville
II,
1910-11.
century Vincent van Gogh, in his famous series of sunflower paintings, represented flowers of all ages, and so the
full
cycle of
life.
For van Gogh, sunflowers also
had personal significance, evoking the warmth and
where he
luminosity- of Provence,
settled in 1888.
Decoration and abstraction Many artists have exploited the symbolism
Sensuality
of flowers.
Georgia O'Keeffe wanted people to pause
but
it
is
their decorative potential that is the
most
enduring impulse behind their use. Floral motifs have long been the staple of decorators, whether mosaicists of the ancient world or
modern wallpaper
designers,
and painters have often chosen to depict flowers for
close-up focuses attention on the lilies
and makes a feature of
sensuous shape. Unlike
one
artist
painting in
who
was
the
explored the decorative potential of
Frenchman
Matisse,
who used
colour
an expressive rather than a purely descriptive way.
their
earlier
painters, she rarely represented
flowers
their abstract, formal qualities. In the twentieth century-
and appreciate the
beauty of the natural world. This
within a
in their entirety,
Instead she focused
sinuous
lines
nor
recognizable space
real,
and
on the
delicate colours
of single flower heads, which
she enlarged almost beyond
The chrysanthemum
in his Still Life, Seville II is the
centrepiece of a rhythmic pattern of swirling shapes that
echo the flower's leaves and
later painters
petals.
A number
of
have taken the exploration of pattern and
colour to the brink of abstraction. The American painter Georgia O'Keeffe. for example, as merely a starting point for her
saw
the flower
own sensuous vision.
recognition O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often seen as
having strong sexual associations, the curves and folds suggesting
human anatomy and tones evoking
the soft
flesh.
Georgia O'Keeffe, Two Lilies
on
Pink,
1928
Calla
in
which yellow
painting the is
intensified by the contrasting
blue outline of the vase
The
takes the energy and
In this
artist
was aiming
for
"the effect of stained-glass
windows
in
a Gothic church."
Vincent van
Gogh
Sunflowers, 1888
Reminders of death he objects depicted
in vanitas
still lifes
purpose of reminding the viewer of the
human
have the
fragility
of
and the bre\ity of earthly existence. They
life
usually include symbolic reminders of the passage of time, such as skulls, timepieces, or snuffed-out candles,
as well as precious items, books, or musical instru-
ments, which warn of the
and possessions. The term
futility
of worldly pursuits
"vanitas." Latin for "vanity,"
derives from a much-quoted passage in the Old -
Testament book of Ecclesiastes
(1:2):
"Vanity of vanities,
saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all
Although the valutas
still
life
and the
futility
of penitent
vanity."
Many
or reminder of death.
mori,
denoted Golgotha ("the place of the
representa-
Harmen Steenwyck was one
of
the foremost painters of the vanitas
century.
life in
still
Republic
the Dutch
the seventeenth
in
He was
active in the
of death,
an
is
here located within
stone niche.
illusionistic
type of
of Leyden,
still life
where
originated.
and precious objects which
refer
to the vanity of worldly pleasures
The painting has many of the
and possessions.
characteristic features of vanitas
Harmen Steenwyck, Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life, c.1640.
lifes,
most importantly the
skull. This
is
surrounded by fine
paintings,
as a also
skull"), the site
own right appear on the
reverse side of
such as that foimd on the back of the Flemish
painter Jan Gossaert 's Carondelet Diptych (see
left).
Painting and morality'
From aroimd
1620, artists in the
Dutch town of Leyden
began to develop the vanitas theme into a
distinctive
Leyden was home to a large
university,
type of
a traditional reminder
skull,
this
still
Memento mori The
town
university
Vanity of vanities
skull
Skulls
Their earliest depictions as
of Christ's crucifixion. subjects in their
tran-
such as Jerome or Mary
saints
Magdalene show them contemplating a
memento
in the
of worldly things appear in
earlier paintings of religious subjects.
tions
is
developed
themes such as the
early seventeenth century,
sience of
life
and
still life.
scholarly inhabitants
its
seem
to have enjoyed
the coded, symbolic language of such paintings.
One
detached jawbone and missing
the governors of the university
was Jacob
Cats, a poet
teeth remind us of the eventual
and the author of a popular emblem book, which,
decay and decomposition of the
the vanitas
human
body.
Above
which bears the Latin:
"He
Death can
who
it is
a scroll
inscription in
thinks always of
easily scorn
The words belong to a penitent saint
and
all
things.'
St Jerome,
and communicated
who
like
had strong moralizing intentions
still life,
The town was
themes with symbolic images.
its
a stronghold of Calvinism, which, in
condemnation of
all
its
things worldly, closely mirrored
the themes pursued by
its
painters.
Harmen Steenwyck's
early
Father of the Church,
painting
Life:
Still
An
Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life demonstrates
was often associated with the contemplation of mortality.
The image appears on the back of a portrait
and would have
reminded the
sitter
represented
on the other side of the inevitability of his
Jan Gossaert, Skull.
own
Still
of
Its
the characteristic traits of the Dutch vanitas
by an unrelenting
skull,
lit
of a
carefully
light,
A
composed arrangement of precious and
objects: the beautiful shell
both expensive
still life.
forms the centrepiece
rarities,
fine
Japanese sword,
stand for wealth and worldly
death
Life with
1517.
possessions;
acquired in senses.
The
the
life:
book symbolizes the knowledge
the flute represents the pleasures of the
artist originally
painted a portrait bust, now
hidden beneath the earthenware pot, as an allusion to worldly glory. These objects are accompanied by a timepiece and a snuffed-out lamp, two more established
symbols of the transience of While the vanitas with
STILL LIFE
clarity,
it
is
still
life life
and
its
pleasures.
conveys
its
message
often contradicted by the nature of the
Vanity of learning
painting
Following the example of Dutch it
painters, artists
throughout
is
finely painted,
The predominant themes of the vanitas continued
designed to bring
to be explored by nineteenth-century artists, but the
The
established symbolism and conventions were replaced
composed and
Beautifully
itself.
a worldly object in its
own
right,
sensual and aesthetic pleasure to
its
viewers.
Europe began to paint vanitas still
fifes. In
this
books are
artist,
on the
is
an
may
one generation to the
pass from
one person's
Unknown
The country's unprecedented
Calvinisl preachers, like
its still-life
warn of the grave moral consequences of
Other vanitas is
learning: for
Spanish
still
example
lifetime.
artist. Still Life
by a more personal and less ial
direct approach. Artists
were
concerned with the moral consequences of mater-
wealth and knowledge than with the reality of death
and
implication for both the individual and society.
its
artist,
in
lifes
The French Romantic painter Theodore Gericaull made a series of paintings of disembodied
focus on the
that painted
futility
of
by an anonymous
which three books,
their corners
arranged as
they were
if
still-life
human
remains,
objects. Unlike the
symbolic- skulls of earlier vanitas paintings, these grim
studies convey the gradual
process of decay with
with
Books and an Hourglass, c.
its
the Dutch Republic during
pursuing material possessions.
next, the
knowledge acquired from them limited to
felt in
the seventeenth century.
prosperity led painters, to
measuring the passage of
time While books
was keenly
and about to
hourglass, inverted start
largest
between the display of wealth and the condem-
nation of it
three
waiting to be
laid out,
read. Resting
conflict
work by an
unknown Spanish
curling from age and use, are
shown with an
hourglass,
a conventional sign of the passage of time.
1630-40.
uncompromising directness, and confront us with the physical reality of death.
Modern interpretation The theme of mortality and the
fragility
of
human
remained a preoccupation of twentieth-century
whose
life
artists,
paintings often reflect events and circumstances
specific to the
modern
the Spanish Civil
age. In 1939,
War and
between the end of
the beginning of the Second
World War, Pablo Picasso made a series of
which he adopted the
still lifes
in
traditional conventions of the
vanitas. While the paintings
may have been
intended as
memorials of his mother, who had died some weeks they
earlier,
may
also have
been made
in
response to
the horrors and atrocities of war. In his Bull's Skull,
and Pitcher the jagged
skull carries grim conno-
tations, but the colourful fruit
and flowering tree sound
Fruit,
a note of optimism, suggesting that in the
and death come peace and new A This
study is
in
mortality
a preparatory study for
them
for
may
from decomposing
have been a way for him to
survivors of a
who had
stayed alive
become acquainted with death
by eating the corpses of their
heads appeared
Theodore
acquired
the heads at a morgue and kept
flesh
and cannibalism, as no such
companions. The
artist
war
weeks while he copied
The Raft of the Medusa, which
shipwreck
of
them. The exercise of painting
Gencault's large-scale painting
showed the
wake
life.
in
the
final
work.
Gericault, The
Severed Heads, c.1818.
Reworking tradition
a bull's skull.
The starkness of
its
appearance and the bleakness
continuing, and constantly
of
its
reworking, the European
by the vigorous treatment and
Picasso
saw
tradition.
himself as
artistic
Here he adopted the
conventions of the seventeenthcentury vanitas replaced the
still
life,
human
but
skull
with
message are softened
the colourful nature of the
surrounding objects.
Pablo Picasso, Fruit,
and
Bull's Skull,
Pitcher, 1939.
REMINDERS OF DEATH
Symbolism and allegory The objects depicted
convey meanings beyond
in still lifes often
those that are immediately apparent. While a skull or an hourglass in a vanitas painting
obviously stands for mortality and transience,
the symbolism of other the
life
still
many
century,
objects
still-life
is
When
not always as clear.
emerged as an independent genre of the objects painted by artists
in the still
seventeeth
retained the
symbolic value they had in earlier religious pictures, so that a painting of a
lily
or a rose, for example, might represent the Virgin Mary.
During the course of the seventeenth century, the symbolism of objects in
still lifes
became
increasingly varied and complex. In the
Dutch Republic, where the genre enjoyed the greatest popularity, artists
might exploit the symbolic meanings given to objects
so-called
"emblem books" of the
in the
which drew a variety of
period,
morals from the material world; for example, a folly,
this highly prized novelty. Still-life painters also
which had
traditionally
been depicted using
both Samuel van Hoogstraten and Vincent
artists:
representing themselves. In the
work of twentieth-century
artists the
Museum
it
is
objects themselves, that gives the
work
meaning.
its
one of her
leading religious in Seville in
and
life
still-
in
independent
still
lifes
intended to retain their religious significance. In
are
all
related to the Virgin Mary.
The cup of water symbol of
still
the
life,
for painting, while the
drawings and geometrical instruments stand for architecture. In the centre is
a statue of Mercury,
messenger of the gods and patron of the
sculpted
arts,
by Chardin's contemporary Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. At
the right
is
the cross of
the Order of St Michael,
awarded
to the sculptor
1759. Pigalle was the artist
in
first
to receive the honour,
and by including
was drawing
it
Chardin
attention to
the improving status of artists
during the period.
Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin,
Still
Life
with
Attributes of the Pictorial
Arty 1766.
STILL LIFE
purity,
is
are
emblems
composition gives the
of offerings on an
a
the rose
altar.
Francisco de Zurbaran, Still
Life with
1633.
depicted were probably
work the items
left
Oranges,
which the objects
this
on the
virginity
The lemons
objects the appearance
Some
of these were developed into
fertility.
of faith. The well-ordered
convey
symbolic meanings.
blossom stand for
and
the
biblical
details that
floral attributes,
and the oranges and
subjects often include
and brushes stand
One Night
Tfie
the strange combination of objects, rather than the
1630s. His large paintings
palette
symbols are often
harder to define; for example, in Magritte's painting
of saints
Chardin's
of
van Gogh depicted objects of personal significance as a means of
painter
pictorial arts
all
While some symbols were based on established conventions, others
were devised by the
was the
the French painter
pay for
began to represent
allegorical female figures.
The Virgin Mary
The
could stand for
willing to
abstract concepts, such as the seasons, the senses, and the arts,
Francisco de Zurbaran
In
tulip
owing to the phenomenal prices people were
Lemons,
and a
Rose,
Emblematic portrait The Dutch painter van
Gogh chose convey
this chair to
how
he wished to
be considered Placed a
modest
in
setting, this rural
piece of furniture helps to create the impression of a
down-
straightforward and
The
to-earth character.
pipe and tobacco
on
left
the chair act as personal
and suggest
attributes
that the artist
present
is
somewhere Vincent van
Gogh
The Chair, 1888.
The
liked to
depict objects that
were
The French painter Baugin
Rene Magntte was
ingeniously uses the
associated with the
life
him. Behind the ribbons
senses.
mundane
items, such
comb and
of
still
Surrealists and, like
to suggest the five
of personal significance to
are
The unconscious
The senses
artist
Van Hoogstraten
A
closely
them,
he was fascinated by the
luminous glass
wine and the crusty
unconscious.
In this
bread represent taste; the
painting the Belgian artist
as well as objects that
carnations stand for the
teases our expectations
highlight his achievements
sense of smell; the lute
by bringing together
and music book allude to
seemingly unconnected
as his
and
as an artist
glasses,
a writer.
was the author
He
two
A disembodied
the sense of hearing; and
objects.
books and he received the
the purse and playing
hand, an apple, and a
gold medal from the Holy
cards
Roman
touch. Our sense of sight
of the
Emperor. The
handwritten
poem
in
the
is
embody
satisfied
the sense of
third, unidentifiable object all
by the painting
occupy
like
their
spaces,
like
museum
own
box-
specimens
top right corner celebrates
itself,
his skill at creating
rendition of textures
convincing
atmospheric representation
by a paper cut-out which
Samuel van Hoogstraten,
of light.
conceals
Trompe
Lubin Baugin, The
illusions.
I'Oeil Still Life
(Pinboard). 1666-8.
with
its
in
and
i
which
cleverly
combined the genres portraiture
and
The
painter used
life.
>-
2*
inanimate and usually
^
M I^H^ ^\^M N
^
and vegetables, to
human
faces.
Some
patrons, others represent
concepts such as Summer. In his
depiction of
927.
Vfi^^Kfr
l
\dt'
WlHa .'
.
».
i
*
of
these are portraits of his
Arcimboldo
*
SMKT"
create illusionistic images
of
1
^^^^^^^^
'£^
.
organic objects, such as fruit
covered
contents.
Night Museum,
\\i m &\§Jr4m
of .
still
its
is
—
devised an innovative type of painting
display case.
Rene Magritte, The One
Five
portrait
Still-life
a
The fourth box
Senses, 1630.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Italian
accurate
Summer,
playfully
f
arranged vegetables into profile portraits, using a
pod of peas and a peach he included the figure's
for the teeth
for the cheek; his
name on
collar.
i
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Summer, 1563
SYMBOLISM AND ALLEGORY
>Q
1
A feast for the Food has been a constant subject of
still-life
eyes
painting
(see page 224) ever since the ancient Greek artist
Zeuxis painted grapes in a realistic way.
emerged as a separate genre Europe,
When
still life
in seventeenth-century
followed his example and sought to
artists
create images that looked so real that they appealed as
much
to the appetite as to the eye. This required
painters to record faithfully the textures and colours of
a wide variety of different foods, which demanded considerable technical
skill.
By the nineteenth centuiy was often
the goal of creating an illusion of surfaces
replaced by other aims. The
taste of the fruit depicted.
of Caillebotte and
still lifes
Cezanne, for example, convey
of the texture and
little
The Impressionist
Caillebotte
attempted to suggest glimpsed views of
still-life
subjects found in the everyday world. In contrast, his
contemporary and fellow Frenchman Cezanne was preoccupied with the formal design of his carefully set-up
arrangements. In the paintings of each
still-life
period, the nature of the display
is
of utmost impor-
tance, suggesting a context for the food, be
a banquet,
it
a kitchen, a market, or a billboard. This changes from
one century to the next,
reflecting the society in
which
was produced.
the painting
The kitchen This painting
Breakfast-pieces
From
the
years of the seventeenth century
early
celebrated artist
pictures of food laid out
Dutch
Such
painting.
on tables were popular
still lifes,
in
which were known as
is
still
position as a
one of the most lifes
by the French
Chardin, The arresting
depiction of the splayed slimy belly gleaming
in
ray, its
the
light,
member
of the
French Academy. The painting's large scale
and sensational
subject separate
it
from the
intimate and subdued works for
which Chardin
is
best
known.
pots, still
and pans
lifes.
is
typical of his
While the red
fish
dominates the composition, the animated cat provides a
and dramatic
fitting
contrast, as well as
strong anecdotal interest.
various
earned the painter instant
However, the deliberately casual
Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin,
forms. Some, such as Still Life with Pie by Clara
acclaim and secured him a
arrangement of
Still
onHjtjes,
or breakfast-pieces,
Peeters (see page 222), depict fine
and
glasses,
orderly
intricate
manner on a
all
in
kinds of luxury foods,
arranged in an
objects,
The high
crisp white tablecloth.
viewpoint allows us to see as lavishly laid table,
appeared
and there
much
is little
as possible of the
overlapping. These
festive displays suggest a special occasion taking place in a privileged
paintings
reflects the
Netherlands piece,
household and their plentiful nature,
of precious
objects
lifes),
abundance and variety of foods
in the
at this time.
A less formal type of breakfast-
Claesz used a restricted palette,
Breakfast piece
in
born
Haarlem,
in
Germany,
in
specialized
in
a type of
browns and
greys, with light
and
atmosphere that envelop the still
life
as the breakfast-piece.
His paintings,
usually
which he evoked the
the
Netherlands, where he
known
like
still
such as those painted by Pieter Claesz., also
Pieter Claesz,
worked
("pronk"
which have an
objects. His
skill
at representing
different textures this painting, in
is
evident
in
which the gleam
intimate and understated quality,
of the oily herring contrasts with
usually depict simple meals of
the crustiness of a bread
fish
and bread on pewter
dishes,
with a glass of beer or wine.
STILL LIFE
Pieter Claesz.,
and
Still
Bread, 1636.
Life
roll
with Fish
oysters, fish,
Life with
Ray
Fish,
1
728.
j
developed
the Dutch
in
Consumerism
These represent
Republic-.
simpler foods, such as bread or
'
The Pop
within humbler
fish,
artist
Andy Warhol made
numerous images settings,
and the composition
deliberately casual,
is
soup cans
with knives lying on the table and food sliced or half-
meal
eaten, suggesting that a
viewpoint
is
by
Inspired
predecessors,
depicts 100 identical soup cans, laid
Jean-
out
in
uniform rows. The
repetition of the
Baptiste-Simeon Chardin concentrated on the
He
still life.
nature of food (and other goods)
and simple vessels, arranged on bare tables or stone
The food
in
modern consumer
society.
Warhol also adopted the
not on display, nor being offered
is
same image
reminds us of the mass-produced
specialized in intimate depictions of ordinary foods
shelves.
many
focus on just one can, this one
all
Dutch
his
of Campbell's
various media,
including painting. While
already in progress. The
often low and close to the table edge.
is
in
language and techniques of
consumption, as
for
shown
previous century, but as
the breakfast-pieces of the
in
mass media, eliminating
a kitchen environment,
in
of the
being prepared. Chardin's seemingly haphazard
if
giving the
skill
all
trace
and
work the polished
or product label
misleading,
is
own
appearance of a billboard poster
arrangements of kitchen utensils give the impression of disarray, but their casual appearance
artist's
Andy Warhol,
as he organized his objects with the utmost care,
Campbell's Soup,
100 Cans, 1962
balancing their shapes, colours, and textures to create
compositions of exquisite harmony. The overall effect is
more important than the precise
far
He developed a bold and
details.
imitation of
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painterly technique,
through which the illusion of textures, such as those of fish entrails
work
or shining copper,
is
created only
when the
l'
S««'r I
j^^.
seen from a distance.
is
Immediacy Impressionist stuffs as they
still lifes
usually
show
might be glimpsed
objects and food-
in the real world.
Such
an approach was not surprising among a group which in general
moved away from
the traditional subjects of
art to create pictures that represented the
evidently spontaneous way. Caillebotte
painting
as
still lifes
if
world in an
was unusual
in
he were out of doors. His Fruits
Displayed on a Stand has the candid appearance of an
unplanned snapshot, with some of the at the
fruit cut
abruptly
edge of the painting. This gives the impression
that the colourful display suddenly caught the painter's
eye as he strolled past. Like his colleagues, Caillebotte
was
interested in depicting the rapidly changing city of
and he located his
Paris,
where the
fruit
still life
was arranged
in
a street market,
beautifully to attract the
eye of the customer.
The way
in
theme explored artists,
which things were sold was also a
in the
1950s and 1960s by the Pop
whose paintings address the consumer
of the twentieth century.
Andy Warhol's
culture
painting of
Campbell's soup cans departs from the conventional still
life
in several ways:
represent the food
itself,
for example,
it
does not
but focuses on the brightly
coloured modern packaging; and, unlike the carefully
composed is
displays of earlier
completely
Warhol had, nique of the
flat,
still lifes,
his
arrangement
eliminating any sense of real space.
in fact,
adopted the language and tech-
modern media,
giving his
works the
represent the varied, colourful
Street-market scene
display of fruit
member
The colours take on a
of the Impressionists
and showed
his
work
in
many
of
their
group
Paris
from 1874 to 1886. As well
exhibitions, held in
as painting scenes of the French
appearance of mass-produced images and, by mimicking the commercial, mechanical printing of product labels,
diminishing the impression that the artist
the picture with his
own
hands.
made
and vegetables.
Gustave Caillebotte was a
capital, still
he produced numerous
lifes. In
this
one he used
a
own, creating across the
life
of their
a vivid pattern
whole surface
canvas. They convey
of the
more about
the consistency of the paint
itself
than about the textures of the items depicted.
high-keyed palette, typical of
Gustave Caillebotte,
Impressionist paintings, to
Displayed on a Stand,
Fruits c.
1
882.
A FEAST FOR THE EYES
233
A new perspective With the development of Cubism during the early
Colour and form
Cezanne arranged
his objects
years of the twentieth century,
into a balanced composition in
which the round form of the is
it.
echoed The
group
in
the
stability is
fruit
jar
surrounding
of this central
counterbalanced by the
plate of apples,
which
is
set at
still life
entered
new era. Since the Renaissance, artists had make their pictures look like windows on the
an exciting sought to
world, rendering views or subjects as stable position of one viewer,
and modelling to further
if
seen from the
and they used perspective
this illusion.
However, begin-
such an acute angle that the fruit
seems
in
danger of
rolling
ning in about 1907, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque
floor. This detail gives
departed radically from this tradition. They abandoned
dynamism and suspense to the
conventional perspective and began to experiment with
otherwise stable
new ways
onto the
Paul Cezanne,
still life.
Still
Life
with
Ginger Jar and Eggplants,
c 1890-4.
of representing
reality. In their still lifes
they
sought to challenge the belief that the eye perceives the
world from a single viewpoint, as lens,
if
through a camera
and to show how the brain accumulates visual
information gradually, from different viewpoints and
over a period of time.
Fragmented views Braque's
still life is
fragmentary the
composed
details,
which breaks
illusionistic picture
into incoherent parts.
disjointed parts
of
show
The legacy of Cezanne
surface
Although the revolutionary paintings of Picasso and
The the objects
Braque seem completely different from anything that
from a number of viewpoints,
preceded them, both painters were
which together create an
the
all-around view that
be impossible
example, the is
violin's
shown from the
soundboard front.
As
if
would
in reality.
is
to
while
its
is
painted
that
is
in
a
hangs from a
nail
painted to appear to be a
real nail It
It
pounded
group exhibitions, but
of their artistic aims. While the
all
senting the fleeting effects of sunlight or the constant
the
conventional way, from a single viewpoint.
in several of their
he did not share
Impressionists were principally concerned with repre-
attention to
this clever distortion of space,
palette at the top
by
Cezanne had been associated with the Impressionists, showing work
shown from the draw
in fact influenced
of Paul Cezanne. During the 1860s and 1870s
For
tuning key
side,
work
into the canvas.
flow of urban
life,
Cezanne wished
to
convey the more
permanent aspects of the natural world. In both landscapes and stability
lifes
still
his
he sought to capture the
and density of solid forms, such as rocks,
apples, and jugs. Traditionally painters
trees,
had used
light
even casts a painted shadow,
providing a stark and witty
and shade
to create the illusion of three-dimensionality,
contrast with the shattered
but Cezanne used brushstrokes of contrasting colours.
image beneath
In addition,
it.
Georges Braque,
Violin
and
where
earlier painters
had used a consis-
tent perspective system to give their paintings stability
Palette, 1909.
and depth, Cezanne deliberately distorted
his pictorial
space, tilting surfaces and plates at precarious angles.
Despite the appearance of imbalance that this created,
he organized his compositions with meticulous care, propping up objects on piles of coins to get them into perfect positions.
By
subtly combining various angles
and viewpoints, he aimed to give a more complete view of his arrangements of objects.
He
also distorted the
forms of his pots and jugs for the same purpose: in his Still Life with ple, the
from the In
pot
is
Ginger Jar and Eggplants,
shown simultaneously from above and
1907, a year after Cezanne's death, a large
work was
held in Paris, enabling
artists of the younger generation to see
paintings for the
first
Picasso and Braque,
1
STILL LIFE
exam-
side.
exhibition of his
3
for
many
of his
time. These had a great impact on
who adopted and developed many
which bear no
Flat colour
bowl of pears on the
by the innovations of Picasso and
one
Braque, he took their ideas a
division
between the two
The
areas of bold colours
step further
painting.
in this
While a Cubist
still life
numerous viewpoints
same
objects, this
the
early
still lifes
continued to explore the possibilities of
combining simultaneous viewpoints. They distorted the
;
Illusion
and
unexpected way.
forms of their objects to the point of fragmentation, creating the impression that the artist walked around his
arrangement while painting, noticing different
As a result their paintings suggest a sense of movement through both time and details with
space.
A
each
Cubist
step.
still life
such as Braque's Violin and
Palette does not depict objects in their entirety, but
merely suggests them with fragmentary
details.
keyboard might stand for a piano and a curving
A
it
in
are a vase
and
an
On one
conceits of the painting.
This
still-life
to shift from
Life
(Bowl
greater texture.
Around 1911
first
time that ordinary objects
into a high-art context. While earlier
as illusionistic a
way
as possible, Picasso and Braque
illusionistic
image confuses the eye, forcing
other.
Still
painters had aimed to represent objects in
The unexpected combination of
it
it
was the
were introduced
flat
arrangement of cut-out paper.
and
Fernand Leger, of Pears), 1925
a platter,
world, such as wallpaper and newspaper, into their still lifes.
real materials
and the overlapping
level
another
simply a
image the appearance
frames draw attention to the
On
glue and sand to give
arranged on a table, but on is
halves.
they began to incorporate materials from the real
represents a bottle and glass
it
Only
or words on their images, or mixed their paint with
reality
Picasso's collage plays with the
notion of illusionism
left
flat
of a collage
work brings
completely different things.
right
stray pear bridges the abrupt
give the
combines
of the
together fragmentary views of
of Cezanne's ideas in their early Cubist works. Their
relation to the
Although Leger was influenced
one
level to
the
While some materials, such
as the bottle label, are used to
line for
simply cut fragments of paper into the shapes of objects and stuck
them onto
In his
their pictures.
Glass and Bottle of Suze, for example, Picasso used
newspaper, wallpaper, and a bottle label to create
represent themselves, others
a
violin.
Cubist paintings are also
filled
with
flat,
prismatic planes, which suggest the fragmentation of
three-dimensional forms.
and viewpoints
in
By combining disparate details
a single canvas, Picasso and Braque
stand for a wide range of things.
The newspaper,
for example,
glass,
and part of the
bottle. its
As
The date
is
familiar, real-life
flat
picture
surface to the illusionistic image of objects on a table.
text
Picasso and Braque were the principal players in
also provides a historical context for the work.
The contrast between the
materials and the Active arrangement of objects forces
the eye to shift back and forth from the
used for the background, the
well as providing forms,
shattered the illusion of a consistent Active space.
is
the image.
18
the development of Cubism, but their approach
subject
followed
Exploiting the picture surface
November 1912 and the
As Cubism developed, these two artists found new ways to draw attention to the flatness of the picture
the conflicts of the Balkan War.
by many of
their
contemporaries.
was Both
Fernand Leger and Juan Gris adopted the ideas under-
Pablo Picasso, Glass and Bottle
lying
Cubism, but
their
own
built
upon them
to create
works
in
ofSuze, 1912
surface. At times they
superimposed painted
letters
distinctive
and personal
styles.
A NEW PERSPECTIVE
235
"If pictorial it is
expression has changed,
because modern
made
it
life
has
necessary."
Fernand Leger, "Contemporary Achievements
in Painting," 1914
Abstract Paintin
Elsewhere
in this
book we explore paintings by
subject matter, but this approach
discussing abstract subjects.
art,
their
becomes difficult when
which does not depict external
we
Adopting a more traditional approach,
will
look at several key movements in abstract painting in chronological order, placing each of these "isms" in
and the
historical context. All of the first
abstract
its
broad cultural
works come from the same
works having been produced
century,
in the early 1910s.
Although the term "abstract" has been used to describe works of art for
almost a century,
it
is
not without
different contexts, to suggest
painting as a to
its
problems. "Non-figurative,"
and "non-representational" have also appeared,
"non-objective,"
window onto a
recognizable world. To "abstract"
withdraw something and many
by moving away from the
real world, simplifying or reducing their
external reality, which suggests that an abstract
work has no
had "no significance other than
"nothing
is
more
links to
work may have its own
For example, Theo van Doesburg insisted art
Roots of abstraction
means
have arrived at "abstraction"
artists
visual language. But other artists claim that their
reality.
in
fundamental breaks with the idea of a
in 1930 that his
itself
and stated
that
real than a line, a colour, a surface."
The Russian-born painter Wassily Kandinsky
is
often
Interpretations
credited with creating the first
Van Doesburg's words might lead us to understand
abstract paintings.
This work, with
its
rhythmic arrangement of shapes floating
and
colliding in space,
might
ponents as colour, shape, and
line,
and that the viewer is to
appreciate them for these stylistic qualities rather than
search for subject matter. Certainly such ideas have been
be described as an abstract
much
"composition" analogous
very influential throughout
to a musical work. There
century, but they have their roots in art
also
seem
that
abstract paintings are essentially about such formal com-
to be hints of a
late nineteenth century. Art,
of the late twentieth
and thought of the
understood to have been freed
landscape here - traces of a figurative painting style that the artist
away from
was moving
at this time.
from
its
from
its
traditional descriptive role
social requirements
patronage, could
Wassily Kandinsky,
now
by photography, and
by the decline of
explore
its
own
institutional
concerns. For
many
these concerns were visual, and paintings which empha-
Painting with the Black
sized visual effects (at the expense
Arch, 1912
tions)
of, say,
narrative inten-
were deemed advanced. Thus a statement by
the influential French painter and theorist Maurice Denis,
Emotion
Order and harmony The reduction of painting
"My
to an irregular grid of
tragedy, ecstasy,
black lines enclosing
doom," wrote Rothko.
flat
planes of colour
characteristic of the
movement De
Stijl,
is
Dutch of
which Theo van Doesburg
was
a leading
These
member.
artists rejected
"If
paintings are about
and
people do not burst
into tears
my
when
they see
work, then they miss
the point." Rothko,
was born
moved
in
who
Russia but
to the United States
figurative art, believing
as a child,
that a painting should
anxious to control both
stand on
its
own
as a
was
particularly
the interpretation and the
balanced composition of
exhibiting of his work.
straight lines, rectangles,
hoped
primary colours, and non-
would communicate
colours (black, grey, and
a
white).
They
this visual
felt
that
language had
universal validity, carrying
feelings of order
and
harmony.
ABSTRACT PAINTING
deep emotional
and
in this
17,
1919.
He
huge canvases at
level
painting he
uses a restricted palette to convey
mood.
Mark Rothko, Red, Brown,
Theo van Doesburg, Composition
his
1958
Untitled;
and
Black,
picture - before
seem
ground for abstraction: "A woman or some anecdote - is nude a war horse, a
written in 1890, might it is
to be laying the
essentially a plane surface covered with colours
assembled
in
a certain
order." Art criticism developed a specialized formalist language for
new "autonomous" art, which was usually to be found
dealing with this in
somewhat exclusive art world. approach when looking at all abstract
the galleries of a fast-growing and
tempting to use this
It is
which
paintings,
are, after
all,
compositions of colour,
so on. One of the problems of this method
is
that
it
line,
form, and
masks or ignores
Geometric art
produced
radically
This cool, impersonal
simplified, three-
drawing appears to be
dimensional works using
a representation of a
industrial materials.
structure
Numbers and
words are included,
Paradoxically, this is
one
image
of a series of line
perhaps as notes for the
drawings that he intended
construction of the object.
to be independent works
The American
in their
artist
Donald Judd was not painting
in
1967-8, but
own
right.
Donald Judd,
Untitled,
1967-8
the often very different intentions of artists and the various contexts
within which their is
work was produced. Abstract
art is
not one thing.
It
not simply about styles, or different ways of applying paint, or plac-
and
ing colour,
it
certainly has not evolved in a coherent, linear way.
Varieties of abstract art
One simple way to categorize the images shown on these two pages, example,
Doesburg and Judd, and the
more
looser,
Kandinsky and de Kooning. In the
ing emotional
first style,
emphasizing the
draw
artist's
materials are used with
structure,
detachment on the part of the
gestural techniques
seen to
"organic" look of paintings by
and the emphasis seems to be on
restraint
for
between the "geometric" works of van
to distinguish
is
artists.
perhaps suggest-
In the second style,
attention to the surface of the paint
making of the
picture. Rothko's
itself,
work might be
somewhere between these two tendencies.
sit
This distinction between "geometric" and "organic" abstraction is,
in fact,
somewhat
To correct
this
and Judd were World War.
arbitrary
and also ignores the
historical context.
narrow view we might note that Rothko, de Kooning,
American
all
How
artists of the
period following the Second
did these three male artists
differ in their attitude to the social
cal realities of that time?
and
Visitation
politi-
Or we might note
De Kooning's
for
title
this painting reveals
the dates of the
works by Kandinsky and
van Doesburg and ponder the relevance
Europe of the intervening
We may also draw
in
distinctions
it
treads a fine line
between abstraction and representation. Paint
World War.
First
that
between
hurled, dragged,
is
and
splashed over the canvas,
intentions.
artists'
artists of his time, ficial
Kandinsky,
like
many
sought to transcend super-
appearances and reach a deeper
reality.
In his highly subjective paintings he used
but a highly distorted and sexualized figure of a
woman
is
visible.
McMahon,
John
the assistant of
the Dutch-born American
symbolic colours and shapes to build images
which he hoped would have the emotional impact of music. Very different from this
world of
intuitive vision
and poetic metaphor
artist,
documented the
evolution of this painting in
a series of photographs
that he took over several
months is
work of Donald Judd, who
the
insisted
on
the literalism of his box-like works. Here the artist is
we
end of
the
title,
saying that with
the evidence of a second
close to being an engineer.
In the following pages
at the
1966. He also suggested
encounter
figure, floating with eyes
closed above the
artists
who make
widely differing claims
about the meaning of their work. these meanings are spiritual,
and some
some
Some
of
political,
relate to the idea of the
uncon-
woman,
the work reminded him of a medieval painting of a religious visitation or
the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary.
scious
mind.
The
questions
of
whether
abstract paintings can "speak" universally,
Willem de Kooning, The
Visit,
1966-7.
across time and space, and whether artists
can break with representation, and existing visual languages,
uinely
new
and communicate
in gen-
ways, have interested both artists
and theorists
in recent times.
INTRODUCTION
239
Shattering the image Lyricism
an interview
In
in
1908 the
French painter Georges Braque
suggested that to
draw three
it
was "necessary
figures
in
order to
portray every physical aspect of
a
woman,
be drawn
just as a in
house must
plan, elevation,
section." This painting
is
and
one of
theme and the
lyricism of the
shapes may be related to
new approach
this
to picture-making.
Georges Braque, Man with
a
Guitar, 1911.
Pictorial In this
puzzle
canvas by the Spaniard
Juan Gns the simplifications
and multiple viewpoints of the "analytical" Cubism of Picasso
and Braque are joined
by a further, disruptive element: a
fragment of printed paper
collaged into the painting.
The introduction of
this
piece of "reality" prompts
speculation as to
and what
Juan
Picasso took the orange, he peeled
Dealer Cubism
One
of Picasso's
paintings, this at a
time
work was made
when
close friend
most abstract
the
artist
and
and shared what was the
same
inside. Art
it,
he cut
it
open,
would never be
again." In 1996 the British abstract sculptor
his
Georges Braque had
Anthony Caro thus described Pablo Picasso's revolu-
the complete backing of the
tionary approach to visual reality in his Cubist paintings
influential Paris art dealer Daniel-
of 1908-12. Although Picasso
Henri Kahnweiler,
every
who bought
work they produced and
showed them arrangement
artist,
he
and some of
was never an
his
abstract
contemporaries were
involved at this time in radical departures from Western
at his gallery. This
relieved Picasso
Works from
traditions of representation.
this period
of the need to spend time
and the ideas and debates which surrounded them
thinking about reaching a wider
have been of great significance for
viewership by having his work
shown
at
more
abstract
exponents of
later
art.
public exhibitions.
Pablo Picasso, The Accordion Player, 1911.
Painting and complexity Caro's
words suggest
that Picasso's innovation
somehow to do with piercing
was
external reality, dissecting
the world, even unveiling something extraordinary. The
word "Cubism," coined by the French visual style
which looks cubic.
In
Louis
critic
Vauxcelles in 1908, perhaps hints at something
else:
a
any case an encounter
with a work such as Tlie Accordion Player, painted by Picasso a
in 1911, is
work painted by
year.
The two
a complex his friend
artists
affair.
Strikingly similar
Georges Braque
were working
"like
roped together," as Braque later put
in the
is
same
mountaineers
it,
in
southern
Prance when they made these paintings. The surfaces of
ABSTRACT PAINTING
a
Braque made on a musical
series
is
Gris,
what
is
real
illusory.
The Sunblind, 1914.
these works appear fragmented or organized into a series of tilting geometric planes.
It
are looking
titles
at,
but a glance'
search for clues.
A
few
the
at
is
and fretboard. Diagonal
what we
encourages us to
details begin to emerge: the
ends of the arms of chairs, a
scroll
not clear
lines
guitar's
soundhole
which cross the
grid-like
the
illusion
of objects
and space
narrow range of greys, browns, and
no consistent
light
is
in
dull greens.
There
is
Above
all,
these artists rejected
combined
in a
it
also
meant a kind
The Severini
and
light
destroys the materiality
of bodies."
The
which dominate a sense of ideal
Giacomo
sleek diagonals this
image convey
the Car Has Passed, 1913.
Speed -
here.
But
this visual language
a direct
is
tation of urban
life
and especially the perceptual effects
pictorial disruptions
but
vacuum. The work of was much admired by
all
still lifes
used and extended loss of boundaries is
of vehicles and/or the viewer.
This subject matter seems far
shallow pictorial space.
in a
movement
related to the
is
and the
and
away from
the
more con-
figure paintings of
Cubism,
shown here are responses to a fastCubism not only breaks the window of
the paintings
changing world.
painting, shattering the image, but
is
also an art of flux.
Picasso and Braque. Since the 1880s the French painter
Identities are not fixed, perception is shifting.
had explored new ways of representing form and space
are works which acknowledge the uncertainty and
by building up the surface of his paintings with patches
dynamism of
of colour, creating a sense of solidity and unity.
during this period Einstein developed his theories of
their time.
It
seems no coincidence
and Henri Bergson
relationship
These
that
ideas about the
his
between time and space.
The Cubism of Picasso, Braque, and Juan Gris was exclusive in that galleries in Paris
it
was
exhibited in small dealers'
Dynamism
and seen by very few people. Quite
different in this respect
known
was
the group of Italian artists
as the Futurists. Seeking to address a broad
public directly, and to provoke questions about the rela-
between art and modern life, they launched movement with a manifesto published on the front
In
their
representation of urban
1910 manifesto
painting the Futurists stated that they
interruptions.
wanted to "put the
closely
and
He incorporates
observed
details
- chimneys
and advertising hoardings -
spectator at the centre of the picture," to involve the viewer
life is
certainly full of visual jolts
of
in
simplified yet
into a
dynamic arrangement
tionship
movement.
Balla, Abstract
shown
ventional cafe
Speed
"movement
somewhat awkwardlj
result of the artists' attempts to represent the fragmen-
relativity
1910 the
Futurists claimed that
Futurists' rhetoric sits
with the sophisticated easel paintings by Balla and
manifesto of painting that they in Paris in
era.
Technology was to be embraced.
was now an amalgam of
For the Futurists the racing
published
radical
and widespread transformations of the modern
between objects and the space surrounding them
approach brought a new kind of scrutiny: a
Cubism did not occur
the
movement's concerns.
been usurped by the
Classical past had
"account" could be constructed from several different
Paul Cezanne, for example,
In
Victor//
by
different views,
work.
beautiful than The
of speed. Cubist visual language
of dispersal, so that a painting
in this
more
the idea that one must look at the world from a single
structured analysis of the world. But
the subject
serpents
viewpoint - the very basis of perspective. Instead an
angles. This
not
like
of Samothrace." This passage from the Futurists' mani-
two-
reduced to a
source and the figures merge with
the space around them.
is
is
festo gives a clear idea of the
dimensional paintings. Here colour
itself
on grapeshot
The
create
car symbolized technological
adorned with great pipes,
is
of explosive breath - a racing car thai seems to ride
perhaps these form the outlines of figures.
devices that had been used since the Renaissance to
progress. But the car
whose hood
structures give the paintings triangular compositions;
Picasso and Braque were rethinking pictorial
Movement
"The world's magnificence has been enriched
20, 1909.
by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car
their
page of the French newspaper Le Figaro on February
the shifting perspectives and
of shapes
disorientation that characterize
Gino Severini, Suburban
the
modern world.
Sevenni's
and forms Train
Arriving in Paris, 1915.
SHATTERING THE IMAGE
!41
The invention up
the years leading
Invarieties texts.
emerged
Although Paris
several
in different con-
often acknowledged as the cap-
is
of Western culture at this time, and
ital
War
to the First World
of abstract art
of abstraction
was here
it
that
the French painter Robert Delaunay exhibited his pris-
matic Cubist works,
it
important to look further afield
is
Germany and Russia
as well. In
were making
artists
how
paintings which varied greatly, not only in
looked but also
in the intentions
which
lay
they
behind them.
Art and the transcendental Wassily Kandinsky
is
one of several
artists
be seen as the originators of abstract the early 1910s
made
in
who
might
His works of
art.
Munich employ an impressive
range of colours and painterly techniques. In his highly influential writings of this
time he makes
clear that he
it
relinquished outer appearances in the hope that he
more
could
communicate
directly
feelings
to
the
viewer. Kandinsky believed that colours and shapes
beyond
could convey deep spiritual truths that
lie
everyday appearances and are
describe in
difficult to
words. Seeing a similarity between painting and music, he wrote in 1912: "Colour the hammer. strings.
The
The soul
artist is
soul vibrating by
was a Scriabin,
and
terminology
is
many
common
that key."
Kandinsky
can be explored using a
to both
Pioneer of abstraction
Many
paintings by Kandinsky
music and
art:
as impro-
whose tones and rhythms
harmony or dissonance.
fluid
that,
medium
Although
this
the
title First
it
and gave
Kandinsky was born
in
moved
1896
is
signed and
consensus
among
art historians that
artist
unlikely to
at the
the
have painted
before 1912. The suspicion
is
it
it
the
execution.
several years after
work
Is
Blue Rider).
Abstract Watercolour
of watercolour.
dated 1910, there
is
he backdated
were in
wishing to be seen as
the "inventor" of abstraction,
of the earliest abstract
executed on a small scale
composers Schoenberg and
his paintings
In Russia
was
its
is
the hand that purposefully sets the
visations or compositions,
give rise to
the piano, with
means of this or
of the
friend
the keyboard. The eye
is
to Munich
age of
its
in
thirty
Russia but
He went back
Russia during the
First
to
World War
and then returned to Germany, where, from 1922 to 1933, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and design
in
Weimar,
Dessau, and Berlin, becoming
and there
a
German
citizen in
1927
founded the group of painters
Wassily Kandinsky,
known
Abstract Watercolour, c.1913.
as Der Blaue Reiter (The
First
around the same time, Kasimir Malevich
painting arrangements of abstract forms which
appear to be suspended
in space.
But the
rigid
geometry
of a painting such as Suprematist Black Rectangle contrasts sharply with the looseness of Kandinsky 's
works and
is
evidence of a faith in technological
progress rather than an organic world evocative of nature. Malevich's
work developed out of Cubism and
Futurism, for he would have seen works by Paris-based
Modernists in the collections of wealthy Moscow- industrialists,
were
but in important ways the two
similar. In particular,
artists'
aims
both saw their turn toward
abstraction as an artistic and a spiritual cleansing.
Malevich, like Kandinsky, regarded colours as feelings
and painted them floating across white planes which, for him, represented "the void." His squares
gles
were new symbols, divorced from
the past but emblematic of a
new
and rectan-
pictorial tools of
spiritual reality.
Malevich called his kind of painting Suprematism, a
word derived from the
"highest or absolute ruler."
strong faith
in
Latin
supremus, meaning
He and Kandinsky shared a
die value ofa new, independent
ABSTRACT PAINTING
art.
They
mythology, and the reference
and
The French poet Guillaume
emphasizes the analogy between
are hints of urban architecture
Apollmaire coined the term
art
"Orphism"
this
The
visible
for
world
Delaunay 's
colourful brand of Cubist painting.
The word derives from
Orpheus, the musician of Greek
and music. As the
title
of
work suggests, Delaunay's
paintings of this time maintain links artist
with the
was
visible
world. The
interested in light
visual perception,
but there
the structure of this painting.
Robert Delaunay, Windows
Open
Simultaneously, 1912
in
Dynamism within order
also shared an interest in the mystical philosophies of
Malevieh creates space
the period and aspired to discover universal truths. In
in this
work by simple means: shapes
an exhibition of
thirty-five
of his paintings in 1915,
and
of different colours
Malevieh hung them
all
unframed and placed one
on
sizes are painted
a
white
across the corner of the exhibition space, echoing the
background, some overlapping,
way icons were often displayed in Russian homes. The painting was of a black square on a white background.
others separate.
order
is
A
sense of
offset by diagonals,
which introduce a sense of dynamism. Given Malevich's
Ends and beginnings square" as early as 1913.
on
philosophical ideas
Malevieh claimed to have painted his It is
easy to see
first
how
"black
it
his art,
might be appropriate to
describe this painting as a
this radi-
cosmological arrangement
cal rejection of representation might be taken as an end
of forms.
of painting, yet for the artist
it
was a new
beginning.
Kasimir Malevieh, Suprematist
Indeed his was a radical art for a time of radical change in
Russia and
around
Black Rectangle, 1915
many other painters turned to abstraction
this time.
The Revolution of 1917 had
dramatic-
consequences for most aspects of Russian society, including attitudes to culture. Ait, as in
Western
and
capitalist society,
artists,
from the
traditionally
rest of society,
was
it
was understood
called into question
Language of abstraction
seen as geniuses different
now
This painting
realigned themselves as
"workers." Art could no longer be a luxury
seems more
considered than Kandinsky's
commodity
earlier First
The
for the wealthy but had to be useful - to play an
Abstract Watercolour.
restraint of the
suggests that the
integrated role in building the
new
Soviet Russia.
have been unhappy about his Non
Painting being called
"art" at
all.
This
was
attempting to formulate
The Russian Alexander Rodchenko would doubtless
composition
artist
language of abstract
art.
his
He
painted this work while teaching
Objective
at the
work was not
Bauhaus,
the Bauhaus
conceived as an object for aesthetic contemplation but
in
the year that
moved from Weimar
to Dessau.
as an exploration of line and space
w hich might have r
Wassily Kandinsky, Swinging,
other applications, for example in design or architecture.
was working design,
may
1925.
During the post-revolutionary period Rodchenko in areas
such as model-making and poster
and the transparent yellow planes
in this
image
Investigation This
work has
visual similarities
to other paintings
relate to his
experiments with "modern" materials
such as plastic and
glass.
here, but intention.
it
is
shown
very different
in
Rodchenko painted
it
during the post-revolutionary era in Russia,
when he thought
of
himself not as an
artist
Constructivist, his
work more
but as a
akin to that of an engineer. Here
he presents
line
and colour not
to express emotion but as part of a practical investigation of structure
and
materials.
Alexander Rodchenko, Non Objective Painting, 1919.
THE INVENTION OF ABSTRACTION
Neo-Plasticism Placement The
clean, geometric planes
and primary colours of
work
this
are characteristic of
Plasticism
much
Neo-
and strongly influenced
architecture
and design
during the twentieth century.
Van Doesburg gives of
movement
a sense
to this plane of
interlocking coloured rectangles
through
and
his horizontal
placement of the blocks
vertical
of colour.
Theo van Doesburg, Composition, 1920.
of the canvas. They form an irregular grid which contains
rectangular areas of colour: black, several
flat,
shades of grey, and red and yellow mixed with
arrangement
is
asymmetrical but the way
grey.
The
maintains a sense of balance or visual unity. this
work Mondrian
would be wrong to look
for references to
Not long before painting it
Mondrian aimed to achieve
a feeling of equilibrium in his
rigorous abstract works. For
which
in
these blocks of colour are related across the painting
wrote that
Union of opposites Piet
him, certain
beyond the purely
visual.
and horizontal
lines
to see
first try
composition, colour and line and not representation
as representation." This was art with
from the
distinct
-'
rest
of
life.
The
its
own
reality,
Neo-Plasticists
characteristics
crossing of vertical
and
spirit,
-
for example, matter
and
positive
negative. In painting
as this a
The
represented the union of
opposites
the world in his paintings: "You must
stylistic
had a significance that went
new
and
works such
Mondrian sought to make "universal" art for the
modern age.
reduced drawing to
The
term "Neo-Plasticism" was used by the Dutch
painters Piet Mondrian and
Theo van Doesburg
describe their austere, geometric abstract cation
is
to
elements such as colours, forms,
lines,
and
On many
pictorial concern, for
(
ompos
i t
and Blue and van Doesburg's
ion both of which .
were painted soon
after the
end of the First World War. These works are examples of the Dutch
movement De
Stijl
(The
Style), a loose
grouping of painters founded in 1917 (along with a journal of the
same name)
led
by van Doesburg and
Mondrian. The stark visual language of these paintings
has
made them
icons of the
modern
works
equilibrium. This
in his
cosmic harmony. Like
was an artist in language able to communicate
the Russian painter Kandinsky, he
search of a universal spiritual truths.
a blend
ophy,
Europe
Both painters were interested
in theos-
of Eastern philosophies popular in
at the time, the central belief of
a knowledge of
which was that
God could be gained by
ecstasy, intuition, or direct personal
age.
was not simply a
he understood the balance
to be the equivalent of a
spiritual
communication.
Another major influence on Mondrian
at this
time
The rudiments of painting
(although he later dismissed his ideas)
Mondrian's Composition with Grey, Red, Yellow, and
mathematician and mystic Dr Matthieu Schoenmaekers,
Blue appeals to be a relatively simple configuration of
who
elements. Thin black lines run horizontally and verti-
plete contraries
callj
across the painting, precisely parallel to
ABSTRACT PAINTING
the edges
in
tal line
was the Dutch
1915 had written: "The two fundamental com-
which shape our earth
of power, that
is,
are: the
Piet
Mondrian. Composition
with Grey, Red, Yellow,
c.1920-6.
occasions Mondrian stated that he sought an
harmony and
from canvases such as Mondrian's Composition with Yellow,
other
Harmony art of
Red,
all
colours can be mixed): blue, red, and yellow.
planes. All reference to the natural world are banished
Grey,
most basic form and used only
art. Its impli-
that their paintings consist of purely formal, or
"plastic."
its
the three primary colours (those from which
horizon-
the course of the earth around
and
Blue,
the sun, and the vertical, profoundly spatial
movement
morally and aesthetically as Europe entered a
phase of
of rays that originates in the centre of the sun."
The geometric structure of Mondrian's painting
is
fied
very different from the subjective, gestural world of
art,
Kandinsky's pre-war
art.
The Dutchman had
visited
and studied Cubist paintings with
Paris in 1911
their
history.
in part ieular
new
exempli-
He wrote extensively of a new rational spreading the word through avant-garde journals, these ideas.
lecturing widely, art
Van Doesburg
and design
and teaching in
at
the
Bauhaus school of
Germany. Unlike Mondrian, who
complex, faceted surfaces of shifting planes. He had
remained committed to painting, he extended his prin-
also been impressed by the architecture of the modern
ciples of abstraction into architecture, interior design,
metropolis and
and graphic design.
between the
it
not difficult to see a connection
is
grid-like
armature of his paintings and the
A new direction
idea of an urban fabric. In 1917
he wrote:
modern man,
it
"If art is to
be a
living reality for
has to be a pure expression of the
new
consciousness of the age." Neo-Plasticism was an idealistic art
which was intended
to be "timeless" but
its
Utopian forms are nevertheless a product of a distinct era.
Order and
traumas of the
van Doesburg Western
stability
First art
had great importance
World War, and for Mondrian and
had a key role to play
civilization.
after the
Works by these two
in restoring artists
therefore be seen as an example, leading the
may
way both
By 1942 Mondrian was
living in
two decades exploring
New York.
Having spent
different combinations of his
basic pictorial elements - primary colours, a black grid,
and a white ground - he changed direction dramatically in late title
works such as Broadway Boogie-Woogie. As the
suggest, this painting
city itself, as well as
visual language
was
directly inspired
by the rhythms of
by the
jazz. Its
busy
and openness to worldly references
reveal an artist turning his back
on the self-imposed
restrictions of Neo-Plasticism.
Urban rhythms some twenty-
This work, painted
the
five years after
of Neo-Plasticism,
mutation of the evokes the of
first is
examples
a late
style.
Mondrian
rectilinear street plan
Manhattan and combines
this
imagery with a strong suggestion of the frenetic rhythms of the jazz that filled
New
the 1940s. This
is
York during
a witty
confident painting by an
who
by
now was
and artist
considered one
of the masters of abstract
Piet
art.
Mondrian, Broadway
Boogie-Woogie, 1942-3.
NEO-PLASTICISM
Abstract Expressionism Abstract Expressionism was an American phenomenon, the artists involved working in or around New York
City. Its
heyday was
in the 1950s, when this new, was celebrated by the modern
large-scale abstraction
establishment for making a significant departure
art
from European
Extreme
artistic traditions.
tion in composition, colour,
simplifica-
and form, along with explo-
four sides and
literally
art of spontaneity
of the
artist's
be
in the painting." This
was an
and of the untrammelled translation
emotions for the viewer.
Another reference point for Pollock's "drip" technique was the sand paintings of North American
New
Several
Indians.
by the
and
rituals
York
living
were fascinated
artists
traditions
of indigenous Mysteries
ration of unusual painting techniques, led to success in
an
art
world which valued
The most rigorously
honest, authentic, and pure
stylistic originality.
worked
Individual artists
"abstract"
ways.
in very different
were Barnett
Americans since they were believed to be part of
Newman
and Mark Rothko, whose enormous canvases were
tified
ways of living. Pollock iden-
with the role of the shaman or healer, seeing his
paintings as cathartic, not only for himself but also for
"The
artist tries
from the in
1945. For
and death.
the world at large.
one or two intense colours.
saturated with
Jackson Pollock, Franz
and Willem de Kooning
Kline,
were more obviously "Expressionists,"
their gestural
techniques emphasizing the process of painting
itself
Such ambitions would seem natural
made on
Rothko. His paintings, often
seems
to
Mark
a scale which
to envelop the viewer, are nevertheless subtle
manipulations of colour and tone, as
in
Light Red on
"
to wrest truth
Newman
It
gave to
of
life
can be said that the
a true creator
into chaos."
wrote
this artist painting
was about "the mystery
artist like
often
void,
The
titles
his paintings
is
delving
Newman
echo
this
sense of profundity; "Onement"
perhaps represents a mythic point of origin, the central vertical line
and earning them the
One a
in
had
title
kind
particular
made
of content.
works
early
was an
Several
by
populated
Throughout the
1940s and the
late
interest
of them
traditions.
1950s Pollock,
Rothko, Newman, and others continued to see them-
who
selves as contemporary "myth makers," artists
might communicate timeless truths
my time,"
"I'm not interested in illustrating
Clyfford
Still in
1963.
"A man's time
not truly liberate him. Our age -
limits him,
wrote
it
does
of science, of
is
it
mechanism, of power and death.
mammoth
modern world.
in a
see no point in
I
appear to hover
Landscape of the Critics
craggy forms and heavily worked textures of
Still's
and social
realities of
America of the
1930s and 1940s, and the Second World War. with abstract paintings about existence
itself.
Automatic painting The idea of the unconscious mind was Jackson
Pollock.
Undergoing Jungian
crucial for
analysis,
he
attempted to communicate directly from the depths of his psyche, developing extraordinary painterly tech-
niques partly derived from the French Surrealists of the 1920s. In Pollock's
brand of "automatism" he placed the
canvas on the floor of the studio and dripped, threw, or spattered paint across
it.
He used
sticks, crusty old
brushes, or other implements to deploy the paint, which
he also poured onto the canvas to build up complex webs. This "drip" technique," famously documented film
kind of dance "On the floor the artist ing,
in
and photographs by Hans Namuth, amounted to a
in 19 17. "I feel
since this
way
I
I
am more
nearer,
more
can walk around
ABSTRACT PAINTING
at
case.'' stated
a part of the paintit.
walk from the
.
until
and could stand on
this
artist
comparison, he saw
paintings
more
his
.
as metaphysical
imagery, evoking
landscapes, metaphors for
evident
Clyfford
work
1959
thus:
a high
and
dramatic
huge
scale
and
grandeur, seems to be already
the unlimited expanses of the a letter of
and
valleys
at last into the clear air
limitless plain." This
validity of
and alone
one had crossed the
darkened and wasted
paintings to
acknowledged the
his
242-5), the Abstract Expressionists
.
straight
West. Although the
In
turned away from the material world. They responded
.
one must
a journey that
make, walking
come
he described
to the political
intended to invite
the landscapes of the American
imagination.
them (see pages
is
was
"It
spirit
have likened the jagged,
arrogance the compliment of
its
space which
meditative contemplation. Although the viewer seeks
graphic homage." Like Kandinsky and Mondrian before
adding to
in a
archetypal
from various mythological
figures derived
Black. With their softly brushed edges, large rectangles
"action painters."
thing that imited these artists
in this Still,
early
work.
Painting, 1944.
symbolizing transcendence.
Barnett 1949.
Newman, Onement 3,
Colour In this
palette
field
work hazy patches
he was suffering. Here he seeks
themselves into an arrangement
to maximize the emotional impact
of hovering dark rectangular
of colour, placing black at the
work
is
heart of the composition. Rothko
an example
often deflected the suggestion
of Rothko's large "colour field"
pouring paint onto a canvas to
the connection between
his art
and landscape painting, Pollock simply replied: This
"I
am
work was made
after the artist
nature." six
years
began to use
a
give his
was
a
much
of the
colours. However, by the
abstraction
there
his
canvas
between
his
Mark Rothko, Black,
his
Light
Red over
1957
coal-black paint obscure and
optimism and escapism of the
Jackson Pollock, Yellow
form of
would
this
links
spaces of the natural landscape
decade he used
made
were
and the horizon and
brighter composition underneath
troubled man, uncertain about
the direction
paintings
for
appear to destroy the implied
spontaneous expression to
emotions. By 1952 he
and
warm
time he
he was questioned about
that there
1950 he had
paintings. By
established this style
Conflict
darker,
colour emerge, resolving
shapes. The
When
was becoming
perhaps mirroring the depression
of
Islands,
1952.
take. Here
perhaps evidence of
is
anger or frustration: drips of
technique of dripping and
subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to
be looking
for." In
other words, "respond" - attempt to
set aside one's cultural conditioning
and awareness of
context and see afresh.
to "enter" these works, lured in
Exclusion Vivid
and
oranges and greens twist
turn, battling for supremacy.
The image of is
a mythic
woman
alluded to rather than spelled
out. Krasner struggled to
Expressionists,
a distinctly
who
him or her
The it
Newman were
writers have accorded Abstract Expressionist
paintings mythic status. These
an interesting one
to painting
to such paintings.
Both Rothko and
autonomous works which
when
their
cele-
concerned with "purification," and as
is
furious
works have been
brated as the ultimate destiny of a modern approach
to the surface of the image.
issue of interpretation
comes
Individual expression
Many
works were consid-
ing
is
fully
acknowledge that
a matter of putting pigment onto a
paint-
canvas.
flat
macho image. She
painted this work
in
after the car crash in
the year
Jackson Pollock, was
Lee Krasner, Sun
artist,
killed.
Woman
line,
and so on.
tragic.
Newman's
They have also been heralded as masterpieces of individual expression, extraordinary feats of genius which
Jewish
shattered previous visual traditions of representation.
ered merely as arrangements of colour, This
which
her husband and fellow
1957
return
when
projected
veils of paint,
these "windows" are blocked and therefore repeatedly
be
accepted by the Abstract
by contrasts of warm
and cool colours and semi-transparent
was
art
about deep truths, often
"zip" paintings, for
example, had their roots
in
mysticism. Pollock, interviewed in 1950, argued that II,
any viewers of his work should "look passively and to receive
what the painting has
to offer
try
and not bring a
Finally,
they have been seen to signify freedom
an attitude which
tied in neatly with
American
itself
-
cultural
policy during the Cold War.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
Minimalism Variations on black
Ad
Reinhardt
was
a
critic
of gestural painting.
"Art
is
art,"
of representation. By
was working on canvases which
Minimalist ait was made in New York in the
Art of the necessary This painting at
New
was
York's
Modern
Art
in
exhibited
first
Museum 1959.
of
tion. In radically
catalogue Carl Andre wrote: "Art excludes the unnecessary. Frank Stella
has found
it
necessary to
paint stripes. There else in his painting
painting
is
is
nothing
....
this
In Stella's
time very thick
stretchers, lines
modern
the interpretation
art.
Ad
Reinhardt, Abstract Painting
No.
5,
1962.
appeared
In fact,
each of is
divided into nine squares,
1960s in
down elements such as colour, we associate with
paring
Mondrian and Rothko - the
artists of the
works shown
here intended to raise questions about creativity and
Minimalism lay not only
art.
The challenge of such as Sol
in painting: artists
on
LeWitt, Donald Judd,
and Carl Andre produced three-
paintings of
dimensional structures more accurately categorized as
wooden
sculptures.
dense black
paint,
and
They wanted
to question not only the nature
Stella.
The Marriage of
Reason and Squalor,
II,
1
959.
sionist techniques.
It
also links to
dull, this
also raised other issues.
was introduced, the
Repetition
even
kind
to parody more subjective expres-
seemed
of time
which echo the edge of the
like quality.
Repetitive, time-consuming,
of painting
but also the place of art in American capitalist society.
The idea
finished painting being a
record of a laborious serial procedure. But there were
canvas give the works an object-
Frank
of
not symbolic. His
stripes are the paths of brush
canvas."
black.
form, and structure - a tendency
the experience of looking at
Stella's
on
also a witty
a spirit very different from that of earlier abstrac-
the
In
comment on
end
1960 he
these large square works itself
was
cartoonist, often passing ironic
a series of all
slight variation
Reinhardt
he wrote, as he
repetitively rehearsed the
to be black.
each a
vehement
The
large scale of
Frank
Stella's influential painting
als
more worldly
and repetition
Stella
labour: the industrial materi-
used echoed the logic of
Three years before Andy Warhol
The Marriage of Reason and Squalor echoes that of Abstract Expressionism. Yet it has none of the flamboy-
the production
ance or drama of Pollock or de Kooning: there seems to
renamed
be emotional detachment here. Gestural painting, with
owti challenge to the world of aesthetic contemplation.
all
its
associations of individualism,
is
approach. Stella
made
a basic division of his canvas
along a central vertical axis.
He took
a housepainter's
brush, loaded with black commercial paint, on a journey
from, say, the bottom left-hand the top.
comer of the painting
moving along the edge of the canvas
to
to the right
and then down again on reaching the central division This logic was then repeated within this
first
the work, leaving a thin area of bare canvas
the lines the
Stella filled the other half of the
same way.
ABSTRACT PAINTING
half of
between
canvas
in
his studio "The Factory." Stella laid
down
his
Minimalist works seemed difficult to "contem-
rejected and
processes are replaced by a very different
intuitive
line.
introduced reproductive techniques into his art and
plate" for a
number of reasons. They were
illusionistic,
you see
is
having a kind of
what you
literal
starkly anti-
presence. "What
see," said Stella in 1966. Paint sits
on the surface of his paintings: materials are presented in
undisguised ways, an aspect of this art that links
it
to
works such as Xon Objective Painting (see page 243) by the Russian Constructivist Alexander Rodchenko.
Agnes Martin, Robert Ryman. and others did
away with paintings entities.
the whole idea of composition and their
have a strong presence as Viewers of
modem
art
self-sufficient
used to appreciating
expects to see
Happiness The is
titling
of abstract paintings
often significant and
many
Minimalist works are referred to as "Untitled called this later
Agnes Martin
"When
I
was
happiness and
painted
I
painting about
bliss.
I
in
a painting
bliss
are very
simple states of mind
associated with Abstract
Expressionism before she turned to a
more geometric
art
Agnes Martin. Morning, 1965
had to
leave out a lot of things
the
between the elements
relationships
within
a
painting - colour, shapes, line - suddenly found them-
guess."
I
Martin had been one of the few
women
work Morning and
wrote:
'Morning'
"
Happiness and
with
grids,
repetitive
units,
or
completely blank surfaces. These visual devices either
emphasized the factual presence of the support's surface or pushed the eye to the edge of the painting. reiterating its format time
made
one
confronted
selves
and time again. Viewers were
to feel self-conscious
and were thrown back on
themselves, on the here and now. The artists were interested in raising questions about the values and rituals of art. Rejecting
deep meaning, symbolism, and
metaphor, they shifted the emphasis to the experience of the
Thus,
viewer.
despite
obvious
between the appearance of their work and, Malevich's black paintings of the taking art into a
new
similarities say,
Kasimir
1910s, they
were
directions are the basis of this
work, which
onto the
terrain.
Wall paintings Sol LeWitt took
Concept and execution Straight lines running in four
highly structured
LeWitt himself
A
and procedural
logic link this
principles of Minimalism to
make
"wall paintings,"
stark structure
works which do not seem
to have to
artist at
all.
They exist
of written instructions, allowing the in various settings.
in the
form of sets
same work
to
be
Often the visual form of a
drawing varied considerably between locations as basic
is
1967 he wrote:
In
essentially
"In conceptual art the idea or is
the most important
aspect of the work ...
many
formed the
of these works. This
starting point for
was an ideas-based
and LeWitt considered himself a conceptual
Serial
"pigmented"
production
Rejecting the idea that an
artist's
notable for their transparency.
A wooden
which he applies
in different
stretcher
is
a perfunctory affair.
and but
work. Perhaps Ryman's paintings
comment
ubiquitous white walls of
and
wall fittings. In this
Sol LeWitt. Wall Drawing
No. 821. 1998
visible
varying details of material,
support,
that
art."
are integral parts of the
always highly structured ways,
work he applied a commercial
makes the
The idea
and
aluminium mounts are
paintings with white paint,
made
beforehand and the execution
shellac to
often build just one series of
Ryman makes
of the
both materials being
fibreglass,
output has to evolve, Minimalists
works. Robert
practice
artist.
all
planning and decisions are
becomes the machine
divisions of the space
one
LeWitt's art
of ideas.
concept
made
not necessarily by
painting to Minimalism, but
some key
extremes. In 1968 he began to
be made by the
painted directly
is
wall,
modern
ironically
on the
art galleries.
Robert Ryman, Ledger, 1983
MINIMALISM
Op
Art was in New York movement began
It
in 1965 that the Optical, or
Op, Art
to gain international recognition
with the staging of the
Museum
of
Modem Art's
The paintings
tion "The Responsive Eye."
Art for
founder of
The German-born Josef Albers systematically studied the relativity and instability of colours, later teaching at colleges in the USA.
The Hungarian-born
and indeed he
by a range of devices, including the manipulation of
Budapest Bauhaus, where there was a strong
geometric patterns and the juxtaposition of intense
technological progress. In an interview in 1969 he
Art,
movement
colours. This show, organized
the 1960s. The anonymity and
mathematical precision of
by William G.
Seitz, did
varies the outlines
tricks
recalled
that
of
museum
in
both the
USA and
Europe.
who
and hard
constructive
the teachers
ful at
Origins of
Op Art
the
human
same time
Op
Art.
faith in
"wanted us to become
who are useful and beautiand who are able to integrate into
beings
a society that will inevitably be ruled by science
Although the press seized on this movement as a
new
and progress." As the astronomical-sounding
title
of his
his grid structure to play
artistic
on the eye. Although
painting
much to popularize Op Art
this
are typical of Vasarely,
edges of
Vasarely was a He attended the
artist Victor
this style of painting
Op
in the history
gained international recognition
work
context; for
key figure
long before the
in
its
ambiguities and sensations of movement were generated
often described as the
conceived of
perceived depends on
were
extraordinary visual responses in the viewer. Spatial
all
is
is
example, certain colours "vibrate" against one another.
exhibi-
that
exhibited had illusionistic surfaces which triggered
Vasarely
which a colour
is
a unique
work
this
in
a
collection, Vasarely
embraced the
idea of mechanical
reproduction, preferring to
make
phenomenon, much as
it
had done with Pop Art,
painting Super-novae suggests, Vasarely continued to
the roots of Op Art go back to visual theories developed
believe in a futuristic Utopia, and he intended his art to
by Kandinsky and others during the
be a
1920s.
Bauhaus school of art and design, founded in 1919 to investigate
in
At the
Germany
a functional modern aesthetic,
rational, universal art for the masses.
He
strongly
opposed the idea of the
artist as egotist;
work of many of
younger contemporaries of
his
as with the
unlimited editions of images.
Victor Vasarely, Supernovae,
students of industrial design were taught the principles
1959.
of colour and tone in a structured way. The
way
in
the 1960s, there ings.
He
is
no evidence of the
artist in his paint-
called his mathematically controlled
K
IB
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ABSTRACT PAINTING
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its title
style very early in her career,
suggests, this
made an important
work
Op
1960s she
to
movement. Working with
devoted herself increasingly to
a very
making paintings
precise technique, Riley has
produced a painting which It
Art. After the
is
in
%
^
contribution
produces subtle sensations of
yet undulates.
9
which vibrant
colours are juxtaposed.
flat
Bridget Riley, Shiver, 1964
can be read as
black on white or white on black. Riley,
who
exhibited works
in this
(?=k_
"cinetic."
The term was
different
suggests actual movement; equivalent: the illusion of
it
from
"kinetic,"
which
described a "virtual"
movement. Variations within
%
the grid structure of Supemovae set up strange effects, pulsating and pushing and pulling the spectator. In her black
and white paintings of the mid-1960s
the British artist Bridget Riley introduced slight modifications within structures that were overall geometric.
Varying in shape and tone, these works triggered optical oscillations
and undulations, but also extreme,
almost bodily disturbances. Riley's illusionism was disorientating
particularly
and was too much for
cynical about the commercialization
and mechanical
reproduction of her singular works of Vasarely,
had worked
in advertising
art. Riley, like
and so would have
Diverse influences
The American
Expressionism. Despite adhering to a single, "purified" pictorial space, Riley overtly
For certain American
fleeting nature of
such a
Once its moment had passed, she reasoned, her works would be left dated rather than timeless.
trend.
A
manipulated the viewer.
critics the
much-cherished
ritual
Poons studied
before becoming a painter, and
been acutely aware of the
his
admirers of classic modern abstraction and Abstract
Larry
composition under John Cage
threat
which loomed over most twentieth-
century abstraction was the idea that
it
might be
works have an
affinity
with
Cage's "music of chance." He
was
also influenced by abstract
painters such as Rothko. Although
the subjectivity and
spiritual
questing of Abstract Expressionism
of looking had been turned into an optical circus.
deemed
Op Commercial exploitation
name
in
New
both Britain
Op
was a household and America. This was due not to York,
Art
a sudden extraordinary rise in gallery attendance but to the
artist's visual
diately
for use
Op
on
all
ening one translated
This
devices being taken up almost imme-
by the worlds of fashion and graphic design.
Suddenly
was
Art patterns were everywhere, adapted
kinds of products. Riley hated
New
Art ran the risk of being seen as empty for a variety
of reasons.
Within a year of Riley's 1964 exhibition at the Richard
Feigen Gallery in
"decorative," nice but essentially meaningless.
this, threat-
York dress manufacturer
one of her paintings
who had
into a textile design.
"vulgarisation in the rag trade," she claimed,
ings.
Op
It
was not an
artists
art of deep,
themselves reduced abstraction to a
kind of design. Everything
was staked on the
immediate visual experience, but the illusionism, trickery.
symbolic mean-
artists
might appear to be diametrically
opposed to the supposedly impersonal approach of
Op
Art,
Poons seems to combine the
two
in
works such as
this.
viewer's Larry Poons, Untitled, 1966.
employed
exposing themselves to accusations of
The movement has
certainly received a
mixed
reception in recent years. According to the contemporary
American painter Ross Bleckner, Op Art was
"naive, superficial,
On
and by most accounts a
failure."
the other hand, because these paintings are about
illusion,
it
could be said that they raise important ques-
tions about the idea of visual truth.
OP ART
251
New directions subways of
City life
background
its
York,
where
his brief
but highly acclaimed career.
a distorted
black face bares
New
he began and ended
Against a vivid yellow
This self-taught artist died of
teeth.
Other figures appear to jump
a heroin overdose
and weave
the age of twenty-seven.
their
way around
an assortment of
some
shapes,
1988
Jean-Michel Basquiat,
and
lines
in
at
Pyro.
1984.
readable,
others not. With their additions, alterations,
and
urban scrawls, Basquiat's paintings bring to graffiti
Painting a
With
its
mood
broad brushstrokes,
dappling, and intense colours, this painting
is
A
word often used
the
suggests
is "pluralistic." It
"I
is
paint
indeed one during which the pre-eminence of painting
emotional situations," Hodgkin
tus of abstraction as "advanced" art called into question.
has said, emphasizing that his
works should be looked
Conceptual
art of the late 1960s
The
often anti-visual;
it
and the 1970s was
avoided the associations of painting
favour of an art of ideas.
Any methods
broad red bands of paint which
in
"frame" the picture set up a
mance, mixed-media
window-like space, but, despite
works which raised issues of context: the
not a
sta-
at in
personal, subjective ways.
is
in
the coexistence of a variety of approaches. This period
has been challenged by other media and the special
this
and
to describe the ait practice of the
decades since the 1960s
representational pictures of
title,
mind the
walls
intended to
convey a mood.
the
on the
literal
exhibition,
and
installations)
definition of
(video, perfor-
were appropriate
"work of
in
interpretation,
art."
Conceptual
depiction of an interior.
Howard Hodgkin, Oakwood
Interior at
Court. 1978-83.
art
challenged the values of early abstract art and the
repercussions of this challenge continue to be
felt
by
to ignore them.
As
painters in a variety of ways.
Expressionism and the 1980s One response to such questions was
the Minimalists rethought their abstraction in an age of
the 1950s, were newly acclaimed by conservative
who saw
critics,
theirs as a proper, genuine kind of painting.
mechanical reproduction, painters such as the American
At the same time the quest for raw creativity
Joan Mitchell continued to make works winch were
imearthed younger talents such as Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Her gestural mark-
A graffiti artist on the streets of New York before making
highly subjective ciphers of emotion.
making and drawing of
inspiration
to Kandinsky's mtuitive art. artist
whose sumptuous
from nature
Howard Hodgkin
is
link her
paintings.
Basquiat produced works which had an
another
impressive
vitality.
paintings explore colour. His
street,
from black
They incorporated imagery from the culture,
and from
television, building
Hodgkin
luminous swathes of related hues are a delight for any-
up a heady cocktail of
one versed
and Basquiat could both be seen as expressionist
in the
language of formalist visual analysis.
Whether or not such paintings were timeless
works which spoke art
to
all,
market of the 1980s.
they did well in the booming
Oil
valuable commodity. During the a
renewed investment
in
same period there was
representational
art,
also
inhabit a different world "Art
ing
is
We have lost the great ideas, the Utopias: we have
lost all faith,
the
everything that creates meaning." These are
words of the German painter Gerhard
has wrestled with
and Francis Bacon, who had made their reputations
at
ABSTRACT PAINTING
from that of Hodgkin's work.
wretched, cynical, stupid, helpless, confus-
referred to as figuration. Artists such as Lucian Freud in
artists.
Basquiat's worldly references and collage-like technique
on canvas and expressionist
brushstrokes were seen as loaded with authenticity - a
visual layers. Although
many
Richter.
who
of the contradict ions of painting
the end of the twentieth century. Early abstract art had
Continuing a tradition Throughout her long career Joan Mitchell has never deviated
her
commitment
from
to Abstract
Expressionism After moving to
New
York
initially
in
the 1940s she
was
inspired by the gestural
paintings of Willem de Kooning.
The two
artists
shared an
engagement with nature and Mitchell has spent the later part of her
life living in
old house at Vetheuil,
countryside near her paintings
Paris.
Monet's in
the
Many
seem more
of
joyful
than the angst-ndden work of her fellow Abstract Expressionists.
Joan Mitchell, Border, 1989
Cancellation and creation This
work
is
one
of a series of
paintings Richter has
made which
appear to have been smeared or scraped. Using palette knives or a housepainter's trowel, he has
dragged the paint
which
a process
in
self-cancelling but
is
which
allows a composition to emerge.
Rough
textures
and
rich colours
are the result of a kind of
planned chance.
Gerhard
Richter, Brick Tower,
1987.
emerged future
in the spirit of idealism
and the
- of optimism about the
role that art might play in
it
- but Richter's
Quotation Unlike the Pollock,
work comes out of a context
who
original art of direct,
same time on both
and abstract works. Recognized
"figurative"
in the 1960s for
hand-
painted reproductions of snapshot photographs, he
which have
little
and
Many
collide.
visual unity. Various techniques jostle
of these are
drawn from the
art of the
sought to create an
of doubt.
Richter does not stick to one style or technique,
but has worked at the
work of Kandinsky or
unmediated
past: a Pollock splatter
meets Kandinsky's geometry
expression, Rae's paintings mix
next to lashings of Ernst. But there are other, more
languages which already
worldly references too: wallpaper designs, technical
visual
exist. In
her witty and irreverent
drawing, and cartoon graphics cheekily join the fray
canvases Pollock collides with Disney, geometric abstraction
has also made grey monochromes, grid paintings based
with heraldry and interior design.
Art as interpretation
on commercial colour
A
Rae's witty paintings turn their back on
many
basic assumptions of classic abstract
They are
charts,
and highly
paintings of candles. Richter's Brick
number
Tower
illusionistic is
one of a
works whose surfaces are scraped or smeared. The technique the artist uses is paradoxical, of
both creating the painting and seeming to cancel "I
want painting
it.
to be very heterogeneous,"
Richter has written. "The contradictions have to be there, but
must
coexist." This attitude
is
also evident in
work of the British artist Fiona Rae. Emerging in London at the end of the 1980s, Rae made paintings
the
range of quoted forms and
motifs appear collaged together in
compositions that are both
playful
and
Purple Triptych), 1994
full
of appropriations, mixing visual languages rather than
carefully controlled.
Fiona Rae, Untitled (Blue and
art.
of the
inventing
new
ones. Worldly elements shatter any idea
of a separate aesthetic sphere, the "low" culture of
everyday
life
invading the space of high
art.
abstract paintings ever escaped representation?
Had Had
language ever really been suppressed? Rae's works
seem
to be about interpretation
paintings for
complex
itself.
They are complex
times.
NEW DIRECTIONS
253
Materials and techniques:
Medieval and Renaissance painting Workshops
Gleaming gold This
is
a detail from Duccio's
enormous Maesta 38
for the
he made for Siena
Cathedral and executed
amount
worked
whole image), an
altarpiece that
tempera
Medieval
page
(see
paint.
He used
in
a
and
Renaissance
alone, but
apprentices,
master
were assisted
painters
in their
who were bound by
rarely
workshops by
contract, usually for
egg
about four years. Apprentices prepared the painting
huge
materials and learned the techniques of painting, collab-
of gold leaf for both
orating
on work for clients as they became more
skilled.
the haloes and the background,
Finished paintings were therefore usually the work of
so the altarpiece would have
gleamed with great richness candlelit cathedral,
in
the
trumpeting
the wealth and piety of the citizens of Siena to
all
comers.
more than one hand. Large
made
paintings were never
but on the commission of a wealthy
speculatively,
patron, monastery, or chic group. Artists
terms of a contract with their
client
worked
to the
and sometimes
Buoninsegna, Maesta
Duccio
di
(detail),
1311.
collected part of their
payment before beginning work.
tempera paint seems perfectly
Supports and grounds From the thirteenth to the early sixteenth century artists generally used wooden panels as the support for their paintings. Poplar was usually employed in Italy and oak in northern Europe. Wooden planks were glued together to make the panel and planed to a smooth, even surface.
and
A large panel - destined to be an altarpiece. for example
Egg tempera This
is
a late
and very
refined
example of painting with egg tempera. The lightness of touch
needed when working with
suited to the sense of line detail displayed
The
by the
- would be strengthened with battens nailed across
artist.
fine touches of gold that
enliven the hair of Tobias
painted
back. Often the frame
and clothing
hands are
figures' left
indicating the
artist's
caned from
The two
gold.
at
this
its
time and
attached to the panel before painting began, or even
and the Angel are
in shell
was made
the
same piece of wood - notice
that in
Deutsch's St Luke Painting the Virgin (see page 256)
identical,
probable
St
Luke paints on a preframed panel.
reuse of a preparatory drawing.
An even
Attributed to Andrea del
layer of white ground prepared the sur-
Verrocchio, Tobias and the
face of the panel for painting. Chalk in northern Europe
Angel, c.1475.
and gypsum, or gesso,
in Italy
were mixed with animal-
skin glue and spread over the panel. Often several layers
were applied and each was scoured and bur-
nished to provide the smoothest possible surface. Costly materials
belonged to King Richard
was extremely
England,
The
to produce.
II
of
costly
- ultramarine and gold
of the day
in
abundance
and the workmanship
is
The gold of the
background patterning,
is
stippled with
which
is
different
on each panel. Mary's halo scored with delicate
is
lines,
increasing the illusion of radiance,
and the
has a tiny
on
circle
infant Jesus
of thorns stippled
his halo, foretelling his death.
King Richard's cloak
example of in
which a
is
sgraffito, a
a
good
technique
layer of paint
is
applied over gold leaf and then
scraped
away
to
make
a pattern.
English or French School, Wilton Diptych
Prepared paints were not widely available to *«
,,
until
the
early
nineteenth
century.
artists
Medieval
and
finest materials
- have been used
exquisite.
Pigments
which probably
This work,
(details),
1
395-9.
MATKRIALS AND TECHNIQUES
Renaissance painters mixed their
own
limited range of
made from ground-up substances. Some pigments could
Fresco
colours, using dried pigments
organic and mineral
Fresco
the technique by which
is
water-based pigments are applied
be collected and prepared by the
These
iron-oxide
included
umber
yielded ochre, sienna, and
artists themselves.
colours, and organic-
fresco secco (dry fresco) paint
Buon
Pigments made from rarer sources came from apothecaries and specialist suppliers - minerals such as
made orange-red vermilgreen pigment. The which made ion, and malachite, rarest colour of all was ultramarine. This deep blue was made from ground lapis lazuli, whose only source at this time was what is now Afghanistan, making it more cinnabar, for example, which
itself. Artists'
contracts with their
amount of ultramarine - in a painting. Cheaper
clients often specified the exact
paint to be used - and paid for
made from copper ore, and
blue pigments were azurite, smalt,
made with powdered
blue glass.
In is
applied to dry plaster, forming a surface that
served as black pigment.
valuable than gold
wall.
There are two fresco methods
pigments,
matter such as charred twigs and peach stones, which, like soot,
onto a plastered
directly
which
earth
the
is
liable to flake off.
fresco (true fresco) requires
to paint while the
artist
freshly laid plaster
is still
wet -
hence the term fresco (meaning fresh dries,
As the
in Italian).
plaster
the paint fuses with
becoming
it,
and
part of the wall
resulting in a
much more
durable
surface. Michelangelo decorated
the Sistine Chapel ceiling with
buon
method
fresco. His
for
transferring his design to the
which differed from the
plaster,
commonly used
technique,
is
by the detail from a
illustrated
cherub's face. The features are
sketched with
Egg tempera To make
swift, incised lines
that acted as guidelines for
paint, artists
mixed the powdered pigments
painting.
The
thick line dates
with a liquid medium. Animal-skin glue was sometimes
from a sixteenth-century attempt
used, but until the middle of the fifteenth century the
to restore a crack
medium was egg. The yolk, and on occasion the whole egg, was combined with a paste made of pigment usual
Michelangelo,
in
the plaster.
Sistine
Chapel
1508-12.
ceiling,
and water, to produce a creamy, opaque paint called egg tempera. Once mixed, egg tempera paint dries
extremely
and therefore painters worked colour
fast,
by colour, preparing a small amount of each one and using
it
before
it
hardened. They built up the painting in
thin layers, with light, delicate brushstrokes, as thick,
loaded brushstrokes are impossible with tempera, as
IS
is
sv/
blending of colours on the paint surface. This technique
can be seen
in the tiny, separate strokes of paint
form-
on Jesus s arms and face
in the
ing the highlighted areas
detail of the Wilton Diptych.
Paintbrushes for this kind of work were
from ermine
wooden
tail hairs,
made
held in a cut quill inserted into a
handle. In a city such as Florence, brushes
could be purchased in
makers, but
many
many different sizes from made their own.
brush-
artists
Gilding
Preparatory work
Gold was widely used
over medieval Europe to add
all
richness to paintings - particularly those with religious
Medieval and early Renaissance artists
devised their paintings
employing compositional
carefully,
subjects, in
which
it
usually denotes something spiri-
The area to be gilded - often a halo was moistened, and gold leaf was laid down. In Italy
tual or heavenly.
artists often
spread a layer of bole, or red
area to be gilded.
clay,
on the
This made the next step easier -
studies
often reusing studio drawings.
smooth
stone. Patterns
leaf
a
were then often punched or
incised into the gilding, to light,
leaf with ivory or
make
it
sparkle and catch the
as in the background of the Wilton Diptych. Silver
was
a greater
sometimes with a yellow varnish to
imitate gold. Shell gold, so called because
a mussel
make
shell,
was a
paint
made
it
was kept
of powdered gold.
in
the painting
Holbein
features but also the
detailed preliminary
drawings of the world around
and tones of
them.
worked
likeness to reality
which
was
a
particularly
important, were often planned in
in
a preliminary study.
out.
his
fully
He would then have
placed a second sheet of paper,
with
some
black chalk on the
back, beneath his drawing, and
traced
it
translate these drawings
panel,
which gave him the
onto the prepared ground. For
onto
his
prepared
lines of a
drawing, again with a
second sheet of paper beneath
shadows
head are
Another method was "pouncing," or pricking tiny holes along the
left) in
were various
For a painting there
ways to
right,
extremely
which not only Southwell's
they started
Portraits, in
shown above
made an
detailed drawing (above
degree of naturalism
in their pictures,
advance
also used,
In
the Renaissance, as they sought
to
smoothing and burnishing the gold
and pattern books and
wood
guidelines to begin painting
the drawing. The drawing was
then removed and the pierced lower sheet was placed onto the picture surface
charcoal,
and rubbed with
which passed through
the holes, leaving a dotted to be
line
worked from.
Hans Holbein the Younger,
Sir
Richard Southwell, 1536.
MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE PAINTING
•
)-)
Materials and techniques Early oil painting An
artist's
Although
legendary episode
-
history
-
"The
and a great improvement
St Luke painting a
this
elements
mother of
scene contains many
typical of a
Renaissance
artist's
medieval or
workshop.
The young apprentice
at the
on the grey stone
ball
on the
slab
them with
a paint
is
care and love, for
medium. He
arranges the resulting paints on a palette, ready for use. St Luke
his
range of
differently sized brushes rests
with
tidily
some pigment
on the low bench
asks of the
artist
He
Vasari, the author of the first history of art, in 1550.
went on to
credit the fifteenth-century Flemish artist
fact painters
had used
oil painting.
In
oils since the eighth century,
although for glazing and varnishing purposes rather
Van Eyck and
mented with a sively over
his followers
seem
to have experi-
them exten-
variety of oil glazes, using
an underlayer of tempera
paint.
While
jars
tempera
at his feet.
into oil
Manuel Deutsch,
Niklaus
it
of making colour smoother, softer, more delicate, and more easily harmonized and shaded." So wrote Giorgio
ordered palette, very similar to
modern one, and
All
possesses the property
than as the principal painting medium.
works from another neatly
a
oil in itself
Jan van Eyck with the discovery of
and mixing
table,
in the art of painting .... This
procedure enhances the colours.
back
has been grinding pigments with the stone
technique was a most wonderful invention,
oil
Christian
in
portrait of Mary, the
Christ
The beginnings of oil painting
workshop
represents a
it
St Luke Painting the Virgin, 1515.
is
is
opaque, paint
translucent. This enables the artist to build
the paint surface in light
made from pigments ground
many
can pass, giving
plexity of colour
Thick
oils,
up
which
a depth, luminosity, and com-
it
and tone
achieve with tempera paint. in painting.
thin layers, through
that
Two
are impossible to
kinds of
oil
were used
usually pressed from linseeds
and poppy seeds, and sometimes boiled to increase their density, dried extremely slowly. Thinning oils
resins (such as turpentine)
making
A new medium This
work
is
Light
an early example of
a picture painted using mostly oil
medium. Van Eyck used
as a
many
layers of
oil
glazes to build
up the red turban's deep, shadows,
velvety
mid-tones, and
rich
clear highlights,
and expertly
blended these into one another so that no visible brushstrokes destroy the illusion of sitter's
face
hairs
his left
on
that this
The
web
of wrinkles
eye to the stubbly
his chin. is
reality.
a masterpiece of
from the
realism,
around
is
It is
possible
a self-portrait.
Jan van Eyck,
A Man
in
a
Turban, 1433.
MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES
In his
it
easier to
work
and shadow
were used to
with,
and these dried swiftly
subtle blending of
paintings Leonardo da Vinci
one tone
paintings from dark to
harmonious arrangement of
many
and shadow, or chiaroscuro. The corners of
Mona
Lisa's
mouth
are
a fine example of sfumato - the
into
another. Leonardo built up his
was deeply concerned with the light
and
dilute paint,
light, in
transparent glazes, to give
them depth and Leonardo da (detail), c.
subtlety of tone.
Vinci,
1503-6
Mona
Lisa
by evaporation. The pigments used
time of van
at the
Eyck were the same as those described on pages 254-5.
The development of the technique of oil painting came at a time when artists were seeking to achieve greater naturalism in their pictures. Oil paint greatly facilitated this, for not only did
much more
allow for
it
variation and depth of colour and tone, but also
its
much more freedom
slow-drying nature gave painters
of execution. They no longer had to mix a quantity of
tempera colour and jump from one part of a picture to another, hurrying to use the paint before
dried, but
it
could work in a more leisurely way, concentrating on
one area
if
they wished. Oil paint could be blended on
the surface of a painting, to
make
a smooth, finished
surface with no \isible brushstrokes.
Its
lengthy drying
process also allowed extensive reworking.
During the fifteenth century many painters travelled widely in Europe,
aristocratic courts.
learned
new
at different royal
and
travelled they spread
and
working
As they
artistic practices
and
ideas.
By
the turn of
the sixteenth century tempera paint had largely been
superseded by the use of oil as a paint medium throughout Europe, and painters were beginning to experiment
widely with the technical possibilities
oil offered.
* k Preparatory work
Supports be applied to a wood
Oil paint could perfectly well
panel prepared with a chalk or gesso (gypsum) ground,
and
this
kind of support continued to be used for
various purposes. However, as the technique of painting evolved, canvas supports
became
oil
increasingly
popular. Canvas had been used in earlier centuries for
temporary' decorations such as stage scenery or festival
banners, and occasionally for
more permanent
paint-
wood panels could not offer. A large canvas could be woven to order, without the joins that were unavoidable when planks of wood were used. ings.
It
had
qualities that
Canvas had the further advantage that light to
ported
mount or hang and could be easily. Its flexibility
it
was extremely
rolled
prevented
it
and
trans-
Titian
began
down
a priming layer of thin
colour, often a
brownish
by laying
tint,
which acted as the background to the features that he then built
up
in
thicker paint.
He made use
of the
many
paint,
experimenting with both
thin
possibilities of oil
washes and
thick,
impasted
work shows
strokes of paint. This
great freedom of execution. For
example, the stream and Actaeon
waistband are lightning-quick dashes of pure, Titian, The (full
white paint.
fluid
Death of Actaeon
image and
detail), c.
1565.
from warping
and cracking as wood panels often did over time, which caused damage to the paint surface.
Vigorous brushwork
Rembrandt often oil
Priming Canvas was prepared, or primed, with
his pictures
built
brown grounds, so
a coat of animal
glue followed by thin layers of white lead
mixed with
up
his
paintings over dark reddish-
seem
to
deep,
warm
his figures
emerge from tone.
He
a sea of
applied
the paint with tremendous vigour
many
oil.
Painters started to experiment with coloured prim-
and freedom.
ing
and grounds, which could
pictures his brushstrokes are
significantly affect the
visible,
final
appearance of a picture. In the sixteenth century
Hans Holbein, painting on oak
panel, used mid-grey
priming in The Ambassadors (see page 162). leaving
untouched to represent the greys and whites of the ental carpet
between the two men. Other
artists,
it
ori-
such
as Titian, and later El Greco, Rubens, and Velazquez,
pigment. They
left
of his
adding an appearance
of energy to the paint surface.
Sometimes he scratched
into
the paint with the handle of his paintbrush to suggest details
such as curling
Rembrandt, tinted the white priming of their canvases with browTt
In
Beret
hairs.
Self-Portrait with
and Tumed-Up
(detail),
Collar
1659(7).
parts of this ground uncovered to
provide subtle half-tones and an interesting contrast of texture with areas where the paint
was
thick.
EARLY OIL PAINTING
s
Materials and techniques: Modern painting Manufactured pigments and paints Advances
in the
chemical industry during the
late eigh-
teenth and early nineteenth centuries resulted in the
production of
ultramarine to replace the
ficial
sive
many new, manufactured pigments
These included zinc white and cobalt
painters.
pigment made from
still
for
blue, arti-
extremely expen-
later cadmium cadmium red, and many others. time some artists had continued to use
lapis lazuli,
and
yellow, emerald green,
Until this
paints that they prepared themselves, using ground
pigments purchased from
them
Prepared
far
in the
bags
tightly to
from
were also
paints
appeared little
artists' suppliers,
and mixing
the studio with various oils and diluents.
in
known
as bladders,
keep the paint ideal,
available,
having
first
seventeenth century, and were sold
soft
made
in
of skin and tied
and usable. Bladders were
however, as they often burst, or
let
the
once they were punctured for use, which caused
air in
the paint to deteriorate and harden.
Several attempts to solve this problem were eighteenth and early nineteenth
Watercolour Watercolour paint
composed
is
gum
pigments ground with
of
arable
centuries,
when
it
made many images
and combined with water. Sable
Turner
and
watercolour, using
squirrel-hair brushes are
usually used with watercolour For
centuries
it
was used mainly
colour preparatory drawings, but
came
into
its
own
in
England
in
transparency,
it
the
In
in
its fluidity,
and luminosity to
experiment with
to
was used
extensively, mostly for landscape.
new
effects.
the late nineteenth century
the Impressionists and Post-
Impressionists, especially
often
and
Cezanne,
worked with watercolour,
its
in the early
brass syringe lined with
Manet
Raoul Dufy
in
Europe and John
Marin and Jim Dine
in
the USA.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Lauerzer Sea, with the Mythens,
c.
1
by John G. Rand, an American London. Windsor
Monet
depicts Claude
Monet
floating studio.
palette
back,
sits
and brushes held by
his
knee, appraising the progress of his
& Newton
painting of the river scene
rolled metal lined with
Van Gogh wrote to
Theo of
his
plans to
make
mid-nineteenth century of
in
tubes
air,
made
outdoor, or plein-
painting possible. Easily
transportable materials enabled
Monet to go out and capture the effects of light and
on water, or of of day
shadow
different times
and seasons on the
landscape, as
in his series
of
paintings of wheatstacks, as he sat
working before
his subject.
Edouard Manet, Monet Floating Studio,
in his
1874
MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES
low
relief,
painting of sunflowers "in
paint masses. Each brushstroke
which the raw or broken
is
chrome yellows
of van Gogh's energy
will
blaze forth."
This painting, a study
in
a variety
on
oil
paint
method
- often
of laying
straight
from
the tube and unmixed - with a
commercially prepared paints
quality of a sculpted
as the light catches the varnished
a
and frequent model,
the
firms
of thinly
membrane and equipped with
brother
characteristic
in
made
paintings something of the his
of yellows, displays the painter's
sits
London and other
846-50
while Camille Monet, his wife
nearby. The invention
in
was invented
portrait painter living in
started to manufacture paints in tubes
Sculptural relief
the small boat he used as a
Then, in 1841, the collapsi-
ble metal paint tube of the kind used today
Outdoor painting
in
tin.
twentieth-century
adherents include Paul Klee and
made
nineteenth centuiy, including the use of a
thickly
loaded brush. This
technique, which he carried out
with the dense commercial
oil
paints of the late nineteenth century, lends the surface of his
left visible,
giving us a sense
and
his
excitement at painting these flowers,
which were for him a
symbol of happiness.
Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers,
the water's surface into pattern-
Acrylic paint
David Hockney began using acrylic paint extensively
during
the 1960s and 1970s He found its
bright, clear tones
opaque
and
its
quality appropriate for
Californian
his crisp, brilliantly
lit
landscapes.
painting the
artist
In this
explores a subject that
like
turquoise forms, contained
by the sparkling sunlight, while
lines of reflected
depth
is
conveyed
by the swimmer and the darker blues of the water.
David Hockney, Artist (Pool with
Portrait of
Two
an
Figures),
1972.
fascinated him - sunlight on a
swimming
pool.
the acrylic paint
The is
flatness of
perfectly
suited to Hockney's division of
These
airtight stoppers.
made
it
use
easy, for the first time, for painters to
oil
paints outdoors, and in response to this development artists'
Mixed materials
transportable tubes
light, easily
suppliers began to stock portable easels and
In
1912 Pablo Picasso and
Georges Braque began experimenting with collage and
assemblage. Suddenly two-
small paintboxes with folding palettes. They also sold a
dimensional
wide variety of sable and hog's-hair brushes and palette
limited to traditional artistic
knives that allowed artists to take advantage of the texture of the
new paints, which were
thicker and
more
them with
materials from the
world to make images that
examined how experience
new
Commercially prepared canvases Nineteenth-century
artists'
suppliers could also provide
was no longer
techniques, but could combine
real
buttery than those mixed in the studio.
art
way.
we
see and
an entirely
reality in
In this
work the
different kinds of paper used,
which include newspaper and
now made in standard was stretched over wood
prepared canvases, which were sizes. Specially
woven
linen
wallpaper, have as in
much presence
and importance to the
frames and primed, ready for painting. Primed card-
composition as the areas of paint
boards and papers were also
and charcoal. Picasso and Braque
sold. Painters of the early
opened the way
to mid-nineteenth century,
such as Constable, Turner,
Delacroix, and Daumier, continued to tint the primer or
ground on which they were to
paint.
The Impressionists
for artists to use
any material they chose.
Pablo Picasso, Glass and Bottle ofSuze, 1912.
often preferred to paint directly onto a white ground,
valuing the brightness
New
it
added to
their work.
Exploring paint surfaces
materials
In the twentieth century painters experimented with
a wide variety of
new
painting materials, as well as
continuing to use traditional
and even to
oil paints,
revive the art of egg-tempera painting. tant innovation of recent times
is
The most imporwhich
acrylic paint,
For this
work Robert Ryman used
shellac,
which
varnish
made from
is
an
industrial
a natural
insect-derived resin solution, into
in
an alcohol
which he mixed
coloured pigments.The
work
is
primarily
artist's
concerned with
the texture and light-giving properties of his paint surfaces,
appeared
in the 1950s
and whose colours are
bright,
opaque, quick-drying, and non-fading. Synthetic
paints
and
enamels
so a varnish-based medium,
which offers luminosity and
produced
for
domestic and industrial use were taken up by painters
retains brushstrokes,
meets
also
his
requirements well.
Robert Ryman, Ledger, 1983
such as Picasso and Jackson Pollock as well as by artists
belonging to movements such as
Minimalism, for
was
whom
their reflective,
attractive. In recent
opened up
still
Op
Art and
smooth
finish
decades painting has been
further by the possibilities offered by
computer-generated
art.
MODERN PAINTING
Glossary Bold type indicates a reference
BLAUE REITER A group
to
another entry.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM A
style
New
of artists
who
CONTRAPPOSTO The
EXPRESSIONISM A movement
rhythm
spiral
running through the Classical Greek
twentieth-century art emphasizing
including notably Kandinsky. Marc. Klee.
and Roman standing
significance
and Macke. The reference
give
ultimately to
is
life
figure. In
order to
to the statue, the parts of the
the non-naturalistic colours of French
body are put
Fauvism. These
the head turned, one shoulder forward,
emerged as the leading international
artists constituted a
avant-garde in the early 1950s.
German Expressionism,
initiators included Arshile
its
main
critical
was Clement Greenberg.
Die Briicke.
Gorky.
Jackson Pollock, and Willem Kooning, and
Its
tie
voice
Starting
from
Blaue Reiter
influential
second wave of
one back, one
artists
came
can be seen
mark
or form that
naturalistic or
is
no longer
even recognizable. Any
(with a small "e") in tendency. See also
decades. Deriving their inspiration
Abstract Expressionism.
ART
British art as an international
it
roots were in
became in the 1990s. Conceptual art and
it
consisted mostly of graduates of
installations
London. Their
in
and paintings successfully
attracted controversy.
involved are also
(Young British
The
known
artists
as "YBA"
is
associated primarily with the
in
1908 and
adherence
tradition of
and standards to be learned
Symbolists and
mainly from Cezanne, these two painters began representing objects not
round but as the
naturalistically in the
FAUVISM A movement named after a show in Paris in 1905 in which painters
sum of their planar facets. This breaking down of the object into constituent marks is known as Analytical Cubism.
such as Matisse and Ylaminck shocked
Around 1911 Picasso and Braque evolved Synthetic Cubism, which involved using
this
Strongly theoretical practitioners.
among
Cubism
its
the public with their bright, lurid
and simple brushstrokes. For Expressionism they were called
colours,
fauves, or "wild beasts."
to
dedicated
FUTURISM A Modernist movement originating in Italy in 1909
propagated through
liberated
from Classical sculpture. The basis
contemporary painters more generally
Paris and London.
of abstraction were tried, including the
for later Classicism -
from a dependence on naturalism.
aesthetic of the
Expressionism of the Blaue Reiter.
of proportion, balance, and avoidance
twentieth century,
embodying
ideals
Cubism, and the work of individual
of excess - was formed during the
DADAISM A movement
Renaissance and developed
disruption and desecration that
twentieth century a sharp distinction
Baroque
was
made between
often
or "non-figurative" but this
art
purely abstract
and
figurative art,
period. Classicism
particularly strong in France,
Poussin was
serious purpose,
Dada took
and
greatest exponent.
its
ACTION PAINTING
Painting as action,
Abstract Expressionism the brushwork
and as
the paint
a trance or performing a
dance: associated above
all
floor
in
which
invisible
was
its
founded
COMPLEMENTARY COLOURS
structure above and
behind an altar
used as a
sculpture. Also
A main main
in
field for
in
Colours
for example, red
painting and
complementary seen by the
as a reredos.
and green. The
human eye tends
BAROQUE A
consists is
until the late
to remain
less sharply defined than its
beginning, but
it
was
certainly over by
1770 and the French
in
Revolution of 1789.
When
more problematic, because
is
originally
it
in fact, its
initially (in
in the instruction of
what
tired
Baroque period
Renaissance as opposed
Mannerism
century,
it
was a
is.
of
to the
ot tin- late sixteenth
ruDei
marks of the
GOTHIC The
painter's
hand or brush,
Colour Field.
period in Western art
extending from the mid-twelfth century
of their
was only one possible
style,
A
functional painting had to be abstract
it
in colouring
architecture
which the
was dominant. The term
painting and sculpture, which
was
eventually rejected by the Renaissance
because
emphasis on rhythm and
its
linear grace did not
conform with
Classical norms and proportions.
and
HYPERREAL Minutely exact and
would become
particular in describing reality.
away from
what
art
richer, usually
DIE
BRUCKE A group
of
German
artists,
ICONOGRAPHY The work of art.
who from 1906 adopted this name, meaning "The Bridge" - quite from
matter of art.
was
was.
where
to
where the members never
ILLUSIONISM Giving the
The term
depth.
Fauvism, but also deliberately
to the elaborate
and the creation of environments and
medievalist
installations.
Apart from informing the
of strictly Conceptual artists
in.
for example, their re\ival
CONSTRUCTIVISM A development of Synthetic Cubism applied particularly \o sculpture. From 1917 in Russia Const ructivist.s such as Gabo and
Baroque
is
particularly applied
stage-management of
wall and ceiling frescos, which
of the woodcut, they arrived at an anti-
create a whole architecture within a
Classicist and distorted style that
plain room.
now
called
is
Expressionism.
IMPRESSIONISM Probably
Concept ualism was fundamental to that of artists such as Joseph Beuys.
on a
painted surface of three-dimensional
and communication. Influenced by
painting and
illusion
explained, but they sought progress
sculpture into performance, events,
led art
subject matter of a
or the study of the subject
DIPTYCH A w ork of art
in
two panels.
known
of
all art-history"
the best
terms.
name from a
The panels are often hinged, making two inner fields and two outer fields available
painting by
for painting.
Sunrise, exhibited in 1874. As in this
Impressionism took
picture,
DRIP PAINTING Mark-making using drips
Monet
many
its
called Impression:
Impressionists sought to
depict the "impression" that natural light
on the eye.
a drive toward
more exuberant and more ambitious
Pevsner avoided stalling from nature and
rather than brushstrokes: a technique
left
continuation of the Renaissance style
instead huilt abstract sculptural objects
associated with action painting.
truthfulness in painting landscape.
GLOSSARY
is
also used to describe the associated
including notably Kirchner and Nolde.
Caravaggio. the Carracci, and Rubens,
the High
the
More
such as Carl Andre and Joseph Kosuth,
Classicism Starting with
as a deliberate return to the values
name
decorative.
the 1960s) rather theoretical
didactic, questioning
work
characterized distortion
and excess, w hereas the dominant characteristic of the
more
certainly not a style, Conceptual art
It
applied to the
styles of art prevalent during this period,
the term
Art which can be
to be created than in the product.
and
the time of the death of Giambattista
Tiepolo
also the
meaning
journal. Mondrian. in particular, believed
and highly restricted
an approach than a movement, and
eighteenth century ("Late Baroque"). is
was
Style",
Stijl.
term of
conceived, described, and recorded, but
term used to describe
extends from about 1600
end
critical
readily identifiable Gothic style of
1917 and led by Mondrian
form, otherwise
both a style and a period. The Baroque
Its
in
founded on functional principles.
altar.
CONCEPTUAL ART
GESTURE/GESTURAL A
was
A Modernist movement,
that there
to a bright colour
as an after-image on the retina.
altarpiece adorns a church's
It
would have been
had been a philosophy.
and van Doesburg. De "The
combination, enhance each other -
a Christian church
known
STIJL
its
the later twentieth century referring to
to the fifteenth century, during
DE
opposite on the colour wheel which,
A
ALTARPIECE
if it
and
Balla,
developed Cubism to depict the
in contrast to
greatest
and painted without pause
or apparent reflection.
was
first
suddenly appeared
against everything and
age,
excitement of speed.
around 1915 before disappearing
against itself
exponent.
laid
it
prophesied a new-
It
machine
remains obscure.
any,
altogether in the early 1920s.
and
frequently stained onto
the support. Rothko
with the
canvases which Jackson Pollock
is
becomes
style within
its
its
different manifestations in
Zurich) in which
A painting
FIELD
or pure action, without deliberation if in
if
the various capital cities (the
very difficult to sustain.
is
COLOUR
on the
was
so loud in
and also
"manifestos" in
its
such as Carra and
painters,
painters such as Paul Klee. During the
in the
Fauvism. Many
in
other kinds of art can be expressionistic
build up a self-sufficient composition.
CLASSICISM The to the rules
when many modes
revolutionary style invented
marks (or even ready-made patterns)
Artists).
kind of stylized or non-naturalistic form
can be called abstract, but abstraction
Gauguin and other
in
developed throughout the next two
Goldsmiths' College
artistic
Reiter, a similar kind of Expressionism
abstraction.
BRIT
toward an
associated with
by Picasso and Braque
Its
real motif or subject
Though the term is primarily German art and the groups Die Briicke and the Blaue
space.
evolution of twentieth-century
making the paint and frequently the large scale of the canvas convey the message.
from the
expense
CUBISM A
phenomenon, as
of working
at the
Kandinsky contributed greatly to the
close to eliminating subject and motif,
ABSTRACTION The process
leg taking the weight, the
and
a \iolent. Romantic Surrealism - or
Expressionism - these
movement:
other relaxed, and so on.
following
In particular. Klee
into contrasting
and feeling
of naturalistic form or perspectival
York during the Second World War and
of painting that germinated in
in
exhibited together in Munich from 1911.
in
However, several
artists in the
group
which Monet belonged, though also referred to as Impressionists, did not have to
same
entirely the
aim.
When
painters such
as Gauguin located the truthfulness they
'
the systematic exploration of ancient
a collective term for various tendencies
Greece. Although the tendency was
thai
Roman and
direction.
Many
genera] approach which valued genius
extending
early
MANNERISM The produced
term applied to
in Italy,
and before the phrase
la
High
in the
maitiera, meaning the
relates to the
there
general, but
which
in the
reaction against artists seen
intended to be seen together.
PERSPECTIVE The
art
is
recession in a painting. This
affectedness or excess in style.
medieval
art,
It is
in
in
but tends to be
itself,
below the main
lies
formed
in 1848,
A group
Raphael and regarded
very well for street scenes but was too
artist
on
was an extreme form of abstraction. The term has been used more widely to summarize a whole
variations of colour (sometimes called
aesthetic of absence, requiring clean
aerial perspective) as well
seamless
finish,
and reduction to
landscapes. The illusion of
was given by by the
judicious placing of scaled markers.
the essential.
POLYPTYCH A work
MODERNISM A self-conscious
from the mid-nineteenth century late twentieth
of art in separately
framed panels - two (diptych), three
effort until the
century to innovate and to
(triptych), or late
rejected
the lifelessness of academic imitation of
than the characterless object the viewer
lines,
for art, especially
more. Altarpieces of the
art as
an example of freshness. Like their
and
and
in their
search for
art altogether.
SURREALISM A movement mind
into art, both in the
who
naturalistic style to represent the
objectively impossible.
in
When
place of allegory and "history."
written with a small
"r"
the term usually
to idealism,
showing
SYMBOLISM A movement
soon
was
scenes. Beneath the central main field
RENAISSANCE This
was a predella.
"rebirth," refers to the period, culture,
after
considered to have done also
POP ART Short
it
its
A group
refers to a liberating
movement
of art students
formed a secret brotherhood
and formed
by analogy with "Pop music," the term
work. See
Post-modernism.
NA8IS
for "popular"
who
in 1888-9.
They took the name "Nabi" from the Hebrew word for "prophet" and
of the 1960s that enabled
Gauguin's ideas. The group formed part
or pin-ups. Ranging from the highly
of the Symbolist movement.
subtle (as in the
work
to the impersonal
NAZARENES A group of early-nineteenthGerman artists with medievalist ideals who worked in Italy, mainly in Rome, and founded an artistic community. They painted meticulously
its
name from
into the
and
deliberately banal,
the seeds of
Baroque.
depended on the rediscovery of
the Classical past. In painting,
foreshadowed by Giotto
it
in
France, BurneJones in England, and
Klimt in Austria
literally
"deceive the eye," trompe-l'oeil
is
a kind
of illusionism, usually on a small scale,
which
tricks the eye into believing that
the painted object - for example, a
fly
become
real or really occupies space.
established until the fifteenth
century in
Italy.
is
In the sixteenth century
slick or the
adopted everywhere else
in
was
TRIPTYCH
Europe.
centre,
A work
left,
and
of art in three panels:
right.
Pop Art already held
art critic
ROCOCO A predominantly
French
title
invented
and painter Roger
with the eighteenth century,
in
of tone from the grandeur of
flamboyant Louis XTV. Watteau
London. This exhibition
Impressionism" was dominated
had prevailed
great painter of the Rococo,
by
America
exhibition
limited extent in England.
century and into the nineteenth was
was the springboard for a Modernist emulation of the Continental
underpinned by the discovery of new
avant-gardes. Fry later broadened the
ROMANTICISM A
aspects of the Classical past, brought
term to include the work of Seurat and
dominant
about by the excavation of Pompeii and
the Pointilists.
by Gauguin and van Gogh.
title
In
England the
remains useful as
a change
is
the
which also
had manifestations particularly decorative arts in
in
at the court of the
NEOCLASSICISM The Neoclassicism that became so fashionable in Europe and
works of Cezanne and paintings
style
came
Baroque
French
The
de Chavannes, Redon, and Moreau
which has apparently just alighted -
Raphael and his contemporaries.
end of the eighteenth
and
to be suggestive
fourteenth century, but did not start to
that
at the
was
in the early
Fry in 1910 for an exhibition of the latest
late
was
TROMPE-L'OEIL Meaning
was not a new
It
the preternaturally clear style of early
"after
takes
the Dark Ages and the Gothic period,
of delicacy and playfulness that
art in
It
the idea that the arts had
the Italian style of Classicism
Post-modernism.
by the British
Art
decayed since Classical times, during
of Jasper Johns)
POST-IMPRESSIONISM The in
and developed
birth but
whether these were soup-can boxes
after.
main practitioners were Gauguin, Puvis
succeeded the Middle Ages
Pop Art's entry ticket was the abandonment of "nature" and the acceptance of modern culture itself, or art,
century
style that
but were then revived.
reproduced artefacts, as the matter of
in the
and the 1890s, but discarded
emotional rather than descriptive. The
term, meaning
figurative art to re-enter the avant-garde.
its
developed some of the implications of
and fun-loving
widely
evocative, luminous rather than clear,
and
became orthodoxy the Second World War and was
establishments,
in art
acclaimed as the direction forward
rather than the beautiful.
avant-gardes displacing obsolete
which should
actual as the greatest subject of painting
and might have opening and closing
Posited on the idea
in its content,
Magritte and Dali used a highly
wings, painted on both sides with several
all.
without
wished to substitute the present and
imitation of the past and even art that figurative at
making of is,
be the stuff of dreams. Artists such as
in nineteenth-
century France, led by Courbet,
- that
conscious manipulation and exploiting
chance - and
REALISM A movement
of the 1920s
that sought to bring the unconscious
art "automatically"
serious subjects anticipated Symbolism.
means opposed
Middle Ages and the early
critic,
Ruskin, they were highly moral in
their outlook,
of abstract art as
earlier, "primitive"
nostalgia, decorativeness, respect, or
of progress and achieved by successive
painting.
sought to remove subject matter from
late 1880s
rejected
Romantic
Russia from 1913. Like the contemporary
things as they really are, or the ugly
It
terrible
storm, or even the tragedy of a play by
Renaissance were generally polypfychs,
around the mainstream.
skirt
tl<<-
theory of Constructivism, Suprematism
Like the
supporter the British writer,
distance in landscapes
Burke,
published his Enquiry into
practised by artists such as Malevich in
dedicated to naturalism
in painting.
Nazarenes before them, they
for
which the
orthogonals, or lines receding into space,
artificial for
who
into
Edmund
Shakespeare - would become a subject
of artists
a single vanishing point. This worked
it
English art criticism by
mountain landscapes or a
part of a polyptych or
were
way
and events.
Sublime and the Beautiful in 1757. The Sublime in nature - for example,
was originally, in the 1960s, a theortical movement devoted to taking the "art" out of art, so that it became no more saw. In this
SUBLIME A term introduced
movement and
usually a long, thin panel,
and honesty
carefully calibrated to converge
literature
progressive. Post-modern
PRE-RAPHAELITES
or highly lifelike and
geometric perspective,
he or
this
not only the newly discovered ancient
SUPREMATISM Theory
may be in much
Renaissance there was a vogue
Sublime,
For
natural.
dedicatee of the main image.
optically exact. During the early
more," Minimalism
had to paint
artist
Greek past but also the Middle Ages, and
and self-conscious.
ironic
whether human or
even contemporary
assimilated and
necessarily lacks the theoretical
image.
illusion of spatial
rudimentary or very poor, as
is
and 1990s when
other altarpiece that
of a pair of paintings,
also used with a small "m" to describe
MINIMALISM Often summed up today
twentieth century, describing the cultural
PREDELLA The
PENDANT One
An
she could range the whole of the past,
the late
painted with a narrative relating to the
beauty and in their emulation of the
the phrase "less
in
life.
to be trying too hard in their pursuit of
ancients and of one another. The term
and subject of debate
cannot be simply
context of
literature or art refers to the idealization
of country
took on a pejorative sense when
was a
label
favourite critical
guidelines of a directional
life in
satisfactory achievement of a Classicist style. It
POST-MODERNISM A
Modernism had been
of shepherds and to rural
individuality.
great paintings celebrating the
situation in the 1980s
artists.
PASTORAL A term which life
Baroque,
around 1600. The name originated
Romantic
by
art,
and
German Expressionism.
was no longer
around 1500-20,
initiation of the
further, particularly
still
of these resemble early-twentieth-
vocabulary.
its
art
after the highpoint of the
Renaissance
style
cent ury
it,
Cezanne
the mind, and painters such as
was never a
It
nor an avant-garde, but rather a
renewal of Classicism but a revision of
developed
the eye but in
in
French Revolution.
Greek themes, Neoclassicism was not a
changed
nature or
Enlightenment, Neoclassicism, and the
of
an exploration of
in
became preoccupied by the pattern the motif made on the surface, Impressionism
in
France between 1880 and
in
1900 as departures from Impressionism.
rooted
The delicacy of Rococo was not swept away but given a stricter grid. The monumentally of Late Baroque was not abandoned but
sought not
emerged
Germany and
VANITAS The Latin word denotes a
for "vanity," in art
still life
it
featuring symbols of
transience and death, such as flowers or skulls.
Such
pictures,
by stressing the
passing of time, were meant to induce fear of eternal torment after death
in the
thus set the viewer on the path of
to a
righteousness.
and
VEDUTA cultural
movement
in the first half of the
nineteenth century, following on from the
Italian for "view" or "vista," specifically a
view of a
city,
a landscape or a ruined
Classical monument.
GLOSSARY
261
'
List of paintings KEY
Basquiat, Jean-Michel, 1960-88
(8lxl52in): Prado. p.31
Accademia: Galleria delT Accademia.
Pym.
77*c
Counauld
Venice; Courtauld:
An
Institute
1984: acrylic
media on canvas; 218.4 "
London:
Galleries.
and nuxed 172.2cm
1490-1500;
PC. pp.17, 252
in);
(29x23
on oak: 73.5x59.1cm
oil
in);
NG
I
London, p.41
l;
Hermitage: The State Hermitage
Pompeo, 1708-87 Time Orders Old Age to Destmy Beauty, 1746: oil on canvas;
wood; 64 x 46cm (25xl8in);
Largt Bouqui
Museum.
135.3x96.5cm (53kix38in);
Mauntshuis. Hague, p.226
Wooden Tub. 1606-7;
NG
Botticelli,
Guggenheim: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. New York:
Batoni,
St Petersburg; Kunst:
Museum. Vienna;
Kunsthistorisches
Louvre: Musee du Louvre. Paris:
MFA: Museum
York:
CA Floicers.
London, p. 101
Baugin, Lubin, 1612/13-63
New
Met: Metropolitan Museum,
Bosschaert, Ambrosius, 1573-1621
The Five Senses. 1630:
of Fine Art.
Mariano
on panel;
oil ):
Self-Portrait in Tuxedo. 1927; oil
National Gallery of Art. Washington
Busch-Reisinger Museiun, Harvard.
on
canvas: 139.5x95.5cm (55x37Min);
ot the
Magi, c.1476;
i:
and tempera on wood;
p. 149
PC: Private Collection: RSA: Royal
Society of Arts. London: Stadel:
Paris Society. 1931 (reworked 1947): oil on canvas; 109.3x 175.6cm
Primavera, c.1481; tempera on panel; 203x314cm (80x123 in
Stadelsches Kunstinstitut und
(43x69Kin); Guggenheim, p.205
Uffizi.
Stadtische Galerie. Frankfurt: Uffizi:
Dn
on
overall;
Alma-Tadema, Lawrence, 1836-1912
NG
Washington, p.95
oil
Altarpiece of St Denis. 1416:
and
oil
77fc
Calumny
on panel; 69.2 X 173.4cm (27HX6S in); NG London, p.74
on
211cm
162
(63 .xS3in); Louvre, p.56
canvas: 152.4x95.3cm (60x37 Sn);
Bellini, Gentile, active
PC. p.210
Pwcession in the Square of St Mark, 1496; oil on canvas: 367 x745cm
1480-1538
Altdorfer, Albrecht,
Satyr Family. 1507;
on limewood;
oil
23.5X20.5cm (jWxSin); Staatliche
Museum. Tlte
293
144
1
Bellini,
c.1492-1507
Accademia. p.58
in);
Giovanni, active
c.
1459-1516
Agony
Berlin, p. 188
Birth of the Virgin, c.1521;
pine panel: 140.7x130cm (55
oil
on
51in
I;
in the Garden, c.1465; egg on wood: 81.3X 127cm (32x50in);
NG London
Alte Pinakothek. Munich, p.42
Dead
Angelico, Fra (Guido di Pietro),
panel;
p.
Coronation of the Virgin, c.1435; on wood: 213x211cm (83/4 x83in):
tempera on
(34 X 42 in
):
on
Sacra
(
oil
panel:
471x258cm (185^Xl01/in);
Antonello da Messina,
Man,
Portrait of a
on
c.1470; oil
panel; 35 x 30cm (13
Museo
1430-79
c.
•
in v
11
Fondazione Mandralisca
della
36in): Uffizi.
1-.1480: oil
Lamentation, c.1495;
Collection.
New
on canvas:
Poldi Pezzoli
York, p.60
1752: oil
2s
on canvas:
in);
St Michael Triu
(26tfx20in): Kunst. p.231
Deed, c.1468;
oil
wood; 179.7x81.9cm
-
<28in); Wallace
New
Collection.
York, p.185
NG
Bacon, Francis, 1909-92
Blake, William, 1757-1827
canvas;
Die Punishment of Adam. 1795-1805; colour printed relief
Wallace Collection. London, p.79
1951; oil
on canvas:
197.8 x 137.4cm (78x54in);
Aberdeen
Museum.
Jupiter and Callisto. 1769;
160x129cm (63x50
in
The Beach at Troinille. 1864—3:
on paper: 43.2x53.5cm (17x21in);
Study for Portrait on Folding Bed, 1963; oil on canvas: 198. lx 147.3cm
Tate Britain. London, p. 31 Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils.
on wood: 27x49.1cm 10 NG Washington, p. 179
(78x58ini: Tate
Modem. London.
idies for a Portrait of Isabel
Rawsthorne. 1965;
oil
37X1 15.6cm
45 Sn); Sainsbury
14
1
-
!
on canvas:
c.1826; pen, ink.
David, 1584-1657
Vanitas
with a Portrait of
Still Life
n Young Painter, 1661; oil on panel;
Sn); Stedelijk
Abstract Speed 1913; oil
on ca
London
p. 241
tht
<
at
5
1cm
Tate Collection, Barry, James, (
mnmerce
tin
Thames,
1741-1828
Triumph
I7SIn, oil
canvas; oi
on canvas;
«0.7cm(182xl42in); p 109
Baud
Tin
or The
Arte. Ponce, p.73
late
1
<>i
on canvas; 76.5 x 100.5cm
NG
I;
|
and
Palette. 1909; oil
canvas; 91.7x42.8cm (36KX1I
oil
oil
1(1.2
Bean
Rome.
26
in
p.
194
Church Picture
c
i
Garden (90; oil
LIST OF PAINTINCS
Paintings, 1973;
80xl00.3cm(31 p.8 c.
London, p.99
1450-1516
Earthly Delights,
on wood; 206> 386cm
oil
<39
each
in)
Brouwer, Adriaen, 1605/6-38 Peasants
<
I
arousing mi
ci,
panel;
1
1
I
19.2cm
i:
NG
in
•in):
Louvre, p. 186
I;
on canvas:
oil
149.2 x 196.9cm i5s
NG
<77Jfin);
London, p. 173
Seaport with the Embarkation of
c.
the
Queen ofSheba.
1648; oil
on
canvas: 14S.6x 193.7cm (58^x76/un);
c. 1-589: oil
NG
on panel;
in): Uffizi.
1596-7;
oil
p.77
London, p.122
Close, Chuck, 1940Cratt, 1997; oil
on canvas:
(18Xx25:
on canvas;
259.lx213.4cm (102x84in): PC. p.149 Cole,
oil
Thomas, 1801-48 m Mount Holyoke.
Sia Maria del Popolo,
Northampton, Massachusetts, altera Thunderstorm - Die Oxbow, 1836; oil
Tin Hi
on canvas: 130.8x 193cm
Rome, p.21 heading of St John the Baptist.
1608; oil i
112
-2ii
I
in
r
(iiicsa dei Cavalieri di
|]
County.
Malta. La Valletta, p.57
Cassatt, Mary,
New
canvas; B0.6x64.6cm
II
AJU
r a
I
Storm,
•'.Sx 160.6cm
J., c. 1883; oil I
76in);
Mountain. EsSi
York.
1844-1926
Vadanu
(51
Met p.169
on canvas; 361x520cm
Portrait oj
in a 1h
17 in
_
-
p. 12
The Mill. 1648:
oil
on canvas; 230X 175cm (90/,x69in);
on canvas;
panel. Talc Collection, London, p. 10
1636:
19'/an);
Die Landing of Cleopatra at Tarsus. on canvas: 119x168cm
1571-1610
Fruit Basket,
Broodthaers, Marcel, 1924-76
X 121cin
oj
NG
S2.7
Gallery.
c.1545; oil
I;
and Bread.
on panel: 36 x 49cm (14Xx
(47x66
in);
on wood: 146.5x116.8cm
p. 225
Life with Fish
c.1648: oil
52
i''.in
Nuremburg.
SHU
London,
I;
Die Conversion of St Paul. 1601;
Allegory with Venus and Cupid,
2
Landscape with Hagarand the oil on canvas on wood;
Eater. 1580-90; oil on
Ambrosiana. Milan, pp.218, 222
Bosch, Hieronymus, Tin
in):
4
Angel. 1646:
Simon Foundation, Pasadena. pp.16. 177 Carracci, Annibale, 1560-1609
95x85cm (37K> 33
on
1
Claude Gellee (called Lorrain), 1600-82
Piazzetta, Venice, Looking
Bacchus,
with a Guitar. 1911;
1
Germanisches Nationalmuseum.
Rotterdam, p.232
da,
Guggenheim, p.234
Man
Life with Glass Sphere. 1630s;
on panel: 35.9 x 59cm
7V
Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi
on
p.189
Boymans-Yan Beuningen Museum.
Bronzino, Agnolo, 1503-72
Modem buidon
on canvas:
oil
Canal), 1697-1768:
77*e
oil on 180x151cm (7lx59/in) 82 x 43cm (32/
oil
oil
An
on
3(
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio
canvas: 57 x 68cm (22
Bouts, Dieric, c.1415-75
Violin
Still
London, p. 139
oil
Milk, c.1919; oil
(
Claesz., Pieter, 1597/8-1661
Nivernais, 1849 102
on canvas: 77 x 1 42cm
PC. p.93
Institute of Arts,
1848-94
in);
46x64cm
'
1888-1978
Chirico, Giorgio de,
Church, Frederic Edwin, 1826-1900
MoMA. p.240
|
on canvas:
oil
Museo de
canvas; 116.2x80.9cm (45XX 31
2' ilk in
Life with Attributes of the
oil
Sprengel Museum. Hanover, p.195
-
|;
London, p.199
King Arthur ,,, Aralon. 1881-98; oil on canvas; 111x254cm (43 xlOOin):
on canvas; 100 x 100.6cm (39Xx39/in);
Musee d'( Irsay, Pans p. 215 Bonnard, Pierre, 1867-1947
(
St George Killing the Dragon. 1940;
89
Port Sunlight, pp.16,
Oxford, p.202
on canvas; 134
on 14x 17 in
later, oil
p.230
Lady Lever Art Gallery.
Braque, Georges, 1882-1956
\g in tin
Has Passed
I;
St Sebastian, 1600-38; oil on
Bonheur, Rosa, 1822-99
Museum, Leiden, p.162 Balla, Giacomo, 1871-1958
in
Christ
oil
Lou\Te. p.232
NG
on canvas; 75.9x119.7cm (30x47 in): Norton
oil
19 in
!
on
|;
112x140cm (44X55in); Hermitage.
each; St Pierre. Louvain. p.36
Die Street Enteis the House. 1911;
57 in
(
The Beguiling of Merlin. 1872-7; oil on canvas; 186x 111cm
Blanchard, Jacques, 1600-38
124 Boccioni, Umberto, 1882-1916
Fish. 1728: oil
15x 146cm 45
Still
each, sides
p.
1
Pictorial Arts. 1766:
Tate Collection. London, p.33
Rijksmuseum. Amsterdam,
Ray
Life with
canvas;
Burne-Jones, Edward, 1833-98
Die Butcher's Shop, early 1580s: on canvas: 190x271cm (75x 106
p.141
1699-1779 Still
Kunst. p.202
Galeria Colonna,
(60tfx79/in);
on canvas:
Vote, 1662; oil
165 x229cm (65x90Sfin); Lou\Te. p.23 Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon,
Die Cistern, 1733 or
Die Last Supper. 1464-8;
153x202cm
on canvas:
oil
25 Sn); PC. p.213
canvas: 37.5x44. 5cm
panel: central
canvas;
-
!
Peasant Wedding, c.1568-9; oil on wood: 114x 164cm (45 x 64 in
mahogany: 32.6x43.2cm (13xl7in);
Centre for Visual Arts. Norwich.
Bailly,
(
and tempera on
20
Kunst. p.185
North, early 1730s;
i:
Boudin, Eugene, 1824-98
etching with ink and watercolour
p.112
|;
on
oil
p.13
Art Gallery and Industrial
1
Champaigne, Philippe de, 1602-74
each:
B
London, p.32
Wedding, c.1961:
Ex
19
Summer, c.1755; oil on canvas; 57.2x73cm(22.-2s in); Frick
:
Courtauld. p.221
Triumph of Death, c.1562; oil on panel: 117x 162cm (46x63 in Prado. p. 190 Die Harvesters, 1565: oil on wood: 119x162cm (47 63 in): Met. p.196 Hunters in the Snow, 1565: oil on wood; 117x162cm (46 x63 in
Caillebotte, Gustave,
on canvas;
oil
Sum titer.
tin
i:
Belgique. Bmssels. p.32
MFA. p.233 Campin, Robert, 1378/9-1444 A Man and A Woman, c.1430: oil and egg on oak: 40.7 27.9cm (16x1 lin)
164x71cm(64
67x50.8cm
52x64cm
c.1882; oil
Collection, London, p. 109
urn and gold on
Da
Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts de
Pinakothek, Munich, p. 107
Vulcan. 1754;
in pliant
22 in
Chagall, Marc, 1887-1985
on panel; 117x162cm (46x63 inc
Mars ami Venus Surprised by
Bermejo, Bartolome,
on limewood;
oil
Met. p.234
on paper on board: 69.8 x.57.1cm
."
Fruits Displayed on a Stand.
Alte
active 1468-95
1563: oil
oil
I;
121.9x215.9cm (48x85in); Detroit
p.144 Arcimboldo, Giuseppe, 1527-93 Cefalii.
Brueghel, Pieter, the Elder,
36in
.
Life with Plaster Cupid, c.1895;
Still
Cotopari. 1862:
O'Murphy),
on poplar panel;
72.4x91.4cm (28
of Fine Arts,
on canvas;
oil
Reclining Girl (Portrait of Louise
59x73cm(23
124.4X 141.9cm (49x553fin); Frick
Museum
170
p.
and
Life with Ginger Jar
Eggplants, c.1890—1,
Louvre, pp.16. 77
St Francis in the Desert, c.1480; oil
(73Kxll5in):
oil
.
Met p.175 Still
|;
oil
107x71cm (42!;x28in): Museum. Milan, p. 50
Accademia. p.27
tempera and
p.98
I;
Christ, c.1465:
of Mariemont,
77
Triumph of Venus. 1740; oil on canvas; 130x162cm (61 63 in National Museum. Stockholm p. 73 Diana alter her hath. 1742; oil on canvas: 56x73cm (22x28 .in);
Tlie
Lou\Te. p. 55
•
Kunst. p.221
|;
Washington, p.35
on canvas; 65.4x81.6eii
on canvas: 186x292cm
77«'
186
86x 107cm
tempera on wood; 62x91cm (24
in
a
on canvas;
oil
i:
ofApelles, c.1490:
Boucher, Francois, 1703-70
Pinacoteca Brera. Milan, p. 51
c.1387/1400-55
pp.70, 106
Uffizi.
Venus and Mars, c.1486; tempera
oil
NG
77;c
Bellechose, Henri, active 1415-40
on wood transferred to canvas;
Die Baths ofCaracalla. 1899;
I;
pp.14, 72
(68xl09/jn);
the Castle
1612: oil
Duon.
2s
38
rs in
Ftoux
The Fall of the Rebel Angels. 1562;
11 in);
Die Birth of Venus, c.1485; tempera on canvas; 172.5x278.5cm
canvas: 576 x 122cm (226>;X48in)
Galleria degli Uffizi. Florence.
1
oj
1417/9-57
del,
1450:
c.
Cezanne, Paul, 1838-1906 Mont Sainte-Victoire. C.18S2-5;
c.1515-69
DC: Prado: Museo del Prado. Madrid:
oil
I
I
of An. p.147
tempera on leather on wood; 115.6x76.9cm (45!
David,
Manchester, p. 199
Gallery'.
98x73cm
Sandro (Alessandro di 1444/5-1510
37.5x28.3cm (14 NG London, p. 140
Argonauts, 1949-50;
An
Castagno, Andrea
Brueghel, Jan, 1568-1625
tempera on wood; 1 1 1 x 134cm (44X52 in Uffizi. p.136 Portrait of a Young Man. c. 1480-5; oil
City
Filipepi),
Die Adoration
55x73cm i21 28 in Louvre, p.231 Beckmann, Max, 1884-1950
MoMA: Museum of Modern Art. New York: NG London: National Gallery. London; NG Washington: Boston:
on
c.1620; oil
Museum
Baltimore
MFA. p.197 in Brown, Ford Madox, 1821-93 Work, 1852-65; oil on canvas; 137x197.3cm (54x77 -in): I
Crowning with Thorns,
25
in)
on
I
ol
\ns p.181
le\
eland
Museum
Groeninge Stedelijkemuseum,
John, 1850-1934
Collier, I.ili/h,
237x141cm
(93XX56Jfin); Atkinson
Art Gallery, Southport p.90
Constable, John, 1776-1837
Wivenhoe Park, Essex,
on
1816; oil
canvas; 56.lxl01.2cm (22^x39
NG
in);
Washington, p. 171
The
(
'ornfield, 182(i; oil
on canvas;
I
p.55
!i'i;i
Eyck, Jan van, c.1390-1441
oalq34.3x25.1cm(13!*xl0in);
The Adoration oj the Mystic Lamb, 1432; oil on oak; 350.5 159cm
Gentile da Fabriano, c.1370-1427
(138xl80Xin);
Adoration
David, Jacques-Louis, 1748-1825
Doesburg, Theo van, 1883-1931
Academie d'Homme dite Patrocle; c.1777; oil on canvas; 122x 170cm
(nni position 17, 1919;
50x50cm(19Kxl93fin); Haags
A Man
(58x67in); Louvre, p.110
Gemeentemuseum, Netherlands, p.238
oak; 33.3x25.8cm (13XX10
The Oath of the lloratii, 1784; oil on canvas; 330 125cm ( I30x l67Kin);
Composition. L920;
NG
Louvre, p. 118
112!»- 121.9cm (56Xx48in);
The Death of Moral, 1793;
NG
canvas; 165 x128cm
London, p. 12
52Xin); Kunstgalerie,
(64!
Bruges, p. 168
on canvas;
1887; oil
M usees
oil
on
(65x50^);
oil
NG
•
on canvas;
on canvas;
in a
Bavo, Client, p.41
St
Turban, 1433;
oil
on
p. 44
London,
oj the
in);
London, p.256
Hon
1
Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri),
and his Wife, 134; oil on oak; 81.8x59.7cm (32KX235fin); NG
Vatican,
1581-1641
London, pp.14, 146
Gentileschi, Artemisia, 1597-C.1651
in
1
•
62cm
12/24!/in); Pinacoteca,
(
Home.
The Beheading
canvas; 184. lx 229.2cm (72X;X90Xin);
The Intervention of the Sabine
Vatican,
Rome, p.27
Women, 1799; oil on canvas; 385x522cm (151Kx205Jfin); Louvre.
Draper, Herbert, 1863-1920
StadeL P-39 The Van dec I'm
(78Kx64in);
NG Washington, p. 158 Bmok Watson and Hie Shark;
pp.16, 124
canvas; I82.9xl55.6cm (72x61Xin);
(48x62Xin); Groeninge
Tate Britain, London, p.81
Stedelijkemuseum, Bruges,
oil
on canvas;
(71Xx90)
182.1
NG
177S;
X229.7cm
Washington, p.131
The Death of Major Peirson, 6th
January, 1781, 1783;
oil
on canvas;
251.5x365.8cm (99xl44in); Tate Britain,
Koyaux des Beaux Arts de
Bonaparte Crossing oil
Hie Alps, 1800-1;
on canvas; 272 x232cm 155
Cornells van Haarlem, 1562-1638
Jockeys before the Race,
Two Followers of Cadmus Devoured
oil
by a Dragon, 1588;
oil
on canvas on
c.
1869-72;
and essence and pastel on paper; 107x73cm; (42Xx31>On); Barber Birmingham.
Institute of Fine Aits,
NG
p.217 Tlie Song of the Dog, c. 1874-5; gouache, pastel, and monotype on
Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille,
1796-1875 Study of the Colosseum or View from the Farnese Gardens (Noon), 1826; oil on paper laid on canvas; 30 x 49cm
oil
on panel;
Allnrpiecc; 1436;
It
122.1
x 157.8cm
<
NG
p. 23
Hanks
the
1844-1927
Casual Ward, 1872-4;
Washington.
to a
on canvas;
oil
p.96
The Race
Oj the
pp.14, 166
137.2x243.8cm (54x96in); Royal
1817-18;
Holloway College, Surrey, Fischer, Sandra, 1947-
45 X 60cm (17/,/23/in); Louvre.
83x 168cm (32Xx66Xin); Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena. pp.38, 254
Red Nude,
1989; oil
197
p.
World
PC. p.213
watercolour, pen, and
brown
ink with
oil
War II
on paper on canvas;
oil
p.119 The Sen-red Heads, c.1818;
on canvas;
1471-1528
50x61cm
canvas;
Louvre, p.127
on canvas; 78.4x1 17.5cm
Louvre, p. 166
Die Painter's Mother Resting HI,
Portrait
1489/94-1534
(30%x46Viin); Hermitage, p.137
Self-Portrait at 28, 1500; oil on
1977; oil
Jupiter and
Io, c.1530; oil on canvas; 163.5x74cm (64Xx29%in); Kunst.
Absinthe, c.1876;
p.79
d'Orsay, Paris p.209
Leda with the Swan,
on
1534; oil
canvas; 152 x191cm (60x75!4in); Staatliche
Museum,
Berlin, p. 78
oil
oil
on canvas;
92 x 68cm (36Xx26Xin); Musee
Woman paper;
on
(27&X27ifin); Tate
Collection, London, p.lll
on canvas;
(23Kx27!4in); PC. p.159 Benefit Supervisor Resting, 1994;
Perseus Turning Phirieas and his
National Gallery, Prague, p.39
Friedrich,
The Adoration of the Trinity, 1511; on wood; 135 x123.4cm
canvas;
Caspar David, 1774-1840
Cross in the Mountains, 1808;
Dyck, Anthony Van 1599-1641
Dresden, p. 169
A
Liberty Leading the People, 1830;
Queen Henrietta Maria with Sir Jeffrey Hudson, 1633; oil on
Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and
on canvas; 260x325cm (102!4xl28in);
canvas; 219.1
Cucumber, c.1600; oil on canvas 69x84.5cm (27Kx33/4in); San Diego
Louvre, pp.16, 119
NG
Women
Charles I in Tliree Positions, 1635-6;
of Art. p.223
1834; oil
on canvas; 180 x229cm
Courbet, Gustave, 1819-77
(7lx90!
The Peasants of Flagey Reluming from the Fair, 1850-5; oil on canvas;
Delaroche, Paul, 1797-1856
208x275cm (82xl08tfin); Musee des Beaux Arts de Besancon. p. 207
1833; oil
Die Wave, 1870;
on canvas;
oil
112 x144cm (44x56Xin); Staatliche
Museum,
Berlin, p.
179
Crane, Walter, 1845-1915
The Horses of Neptune, 1892;
oil
77)c
(5VAx48'/An); Kunst. p.54
p.210
Execution of Lady Jane Grey,
on canvas; 246 x297cm
(97xll7in);
NG
London, p. 123
Delaunay, Robert, 1885-1941
Windows Open Simultaneously, 1912; oil on canvas; 57x 123cm (22J{x48/Jn); Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, p. 242
oil
X 134.8cm
Walk at Dusk,
1830-5;
oil
on J.
William Powell, 1819-1909
Die Railway Station, 1862;
oil
on
(33Xx39Xin); Royal Collection,
Royal Holloway College, Surrey, p.208
Windsor, p. 140
Fuseli,
Tliomas Killigrew and an
Fiissli)
Henry (Johann Heinrich 1741-1825
Royal Collection, Windsor, p. 150
Giant, c.1790;
on
Thomas, 1844-1916 Miss Amelia van Buren, c.1891; oil on canvas; 114x812cm (45x32in);
oil
Venus Sleeping, 1944;
Leda, 1948;
(63Xx34Xin); Chiesa Sta Maria della
(60Kx37JSn); Tate Collection,
canvas; 63.5x76.2cm (25x30in); Tate
Passione, Milan, p.55
London, p.92
Collection, London, p. 201
Desportes, Alexandre-Francois,
Ernst,
Phillips Collection,
Washington DC.
172.7x406.4cm (68xl60in); Tate
p.143
Collection, London, p.93
Egg, Augustus Leopold, 1816-63
c.
1505-10;
Concert Champetve. 1508; canvas;
Giotto
di
Bondone, 1266-1337
on canvas;
Giovanni
di
Paolo
1403-83
Academy, London, p.88
Christ Suffering
(di Grazia),
and Christ
Triumphant, c.1450; tempera on panel;
115x103cm
(45Kx405fin);
Gainsborough, Thomas, 1727-88
Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, p.40
Mr and Mrs Andrews,
Girodet (Anne-Louis Girodet de
c.1748-9;
oil
Die Blessed Virgin Chastising the Infant Jesus before Tliree Witnesses,
canvas; 147.3x 180.3cm (58x71in);
de Malmaison, Paris,
transferred to wood; 207 x 146.7cm
oil
NG London,
77(c
(81!
Dali,
NG
London, p.220
Salvador 1904-89
on canvas; 91x 117cm (36x46in);
National
Museum, Stockholm,
p. 225
oil
on
Max, 1891-1976
1926; oil
p.167 Gauguin, Paul, 1848-1903
on canvas; 196x 130cm
(77Kx51!
Ludwig Museum,
Deutsch, Niklaus Manuel,
Cologne, p.39
1484-1530 SI Luke Painting the Virgin, 1515; mixed media on wood; 117.6x82.2cm
Europe
Yellow Christ, 1889;
after the Rain, 1940-2; oil
on
oil
92x73cm (36Mx28Xin);
New
on canvas; Albright-Knox
York, p.41
canvas; 547.7X 147.7cm (21J4X585fin);
Art Gallery,
Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford.
Nevennore, 1897;
p.191
60.5X 116cm (24x45Min); Courtauld.
Die Temptation of Si Anthony,
p.96
Harden, 1926; oil and tempera on wood; 121x89cm (47Xx35in); Musee
on canvas; 108 x 128cm (42Kx50Kin); Wihelm-LehmbruckMuseum, Duisberg. p.33 Espinosa, Juan de, c.1624-40
Where Do We Come From.' We? Where Are We Going?, on canvas; 139.1 x 374cm
David, Gerard, c.1460-1523
national d'art moderne, Paris, p.143
Still
Tlie Baptism of Christ, c. 1502-7; oil on panel; 129.7x96.6cm (5lx.38in);
Si Christopher (TV), 1939;
The Metamorphosis of Narcissus, 1937; oil on canvas; 51.1x78.1cm (20x.30tfin); Tate
Modern, London.
(46tfx32Hin);
Kunstmuseum, Bern.
p.256
1891-1969
p.92
Dix, Otto,
Sacrament of the Last Supper, 1955; oil on canvas; 166.7x267cm
Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von
Tlie
(65Xxl05Kin);
NG
Washington, p.51
mixed media on wood; 163x 133cm
1945; oil
Life with Grapes, 1630;
oil
on canvas; 83 x 62cm (32%X24Jfin); Louvre, p.224
24
Die Marriage of the Virgin, c.1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, p.43
1661-1743
Past and Present No.l, 1858;
On
Louvre, p. 172
Silver Tureen with Peaches, 173:3—4;
c.1430/5-c.1494
on board; 152.7x95cm
oil
105x136cm (41Kx53/in);
The Annunciation with Si Emidius, 1486; egg and oil on canvas
Crivelli, Carlo,
oil
on
Giorgione or Titian
on canvas; 69.8x1 19.4cm (27x47in); NG London, p. 147 Jonathan Buttall ("Die Blue Boy"), c.1770; oil on canvas; 179.4X 123.9cm (70'Xx48Kin); Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, pp.16, 157 The Watering Place, 1774-7; oil on
Crespi, Daniele,
oil
Accademia. p.182
132.6x94. 7cm (52MX37J&0; Royal
Eakins,
Neue Pinakothek, Munich, p. 77 1597-1630 St Carlo Borromeo at Supper, c.1625; oil on canvas; 1 62 x 188cm
London, p.82 Giorgione (Giorgio da Castelfranco), 1476/8-1510
c.1305; Padua, pp.14,
canvas; 132.7xl43.5cm (52HX56J&0;
oil
NG
Scrovegni Chapel (Arena Chapel),
Dior Battering the Serpent of Midgard in the Boat of Hymir the
Unidentified Young Man, 1638;
Stone, early 1680s; oil
canvas; 68 x 59cm (26Xx23Kin);
canvas; 116.7x256.4cm (46xl01in);
on canvas; 84.5x99.7cm
to
on canvas; 285x366cm (112V;xl44in);
Die Tempest, c.
Paul Getty Museum, LA. pp.164, 181 Frith,
Washington, p.156
Delvaux, Paul, 1897-1994
on canvas;
on
canvas; 33.3x43. 7cm (13KXl7'/fin);
(86Kx53J
on canvas; 86x215cm (34x84Xin);
oil
oil
115x110cm (45Xx43Xin); Gemaldegalerie Neue Meister,
194 Cotan, Juan Sanchez, 1560-1627
Museum
(25xl8in); Louvre, p.162
Giordano, Luca, 1634-1705 Followers
on
oil
of Algiers in their Apartment,
uith a
on wood;
c.1490; oil
PC. p.115
oil
oil
oil
63x46cm oil
Man
an Old
q)
Young Boy,
on canvas; 160x150cm (63x59in);
Feast of the Rosary, 1506;
Tlie Month of March, c.1469; fresco; 450x400cm (177K;xi57/iin); Palazzo
Schiffanoia, Ferrara. pp.85,
Ghirlandaio, Domenico, 1449-94
wood; 161.5X 192cm (63/.x75/in);
Delacroix, Eugene, 1798-1863
Death of Sardanapalus, 1827; on canvas; 392 x496cm (154Xxl95Xin); Louvre p.127
lx 69.2cm
limewood; 67 x 49cm (26!4xl9Xin);
Cossa, Francesco del, c.1435/6-77
Tlie
59.
Alte Pinakothek, Munich, p.148 Tlie
in a Tub, c.1883; pastel
70x70cm
highlights of gouache, retouched with
on
oil
491x716cm (193Xx282in);
canvas;
243.8x243.8cm (96x96in); PC. p.221 Freud, Lucien, 1922-
Vicomte
p. 229
The Raft of the Medusa, 1819;
over acrylic on canvas;
on
oil
(19/,x24in);
Museum, Stockholm,
National
(Vanilas), 1976-7;
black ink; 22.3x22.2cm (8Xx8Xin);
(Tlie
Riderless Horses.
Maestd, 1311; tempera on panel;
Valley, 1495;
Concorde
1791-1824
Gericault, Theodore,
View of the Arco
la
Rirei Lorn, 1801;
o\ tin
on canvas; 180.5X 198cm
Paris,
Applicants for Admission
Diirer, Albrecht,
Lepic and his Daughters), 1875;
p.35
Uffizi
(71x66Xin); Chateau de Malmaison, Fildes, Luke,
paper; 57.5x45.5cm (22KXl75fin);
Place de
Holofernes,
1770-1837
91.4x91.4cm (36x36in); PC. p.113 Flack, Audrey, 1931-
(HXxl9Min); Louvre, p.177 Correggio (Antonio Allegri),
oj
on canvas; 199/ 102 .Vm
oil
Gerard, Baron Francois-Pascal
oil
'ailing of the Apostles Peter
(17K;xl8Xin);
p. 58
OSSian Conjures up the Spirits on
Buoninsegna,
ami Andrew, 1308-11; 43.5x46cm
oak; 148.5 x 195.5cm (58*;x65Xin);
London, p.84
di
on
oil
1614-20;
c.1255/78-1318 The
Degas, Edgar, 1834-1917
London, p. 128
The Lament for learns, 1898;
Duccio
(107x91V;in); Chateau de Malmaison, Paris, p.
The Lost
tempera on wood;
125;
The Lucca Madonna, c.l 136 oil on oak; 63.7x49.6cm (25X l!i in);
on
Preventing a
<
Shipwreck
Communion of St Jerome, on panel; Pinacoteca,
oil
tempera
St Nicholas
130x80.5cm (51Xx313fin); Musee national d'art moderne, Paris, p.244
1614; oil
The Copley Family, 1776-7;
1423;
Portrait of Giovanni Aruoljini
"II
Belgique, Brussels, p. 129
Copley, John Singleton, 1738-1815
Magi,
wood;300x282cm(118Kxlllin); llii/.i pp.14, 45
.mi
oil
on canvas;
Roucy-Trioson), 1767-1824 77;c
Sleep of Endymion, 1792;
Louvre, p. 109
Ossian Receiving the Shades of oil on canvas;
French Heroes, 1802; 192.5 x
184cm C75Xx72Jfin); Chateau
Deluge, 1806;
oil
p. 129
on canvas;
441.5x341cm (173Xxl34Xin); Louvre, p. 126 Goes, Hugo van der, c.1440-82 Die Temptation of Adam and Eve and Die Lamentation,
1470-5;
c.
Ww Are
Tlie
1897; oil
on panel; 253x586cm (99Mx230Xin);
Port inari Altai-piece, 1476;
Uffizi.
Geergtgen tot Sint Jans,
202x100.5cm
c.1455-85/95
c.
1478-9;
oil
on panel;
(79!4x39/iin) each;
National Gallery of Scotland,
on
oil
p.44
Die Trinity,
oil
oil
on wood; c.33x22cm (13x8Xin) each; Kunst. p. 30
(54Xxl47Xin);MFA. p.67
The Nativity, c.1480-90;
oil
on canvas; 21.5x27.5cm (81/Xllin);
Edinburgh, p. 40
LIST OF PAINTINGS
8
1
1
Gogh, Vincent van 1853-90 Three Pairs of S s canvas; 48.3x71.1am
188
Fogg Art Museum. Harvard, SunJU
388
28
NG
in);
Christ before the High Priest, c.1617:
moderne.
Autumn.
oil
on canvas; 272x183cm ~2in): NG London, p.48 Hooch, Pieterde, 1629-83
Swinging. 1925:
Die Mother. 1661-3:
70.5x50.2cm (27 19 in); Tate Collection. London, p. 243 Khnopff, Fernand, 1858-1921
on canvas;
17S4; oil
iii):Wallraf
Museum. Cologne, p. 185 Haecht, Willem van, 1593-1637 Richartz
London.
on canvas: 91.8x
oil
Honthorst, Gerrit van, 1592-1656
Hackert, Jakob Philipp 1737-1807
_
pp.22" The Chair. 18SS:
H
p.
on canvas;
I
92.1x73.
on
oil
-7;
The Art Gallery of Cornells ran der 28; oil on panel; 100x130cm:
95\2X 102.5cm
<40
25
•
.
Musee
ini:
1
Mona
•
ry Night, 1889; oil on canvas: -lcm (29x36 m MoMA.
p.6
Hoogstraten, Samuel van, 1627-78
Belgique. Bnissels. p.87
77x53a
Hals, Frans, c.1581/5-1666 Banquet of the Jorisdoelen Officers at Haaiiem. 1616; oil on canvas;
7Vompe fOeil Still Life (Pinboard), 1666-8; oil on canvas: 63x79cm
Anselm, 1945Red Sea. 1984—5; oil. woodcut, lead, photograph, and shellac on
pp.144. 256
2S in
•
i;
t:
.
Bandaged Ear. on canvas: 60.5 x.50cm
Self-Portrait with a 1S89: oil
in v
Counauld. pp.16. 149
Goltzius, Hendrik,
1558-1617
Hercules and Cacus. 1613:
oil
canvas: 207 \ 142.5cm
x
S
1
on
56
-in
|;
Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. p.82 Gossaert, Jan (called Mabuse),
51
in
Rubenshuis. Antwerp.
I;
m(69>
127
Frans Hals
in):
on wood: 45
Museo de
la
<
72cm
1812-19:
c.
81.9X 101.9cm (32
MoMA
Summer Night,
1886; oil
(17
<28ifin
Artes de San Fernando. Madrid, p.217
May
1808. 1S14;
268x347cm
x
(105
in
m
43
.
The Light of the
Tel Aviv
|;
der,
on canvas;
oil
77.5cm (30
77.5
30
-
in
I;
pp.16. 130
in
Shower
1964; acrylic
on canvas:
167.3
-
p.113
p.
184
(Domenikos Theotokopoulos), 1541-1614 Tlic Martyrdom of St Maurice and Greco,
214x304.8cm pp.205, 259
Theban Legion. 1582;
448x301cm
the
on canvas;
oil
(176 {X118 m>: Monasp. 56
ters de El Escorial. Madrid,
Die Purification of the Temple.
on canvas: 41.9X52.4cm
c.1600: oil
20
New
in):
Frick Collection.
York. p. 47
(19xl2in):Kunst. p.100 Greuze, Jean-Baptiste, 1725-1805 The Broken Eggs. 1756;
73x94cm
i2S
oil
on canvas;
37m); Met. p.201
.
Gris.Juan, 1887-1927 77ie
120in); PC.
(84
Parents. 1977;
on canvas:
oil
182.9xl82.9cm (72x72m); Tate Britain.
London,
The
Graham
Children, 1742:
NG
London,
Marriage a
on
oil
canvas; 160.5x181cm (63 5X71
in):
Mode
The
1,
oil
69.9x90.8cm (27 v35 NG London, p. 201
Ma mage
on canvas:
in);
.
on canvas. 133.5X91.5cm
NG
London, p.225
392x496cm
(154
x
at
96.3x85.7cm (38x33
195 in); Louvre.
Allegory of the Old
61.6x48.9cm (24
•
on paper.
19 in
i:
Hirshhom
Museum. Washington, p. 91 Grunewald, Mathis (Mathis Neithardt Gothardt),
wood; 47
"
38cm
18
(
Colmar pp.
Separating Romutu
on pink priming on canvas:
lcm
(14
• .
q) Cato, 1797; oil
111 x 144cm
\ris
p.
p.
on
19
Royal
l:
15-33: oil
207x209.5cm (81
<82
I
121
Milking Time, 1875;
oil -
Art
on canvas;
:iu:
Delaware
Museum p.207
71 B>
Left, 1909; oil
122.9cm (28
•
18
NG Washington p.217
LIST OF PAINTINGS
FestimI of the Supivme Being. 1794: oil on canvas: 53.5x88.5cm (21 x35in);
Lancret, Nicolas, 1690-1743
Breakfast if Ham. 1735;
on
oil
188x123cm (74 4^ Musee Conde, Chantilly. p.203
Die One Night Museum. 1927; on canvas: 50 x 65cm (19^x25
Landseer, Edwin, 1802-73
PC. p.231
Windsor Castle in Modern Times. 1840-5: oil on canvas; 113x143.8cm
a Pipe). 1953: gouache on canvas:
1
pen on
Musee Camavalet. Paris, p.66 Magritte, Rene, 1898-1967
canvas;
44 .x 56"
-in):
77ie
Betmyal of Images (This
14xl6.5cm
Royal Collection,
(5
X6
I
in):
oil
in
is
i;
not
PC. p.10
Malevich, Kasimir, 1878-1935
Windsor, p. 155
Untitled. 1967-8; black felt-rip
Supivmatist Black Rectangle. 1915:
on
Monatrh of the Glen. canvas: 163.Sxl69cm
Tate Collection. London, p. 239
PC. p.215
Stedehjk Museum,
Leger, Fernand, 1881-1955
Manet, Edouard, 1832-83 Olympia. 1863: oil on canvas; 74 in): Musee 103 .5- I90cm(40
SHU
1S51: oil
(64':x66'/Jn);
77?e City. 1919: oil on canvas: 231.lx298.4cm (91X117 jiu:
Willem, 1618-93
Ming Ginger on canvas; 78. lx 66cm
Life with a Late
Jar. 1669; oil
in);
Machy, Pierre-Antoine, attributed 1723-1807
to,
in.:
yellow paper 43.6 x 56cm (17x22in
on oak:
London, pp.5, 15, 162
Right nml
I
1
Britain.
Judd, Donald 1928-94
Kalf,
Homer, Winslow, 1836-1910
Supernim- Ois
l';ins
m
11
The Ambassadors.
Ml
on canvas
Louvn
i
Guerin, Pierre-Narcisse, 1774-1883
National'-
on
Collection, Windsor, p.255
49. 52. 33 Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri), 1591-1666
Ecok
on canvas;
Girt, 1909-10: oil
21XX18
on
Bnissels. p.93
Do
Preparatory drawing; pen and chalk
Unterlinden Museum.
Death
oil
I5in); L'ffizi.
-
|;
London, p.115
National
I;
in
p.255.
and The Temptation of St Anthony. 1515: oil on panel; 269x307cm
Tin-
on panel;
in
50
1
27.9cm (18xllin); Tate
Edinburgh, p.37
Galler>' of Scotland.
I
-ii
oil
23
Sir Richard Southwell. 1536;
1480-1 528
c.
•
86X 127.5cm 33
Gwen, 1876-1939
and Sew
Testaments, c.1535;
50x60.5cm (19
M oil
Galerie Christine et Isy Brachot.
on
Washington, p. 173
John,
MarsiUo Cassotti and his Bride Faustina. 1523: oil on canvas: 71x84cm (2Sx33in>: Prado. p. 150 Die Annunciation to Mary. (1534-5; oil on canvas: 166x 114cm "m); Pinacoteca Conununale,
canvas;
Nude
147
Berlin, p.
Grosz, George, 1893-1959
2SS.3cm(69/.xll3-in):PC.
Labisse, Felix, 1905-
J
Gemaldegalerie. Staatliche Museum,
p.130 Circe; 1925: watercolour
in);
on canvas:
1957: oil
-•mi: Indianapolis
Museum
Museum
on canvas:
Life (Bowl ofPeais). 1925; 25 on canvas; 92x65cm (36
oil
Still
m
Painting with the Black Arch.
Leibl,
Wilhelm, 1844-1900
Monet
Three
Women
oil
Musee national d moderne, Pans pp.17, 238 i
art
on canvas
First Abstract Watercolour, c.1913;
in);
pencil
i
1
n
64 Bern
a Cliurili. 1882
on mahogany: 13 77m 41 x30!
and Chinese mk, and
watercoloui on paper;
ill
i
/'.
p. 130
in his Floating Studio. 1S74:
on canvas: 82.5 x 100.5cm 19
-
gositi
in);
1
Hastening
Andromeda,
c.
to the
1895-6;
1 1
<1 19m): Stadtische Kunsthalle.
(99
Mannheim,
78Jn
Amsterdam p.243
Die Execution of Maximilian. 1867; oil on canvas; 252 X 302cm
p.235
on canvas; 189x 198cm
oil
24 ini;
);
Staatliche Kunsthalle. Karlsruhe.
(74
_
"
d'Orsay. Pans. p.
Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944 1912;
101
>
of Art. Philadelphia, p. 177
of Art p.223
oil
i:
Lotto, Lorenzo, c.1480-1556
on canvas:
Krasner, Lee, 1908-84 II.
in
.
Collection. London, p. 239
'
98
Palazzo Pubblico. Siena, pp.14, 176
152.4Xl21.9cm (60x48in): Tate
Sun Woman
>
Recanati p. 43
London, p. 163
NG
Plague House on canvas:
p. 145 Kooning, Willem de, 1904-97
NG
canvas;
in the
Stockholm
77;c Visit. 1966-7; oil
1737; oil
cts of Peace or Good Government in the City. 1338—10; fresco: 296x1398cm (116 <550 in
Museet.
Die Strange Leda. 1950;
1497/8-1543
Jaffa. 1804: oil
Loo, Carle van, 1705-65
p.247
on
1856: oil
Georg Gisze a German Metrhant in London. 1532: oil on wood:
Sapoleon
i
|
PC. p.94
in.:
canvas: 120x92.1cm (47Xx36JGn);
Gros, Antoine-Jean, 1771-1835
72.7cm
<8 'in each: Musee
Chantilly. p. 184
Chantilly. p. 110
Madame Moitessier.
p.240
92.1 X
Tate Modern. London.
<32
on canvas:
Modema
on
October. 1415-16; from the
14 x22cm. 5
Conde.
in C
1825-94
<:
oil. silver,
on canvas; 80 x 63cm
1819;
oil
36
(64
m(30
-
oil
on
oil
7Yes Riches Heurrs; manuscript; 1907:
I.
June and
c.1285-<.1348
171
163x92cm
and
Kokoschka, Oskar, 1886-1980
7?
1911; oil
Venus Anadyomcne. 1848; board:
1963; acrylic
Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac,
Danae. c.1907-8;
Y,
Scottish Art,
Edinburgh, p. 195
77te Rest During the Hunt. on canvas: 220x250cm B6 Louvre, p. 204 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio,
Harvard p.122 Henri TV of France Playing with his Children. 1817: oil on canvas;
•
canvas:
.;
Limbourg Brothers, The,
Osterreichische Galerie.
1
in
Modem
National Gallery of
WhaamI,
on canvas; 140 x 140cm
Vienna, p. 160
Valley. 1856: oil
in
gilt
on canvas: 64.8 x 53.3cm
:
B0
1
canvas: 172.7x406. 4cm (68xl60in);
1344in) overall: Osterreichische
(25KX21in); Fogg Art Museum.
oil
magna on
20345cm 07
active 1400-16
and
p.211
|;
•
Tate Collection, London, p.9
Adele Bloch-Bauer
Die Lackwanna
-
172
mixed media on stucco: c.2 15 x 3414cm
Raphael and La Fomarina. 1811-12;
Petit Palais. Paris,
Lichenstein, Roy, 1923-97 In the Car. 1963;
Galerie. Vienna, p. 89
Musee du
p. 249
London,
p. 107
m
199S: acrylic
wall: Lisson Gallery.
Die Knight, from Die Beethoven
(93
19 in);
on
(59':x78KJn);
1862-1918
Jean-Auguste-Dominique, 1780-1867
39.5X50cm (15K>
on
Frieze, 1902: fresco and
Inness, George,
I
1511x1997cm
Modem, London,
Klimt, Gustav,
Musee Conde.
p. 163 la
canvas:
Flowers in a Terracotta Vast
Louvre, p.142
Gallery.
at Moritzburg, 1909-26: oil
•
Hogarth, William, 1697-1764
137.2cm
SI. 3 X
1880-1938
Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig,
Gallerv-.
Drawing Xo. 821.
Wall
Bathos
Tretyakov
LeWitt, Sol, 1928-
installation
The Amselfiuh. 1922; oil on canvas; 120x 170.5cm (47 07 Museum
Manchester, p. 252
on wood:
(32x54m); Whitworth Art
on canvas:
|;
p. 125
National Gallery. Oslo. p. 187
Tate
Manchester, p.37
in
I
Moscow,
100.5 x 135.5cm
of Fine Arts. Basel, p. 189
I6in);
-
MoMA. p.191
Huysum, Jan van, 1682-1749
Holbein, Hans, the Younger,
and charcoal on canvas;
on
oil
on canvas: 147x 190cm (58 75in Musee du Petit Palais. Paris, p.87 Oedipus and the Sphinx, C.1S20: oil on canvas; 189x 144cm 75 56 in Louvre, p. 83 Louis-Francois Berlin. 1S33; oil on canvas; 118x95cm (46)4x37 in):
Contract, before 1743:
Sunblind. 1914; chalk, collage,
City Art Galleiy.
Ruggiew Rescuing Angelica.
p. 151
Dog Painting SO. 1995: oil on canvas: 27.3 223em Id <8 in);PC.p.215 Hodgkin, Howard. 1932Interior at Oakwood Court. 1978-83; oil
Hans Baldung, c.1485-1545 t Ages and Death. 1509-10: on wood: 48.2x32 5cm
Grien,
oil
My
1S70-3:
canvas; 76.4X 109.5cm (30x43 -in):
oil
Two
Figures). 1972; acrylic on canvas;
El
i:
Ingres,
167cm
Portrait of an Artist (Pool with
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
in
I
in Beceiiy Hills.
panel: diam. 33.5cm
1
Shadow of Death.
77;e
oil
Tate Britain. London.
I;
<23
I
Keble College. Oxford, p.41
Staatliche
Goyen, Jan van, 1596-1656 Summer and Winter, 1625: oil on
in
on
\Yo>1d, 1S53-6; oil
p. 225
Museen. Kassel.
Man
Prado.
|;
I;
canvas; 125.5x59.Scm (49
Hockney, David, 1937-
on canvas;
oil
136
40 in
Landscape in Thunderstorm on canvas: 146 x 1 10cm
Glasses. 1927;
i:
oil
Heckel, Erich, 1883-1970
•
Real Academia de Bellas
York Movie. 1939:
p.209 Hunt, William Holman, 1827-1910
57
oil
425.1cm
Old Models. 1S92;
Museum, p.183 1634-1712 Tli e Dam with the New Town Hall in Amstetxtam. 1688; oil on canvas; 73 B7cm 2^ 34 ini: Louvre, p.176 Hdch, Hannah, 1889-1978
Bullfight in a Village,
Staatliche Kunstalle.
1843-1914
Heyden, Jan van
on wood:
Louvre.
canvas: 278.8
I;
Kielland, Kitty,
with Skull. 1517: oil on 42.5x27cm (16 xlOJSn); Louvre, p. 228 Goya, Francisco de (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes), 1746-1828
panel:
oil
in);
Karlsruhe, p.231
in
on canvas;
oil
20
Lesenko, Anton, 1737-72/3
31
•
New
on canvas;
1503-6:
c.
Hector Taking Leave of Andromache. 1772-3: oil on canvas: 155.Sx211.5cm
24
1
(109Xxl67tfn);
oil
Lisa.
-
oil
77ie
Hopper, Edward, 1882-1967
1478-1532 Still Life
Kiefer,
Museum. Haailem. p.153 Harnett, William, 1848-92 I37.2x71.lcm (54x28in); MFA. p.224
Duke
on canvas; 121.9 143.5cm (48X56 jm: Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, p. 140 Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519
39
-
p. 187
SF*
with his Son James.
of York, c.1648:
Berlin, p. 198
in);
I
London, p.231
(36
1
NG
Charles
Die Caress of the Sphinx, 1896; oil on canvas: 50x 150cm 19 59in k Musee Royairx des Beaux Arts de
(375!
Gemaldegalerie. Staatliche Museum.
1618-80
Lely, Peter,
on board;
oil
1
73cm
on canvas: diam. 184.2cm (72 ini; New Walk Museum, Leicester, p. 86
national d'art
Paris, p. 242
•
on canvas;
oil
19
i
.
Dn
liar at !
oil
"1 oil
Neue Pinakothek,
Munich p.258 tin
Folies-Berg
on canvas; 96x 130cm
in);
Counauld. p.203
Mantegna, Andrea, 1431-1506 St Sebastian, c.1480; oil
1814-75
Millet, Jean-Francois,
on canvas;
Smrer, 1850;
Tlir
oil
Die Fust Station from
on canvas; 101.6x
(
the
'ross, 1958;
Tlie
Nolan, Sidney, 1917-92
The Triumphs of Caesar: Vase
canvas; 80 x 90cm (3iyx39in);
Ned
Kelly, 1946;
Beam
J.
78
•
p.62
and Bearer of Trophies and Bullion, c. 1486-94: egg tempera on canvas; c.270x280cm (106x HOin); Royal Collection, Hampton Court
198.1
Paul Getty Museum, Malibu p. 195
p. 249
195x130cm
1445-62;
Miller Gallery,
on canvas;
New
36m
):
Robert
O'Keeffe, Georgia, 1887-1986
York, p.253
Amadeo, 1884-1920
Modigliani,
Two (alia
on Pink. 1928;
Lilies
oil
Madonna
Prud'hon, Pierre-Paul, 1758-1823 Justice iiml l)n mi Vengeanct
Sansepolcro, Rome, p.39
Pursuing (rune, tempera
Tlie Flagellation, c.1460;
on panel: 59x8 1.3cm (23Kx32in);
Museum
Galleria Nazionale delle Marche.
(78xl21in); Tate Collection. London.
NG
Overbeck, Johann Friedrich,
p.190
Mondrian,
Martini, Simone, c.1280/5-1344
Composition with Grey. Red.
Altarpiece of Si Louis of Toulouse,
and
c.1317;
tempera on wood; 200x 138cm
Blue.
c.
1872-1944
1920-6;
oil
Yellow,
on canvas:
99.7X 100.3cm (39/4x39Xan); Tate
.4
Satyr Mourning over a Nymph,
on poplar
c.1495; oil
(154>ixl54/.in); Stadel. p.63
Naples, p. 139
Bmadway Boogie-Woogie.
Woman
Tommaso di Ser Mone di, 1401-28 Expulsion of Adam and Ere
oil
1942-3:
on canvas: 127x127cm (50x50in);
St
on lime and
(81Xx34/.in): Brancacci Chapel,
Monet, Claude, 1840-1926 Tlie Magpie, c.1869: oil on canvas; 89x 130cm (35x51Xin): Musee
Sta Maria del Carmine. Florence.
d'Orsay. Paris, p. 183
pp.14, 31
Boulevard des Capucines. 1873:
Four Doctors of the Church. c.1483; oil on cedar 212x200cm
Massys, Quentin (Matsys or
oil
from Eden,
c.1427; fresco;
206x88cm
on panel: 43.2x63cm (17x25in);
NG Washington,
(25/.x39/un):
Tlie
Ill-Matched Lovers. 1520-5;
oil
p.200
Master of St Francis, attributed active c.1 260-72 Crucifix, 1272-85: egg
92.1x71cm p.
to,
on poplar
(36tfx28in);
NG London.
106
Master of St
Giles, active c.1500
J.
canvas;
oil
pine: 1110 x650m
Musee
Museum, LA pp.16, 167 Moreau, Gustave, 1826-9 Jason and Medea, 1865; oil on canvas: 204x115.5cm (80tfx45!4n); Musee d'Orsay. Paris, p.83 Tlie Maiden of Thrace Carrying the
on
54x67cm (21Xx26/dn);
Avignon. p. 53
d'Orsay. Paris, p. 185
Doncaster Races. Horses Stalling
Mazzola), 1503-40
for the St Leger. 1831;
i
(83ViX78/m) central panel: Alte
37x65cm
Convex Mirror,
on section of wood sphere;
1523-4: oil
diam. 24.4cm (9yin): Kunst. p. 148 77?e oil
Jemme
Museum
Pollock, Jackson,
Guardians of the
on canvas: 117.5X 128.5cm
MoMA. San
1480-1524
of Art. Virginia.
1912-56
a 1525;
on
Secret. 1943: oil
in-:
Head of Orpheus, 1865: oil on canvas; 147x98cm (57*x385Sn); Musee
St
on wood: 78 x 137cm (30Xx54in);
182.8X 152.4cm (72x60in): National
NG
Gustave Moreau.
Louvre, p. 168
Gallery' of Art. Canberra,
Peeters, Clara, 1594-1657
Wooden Horse, 1948: collage, oil on canvas: 90 x 178cm (35y.x70in);
London, p.22
Master of St Veronica,
115x90cm
active c.1395-1420 St Veronica with the
Sudarium.
p.83
Paris,
The Unicorns, 1887-8;
oil
(45tfx35/in):
Gustave Moreau.
on canvas:
Musee
Still
Life with Pie. 1640;
55x73cm (21,x28Xin):
Paris, p. 86
oil
on
Piazzetta, Giovanni Battista,
Pinakothek, Munich, p. 40
View of Paris from the Tivcadero. 1872: oil on canvas; 46 x81.3cm
St
Matisse, Henri, 1896-1954
(18Kx32in);
pine; 78 x 48cm (30/.xl9in); Alte
Litre,
Calme
et
Volupte. 1904; oil
Museum
Christ as the
Man ofSonvws.
canvas; 84.5x 121cm (33Xx47Xin);
The Chapel of the Rosary, 1947-51: ceramic tile; Vence. p.22
Memlinc, Hans (Hans Memling),
Kunstmuseum. Bergen, p. 209 Murillo, Bartolome, 1617/8-82 The Virgin of the Immaculate
c.1433-94
Conception, c.1678;
55x90cm
(21tfx35/in); Galleria
Sabauda Turin, p.48 Marian Ftowei-Piece, c.1485 oil on oak; 299x225cm (UT/.xBSVAn): Museo Thyssen Bomemisza, Madrid, p.226 The Van Xieuwenhove Diptych, 1487; oil
on panel; 44 x 33cm (lT/,x 13in)
1892; oil
on
on canvas:
School of Athens, 1508-11;
oil
Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione,
NG London, p.7 Poons, Larry, 1937-
(38x43Xin);
New
The Bunting of the Borgo, 1514-17:
canvas; 130x89.5cm (51/.x35/.in);
p.38
Guggenheim,
(263/iin): Sala
p. 121
The Sacrifice at Lystra. 1515—16;
polymer on Art.
bodycolour on paper mounted on
350x560cm (137/.x220yin); and Albert Museum.
London, p.62
1625-54
The Vision ofEzekiel. c.1518:
canvas: 2:33.5 x :339cm (92xl33yin);
222.3X 118cm (87!^x46/in); Prado.
670cm
Rome.
Vatican,
York, p.251
Young
oil
dell'Incendio. Stanza dell'Incendio,
Art Institute of Chicago, p.161
on
on canvas: 82x66cm
fresco; base
77ie
oil
(303/in): Stanza
1514—15:
on canvas; 101.lX73.3cm (39^x28Xin); The Accordion Player. 1911:
770cm
Segnatura Vatican. Rome, p.75
Potter, Paulus,
Bull, 1647; oil
on
canvas:
40x30cm
p.54 Reinhardt, Ad, 1913-67
Poussin, Nicolas, 1594-1665
Abstract Painting Xo.
canvas; 152.4x152.4cm (60x60in);
Tate Collection, London, p. 248
5. 1962: oil
Glass and Bottle ofSuze. 1912; collage of pasted paper, gouache, and
(129x73yjn); Pinacoteca. Vatican.
Rembrandt Harmensz. van
Nain, Louis Le, c.1593-1648
charcoal: 65.4 x 50.2cm (25Xxl&y,in);
Rome, p.57
1606-69
Peasant Interior with an Old Ftute-
Washington University Gallery,
oil
on canvas:
54.lx62.lcm (21tfx24/in); Kimbell
St Louis,
pp.235, 259
Minotaur and Dead Mare, 1936; gouache and ink; 50 x 65cm (19Xx25/2in); Musee Picasso.
War Museum, London, p.191 Totes Meer, 1940-1; oil on canvas;
349.3 x 776.6cm (137Kx306Xin);
Museum, Fort Worth,
p. 196
101.6X 152.4cm (40x60in); Tate Britain,
Newman,
Barnett, 1905-70
3, 1949; oil
on canvas:
(34x55in); Tate Collection,
182.5x84.9cm (71Xx33/Jn);
London, p.45
p.246
oil
Prado. pp.17, 133 Dora Maar Seated,
on canvas:
1937; oil
on
canvas; 92 x 65cm (36y.x25yjn);
London, p.133
Onement
p.87
Guernica. 1937:
MoMA.
Musee
Picasso, Paris, p. 161
Bulls Skull. Fntit. and Pitcher. 1939: oil
on canvas: 65 x 50cm (19Xx25yjn);
Cleveland
Museum
of Art. p.229
on
Mauritshuis. Hague, p.214
N
Playei; c.1642;
oil
(15/ix 12in); Uffizi.
The Martyrdom of St Eiasmus. 1628-9; oil on canvas; 320x186cm
p. 240
Paris,
on canvas; 86.4X 139.7cm
Tlie
fresco: base
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. 1910;
The Menin Road, 1919; oil on canvas; 182.8x317.5cm (72xl25in); Imperial
1&50; oil
770cm (303Xm); Stanza della Segnatura Vatican. Rome, p.98
canvas:
Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564
Rome, pp.15, 30, 255 MMIais, John Everett 1829-96 Christ in the House of His Parents.
Temperence). 1508-11: fresco: base
(32y.x26in); Louvre, p.142
on wood: 96.5x 109.5cm
and
Virtues (Prudence, Fortitude,
Victoria
Nash, Paul, 1889-1946
fresco; Vatican.
Rome, p.51
Gallery,
Whitney Museum of American
Art
Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508-12;
Rome. p. 72 The Entombment, 1507: oil on wood; 184x176cm (72y.x69y.in); Borghese
on canvas; 243.9x223.7cm (96x88in); MoMA. p. 114
each wing; Memling Museum, Sint
Rome, p.25
on canvas:
L'ntitled, 1966: synthetic oil
300x220cm
(118y.x86yjn): Villa Famesina,
canvas; 330.2x228.6cm (130x90in);
Janshospitaal. Bruges, p.29
Sistine Chapel, c.1480-1541; Vatican,
1483-1520
Collection. London, pp.236,
oil
Les Demoiselles dAvignon, 1907;
Hermitage, p.227
on wood;
1881-1973
Met. p. 136
London, p.29
Munch, Edvard, 1863-1949
oil
oil
Portmit of Gertrude Stein. 1906; oil on canvas; 100x81.3cm (39Xx32in);
Evening on Kaii Johan,
oil
on canvas; 165x138cm
oil
Picasso, Pablo,
c.1722-3;
Saatchi Gallery. London, p.253
143.5 xl&5.4cm (56yx73in): Tate
c.1475-1 555/6
on canvas; 90x 117cm (35Xx46in);
The Passion, c.1480;
Martyrdom,
and mixed media on
canvas: 183 x502.9cm (72 x 198in);
della
Joseph with Jacob in Egypt, c.1518;
NG
oil
Yellow Islands. 1952; to
Modem Art.
Stockholm, p.95
1682-1754
James Led
p.67
(65x.54y.in); Sant'Eustachio (St Stae).
(12x8tfin):
1910-11;
of
on canvas:
Venice, p.57
on oak; 30.5x21cm
Hermitage, p.114
Museum
1945; oil
Mostaert, Jan, style of,
c.l520s; oil
Still Life. Seville II.
National
II.
Barbara, p. 171
260x391cm
(102y.xl54in):
Totem Lesson
247 Pontormo, Jacopo, 1494-1557
of Art. Santa
on canvas: 98 x 118cm (38^X46 .in Musee d'Orsay, Paris, p. 173 The Dance (II). 1910: oil on canvas; I;
panel:
Prado. p.222
Morisot, Berthe, 1841-95
and gold on canvas on
c.1420; oil
oil
(Blue and Purple Triptych).
ittitlnl
1994; acrylic
The Cardinal and Theological
Francisco, p.97
Tlie Mass of St Giles, c.1500: oil and egg on oak: 61.6x45.7cm (24'/.xl8in):
in the Desert,
l
Galatea, c 1506; fresco:
canvas; 122.9x191.4cm (48XX75
(46^x50/in): Kunst. p.21 Patenier, Joachim,
(14yx25/_in): Mellon
Collection,
Rae, Fiona, 1963-
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio),
on canvas:
oil
p.216
Conversion of St Paul, c.1527-8;
I
Coronation of Uu Virgin, 1440; on panel; I83x220cm (72x86yin); Musee Municipal, Villeneuve-les-
Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco
p. 26
i
oil
Pinakothek. Munich, p.54
Salzkammergut.
Self-Portiait in a
Paul Getty
oil
1"": oil tt}itnii I'n in. on 163x218.5cm (64X/86inj:
Tht
an Enclosure. Spring
Pollaioulo, Antonio del', c.1432-98, and Piero del' Pollaioulo, c.1441-96 Apollo and Daphne. 1470s: oil on wood; 29.5x20cm (11/.X7 in NG London, p. 80 Pollard, James, 1792-1867
(437x256in); St Wolfgang,
Tlie
on canvas; 61x80cm (24x3iyin); Pushkin Museum, Moscow, p.208 Wheatstacks. Snow Effect. Morning, 1891; oil on canvas: 65x 100cm
Metsys), 1465/6-1530
Wolfgang Altarpiece. 1481;
panel;
Louvre, p.39
1830-1903
Sun. Eragny Field. 1887;
Pacher, Michael, c.1435-98
MoMA. p.245
Tlic
in
Quarton, Enguerrand, c.1410-66 Tin At
65.4 x 184.2cm
72.nu. N<; London, p.86
2S
Pissarro, Camille,
di
on canvas:
1808; oil
(96xll5y.in); Louvre.
p.99
Piero di Cosimo, c.1462-after 1515 Arts,
Modem. London, pp.17, 244
Masaccio,
294cm
Jll
Urbino. p.49
1789-1869 Tin Triumph of Religion in the 1831; oil on canvas; 393x392cm
(78Xx54Xin); Museo di Capodimonte,
Giovanni
Rome.
Pinacoteca Communale, Borgo
on canvas; 101.6x76.2cm (40x30in);
Piet,
fresco; st [gnazio,
pp.65, 103
27:5/:«0cm(107/xl30in);
(lini in Soutine, 1917; oil
Washington, p.141
Louvre, p. 169
Tin (Hon/ ni st Ignatius Loyola, ,
91.7x59.7cm (36Xx23/in);
of Art, Philadelphia, p.227
-
1
Misericordia and tempera on panel;
delta
The Great
on canvas;
Walker
(45/,x70'/,in);
Pozzo, Andrea, 1642-1709
oil
Day of His Wrath, 1851-3; on canvas; 196.5x303.2cm
on canvas:
sprim) or Tin Earthly Paradise, 1660-4: oil on canvas Is 100cm
on
in]
;in):
oil
Asl
tin
oil
Gallery. Liverpool, p. 174
MFA. p.94
Foundation. Pasadena, p. 179
<
"1
(7'.
Piero della Francesca,
oil
An
iii
(after I>o< id), L963; oil
c.1419/21-92
115.5x88.9cm (45
Phaeton, 1648:
U6.5xl78.6cm i
Women
The Sea I. H' 12; oil on canvas; 73.5 x 89cm (29x,35in); Norton Simon
Border, 1989;
Sal,
canvas;
Nolde, Emil, 1867-1976
canvas; 182.6X 181.9cm (72x71Vi);
Modem. London,
National
in);
Landscapt with
Picasso. Paris, p. 133
Dog Barking
Morning, 1965; acrylic and pencil on
Martin, John, 1789-1854
17
Musee
Tlie Intei rent iiiii qj ll"
enamel on board;
(31
in Korea L951;oilon plywood; 110x210(1..
Gallery of Art. Canberra, p.97
Martin, Agnes, 1912-
Tate
121.2cm
Massacn
Miro, Joan, 1893-1983 at the Moon. 1926; oil on canvas; 73x92. lcm (28>ix36'/.in); Museum of Art, Philadelphia, p.215 Mitchell, Joan, 1926-92
Palace, p.74
l
canvas;
x 152.4cm (78x60in); PC. p.21
82.6cm (40x32!4n); MFA. p.206 Man with n Hoe, 1860-2; oil on
255x140cm (100yx55in); Louvre.
Stations of
magna on raw
Rijn,
The Adoration of the Golden Calf. 1634-5; oil on canvas on board;
A Man
c.
Slav." 1632: oil
154.3x214cm (60Xx83ydn);
111.1cm (60-X43 mi: Met. p.137
NG
London. p20
Et in Arcadia Ego. 1636-9;
oil
on
in Oriental Dress: "Tlie Soble
on canvas; 152.7x
The Blinding of Samson, 1636; oil on 206x276cm (8VAxl08'An);
canvas;
canvas; 85 x 121cm (33yx47Xin);
Stadel.
Louvre, pp.15, 121
Tlie
The Continence ofScipio, 1640; oil on canvas: 114.5xl63.5em
363x437cm (143xl72ini:
(45x64yiin); Pushkin
Moscow,
p.
Museum,
on
p.34
Sightwatch. 1642:
oil
on canvas:
Rjjksmuseum. Amsterdam, p.152 oil on canvas: 142x 142cm (56x56in): Louvre. p.109
Bathsheba, 1654;
125
The Sacrament of the Holy oil on canvas: 117x 178cm (46x70in); National
Portmit of Titus at his desk. 1655: oil on canvas; 77 x 63cm (30'y.x25in);
Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, p.63
Rotterdam, p.158
Eucharist, 1647;
Museum Boijmans-van
Beuningen,
LIST OF PAINTINGS 265
7
with Beret and Turned-
rait
Up
Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.
pp.15. 14S. 257
Atalanta and Hippomenes, 1012;
on canvas: 206
297cm (81K>
•
Museo Nazionale
di
Gassed, 1918; oil on canvas; 231x611.1cm (91 <240)fin); Imperial War Museum, p. 132 Saville, Jenny, 1970-
297.8cm
(106X117 mi: MoMA p.238 Rothko Chapel. 1971; oil on canvas: Houston. Texas, p. 25
Propped. 1992;
Rousseau, Henri, 1844-1910
213.5Xl83cm
Tiger in a Tropical Storm
Gallery.
1575-1642
Reni, Guido,
and Black.
270.8
National
7in);
I
\
Red. Broun,
1'iititlcd:
on canvas;
Collin. 1659(?); oil
1
.
oil
(Surprised!), 1891;
11 Tin):
Capodimonte.
on canvas:
oil
129.8X 161.9cm (51
-
NG
Naples, p.72
Deianiru Abducted by the Centaur 1620; oil
on canvas;
cm(94>
76in); Louvre,
Slaying Abel.
n in
<
1608-9;
c.
Evertsz), 1612-after
on
oil
Savoldo, Gian Girolamo,
oil
active c.1480/5-1 508/48
NG
canvas: 178.7x205.5cni (70 :X81in);
i:
Saatchi
Still Life:
Allegory of the
St
on oak; 39.2X50.7cm (15ViX20in); London, p.228 Stella, Frank, 1936-
(ATAx&lVAn);
Marriage of Reason and Squalor, II, 1959; enamel on canvas;
NG London,
Tln
p.61
1890-1918
Double Portrait ofHcinrich and
Self-Portait with Isabella Brandt.
Otto Benesch, 1913;
1609; oil
121x130cm
d'Orsay, Paris, p.lll
on canvas mounted on oak: 17s- L36.5cm (70X53 mcAlte
Galerie der Stadt Linz, Wolfgang
canvas: 204. 5x221. 4cm
Reynolds, Joshua, 1732-92
Pinakothek. Munich, p.145
Gurlitt
Museum. Linz. p. 151 Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Julius, 1794-1874
(104Kx87Kin);
Kriemhild being Killed by
Gvant. 1782;
110x160cm
on canvas; Musee
oil
(43 ix63in);
Infant Hercules Strangling the
77(C
Serpents, 1T86-8;
oil
303x297cm (119
Roman
Charity. 1612;
on canvas
oil
transferred from panel: 140.5xl80.3cnv
on canvas;
|;
I
dOffay
(TS
Anthony
George Washington (the 'Athenaeum Washington Original"), 1796: oil
Turner, Joseph Mallord William,
Serov, Valentin Alexandrovich,
1865-1911
on canvas: 121.9x94cm (48x37in);
Snow Storm: Hannibal and
Rape of Europa. 1910: tempera on canvas; 138x 178cm (54Kx70in); Serov Collection, Moscow, p.7.3
National Portrait Gallery,
Army
Washington DC. pp.16, 155 Stubbs, George, 1724-1806
canvas: 146x237.5cm (57
Seurat, Georges, 1859-91
Whistlejacket, 1702: oil
La Grande Jatte. 1884-6; oil on canvas: 207.6x308cm 81/.xl21^in);
292x246.4cm (115x97m
Surikov, Vasily, 1848-1916
oil
on canvas; 15
in
Louvre.
i:
Tlie
in);
1
Rigaud, Hyacinthe, 1659-1743
NG, London, p.102 The Judgement of Paris, 1632—5:
Louis XTV
on oak: 144.8x193.7cm (57xT6/.in);
Art Institute of Chicago, p. 204
NG London,
Severini, Gino,
oil
Gallery,
London, p.253
Royal Costume. 1701:
in
on canvas: 277
194cm
-
(109x76v,in); Louvre, p.156
1931-
Riley, Bridget,
on
Shirer. 1964: emulsuion
27m
hardboard: 68.5x68.5cm 27 i
|;
oil
pp.15, 76, 107
Landscape with a Rainbow, 1636-7; oil on oak panel; 135.6 x 235cm (538X92 in): Wallace Collection.
Suburban Tram Arriving in Paris. 1915: oil on canvas; 88.6x1 15.6cm
London, p.172
p. 241 Shannon, Joe, 1933Pink Minotaur Monitor: Sight
1
35
45
in);
Palazzo
mural painting; National Palace,
Ruisdael, Jacob van, 1628-82
185.4
Mexico
The Jewish
Signorelli, Luca,
p.211
War. c.1638;
345cm
(SI
•
oil in
15
1
(;
Guests. 1982:
Florence, p.
Pitti.
<
>
oj
'em* Very, c.1655-60; oil
Tin
Orvieto Cathedral, p. 69
Scapular
i:
Museum
of Fine Arts. Montreal, p. 180
in the
Robert, Leopold, 1794-1835
canvas;
rs
1830: oil
*
141
Arriving in the Pontine
'21_
Louvre.
in);
-
c. 107(1; oil
on
43x38cm I7xl5m); (
Rijksmuseum. Amsterdam,
p. 166
Runge, Philipp Otto, 1777-1810
on canvas:
""
Foreground,
77;c
Rest on the Flight into Egypt,
Damned, from
oil
on canvas; Musee 1630-73
Rodchenko, Alexander, 1891-1956
(38x51in); Kunsthalle, Hamburg, p.45
Spring Morning, 1808; oil on canvas; 109x85.5cm (50 33 in Kunsthalle.
Flower Garland and a Curtain. 1658; oil on panel: 190x271cm
Objective Painting, 1919;
canvas; 84.5x71.lcm (33
on
oil
<28in);
I;
MoMA. p.243 Romano, Giulio, 1492-1546
Hamburg,
Olympic
-
Mantua, p.76 Jupiter, 1528;
Sala di
p. 66
74
Ryman, Robert, 1930-
Jupiter with Thunderbolt, 1526-35; fresco: Palazzo del Te.
on canvas; 96.5X 129.5cm
Li dai
1983: shellac
i
on composition
panel; 152.4 x 152.4cm (60x60in); Tate Collection, London, pp.249,
259
Amore. Palazzo del Te.
The Broken Bridge c.1640; .
canvas: 100/ 12Tcm (41 Pitti.
c.1656; oil
canvas; 197.4 X 131.5cm (77
77;c Interior
of the Grote Kerk.
81.7cm (23
on
<51
iin);
Museum. Cambridge,
Fitzwilliam
Pieter,
Haarlem, 1636-7;
Florence p. 188
L'umona fragilita,
p.
on
oil
50m);
*
1597-1665
Saenredam,
.
32
-
oil
in
|;
KirOV
at the Sports
Rossetti,
Dante Gabriel, 1828-82 ISO!":
red and blue chalk on
120
i
St
Sano
Faringdon Collection, Buscol Park.
Si Hi
pp.15, 49
shin- p.90
1
1
di Pietro,
Spranger, Bartholomeus, 1546-1611 Vulcan and Maia, c.1585;
Pn
aching,
Duomo
on
oj the
163x117cm
(64
rt
sc<
copper; 23x18cm (9x7in): Kunst. p. 84 Minerva Victorious over Igno Allegory on Rudolf II. c.1591; oil on
canvas;
na
oil
46m):
Me
NG
London, p.52
Tin
Assumption, 1518;
1957
-Tun. oil
60 Tate
Madame
on
MFA
X. 1883
p.153 I
oil
on canvas; ii
iiu:
Modem, London pp.17, 247
on canvas; 221 /221cm
p.
143
LIST OF PAINTINGS
in)
Mel
on canvas:
oil
Collection. London, p. 250
on
Velasquez, Diego (Diego Rodriguez
oil
on board:
Silva y Velasquez), 1599-1660 The Waterseller of Seville, 1023: oil
Bacchus and Ariadne. 1522-3;
Philip IV in Armour. 1024:
The Dissolute Household, c.1660; oil on canvas; 80.5x89cm (31 35in
Palazzo
Light Redovet Black
aid Daileg
oil
on canvas: 106.Tx81cm 12 31! Apsley House. London, p. 202
Castle Gloucestershire, p.203
Rothko, Mark, 1903-70
o\ F.dn
Siena
Supernovae, 1959;
de
(271
Bella
Boil, 1882; oil
Murder of Jane McCrea. 1803-4; on canvas; 81.3x67.3cm (32x26 iin): Wadsworth Athenaeum. Tin
Gloriosa dei Frari. Venice, pp.18, 53
Graa befon Meat, 1660; oil on panel; -Vm (20,/ 17 in);Sudeley 51.1
p 35
p.221
690x360cm
The Daughters
ffizi
in);
Steen, Jan, 1625/6-79
NG
I
21
and
Kunst. p. 102
Portrait oj a
(63x46in)
17
Bottles,
on canvas;
241.9x 152.4cm (95KX60in); Tate
Tangere. c.1510:
and Albeit Museum, London, p.194
17cm
London, p.79
canvas; 108.6x90.8cm (42
Apsley House. Trustees of the Wi toria
1
45x55cm
oil
oil
Champetre. 1508
Sargent, John Singer, 1856-1946
on canvas; I60x
Milky Way. c.1575-80;
NG
p.23
oil
Ham.
Life with
Berlin,
Giorgione
Noli
Louvre.
Gemaldegalerie. Staatliche Museum.
on canvas; 148 x165.1cm
Moses ami the Daughters
o\ Jethro,
|;
Hartford, p. 123
1406-81
apitolo del
in
Vanderlyn, John 1775-1852
Rosso Fiorentino (Giovanni Battista Rosso), 1494-1540
1
on canvas:
San Rocco, Venice.
(58x65in);
64
Vasarely, Victor 1908-97
tempera on panel; Chapter
1",
on canvas; 61x91. 2cm
oil
-
.
c.1488/9-1576
Hag Paradi
oj St<
rucifu ion, 1565:
Ongin oil
1
Radishes. 1707:
(108x216in); Tate Collection, p. 69
164cm 43
Oj
Vallayer-Coster, Anne, 1744-1818
Tin
Self-Portrait with Patricia Preeee.
I;
1
Tin oil
1.
i.'iii
i
is oj
Intemperance, 1003;
on wood; 76
•
106.5cm (30
NG London p.200
12m
I;
141
canvas; 175.2xl90.5cm
in
i:
Sta Maria
oil
(69x75m
on
|;
London, pp.11, 80
i.
oil
);
Pitti,
on canvas; 89
I
'44cm (22-17 Prado. p. 163
canvas: 57
75cm
on canvas:
191
Galleria Palatum.
Prado p.163
Florence, p. 137
The
Venus of Urbino U9> 165cm 16 pp.15, 108
'
I
1
5
18;
oil
on canvas;
65in); UflzzL
oil
\i
Toilet
iins"i
122
5
'
126cm (75
m
on
oil
19 in
of Venus ("TheRokeby oil on canvas;
1647-51;
177cm
NG London
.
is
<69
.in
pp.104, 108
i:
I;
in);
Philip IV as a Hunter, 1632-3;
Noblewoman (La
1537:
29 in
|;
p. 175
SHU
dell'Orto,
536x1224cm (21lx482in): Scuola di
iin
on canvas;
Cambridge, p.112
London, p.64
i:
rnardino
Madonna
10 x
oil
NG
Petersburg, p.131
paper. 100.6x72.7cni
1
1556;
Venice, p. 42
Grande
Agrigento, 1787;
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio),
on canvas; 305x372.5cm 146 in Russian Stale Museum.
-
The Presentation of the Virgin, 480cm oil on canvas; 429 (169xl89in);
Ancient Tmvii
'in
on canvas; 415x541cm (163'ix213in);
<
29
London, p.87
1750-1819
Accademia. p.59
.Ml Institute of
on
46in):
.
(24x36in); Fitzwilliam Museum.
iil
Pandora,
p. 258
in the Forest, c.1460; oil
1548; oil
The Resurrection, Cookham, 1924-7; oil on canvas; 274.3 x 548.6cm
1937; oil
Victoria and
|;
on oak; 59.5x
Samokhvalov, Alexandr Nikolaiewitsch, 1894-1971
100
of the Slave,
Spencer, Stanley, 1891-1959
London,
Rosa, Salvator, 1615-73
i:
>
-
Valenciennes, Pierre-Henri de,
Tin Miracle
Chicago, p.224
Mantua, p.78
Palazzo
106 in
36.8x54cm (14 21 in Albeit Museum. London,
NG
Tintoretto, Jacopo, 1518-94
d'Orsay. Paris p.183
Non
1805-6; oil
the Mythens,
1846-50: watercolour on paper;
on canvas; 56.5 X 74cm (22
to SI
(209XX1345&1); Scuola dei Carmini,
and Frans van Mieris, 1635-81 Tmnijn I'Oeil si, ii Life with a
p.206
Man/ Presents Hie Simon Slock. 1749; on canvas; 533x342cm Virgin
Venice, p.38
der,
c.
LauerzerSea with
Ashmolean Museum. Oxford, p. 216 St Gi orge and the Dragon, c.1460; oil
1696-1770
50.5x65cm (20x255fin); Adriaen van
Tin
1397-1475
Tin Fog, Voisins, 1874; oil
Spelt,
to
Uccello, Paolo (Paolo di Dono),
Tiepolo, Giambattista,
1839-99
Sisley, Alfred,
Tugged
be B.
to
canvas: 73 x 117cm (28
Cappella Nuova Chapel of San Brizio.
'in
i:
U
c.1450-1523
Ttit
"
Fighting 'Temerain
Hunt
View oj HaarL m from the North-west with the Bleaching Folds
on canvas;
123
Rijksnuiseiun. Amsterdam, p.196
The Apocalypse, 1500-4; fresco;
Obelisk. 1798; oil
i:
p.
129.5cm (73x51in); PC. p.95
Saved and
in
i:
i
Detroit Institute of .Mis. p. 180
Tht
on
oil
93
.
on canvas: 90.8x 121.9cm Ism NG London, p.178
oil
(
on canvas: 142.2 x 189.2cm (56
I;
Tlie
The Execution of Boyarina Pajaritar Morozova, 1887; oil on canvas; 304 x 587.5cm 19,x 231 .in
Young Girls Dancing Around an
iin
his
Crossing the Alps. 1812;
lor Last Berth
i:
London, p.214
Robert, Hubert, 1733-1808
74
1775-1851
Tate Britain, London, p. 121
on canvas:
the Hungry, 1645-50; oil on canvas: 75x99cm (29'ix39in);
on canvas;
oil
118
p.
Sweerts, Michiel, 1624-64
London,
qm ma s
La Civilisation Zapotheque. 1929-35;
'onsi
t
New
Yale University Art Gallery,
Washington, p. 157
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow,
Tate Collection,
on canvas: 200
Tin
"
NG
1883-1966
Mayor Gallen. London, p.251 Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957
City,
Met. p.61
p.88
the Portrait of
p.103 Wai and Peace, 1629-30; oil on canvas: 203.5 x 298cm (80X x 1 7
on canvas;
oil
<55in);
in):
Trumbell, John, 1756-1843
(210;/xl55!4n); Kunst. p.59
204x115.5cm (So
200x 140cm
1593-1652
Henry IV Receives
p.203 Brick Toner. 19ST;
(5254X40
1755-1828
la,
Magdalene, 1638-43;
on canvas; 133.4 x 102.2cm
oil
MoMA. p.246
Stuart, Gilbert,
Georges de
Tin Penitent
Haven,
Marie. 1621-5:
1932-
on imprinted
NG
on canvas; 535x395cm
Wadsworth Atheneum. Hartford. Richter, Gerhard,
oil
London, p.257
Tour,
(187x208'/fin); Royal Palace, Munich.
1619; oil
«
Painting, 1944;
on
oil
Hildebrand. 1849; fresco; 475x529cm
Tin Miracles of St Ignatius Loyola.
Sense of Taste, c. 1614-15; oil on 1 13.7 87.6cm 44 34 in
Neue
(47 iX515fin);
Death of Aetaeon, c.1565;
Tlie
NG 1904-80
Clyfford,
Still,
Gardner Museum.
Boston, p.78
canvas; 178.4X 198.1cm (70KX78in);
MoMA. p.248
on canvas;
oil
!0.5X337.2cm(90Xxl32Min);
Isabella Stewart
Tlie Battle of Bunker Hill. 1786; oil on canvas; 63.5x86. 4cm (25X34in);
Ribera, Jusepe de, 1591-1652 Tlie
J
oil
The Skater, Portrait of William oil on canvas: 245.5 x 147.4cm (96V.
71m): Hermitage, p. 125
55
llTin):
Hermitage, p.82
canvas:
before 1553;
Vanities of Human Life, c.1640;
p. 115
London,
An
Courtauld. p.34
Bathers. 1918-19;
T)te
Prado. p.154 Danai Receiving
the Shower oj Gold. on canvas; 129x180cm (50/, x 70 in): Prado. p.79 Tlie Rape of Europa, 1559-62: oil on
72m
(84
Schiele, Egon,
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste, 1841-1919
in);
1655
panel; 131.2x94.2cm (51 !x37in);
p.86
The Emperor Charles V on Horn back at Miihlberg, 1548: oil on canvas; 323x279cm (127 <109 in);
on
Steenwyck, Harmen (Harmen
Jerome in the Desert, c.1530; oil on canvas; 120.4X 158.8cm
London, p. 189 Rubens, Peter Paul, 1577-1640
oil
<32
Mauritshuis, Hague, p. 192
on canvas;
oil
The Life of Man, 1665-7; canvas; 68.2x82cm (26
i:
Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 16.^0; oil on canvas; 141 x 1 19cm (55/x46/in);
Rome.
Galleria Doria Pamphili,
pp.13, 145
W
St
Wall, Jeff, 1946-
c.
Tlie Family of Darius before Alexander, c. 1565-70; oil on canvas; iiii.2. 474.9cm (93xl87in);
A Sudden
NG
Holeusai), 1993; transparency and
London,
p.
120
(lust of
Wind
on canvas; 69 x 56cm (27> x 22in); Prado. p.163
VenUS and Adonis, c.1580; oij on canvas; 212x 191cm (83>x75/in);
illuminated display case;
Las Meninas, 1656; oil on canvas; 332x279cm (130/x 109>in); Prado.
Prado. p.81
London,
Andrea del (Andrea di Cioni), 1435-88, and Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519 The Baptism of Christ, 1470—5; oil on panel; 177 x 151cm (69/ x 59/in);
Warhol, Andy, 1930-87
Philip IV, 1652-5;
oil
Verrocchio,
pp.15, 152
Veneziano, Domenico, 1410-61
John the Baptist in the Desert, c.1445; tempera on panel; 28.3x32.4cm
.S7
(ll>xl2/in);
NG
Washington, p.60
Uffizi.
p.46
(after
Campbell's Soup, 100 Cans, 1962; oil on canvas; 183x 132cm (72x52in);
(9>xl2Wn); Louvre, p.198
(38> x 27/in);
Seated at a
on canvas;
Virginal, c.1670; oil
Viola,
NG
51.5x45.5cm (20> x 18in);
Bill,
NG
London, p.149
RoomforSt John of the Cross, video installation; The Museum
London, pp.15, 212 Vernet, Claude-Joseph, 1714-89
oil
293x545cm (115/x214/in);
Good King"
on panel; 60x (23/xl7/in); Louvre, p.138 oil
oil
Musee
d'Orsay, Paris, p. 160
Lamplight, C.1768-9;
In/
on canvas; 127x 101cm (50x39/in);
Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Centre for
New
British Art,
Haven, p.125
11.5(111
Unknown SHU
artist
Life with Books
c 1630-40;
mid an oil on canvas;
Berlin, p. 229
Museum,
Unknown
artist
with Marine Creatures,
Still Life
before 79 AD; fresco; Pompeii, p. 220
The Pleasures of the Ball, c.1714; oil on canvas; 52. 6x65. 4cm (20/x25/in);
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, 1444; oil on wood; 132 x 154cm
Richard
(52x60/in); Musee d'Art et d'Histoire,
Abbey, London, p. 154
Dulwich College Picture
Geneva, p.46
Unkown Spanish artist A Moor and a Christian
Gallery,
p. 213
Unknown
English School c.1395; Westminster
II,
Playing
Lutes, 1221-84; manuscript;
Zoffany, Johann, 1733-1810
Monasterio de El Escorial, Madrid.
p.212
canvas; 182.8 X 152.4cm (72 x 60in);
Bradsliaw Family, 1769; oil on canvas; 133.9x 176.3cm (52>x69>in);
National Gallery of Victoria,
Tate Collection, London, p. 159
OTHER WORKS
Zurbaran, Francisco de, 1598-1664
Workshop
and
the Sirens, 1891; oil
on
p. 83
Melbourne,
on
II "the
of France, c.1360;
Witz, Konrad c.1400^45
134 Watteau, Jean-Antoine, 1684-1721
Ulysees
The Fourth Estate, 1898-4901;
Fine Art
Gallery, Zurich, pp.17,
of
Louvre, p. 170
canvas;
Thomas Ammann
1983;
Contemporary Art, LA. p.61 Volpedo, Giuseppe Pellizza da, 1868-1907
A Storm
Jacket
Waterhouse, John William, 1849-1917
View of Naples with Vesuvius, 1748; oil on canvas; 99 x 197cm (39x77/in);
artist
Portrait oj John
34.9x56.8cm (137x22/in); Staatliche
London,
1951-
138
Unknown
An Academy
(82x62in);
A Young Woman
p. 68
Hourglass,
tempera on poplar; 83.6x66cm
Self Portrait in a Straw Hat, c.1782-3; oil on canvas; 97.8x70.5cm
Beaune.
Wright, Joseph, of Derby, 1734-97
Tobias and the Angel, c.1475;
1755-1842
Paris, p.
l'Hotel Dieu,
James Abbott McNeill, 1834-1903 Arrangement in Grey and Black:
Sell I'm trait, 1967; acrylic silkscreen
Fishing for Souls, 1614; oil on panel; 98x 189cm (38>x74>in);
The Laremaker, c. 1669-70; oil on canvas transferred to panel; 24x31cm
Musee de
64in);
print; PC.
London, pp.55, 254
The Emperor Lothair, 849-51; manuscript; Bibliotheque Nationale,
p.233
Mao, 1972; silkscreen ink and polymer paint on canvas; 108x 157cm
NG
panel;
London, pp.14, 28, 214, 254 School of Tours
Portrait of the Painter's Motlier, 1871; oil on canvas; 144.3x 162.5cm (56/x
attributed to, c.1435-88
Vigee Lebrun, Elisabeth Louise,
53x37cm (21xl4/in) each
NG
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo.
Verrocchio, Andrea del,
(33x26in);
on
oil
oak;
panel; 215 x 560m (84/ x 2209/in);
Whistler,
167
1589-1662
Rnksmuseum, Amsterdam, p.64
Mary,
oil
Las\ Judgement, 1443-51;
250x397cm
Venne, Adriaen Pietersz van de,
Jan Vermeer, 1632-75
the Virgin
and tempera on panel; 135x108.2cm (53> x 42>in); MFA. p.20
(98> x 156/*^); Tate Collection, p.
Luke Painting 1435-40;
West, Benjamin, 1738-1820
77m?
Still
Life with Lemons, Oranges,
of Hegesandrus,
Athenodorus, and Polydorus
on canvas; 87x 137cm (34/x54in);
Civica Galleria d'Arte Moderna,
The Death of General Wolfe, 1770; on canvas; 152. 6x214. 5cm
Wallace Collection, London, p.182
Pinacoteca Brera, Milan, p. 132
(60x84>in); National Gallery of
and a Rose, 1633; oil on canvas; 62.2 X 109.5cm (24> x 43>in); The Norton Simon Institute, Pasadena.
Vroom, Hendrik, 1566-1640
Canada, Ottawa, p. 116
p.230
Weyden, Rogier van der, 1399-1464 77ie Descent from the Cross, c.1435; oil on panel; 220 x262cm
UNKNOWN ARTSISTS
Mosque, 961; mosaic; Cordoba, p.24
canvas; 666 x 990cm (262> x 389>in);
Dutch Man-of-War and Fishing Boat in a Breeze, c.1590; oil on copper; 16.5x25cm (6/x9/'in); National
English or French School
Christ Pantokrator,
Louvre, p.47
Maritime Museum, London,
(86>x 103>in); Prado. p.50
Tlie Wilton
with a Shipwreck, 1754;
Veronese, Paolo (Paolo
oil
Caliari),
1528-88 The Marriage at Cana, 1562-3;
oil
on
(
p. 178
oil
of Rhodes
The Laocoon, third century Be-first century ad; marble; Pio Clementine
Museum,
Dome
Diptych, 1395-9; egg on
of
Rome, pp.11, 106
Vatican,
Mirhab at the Great
tlie
c.
1148; mosaic;
Cefalu Cathedral, p.40
Bibliography GENERAL Tlie
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New
York, 1979, and John Murray,
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of Ai1,
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Kemp, Martin
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History of Western Art, Oxford
Belting, Hans, Likeness
and
A
before the
Era of Art, University
History of the Image
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Thomas,
A.,
Alberti,
Leon
On
Battista,
Painting,
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catalogue,
Companion
to
Christian Art and
Architecture, Oxford University Press,
Oxford and
New
Chipp, Herschel
Modern Artists
A
Art:
and
B.,
Theories of
Source Book by
Critics, University
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Penguin Books,
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Reynolds, Sir Joshua, Discourses
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catalogue,
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 267
1
Index Page numbers
in italic refer to the
and captions
illustrations
Bernini. Gian Lorenzo, 15
Christ, 29,
17,
246-7.
246-7, 24S. 260 abstract painting, 11. 237-53, 260
demigods, 82-3
childhood, 44-5, 44-5
Denis,
Bible, 9, 10, 24, 30, 34-5, 36-7, 48, 51.
the dead Christ, 50-1, 50-1
Denis, Maurice, 238-9
images
67, 68, 190
Abstract Expressionism.
29
Bersuire, Pierre, 80
40-1, 40-1
of,
Last Judgement, 68-9, 68-9
Blanchard, Jacques, 124
ministry, 46-7,
Deutsch, Niklaus Manuel, 254, 256
miracles, 46-7, 47, 58
Passion, 48-9,
acrylic paint, 259
Boccioni, Umberto, 195, 208
preflguration, 36-7,
action painting, 260
Bonheur, Rosa, 215
relics,
Adam and
Bonnard, Pierre,
Eve,
30-1, 30-1, 33, 90,
10,
Leon
Battista. 14, 98, 99, 106, 118
allegory, 9-10, 98-103, 230,
Alma-Tadema. Lawrence,
230-1
121, 210, 210,
211
Borromeo,
St Carlo,
55
cities:
Bosschaert, Ambrosius, 11, 226,
Sandro,
226
altarpieces, 26-7, 260
73, 74, 98, 99, 106, 107, 120, 136,
Altdorfer, Albrecht, 42, 188, 188, 189
136, 140-1, 140, 142
Ambrose,
52-3
diptychs, 260
St,
55
Dix, Otto, 55, 143, 144
Doesburg, Theo van, 238, 238, 239. 244.
genre paintings, 208-9, 208-9
13, 63, 121,
244, 245
Domenichino, 27, 85
232
Domenico Veneziano, Dominic, St, 55
Classicism, 15, 260
Claude, 12,
258
Dine, Jim,
Claesz.. Pieter, 2125, 232-3,
14, 50, 70, 72,
7, 14,
Diderot, Denis, 16, 126, 181, 183
townscapes, 176-7, 176-7
Bosch, Hieronymus, 31, 31, 41
Botticelli,
36-7
Church, Frederic, 189, 189
35
7,
33
Diana, 76, 77, 91
59
Christopher,
Borgherini, Pierfrancesco,
devils, 32,
48-9
Resurrection, 52-3,
1
Books of Hours, 28-9
106, 168
Albers, Josef, 250 Alberti.
8,
225
Desportes. Francois,
46-7
Blaue Reiter, 260
160-1
56
Denis the Areopagite, 33
Blake, William, 31. 33, 33, 35, 67
Bleckner, Ross, 251
portraits. 160-1,
St,
122, 173, 173,
178, 182, 186, 186, 188
Dominicans,
24, 26,
60
60,
29
Donatello, 62
Close, Chuck, 149
St, 54 American War of Independence, 16
Boucher, Francois, 16, 73, 77, 79, 107,
Andre, Carl, 248
Boudin, Eugene, 178-9, 179
collage, 235, 235,
Andrea del Castagno, 35
Bouguereau, Adolphe William, 206
Collier,
Andrew.
Bouts, Dieric, 36, 37
Colour Field painting, 260
Angelico, Fra, 22, 55, 61
Bracciolini, Poggio, 74-5, 120
complementary colours, 260
Dufy, Raoul,
angels, 32
Braque, Georges, 234-5, 234, 240-1, 240,
Conceptual
Diirer, Albrecht, 39, 54, 101, 148, 166,
56
St.
214-15
animals. 214,
86-7
216-17
double portraits, 150-1, 150-1
169, 169, 180, 181, 189
259
Duccio
art, 252,
Brit Art, 17,
260
Emperor,
I,
156, 157
contrapposto, 260 "conversation pieces," 155, 158, 159
Brouwer, Adriaen, 197
Copley, John Singleton, 119, 128, 128,
apocalyptic landscapes, 190-1, 190-1
Brown, Ford Madox,
Apocrypha, 42-3,
158
130, 131, 158,
199, 1.99
Briicke, Die, 107, 112, 183, 260
Comelis van Haarlem, 84, 85
Brueghel, Jan, 170, 170, 171,221
Corot, Jean-Baptist e-Camille, 1 71
Arcimboldo. Giuseppe, 231
Brueghel, Pieter, the Elder, 32, 35, 185, 188, 190, 190, 196, 202, 204, 212,
216
English School, 214. 254 del, 84, 85, 152,
194
223
Armenini, Giovanni Battista, 136
Brunelleschi, Filippo, 62
Cotan, Juan Sanchez, 220, 223,
Arthurian legends, 73, 73, 89, 89, 122
brashes, 255
Counter-Reformation,
Athenodorus, 11, 106
Burne-Jones, Edward, 16, 73, 89, 89, 91
Courbet, Gustave, 107, 110-11. 179, 179,
54
St, 36,
206, 207,
automatic painting, 246 Caillebotte, Gustave, 232, 233,
B
Calvin, Jean, 52
Baburen. Dirck van, 212
Campin, Robert,
Bacchus,
77, 77, 81, 86, 98,
Bacon, Francis.
13. 13,
213
112-13, 112, 141,
Ml, 252 Bailly.
Baroque
style, 15, 65,
124, 204, 260
Basquiat, Jean-Michel, 17, 252, Batoni,
Pompeo,
101,
252
240-1, 242, 245, 260
17, 112,
Eyck, Jan van, 14, 23, 39, 41, 139, 146, 146, 150, 225, 256-7,
Dadaism.
17,
57
154
95 30-1
Danube School, 188
Fall,
Daumier. Honore, 259
Fantin-Latour, Henri. 148
David, Gerard, 168, 168, 176
Fauvism, 17,114,260 Ficino, 75
Catlin, George, 211
118, 119, 124, 126, 128, 129, 155,
Fildes, Luke, 197,
Bauhaus, 245, 250
Cats, Jacob, 228
155
First
Beaumont,
Catullus, 75, 81, 120
Cezanne, Paul,
114, 114, 175, 175, 221,
-
221, 232, 234, 234, 241, Chagall, Marc, 67,
Bell, (live, 11
Bellechose, Henri, Bellini, Gentile,
Bellini,
56
56
186
186, 187
J
i
Bermejo Bartolonv
INDKX
I.
de,
*
King of England,
hirico Giorgio
228-9
1
19, 1.9.9,
15, 102, 140,
Delacroix, Eugene, 16, 119,
17.9, 126,
de 9
I
191, 239, 245
113
Flack, Audrey, 221
flower painting. 226-7.
226-7
food and drink: genre paintings, 202.
still life,
223, 232-3,
232-3
127, 129, 132, 210,210, 211, 214.
Fragonard, Jean Honore, 107
216, 259
Francis
Delaroche, Paul, 122, 123 15,
197
17, 133,
202-3
217
23
140, 150, 157
diaries V Emperor,
death, 100-1, 100, 228-9,
World War,
Fischer, Sandra, 113,
244, 260
137, 147, 209, 209, 213, 213, 217,
221,230,232,233 Charles
Stijl,
Degas, Edgar, 107, 111, 111. 113, 137,
213
Champaigne, Philippe
Bembo, Retro, 172 Benedii tuns
258
Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon,
Giovanni, 27, 13,51,60, 80,81,
David, Jacques-Louis, 16, 95, 109, 110,
De
256
260
Baugin, Lubin. 231
67, 73. 95, 95, 149,
260
expressions, portraits, 144-5, 144-5
Catholic Church, 26, 50, 56, 57, 64-5, 66
Beckmann, Max,
120
211
Baudelaire, Charles. 16
Sir George, 13
75, 81,
84-5, 152
Expressionism,
202
Catherine de Medici, Queen of Fiance,
101
d', 12,
d',
exotic scenes, genre paintings, 210-11,
17, 112, 161, 221, 234, 235,
Dali, Salvador. 51, 92, 93, St,
Borso
253
224
Este family, 75, 102
147
Castiglione, Baldassare, 142, 142, 158,
Catherine,
200
33, 33, 39, 92-3, 191, 191,
Etty, William, 110
Cupid, 76, 98, 99, 108, 150
216
57
St,
55
Cubism,
Barry, James, 103, 10.3
Bartholomew,
14,
Max,
Espinosa, Juan de,
880
Crucifixion, 48, 49. 52
Cassatt, Mary, 145, 147,
Ernst,
Este,
canvas, 257, 259
Carracci, Annibale, 194, 196,
Giacomo, 241,241
Erasmus,
Este, Alfonso
Crivelli. Carlo.
222, 223
Epstein, Jacob, 112
Creation, 30-1
Canaletto, 16, 171, 177, 177, 208
David, 147, 162
65
207
Crespi, Daniele,
139
139,
15, 27, 57,
Enlightenment, 66
Crane. Walter, 77
Caravaggio, 21, 57, 77, 125, 196, 218,
Baldung Grien, Hans, 100, 101 Balla,
233
Egg, Augustus Leopold, 201
"emblem books," 230 Endymion, 109, 109
Correggio, 78, 79
Cossa, Francesco
Eakins, Thomas, 143, 143, 145
egg tempera, 254, 255
Apollo. 62. 77, 85
Augustine,
258
166, 182
62
20, 24,
Apelles, 99, 118
Aristotle, 196, 201
53, 166,
Constructivism, 248, 260
Broodthaers, Marcel, 10, 11
53
Buoninsegna, 14. 38.
Dyck. Anthony Van. 140. 140, 150-1. 150,
259
Constantine
45
St.
260
di
254
Antonello da Messina, 142, 144, 144
44, 45,
Draper, Herbert, 81 drip painting, 260
John, 90
182,
Bronzino, Agnolo, 73, 76, 99, 99
60
Thomas,
Constable, John, 12-13. 12, 171. 171,
Breton. Andre, 92
Bridget of Sweden,
sporting painting, 216-17, St,
Cole,
259
mythical beasts and monsters, 86,
Anthony,
107, 109,109, 110,185,204
154-5, 154
Dclaunay, Robert. 177, 212, J \2
94
Delvaux, Paul, 92, 93
I,
King of France, 15
Francis of Assisi,
St,
44-5, 48, 59, 60,
60,61 Franciscans, 24, 26, 29, 61
Haydon, Benjamin,
66-7, 124, L26,
16,
255
Helena,
Klee, Paul,
Freud, Lucian, 115, 115, 159, 159, 252
Henrietta Maria, Queen, 156, 157
Freud, Sigmund, 81, 92-3, 95, 115
Hercules, 82,
Caspar David,
Friedrich,
67, 164, 168-9,
169, 180, 181, 181, 187, 189 Frith, William Powell, 208,
Futurism,
82
history painting,
146, 147,
Gauguin, Paul, 41, 67, 67, 96-7, 96, 207
Geertgen
Maso
Korean War, 133
247
Krasner, Lee,
Banco, 59
di
Massys, Quentin,
6,
200
200,
Master of St Giles, 22
116-33, 195, 210, 221
8,
La Tour, Georges de,
Hockney, David,
Labisse, Felix,
113, 113, 151, 151, 159,
205, 205, 214, 215,
259 252
Master of St Veronica, 40
61
60,
93
Matisse, Henri, 17, £2, 25, 114, 774, 160,
Lancret, Nicolas, 203, 204
Matthew,
Landseer, Edwin, 155, 155, 214,
TheLaocoon,
201, 227
173,221,227
173,
landscape, 165-91
Hogarth, William, 35, 119, 162, 163, 201,
44
tot Sint Jans,
74-5
11, 12,
215
Medici,
106
54
St, 42, 44,
Cosimo
136
de, 61,
Medici, Lorenzo de, 14
genre paintings, 193-217
Hokusai, 167
Last Judgement, 68-9, 68-9, 106, 190
Medici family, 136, 736
Gentile da Fabriano, 14, 45, 58, 59
Holbein, Hans, the Younger, 5, 15, 37, 37,
Last Supper, 48, 51, 122
Medieval painting, 254-5
35
Gentileschi, Artemisia,
George,
St,
56
Gerard, Baron Francois-Pascal, 96,
96
Gericault, Theodore, 119, 126-7, 127, 129, 229,
229
Gheest, Cornelis van der,
6,
8
Ghirlandaio, Domenico, 162,
162
Giacometti, Alberto, 112 Gilbert
&
gilding,
254, 255
Lawrence,
162, 255, 257
Le Nain, Louis, 197, 212
72, 82, 91,
96
George, 67
Leibl,
Romano,
Giulio
78
76,
God, 30-1, 168-9
gods and goddesses, 76-7, 76-7, 108-9 Goes,
Hugo van
der, 30, 40,
8, 8, 9, 11, 16, 17,
187, 187, 207, 227,
Millet, Jean-Francois, 795, 206,
Leo
Minerva, 72, 76-7, 91, 98, 102
hunting scenes, 216-17, 216
Leonardo da
art,
Golden Age, 172-3, 172-3, "Golden Legend,"
54,
174,
illusionism, 224, 224-5, 260
light,
Imago
Lilith,
16, 17, 177,
Limbourg brothers, 184 Ambrogio, 14,
13, 13,
Islam, 20, 24, 30
145
15,
vanitas
118-19,
756, 157
Luke,
J
James the
Great, St,
Goyen, Jan van, 184
Jason, 83,
95
grattage, 191
Jerome,
133,217,217
257
Greece, ancient, 62-3, 72, 76-7, 106,
Gregory the Great, Pope,
Moses,
20, 36, 37,
58
29
209
208, 209,
music, 212-13, 212-13, 242
Luther, Martin, 15, 63, 64
Muybridge, Eadweard, 112
27, 54, 60-1, 61, 168, 228
M
mythology, 71-103
John,
Macpherson, James, 96
St,
228-9
Murillo, Bartolome, 38, 197
54, 56
Machy, Pierre-Antoine, 66
II,
still life,
Munch, Edvard,
St, 42, 44, 45, 47,
Jesuits, 59, 61, 65, 103
John
120-1, 220
St,
57
258
Moreau, Gustave, 83, 86, 91
Mostaert, Jan,
Lucian, 99, 118, 120 85, 101, 130-1,
244, 245, 248
Morisot, Berthe, 170, 7 77
Louis XV, King of France, 707, 203, 204,
204
260
Goya, Francisco de, 16,
Piet, 77, 244-5,
morality: genre painting, 197, 198, 200-1
Louis XIV, King of France, 144-5,
159
monsters, 86, 86-7
Lorenzetti, Pietro, 126
173
141, 141,
prophet, 20
187, 208, 208,
99, 102, 126,
176,776 Lotto, Lorenzo, 43, 150, 750, 151, 162
Inness, George, 173,
Amedeo,
Monet, Claude, 76, 767, 177, 183, 753,
163, 210, 211
228
El, 47, 56,
Mondrian,
204
10-11,261
8,
Mohammed,
93, 103, 110, 110, 122, 142, 142, 145,
Gossaert, Jan, 228,
Greco,
Modigliani,
91
Lorenzetti,
253
Mitchell, Joan, 252,
landscape paintings, 186-7
260-1
International Gothic, 14
style, 14,
195
58-9
215
Modernism,
Loo, Carle van, 204,
82
130,
182-3, 187,
Miro, Joan,
studies, 110
205, 207, 208, 213, 233, 234, 258,
248-9, 248-9, 252, 259,
17,
miracles, 58-9,
249
Lichtenstein, Roy, 9, 10,
Pietatis, 49, 51
206, 207
260
life
Impressionism,
Minimalism,
256 Lesenko, Anton, 125 LeWitt, Sol, 248, 249,
John Everett, 45
miniatures, portrait, 158
Vinci, 14, 22, 92, 93, 106,
196, 200,
Goltzius, Hendrik,
Gothic
Pope, 103
182
Michiel, Marcantonio, 166, Millais,
119, 142, 144, 144, 145, 158, 161,
260
Innocent X, Pope,
59
140
Ignatius Loyola, St, 59, 59, 61, 65, 103
258
204
I,
128,
genre paintings, 204-5, 204-5
iconography, 260
149,
227, 230, 231,
255
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 17, 131
Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, 83, 87,
Gogh, Vincent van,
86
Hunt, William Holman, 37, 37, 41
16, 91, 95,
101
75, 25, 30-1, 30,
humanists, 120, 122
-W
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von,
7, 12, 14,
34, 63, 68-9, 107, 118, 123, 126,
Lely, Peter, 140,
I
129
Michelangelo,
207
Hopper, Edward, 208, 209, 209
182, 204
40
235
Leighton, Frederic, Lord,
hyperreal
di Paolo,
Wilhelm,
226
50, 226,
34
Mercury, 77
Leger, Fernand, 177, 177, 235,
48
de',
leisure,
Giorgione, 108, 111, 166, 172, 172, 182,
Girodet, 96, 103, 109, 126, 126, 128-9,
Menabuoi, Giusto
Hoogstraten, Samuel van, 221, 230, 231
Huysum, Jan van, 225
Giovanni
Memlinc, Hans, 29, 48,
Hooch, Pieter de, 198
Giordano, Luca, 82, 153
Giotto, 14, 24, 25, 43, 43, 50, 118
St,
Lebrun, Charles, 119
Homer, Winslow, 207, 207, 217 Honthorst, Gerrit van,
gestural painting, 248, 260
56-7
64, 146, 147, 150, 152, 154, 157, 162,
Homer,
67, 228
St, 53, 60,
11
Master of St Francis, 706
Hodgkin, Howard, 252,
217
7
Mary Magdalene, Masaccio, 14,
Hoch, Hannah, 225
147, 156, 157, 157, 161, 166, 167, 197,
74-5,
230
and Child, 28-9, 28-9
Virgin
Damien, 101
Hirst,
Gainsborough, Thomas, 16, 141,
145,
253 1
'>
symbols, 226, 226, 230,
145
Kooning, Willem de, 239, 239, 246, 248,
der, 176, 177
38 42-9
38-9,
of,
42-3,
Pieta, 51
heroes and heroines, 34-5, 82-3, 82-3,
Heyden, Jan van
242, 260
160
246
Kokoschka, Oskar,
heroic landscapes,
images life of,
Klimt, Gustav, 89, 94, 94, 160,
128-9
195, 241, 241,
10, 17, 112,
189
258
Kline, Franz,
220
Assumption, 53
Herod, King, 45
208
88
Fuseli, Henry, 88,
Mary, Virgin, 36, 37, 59, 44, 64, 68,
187
Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig, 107, 112, 189,
59
St,
191
191,
Kielland, Kitty, 186,
Hegesandrus, 77, 106
French School, 214, 254 fresco,
Anselm,
Kiefer,
Heckel, Erich, 183, 183
205
181,
10
1
martyrdom of saints, 56-7, 56-7
87
Khnopff, Fernand,
Harvey, Marcus, 201
French Academy, 118-19, 221, 222
French Revolution,
54, 68
King of France, 138-9, 138
N
Magi, 44, 45
Nabis, 261
John, Augustus, 114—15
Magritte, Rene, 70, 11, 230,
Greuze, Jean-Baptiste, 201
John, Gwen, 114-15,775
male nudes, 112-13, 772-73
Grimm
John the
Malevich, Kasimir, 242-3, 243, 249
Nash, Paul, 131, 133, 733, 190-1, 797
Mander, Karel von, 182
Nazarenes, 63, 89, 261
10,
62
brothers, 88-9
Baptist, St, 46, 56, 57, 60, 60, 68
Gris, Juan, 235, 240, 241
John of the Cross,
Gros, Antoine-Jean, 130, 130
Joseph, 7
Grosz, George, 91, 91, 95, 132-3
Judaism, 20, 30
group
portraits, 152-3,
152-3
St,
61
Manet, Edouard,
10,
231
258
Mannerism,
Griinewald, Mathis, 33, 33, 49, 52, 60
Julian of Norwich, 48
Mantegna, Andrea, 62-3, 62, 74, 120,
Guercino, 124
Julius
Guerin, Pierre-Narcisse, 119
Jung, Carl Gustav, 72, 95
Guild of Sienese Painters, 21
Jupiter, 76, 77, 78-9, 78-9, 128
II,
Pope, 11, 102-3, 121
102, 703, 128
Hackert, Jakob Philipp, 185
Kalf, Willem, 220, 222,
Haecht, Willem van,
Kandinsky, Wassily, 17, 213, 238, 239,
Hals, Frans, 152,
6,
8
153
Harnett, William, 220,
223
242, 242, 243, 244, 245, 250, 252, 253
224
Keats, John, 91
St,
Nazis, 17, 129, 133 16, 63, 95, 110, 129,
261
121,
Neo-Plasticism, 17, 244-5,
244-5
Neptune, 77
Marie de Medici, Queen of France,
Mark,
16, 96, 103, 128-9,
Neo-Expressionism, 17
261
152
Marin, John,
H
Emperor,
Neoclassicism,
Judd, Donald, 239, 239, 248
85,
I,
129, 130, 730, 155, 755, 181, 210
110-11, 777, 730,
203, 217,
131, 733, 202,
Napoleon
258
54, 56, 59, 214
84,
New Testament,
30, 36-7, 48,
Barnett, 21, 67, 246, 246, 247
Nicholas,
St,
58
Nieuwenhove, Maarten van, 29
97
Mars, 72, 74, 11, 98, 109, 120
Nolan, Sidney, 73, 95, 97,
Marsyas, 85
Nolde, Emil, 178, 179, 779
Martin, Agnes, 248,
Martin, John, 190,
249
790
68
Newman,
Norse myths, 88-9, 88, 96 nudes, 90-1, 105-15
INDEX 269
1
Oedipus. 82,
Chris. 201
Ofili.
oil paints. oil
S
256-7, 256-7, 258-9
Traini,
Francesco, 101
primitivism, 189
Sano
travel,
genre paintings, 210-11, 210-11
protest paintings, 132-3, 132-3
Sargent.
2,
Quarton, Enguerrand, 39.
43,
53
213
Over-beck. Johann Friedrich, 63,
Raphael,
63
Ovid, 72. 78. 80-1, 84, 85, 107, 108. 120
7,
253
Pacher, Michael, 26. 54
23
der,
47, 51. 54, 62, 63, 72, 75, 98,
99, 102-3, 106, 118, 118, 121, 122,
64-5, 66
Reinhardt, Ad,
Second World War,
15. 34. 35, 108, 109, 109,
257
Renaissance,
Shannon, Joe,
Signorelli, Luca,
220, 254-5, 261
Silvester, St, 59
86
Simone
Renoir, Pierre Auguste, 111, 111, 131
Reynolds, Joshua,
16,
Ribera, Jusepe de, 85,
Richard
Peter, St. 47, 56
II,
52-3
95
253
Piazzetta, Giovanni Battista,
57
Venus, 72, 72, 73, 73. 74. 76, 81, 90-1, 98,
Adriaen van der, 224
102
Stein, Gertrude, 136,
206
Stella,
style, 16, 107, 109, 111, 126,
Still,
St,
56
Romanticism,
Pieta. 51, 93 Pigalle, Jean-Baptiste,
230
Roger
16, 67, 88, 91, 96, 126, 189,
261
Clyfford, 246,
de, 175
Rossetti,
Dante Gabriel,
Pisanello, 128
Rosso Fiorentino, 35
Pissarro, Camille, 177, 183, 185, 207
Rothko, Mark,
246
Vroom, Hendrik,
224
Plutarch, 125, 1 74 political allegory, 102-3,
Pollaiuolo, Antonio
and
102-3
PoUock, Jackson,
25, 67, 238, 239,
Piero,
war
123
67, 67, 73, 95, 95, 97,
15, 34, 35, 59,
artists, 131
Warhol, Andy, 17, 101. 134. 233. 233, 248
Surrealism, 17, 92-3, 94, 231, 246, 261
Washington, George, 154, 155
Susannah and the Elders,
watercolour,
swagger
35, 108, 109
17,
156-7
83, 86, 91, 261
death, 228-9,
258
Waterhouse. John William, 83
portraits, 156-7,
symbols: animals, 214
6, 7, 9,
167
Wall, Jeff. 167,
Suprematism. 242. 261
Symbolism,
126
178
W Walpole, Horace, 188
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 16
Rubens, Peter Paul,
178,
"the sublime," 183, 189, 261
Rousseau, Henri, 189, 189
80
157
214
Sweerts, Michiel, 196, 197
royal academies, 15, 16, 110, 119, 125,
216
Pollard, James,
Stubbs, George, 214,
Sustermans, Justus, 7
246-7, 247, 248
Pius XII. Pope, 13 Pliny,
1 7, 25,
89, 90, 91
198-9
219-35
Surikov, Vasily. 123,
Rosa, Salvator, 100, 101, 188, 188
pigments, 254-5, 258-9 Piles.
138,211,220,220
155
Visscher, Claes. Jansz., 167
Stuart, Gilbert, 16, 154, 155, 157,
124,
155.
173
virtue, 124. 198-9,
Rodin, Auguste, 115 78, 120-1,
Queen of England.
Vigee-Lebrun. Elisabeth Louise, 149
Virgil, 72, 172,
240, 259, 259
Empire, 62-3, 74-5,
254
genre paintings, 200-1, 200-1
Viola, Bill, 61, 61
136
248
Frank, 248,
Stephen,
Verrocchio, Andrea del, 46. 55,
Victoria,
203
Steenwyck, Harmen, 228, 228
211
183
Veronese, Paolo, 47, 65, 81, 81. 120. 121
vice,
still life,
Piero di Cosimo, 86
Vernet, Claude-Joseph, 170, 179, 182,
216-17
Rodchenko, Alexander, 243, 243, 248
Roman
99, 106, 107, 108, 108, 109, 120
Vermeer, Jan. 15. 198, 212, 212
Spencer, Stanley, 69, 69, 112, 113, 115
161, 229, 229, 234-5, 235, 240-1,
Piero della Francesca, 39, 49, 59
Venne, Adriaen Pietersz van de, 64
183
Steen, Jan, 192, 194, 200-1, 200,
204-5, 213, 261
114, 114, 133. 133, 136, 136, 160-1,
139
Stations of the Cross, 48
Robert, Hubert, 180, 181
Rococo
Sisley, Alfred.
102,
251
Robert, Leopold, 206,
Picasso, Pablo, 10, 17, 73, 81, 87, 94, 95,
158, 163, 196-7, 202, 217, 257
Martini, 138, 139,
Spranger. Bartholomeus, 84, 85, 91,
Ripa, Cesare, 99 Rivera, Diego, 210,
238
108, 144-5, 145, 152, 153, 153, 154,
sporting painting, 216-17,
Riley, Bridget, 251,
16, 131, 140, 160, 162,
Velazquez, Diego, 13, 13,15,104, 108,
69
Spelt,
Philip n. King of Spain, 56, 81
Philostratus, 75, 81,
256 veduta. 171, 261
95
95,
250
Vasari, Giorgio, 6-7, 15, 108, 122-3, 122,
203
King of England, 28, 154,
Rigaud, Hyacinthe, 142, 156, 157
photography,
241
Spanish Civil War, 133, 133
Richter, Gerhard, 252-3,
King of Spain, 102, 158, 163, 217
221
Vanderlyn, John, 123. 123
82, 119, 141
Petrarch, 14, 100, 138
IV,
Valleyer-Coster. Anne.
Soutine, Chaim, 141, 141. 159
214
154.
57
221, 246
Shakespeare, William, 80. 122
120-1, 122, 142, 172, 175. 182, 196,
Perugino, 47
St,
17, 133, 191,
148-9
Severini, Gino, 241,
74-5, 76, 80-1, 90, 99, 106, 108, 118,
perspective, 234, 241, 261
Peter Martyr,
186-7 Valerius Maximus. 124. 125
sexuality, nudes, 107
62-3, 64-5, 72, 73,
14, 15,
Reni, Guido, 72,
87
124
St, 56, 57,
self-portraits, 148,
Resurrection, 50, 52-3,
Perseus, 82, 82, 86, 86,
Valenciennes. Pierre-Henri de, 175, 175,
seasons, landscape paintings, 184, 184-5
Vasarely, Victor, 250-1,
206
132
24
vanitas. 101. 201. 227. 228-9, 230, 261
21
132,
genre paintings. 208-9. 208-9
Seurat, Georges, 204, 205
peasants, genre paintings, 196-7, 196-7,
de Yolpedo. Giuseppe,
life,
125
Serov. Valentin Alexandrovich, 73
159,
pendant, 261
19,
Rembrandt,
pastoral landscapes, 172-3, 261
Watteau, Antoine, 119, 204, 212,
182-3
Weimar Republic,
228-9
91, 132
West, Benjamin, 116, 119, 123
flowers, 226, 226, 227
Weyden, Rogier van
food and drink, 202
Whistler.
and darkness, 187 220, 230, 230-1
213
weather, landscape paintings, 182-3,
der, 20, 50, 56,
James Abbott McNeill,
68
160,
160. 212
59, 69, 76, 76, 81, 84, 85, 99,
light
102, 102, 103, 107, 107, 115, 120,
still life,
Wilde. Oscar, 101. 162
Polydorus, 11,106
124, 125, 128, 148, 172, 173, 216,
vanitas symbols, 201
wildness, landscape paintings, 188-9,
polyptychs, 261
257
97, 236, 246, 247, 248, 253, 259
Pontormo, Jacopo Carucci,
7,
Rudolf
10
II,
188-9 Emperor,
85, 102,
Ruisdael, Jacob van, 167, 180-1,
Pop
ruler portraits, 154-5,
Art, 17, 233, 261
135-63
genre paintings, 206-7, 206-7
Post Impressionism, 16, 17,207,258,261
rural
Russian Revolution,
..'/
lis
19,
Lndrea 65 99
INDKX
103
/
248, 249,
243
259
tempera, 254, 255
Witz, Konrad,
Tertullian, 56
women: genre
Thomas,
St, 50,
38
Tintoretto, Jacopo, 15, 42, 49, 59, 59, 69, 79,
painting, 199
and myth, 90-1, 90-1
52
Tiepolo, Giambattista,
46
nudes, 90-1, 105-15
Wren, Christopher, 65 Wright of Derby. Joseph. 125
108
Titian, //, 12, 13, 15, 18, 52, 53, 53, 57,
78, 79, 80, 81, 85, 107, 108, 108, 111,
169
Saenredam,
poverty, genre painting, 196 7
17, 103,
1
121, 121, 124, 125,
171. 174, 175
Pozzo
life,
Ryman, Robert,
J
Poussin, Nicolas, 15, 20,20,57, 95,
180
154-5
Runge, Philipp Otto, 45, 66, 67
Postmodernism, 261 Potter, Paulus
Winkelmann, Johann, 110
102
Poons, Larry, 25
portraits,
270
248
59
136-7, 137, 148, 152-3, 152, 158,
Peeters, Clara, 222, 232
1
216
83
religious painting, 19-69, 168-9
Passion of Christ, 48-9, 48-9
Patenier, Joachim, 166, 168, 168, 169, 180
urban
Scipio,
Sebastian,
relics, saints,
148
School of Tours, 138
Scrovegni, Enrico.
110-11, 206-7, 261
Reformation. 21, 27. 43, 56, 57, 63,
Parrhasius, 200. 224
Ulysses, 82,
seascapes, 178-9, 178-9
16, 107,
panoramas. 169
Philip
206, 210
Uccello, Paolo, 87, 93, 216,
Schoenmaekers, Dr Matthieu, 244-5
Realism,
panels. 254
Pellizza
U Julius, 88, 89
Raphael, Archangel, 55
paints. 254-9
Parmigianirto, 21,
259
178, 178, 179, 208, 258,
Schnorr von Carolsfeld,
123, 126, 142, 142, 150, 158,
St.
Turner. Joseph Mallord William, 121,
115
Schiele, Egon, 151, 151
Rae, Fiona, 253,
Paul,
Trumbull, John, 118
Savoldo, Gian Girolamo, 60-1, 61
Ossian, 88, 96, 96, 103, 122, 128-9
George van
triptychs, 261
trompe-loeil. 224, 224. 261
Saville, Jenny, 115,
Orphism. 242
Paele,
Singer, 132, 133, 143, 143,
153
Saturn, 85, 101
250-1, 250-1, 259
Orpheu-
townscapes. 176-7, 176-7
131
200-1
satire,
36-7
30. 34-5.
John
N., 131,
23
di Pietro,
153,
227
O'Keeffe, Georgia. 227,
Op Art,
Samokhvalov, A.
Sannazaro, Jacopo, 172
Prud'hon. Pierre-Paul. 99, 99
sketches. 171
Old Testament.
Pre-Raphaelites, 63, 89, 261 predella, 2(il
Pieter,
54
Baints, 54
61
Salon,
Hi. 12<;.
16,
'-'/.
'
127
65
///, 120, L36, 137, 154-5, 154, 157, 172.
/
TV. 204, 257,
257
topography. 170-1. 170-1
Zeuxis, 200, 224, 232 Zofiany, Johann, 158,
!'>!>
Zurbaran, Francisco de,
230
Genera] Editor's acknowledgments A hook such
;ls
this is
a group endeavour apd
I
would
thank
like to
all
those
who have worked towards
its
production:
firstly
the
contributors, bul also Richard Dawes, Paul Holberton, Michael Ricketts, Tim Brown. Jenny Faithfull, John Jervis, and Oliver Roberts. would also particularly like to thank Mollis Clayson and Anlhca Snow lot their care, consideration, and humanity during our almost I
exclusively electronic collaboration Finally
I
whom
very
Bacon/ ARS,
NY and DACS. London
2000;
14tl S; 14tcl
BAIVPPS, 14tcr BAIVNGL;
must thank Anna Benn without
little
would be
possible,
Picture acknowledgments KEY fc front cover; C centre;
I
be hack cover; b bottom;
left; r right; t
Peissenburg, Germany;
AP
London;
AV
AP;
BAL Bridgeman
top; A Artothek, AKG AKG
Accademia, Venice;
Art Library;
BN The Bametl
Newman Foundation; C Corbis IK Ltd: CG Courtauld Gallery, London; CMA The Cleveland Museum of Art; EL Erich I>essing; FAM Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art
Museums, USA; FC The Frick
Collection,
New York; G Photographie Giraudon; GAV Galleria dell'Accademia, Venice; GB Groenigemuseum. Bruges; IWM Imperial War Museum, London; JPGM The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; KH Kunsthalle, Hamburg;
KM
Kunsthistorisches
Vienna; L Louvre, Paris;
MCAG
Museum,
Manchester
MET The Metropolitan New York; MFAB Courtesy-
City Art Galleries;
Museum Museum
of Art,
of Fine Arts, Boston;
MM Memling
MNAM Collections du
Museum, Bruges;
Centre Georges Pompidou, Musee national d'art
moderne,
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MOD Museo
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York;
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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DACS
BAL
133tl
P/© Succession Picasso/DACS 2000: 133cl TG; 133cr BAIVPWVMusee Picasso, Paris/© Succession Picasso/DACS 2000;
134
BALThe Daros
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K Vanderbilt.
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HO
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H
Haass
in
W Haass;
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AKG/MOP:
Given anonymously; 2101 AKG/
The Art Archive/Royal Academy,
London: 2111 BAIVG/National Palace.
Mexico City/Reproduced by permission of
Spain/Index; 212r
©
NGL: 213t BAIVDulwich
Paris and
213b PC/Photograph Metropolitan 214tl
© NGL:
DACS. London © 1987 The
2000;
Museum of Art, New York; 214tr BALNGL: 214b BAIV
Distillers
Gerard Blot/MOP: 215bl Pluladelphia Museum of Art/A E GaUatin CoUection; 215br @ David Hockney/Photo: Steve Oliver; 216t BALAshmolean Museum. Oxford: 216b BALPC: 217tl NGA/Gift of the Avalon Foundation: 217tr BAIVAcademia de San Fernando, Madrid: 217b BALThe Barber
Birmingham: 218 BAIVAmbrosiana. Milan: 220t AKG EIVNational Museum of
P Anders: 221b Louis K Meisel
A
YorkTncorporating
Portion
Of The Margaret Bourke- White Photograph Buchenwald. April 1945' © Time Inc./Photo: Bruce C Jones: 222t Oronoz/P; 222b BAIV Ambrosiana. Milan; 2231 San Diego Museum of Art/Gift of Anne R and Amy Putnam; 223 r Indianapolis Museum of Art/Gift of Mrs James W Fesler in memory of Daniel W. and Elizabeth C. Marmon: 224r MFABThe Hayden CoUection: 224tl AKG/L: 224bl Art
D
151b BALNeue Galerie, Linz; 1521 AKG/ 1 52r AKG; 1 53t AKG/Frans Hals Museum. Haarlem: 153b MFAB/Gift of Mary Louisa Boit. Julia Overing Boit, Jane Hubbard Boit and Florence D Boit in memory of their father, Edward Darley Boit: 154t AKG/P; 1 54b © Dean and Chapter of Westminster, London: 155tl AKG'Schloss Charlottenburg. Berlin: 155tr MFABAVilliam Francis Warden Fund. John H and Ernestine A Payne Fund.
Arts/Founders Society Purchase. TannahUl Foundation Fund, GibbsWUliams Fimd. Dexter M Ferry Jr. Merrill Fund, Beatrice Rogers Fund, & Richard A Manoogian Fund: 189tr BAIVNGL; 189 b Kunstmuseum Basel/© by Dr Wolfgang
Institute of ChicagoAVirt
&
226r Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid: 227tl AKG/SHM/© Succession H Matisse/ DACS 2000: 227tr © NGL 227br Pluladelphia Museum of Art/Bequest of Georgia O'Keeffe
Commonwealth Cultural Preservation Trust. owned by the MFAB and the National
London
EL P:
Jointly
DC: 155br The Her Majesty Queen
Portrait Gallery. Washington,
Royal Collection Elizabeth
II:
1561
©
2000.
NGA/Samuel H Kress
Collection/Photo by Lyle PeterzeU:
1
56r
AKG
EIVL 1571 NGA/Andrew W Mellon CoUection Photo by Bob Grove: 157r SuperStock/The Huntingdon Library, Art CoUections, and Botanical Gardens. San Marino. California; 1 58t NGA Andrew W MeUon Fund, Photo by Richard Carafelh; 1 58b Museum Boijmansvan Beuningen, Rotterdam; 159t TG; 159b BAI/PC; 160t AKG/Osterreichische Galerie im Belvedere. Vienna; 160b BAIV PW MOP: 161t photograph © 2000 Art institute of Chicago/Gift of Mrs GUbert
W
Chapman
in
memory
of Charles
B
Goodspeed/© Succession Picasso/DACS 2000; 161b BALYIusee Picasso, Paris/ \ Succession Picasso/DACS 2000; 162r BALL: 162tl BAL'NGL; 162bl
Museum "De BALNGL: 163tr
Stedelijk
163tl
163cr AKG/P: 163bl
Lakenhal". Leiden;
Orohoz/P;
BALNGL
163brOronoz/P; 164 JPGM: 166t Samuel H Krees Collection; 166c Paris Michele Bellot/L;
1671
AKG/
NGA RMN
166b RA: 167brTG; 1681
NGL 167trJPGM
Groeningemnseum, Bruges 168rBAL PW/IV; 169r BAL/Gemaidegalerie, Dresden,
German) 1GWBAIAS/L 169U MET, Gift of Mrs Russell Sage. \'.X)H (08.228); 170t Villc
Institute of
Robert
H
W
Ingeborg Henze-Ketterer. Wichtrach'Bern;
BALP; 191t WA/The Ella GaUup Simmer and Maty Catlin Sunmer Collection Ftmd/© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, 190t TG; 190b
Enid
BAIVIWM: 191b
2000: 191c
A Haupt
MOMA
Fund; 192 Mauritshuis. The
Hague; 194t AKG Palazzo Schiffanoia. Ferrara: 194c AKG: 194b VAM: 195tl.JPGM; 195tr BAL'Niedersachsische Landesmuseimi. Hanover: 195b BAL Scottish National GaUery
Modern Art. Edinburgh/© The Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2000; 196tl MET/ of
Rogers Ftmd. 1919 (19.164); 196tr RA: 196bl C7© KimbeU Art Museum. Fort Worth. Texas; 197t MFAB/Emest Wadsworth LongfeUow Fund; 197b BAIVRoyal HoUoway and Bedford New CoUege, Surrey; 1981 SMBPK/Photo; Jorg P Anders; 198r BALL; 1991 © NGL; 199r BAIVMCAG: 200I NGA Ailsa MeUon Bruce Fund; 200r © NGL; 201tl C/Francis G Mayer: 201tr TG: 201b BAIVNGL: 202t The Governing Body, Christ Church, Oxford: 202tl AKG/KM; 202tr AKG/EIVWeUington Museum. Apsley House. London; 203tl WA/EUa Gallup Sunmer and Mary Catlin Summner Collection; 203cl BAIVSudeley Castle. Winchcombe, Gloucestershire; 203cr BAIV Musee Conde, Chantilly. France; 203b BAIV (, 204t BALG/L; 204b BALArt histitute of Im ago, Illinois; 205I © David Hockney: 205tr Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York/Photo bj The Solomon R DACS Guggenhiiu Foundalion, New York 2000; 206t BAL I'MM. 206b BAIVMFAB; 207r AK(./Kll: 207tl Musee dea Beaux-Arts Besancon lharlea Ihoffet; 207bl Delaware (
;
(
*.
(
Art
I
Museum, Wilmington; 208t BAIVRoyal
HoUoway and Bedford New
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
College, Surrey:
1949.585: 225tl
Walker Fund,
BAIVNGL; 225tc BALNGL:
243bl MOlSLVGift of the
Trust c/o Beeldrecht. Amsterdam.
London: 246I MO.\LVThe Sidney and Harriet Janis CoUection; 246r MOMA/Gift of Mr and Mrs Joseph Slifka/© ARS. NT and DACS. London 2000: 247r TG/© Kate
Rothko
Prizel
2000; 247tl
London
New
2000: 247bl Robert Miller GaUery.
York: 248I MOIVLVLarry Aldrieh
Foundation Fund/© ARS. NT and DACS. London 2000: 248r TG/© ARS. NT and DACS, London 2000: 249r Lisson GaUery London/ Photo: Steve White. London: 249tl TG: 249bl TG: 250 TG: 2511 PC - photo: courtesy Bridget Riley/© Bridget Riley:
2261 AKG/Mauritshuis, The Hague;
228t© NGL: 228b RMN. Paris/Jean Schormans/L: 229r CMA/d Succession Picasso/DACS 2000; 229tl SMBPK Gemaldegalerie/Jorg P for the Alfred Stieghtz CoUection:
Anders; 229bl Statens Konstmuseer/Photo:
AKG SHM:
231 tl Staathche KunsthaUe Karlsruhe; Paris/Gerard
231bl AKG/KM: 231br AKG/PC/ © ADAGP. Paris and DACS. London 2000: 232t BALL: 232b Museum Boijmans-van Blot/L:
H
Knox, 1963/© Licensed by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Aits. Inc.DACS London 2000. Trademarks Licensed by CampbeU Soup Company. AU Rights Reserved.: in
Memory
233b MFAB/Fanny P Mason Fund of Alice Thevin; 234t
MET
Bequest of Stephen C Clark, 1960 (61.101.4);
234b Solomon R Guggenheim Museum/ Photograph by Lee B Ewing © The Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation. New York (FN 54.1412)/© ADAGP, Paris and DACS. London 2000; 2351 Washington University GaUery of .Ait.
St Louis/University purchase.
Kende
Sale Fund. 1946/© Succession Picasso/DACS 2000; 235r Staathche KunsthaUe Karlsruhe/
© ADAGP,
Paris and DACS. London 2000; 236 TG/© ARS, NY' and DACS, London 2000; 238t Collections du Centre Georges Pompidou, Musee national d'art moderne, Paris/Philippe Migeatf© ADAGP. Paris and DACS. London 2000; 238c Haags
Gemeentemuseum/© DACS
2000;
and Christher Rothko/DACS
TG/© ARS. NT and DACS.
New
Beuningen, Rotterdam: 233t CoUection Albright-Knox Art GaUery/Gift of Seymour
HoUand &
DACS
251 r Whitney
RMN,
through Jay
Jean-Claude Planchet/© DACS 2000; 244r TG/© 2000 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust
225bl Staathche Museen Kassel; 225br AKG/ Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Niimberg:
231tr BAIVNGL; 231c
artist,
Leyda/© DACS 2000; 243br TG/© ADAGP. Paris and DACS. London 2000: 244I MNAM
225tr Statens Konstmuseer. Stockholm:
SKM: 230t NSF; 230b
Paris
anonymously/© 2000 Mondrian'Holtzman
Archaeology: 220b © NGL: 221tl BAIVKM; 221tr BAIVCG: 221c SMBPK Gemaldegalerie/
New
ADAGP.
and DACS. London 2000; 242b PeggyGuggenheim CoUection. Venice'© Die Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation: 243tr BAL'Stedelijk Museum. Amsterdam:
co Beeldrecht, Amsterdam. HoUand & DACS London; 245 MO^A Given
Institute of Fine Arts. L'niversity of
GaUery.
Picasso/DACS 2000; 240tr MO-UV Acquired Lillie P Bliss Bequest/© ADAGP. Paris and DACS. London 2000: 240b TG; 2411 TG S DACS 2000; 241 r TG/© ADAGP. Paris and DACS. London 2000: 242t CoUections du Centre Georges Pompidou. Musee national d'art moderne, Paris/Jacques Faujour/©
The Hague: 21 5t BALUnited and Vintners; 215c RMN. Paris/
Mauritshuis.
Photo: Jorg
AKG/
183bl BAIVMOP; 184tl AKG; 184tr Musee Conde, ChantUly: 184bl RA:
KYI:
© DACS 2000; Wildenstein.
of his brother Dr Ernest
Mexico; 211tr G/Musee du Petit Palais. Paris; 2121 BAJVMonasterio de El Escorial,
MOMA
209r
© ADAGP,
Havemeyer. 1929;
MeUon Bruce CoUection/Photo by Richard CarafeUi; 179tr
BAL Rasmus Meyers
the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes.
209tl
Samlinger. Bergen: 209bl
Picture GaUery. London; 213c BAIVPC/
175b AKG/L; 176tl BAIVPPS: 176tr BAIV PPS; 176b AKG/L; 177t Philadelphia Museimi of Art A.E. Galatin CoUection/ © ADAGP. Paris and DACS.London 2000: 177b NSF: 178t National Maritime Museum, London: 178b BALNGL; 1791 NGA. Ailsa
BerUn: 179br NSF: 1801
AKG/EIVL;
AKG PMM:
238b MOMA/Mrs Simon Guggenheim Fund/© Kate Rothko Prizel and Christher Rothko/ARS. NT and DACS. London 2000; 239t TG; 239b TG © WiUem de Kooning/ ARS, NY and DACS, London 2000; 240tl Solomon R Guggenheim Museum/Gift, Solomon R Guggenheim. 1937/© Succession
208b
Collection:
BALPW L;
171br Santa Barbara Museum of Art/Gift of Mrs Hugh N Kirkland: 172t BAIVPW/L: 172b BALWC: 173t © NGL; 173bl BAIVRoger-YioUet. Paris/MOP/ © Succession H Matisse/DACS 2000; 173br NGA/Gift of Mrs Huttleston Rogers. Photo by Lyle PeterzeU; 174 BAIVWalker Art Gallery. Liverpool, Board of Trustees: National Museums & GaUeries on Merseyside: 171cr
Museum
of American Art.
York/Photo by Geoffrey Clements: 252I The Whitworth Art GaUery. The University of Manchester 252r BAIVPC/ James Goodman GaUery. New York; 253tl 2 Courtesy Anthony d'Offay GaUery. London: 253tr Robert MUler Gallery.
New
York:
253b The Saatchi GaUery. London: 254t BAIVMOD; 254c g NGL: 254bl BAIV NGL; 254bc BAIVNGL; 254br BALNGL: 255t National Geographic Society Image CoUection. Washington. DC Victor BosweU: 255c BALAatican Library. Rome; 255bl BALL; 255br The Royal CoUection © 2000. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth fJ: 256t Kunstmuseum Bern/Peter Lauri. Bern 1992; 256bl BAIVNGL; 256br AKG/EIVL: 257t BALNGL: 257c BALNGL: 257b BAIV STJ NGS: 258t VAM: 258c AKG/Neue Pinakothek. Munich: 258bl © NGL; 258br © NGL: 2591 © David Hockney: 259tr Washington University GaUery of Art/L'niversity purchase Kende Sale Fund. 1946/© Succession Picasso/DACS 2000;
259brTG.
«%
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.BOSTQN PUBLIC LIBRARY
No
3 9939" 04094" Tl6f longer tfc:
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MOBILE LIBRARY SERVICES
(4 BAKER » TAYLOR
the library
J
WERSTANDIIN
PAINTINGS ALEXANDER STURGIS at the
Courtauld
studied for his doctorate
Institute,
London, where he
specialized in medieval art history. In 1991 he
joined the National Gallery in London, where he
worked
number of years within
for a
the Gallery's
highly regarded Education Department, and where
he currendy holds a curatorial post, supporting the Director of the Gallery. In his roles at the Gallery
he has lectured to a wide variety of audiences on
all
aspects of the Gallery's collection, and has written extensively
on both the permanent
temporary exhibitions.
and
collection
A contributor to both the
Grove Dictionary ofArt (1996) and The New Oxford Companion
own
to
Western Art (1999), his
Rembrandt
publications include Introducing
(1994), Magic in Art (1994) and Faces (1999).
HOLLIS CLAYSON has pursued
a distinguished
career as an art historian over the past 25 years.
Associate Professor of art history at Northwestern University, Illinois, since 1991, she has also held
teaching posts at the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Wichita State University, Schiller College in Strasbourg,
California Institute of the Arts.
many awards
and the
She has received
in recognition of her outstanding
abilities as a teacher,
and
is
the author of numerous
articles, reviews,
and exhibition catalogue essays
as well a
Publications,
which most notably
Prostitution in French Art
include
^91).
of the Impto.
She
d
lecturer across IS
has acted as both an a^ radio
and
Front cover
is
in
a prolific
Europe, and center
television.
illustration:
Pieterde Hooch, The Mother, 1661-3
272 pages. 9 x
1
1.5" (23 x 29 cm).
Bibliography. Index.
Printed and
bound
in
Chit a
550 color
illustrations.
on
i
a
SEUMS and galleries
all
over the world display
wealth of beautiful, intriguing, and often challenging
paintings
does each respond
— but what
is
to the traditions
takes a completely fresh
approach
well-worn path of chronological
art.
artist trying to
This book
convey, and
how
of painting? Understanding Paintings
to this fascinating subject.
art histories,
from the past 800 years of Western painting to abstract
each
art
it
Avoiding the
brings together paintings
according to their type, from religious
will transform
your understanding and
appreciation of the history of art, enabling you to recognize the important
themes of each type, and individual works. visitor,
and
for
all
to
compare and contrast
A unique and
the
valuable guide for the
meaning of
museum and
gallery
enthusiasts. Cndtrsfandtng Paintings provides an
engrossing introduction to a richly rewarding subject.
Themes
in
Art
Explored and Explained Covers
all
Western to
new
the important artists
art,
and movements
in
from the medieval inasteq^ieces of Duccio
directions in abstract painting at the
RELIGIOUS PAINTING
MYTH AND ALLEGORY
end of the
THE NTDE twentieth century
HISTORY PAINTING '^ Examines each of the major themes and subjects of painting— from the loves of Greek gods of war
— and explains the symbolism and imagery
used to convey the
•
PORTRAITURE
to the agonies
>- Illustrated
artist's
LANDSCAPE
message
(iENRE
with over 550 paintings drawn from major
STILL LIFE
international public collections
ABSTRACT PAINTING ,]>-
Timelines chart the development of painting in the context of significant historical and cultural events
of the period
ISBN 0-8230-5579-5
54500>
Watson-Giiptill Publications
770 liroadwus
\V
10003
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780823"055791
