The Gates of Paradise by Lorenzo Ghiberti

This is an electrotyped cast at London’s V&A of the second Baptistry door commissioned from Lorenzo Ghiberti for the Baptistry of the Florence Cathedral.

Lorenzo had already decorated the North doors of the city’s Baptistery. They were a sensation and lead to the second commission. 

These were dubbed the “Gates of Paradise” by Michelangelo - i.e. they were good enough to adorn the gates of paradise itself! 

They are mind-blowing.

✲✲✲✲✲

Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise are made of gilded bronze.

The doors consists of ten large panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament.

The panels are surrounded by an ornate frame of statuettes and busts.

Yes, that's a door!

Have doors ever been so terrifying and soul-stirring?

✲✲✲✲✲

Busts

 

The second is supposed to be Lorenzo Ghiberti’s self-portrait.

Eyebrows raised? 

✲✲✲✲✲

Panels

 

The biblical story of Jacob and Esau, and then Life of Joseph, the “Harvest of Wheat”.

 

Moses receiving the tables of the law, then the fall of Jericho.

 

David and Goliath, and then the meeting of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

✲✲✲✲✲

And me .... 😎

Lorenzo Ghiberti

Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi are the two most important sparks of the Florentine Renaissance.

Ghiberti was the bridge between the Gothic and the Renaissance. His sculptural technique involved a new level of intricacy and detailed with a level of realism and emotional depth that had not been seen before.

I hope you'll agree they are quite moving. I can only imagine how powerful they were in the 15th century. It also explains why they became so popular. 

Below are two beautiful sculptures that I want to share from 2 different museums. 😁

✲✲✲✲✲

Madonna and Child by the Circle of Lorenzo Ghiberti

A beautiful sculpture & important to art history.

E.g. from V&A London.

This relief is from the Ashmolean at Oxford. 

It depicts the Madonna and Child.

It’s one of a number of 30-40 surviving variants based on the characteristics of the Florentine bronze sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti. 

He is one of the forefathers of the Italian renaissance - renowned for his bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery. 

The mother’s serene face, the adoring arrangement of mother-and-son, and the baby Christ’s pose (by her shoulder) are characteristic of Ghiberti’s style. See e.g.

✲✲✲✲✲

Seated Virgin and Child by the Circle of Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello (~ 1415)

A loving & graceful embrace, and yet with a pensive sadness.

The mother seems slightly lost in her melancholy, as her son wraps his arms around her. Her fingers seem to reach around to lift him closer to her. 😔

This terracotta from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

No wonder Ghiberti was so influential.

According to the museum, it is close to the style of Ghiberti’s workshop, where the young Donatello worked in.

Ancient Greek vase paintings at the British Museum

I want to share photos from my recent trip to the British Museum. 

Pottery was a significant part of ancient Greek life. They’re also exquisite.

Fired reddish clay (known as terracotta) was mostly used to make post, cups and vases of a variety of shapes and sizes. They were used for everyday storage of wines, oils etc. but they were also used for special celebrations (and thus decorated with beautiful paintings). There is so few classical paintings from Ancient Greece that historians have had to rely on vase decorations to trace styles and techniques of the ancient world.

✲✲✲✲✲

Monumental Late Geometric Vases (wiki)

These were funerary vases - which served as markers over graves.

Bases would be pierced allowing libations to pour into the grave beneath it.

War-like figure scenes on some of these vases.

✲✲✲✲✲

An Oinochoe = (“wine jug and a key form of ancient Greek pottery”)

Two horses facing each other across a tripod with a goat above.

Athens about 735-700 BC.

Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Absolutely gorgeous.

The joie de vivre. 

It really does feel like the viewer is watching a joyous moment frozen in time, with the summer feeling.

The intimacy and affection of all people - though, I must admit, Renoir’s painted face seem to miss a certain something.

I saw this Renoir masterpiece at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

The “Moulin de la Galette” (wiki) started off as a windmill and became an open-air dancehall and café. It was frequented by wealthy Parisians and artists.

This painting is huge, and the painting was done en plein air so Renoir captured the dappled light effect through the trees.

✲✲✲✲✲

The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1767)

Ah ... the joys of life ... 

There is a wonderful intensity of colours. Soft, yet bright and vivid. Her pink dress almost like a glowing sun in a haunted forest with the men blending into the foliage. 

While the gentleman’s lascivious look is plain, her own is a slightly inscrutable? 

What is incredible is the artistic illusion of depth in the painting - which the swing occupies despite the branches making it impossible.

The French Rococo at the Wallace Collection

The Rococo was an 18th century European art movement, which started in France, as a response to the high-brow, dramatic and serious art of the Baroque. It was the opposite of Baroque - lighthearted, elegant, playful, tongue-in-cheek.

It also suited the patrons of France: the aristocracy.

To modern audiences, I think it would seem too treacly or disjointed from “reality”. Rightly or wrongly, today we would have disdain for those patrons, and the subject matter would strike us as being trite or frivolity overkill. 

But, I think it’s a very interesting break in art history (in which everything is steeped in high meaning & context). The colours of the Rococo are also v. beautiful and even dazzling. 

These are from The Wallace Collection in Mayfair.

I thought I’d share it on my blog.

✲✲✲✲✲

Les Champs Élisées by Jean-Antoine Watteau

Watteau was one of the major figures of The Rococo.

It’s about theatricality, frivolity, and the elegant/dreamy life of the aristocracy. Elegant dresses, picturesque landscape, reclining figures, smiling and laughing.

The colours are dreamy.

✲✲✲✲✲

Mademoiselle de Camargo Dancing by Nicolas Lancret 1730

Love it.  Very Beautiful.  Classic Rococo.

And a famous painting of a famous French ballerina. As Sarah McCleave writes:

By placing the dancer in a fête champêtre, Lancret draws on the pastoral associations of the locale and its attendant musician-shepherds to frame Camargo as that most available and willing of mythological females, the nymph. 

✲✲✲✲✲

Les Charmes de la vie (The Pleasures of Life) by Jean-Antoine Watteau

Love it. One of my favourites.

A classic example of Watteau’s fête galante paintings in depicting idyllic scenes of leisure among the elegantly dressed aristocracy. 

I love the theatrical flair & pose of the central figure.

People flirting, playing with pets, and enjoying themselves.

You may notice the Black page boy - that’s interesting.

The Strawberry Girl by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1773)

I saw this painting at the Wallace Collection in London.

Reynolds captures the little girl’s innocence and vulnerability in a captivating way, esp. her imploring gaze in our direction. It’s an iconic painting.

She has a little basket in one arm with small red/orangy bits sticking out at the top - the strawberries.

✲✲✲

Notes:

When I saw this painting, it reminded me a little of Rembrandt. I had in mind his Saskia van Uylenburgh. According to the Wallace Collection:

On the streets of 18th-century London, strawberry sellers were a common sight. Frequently depicted in art as women, the strawberry seller in this painting by Reynolds has instead been depicted as a young girl, who has traditionally been identified as the artist’s niece. This is very much in keeping with the contemporary fashion for paintings portraying saints, gods and urchins as infants, which were referred to as ‘fancy pictures’. 

For this painting, it is possible Reynolds derived inspiration from the ‘fancy pictures’ of Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), whose work he saw when he visited Paris in 1771. He might also have influenced by Rembrandt van Rijn’s (1606–1669) paintings of young girls, particularly his popular Young Girl at a Window, which was in Paris for much of the 18th century (but is now at Dulwich Picture Gallery).

Busts of King Louis XIV of France and King Charles I of England

I took these photos from the Wallace collection in London.

These two sculptures have a historical connection - they both seem to have been inspired by the éclat of Bernini.

✲✲✲✲✲

Busts of King Louis XIV of France

Bernini.

Very famous sculpture of King Louis XIV of France.

This marble portrait of the French King was created by the French sculptor Antoine Coysevox. This is a latter copy.

He was probably influenced by the Bernini sculpture (created during Bernini’s visit to France in 1666). They were both contemporaries. 

His other famous works are the Louvre (where the original is found) and the Palace of Versailles collections.

✲✲✲✲✲

Busts of King Charles I of England

This is an interpretation by Louis-François Roubiliac of King Charles I of England.

He is considered one of the most important sculptors in London of the Rococo style. 

More lifelike, less “powerful” and more light. 

It seems this also had the hand of Bernini because, according to the Wallace Collection:

In 1636 Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the Italian master of Baroque sculpture, made a celebrated bust of Charles I of England. The bust, modelled after portraits painted by Anthony van Dyck, was lost in a fire of the Palace of Whitehall in 1698, but it continued to inspire sculptors long into the eighteenth century.

This bust is a free interpretation of Bernini’s sculpture by Roubiliac, a French sculptor who spent much of his career in England. It was made for George Augustus Selwyn, politician, for his Matson House.

The Ancient Egyptian goddess Isis

This is a beautiful gilded wooden statute of the goddess Isis from Ancient Egypt.

Her name means “Queen of the Throne”.

I wasn’t sure what that funny headpiece is. It turns out it is:

... a sun disk nestled between a pair of cow horns, was originally a prominent symbol of Hathor, an earlier Egyptian goddess associated with motherhood, joy, and love.

Jan van Eyck’s possible self-portrait

Jan van Eyck was a very popular artist in Flanders.

No-one knows if this is a self-portrait by one of the greatest painter of all time, but it makes for interesting speculation. It could have been a commission. 

There is an intensity to the gaze. The features are beautifully captured. And that incredible red chaperon, the fashion headwear of men in the 15th century, is Jan van Eyck showing off his skill.

Francisco de Goya’s - The sleep of reason produces monsters

I recently came across this beautiful etching by Francisco de Goya in a book by Christopher Hitchens.

This is about the power of reason, and its dormancy.

Rationality, the sense of moral honesty with oneself, the willingness to change opinions in face of the evidence and logic.

Otherwise, we’re trapped in darkness of tribal-thinking and falsehoods. Are they owls or are they bats?

According to the Fitzwilliam:

In the 1790s, middle-aged, deaf and weakened by a serious illness, the Spanish artist Goya, began producing what is generally regarded as his most important work. His talents as a portrait painter were already recognised, but it was only after his illness that his imagination truly came to the fore. As the above quotation from the English essayist Joseph Addison and the imagery of this print both suggest, suffering has a tendency to unlock the darker parts of the human mind.

Pieter de Hooch at the National Gallery

I’m a huge fan of Pieter de Hooch’s genre paintings.

In this blog post, I wanted to share 2 outstanding paintings at London’s NG. 

✲✲✲✲✲

The Courtyard of a House in Delft by Pieter de Hooch (1658)

I love this painting. I always make a beeline to see it in room 16.

It has an intensity (an assiduousness) that is captivating as well as charming.

It’s in my favourite 10 paintings of the National Gallery.

Pieter de Hooch was a master painter of the Dutch Golden Age. He moved to Amsterdam in 1660 and art history explains a shift from his earlier Delft art - genre paintings focused on the ordinary people in their homes and courtyards.

The little girl is the centre of the painting, and the source of the painting’s warmth and charm. A statement about a well-ordered & healthy home? Perhaps. But interesting that he paints the other lady with her back to us.

De Hooch’s power in the use of light is not only masterful (e.g. soft shadows in the archway for depth) but powerful in its interaction with luminous flowers and foliage. To me, it seems to recreate that afternoon sunny effect in which flowers & plants appear to glow with a beautiful intensity. 

As for the brickworks, my goodness. To me, it seems he treats the brickworks like nature itself. He treats it as a subject worthy of delicacy and meticulousness. I discovered on wikipedia that his father, Hendrick Hendricksz de Hooch, was a bricklayer. So that explains that. De Hooch paints every single brick with mortar between them and expertly weaves them together to stunning open-mouthed effect.

 

The texture of the wood, the brickwork colours, the almost glistening flowers.

✲✲✲✲✲

A Woman and her Maid in a Courtyard by Pieter de Hooch (1660)

A bit of mystery here.

There is a sense of unease or tension in the relationship between the woman and her maid.

The maid seems to be cooking some food. Perhaps a stew, a cooking pot in front of her (black) on a little fire of sorts. Next to a waterpump to cook with? Broom to sweep (same broom as the The Courtyard of a House above).

The woman in the courtyard looks like the woman of the house. Seemingly wealthy (finer clothing), she seems to be looking at the maid closely with hands outstretched (as if to say “well?”). It’s a bit of an unease - like she’s keeping an eye on her. It could be a snapshot of daily life. Though, the girl/maid on floor seems to have a frown and eyes are looking downwards. It’s interesting that De Hooch doesn’t show us the woman’s face - perhaps to depersonalise her? Make us aware of her function in the everyday daily life - but no more? Because we empathise with the maid. But, who knows if this is supposed to have moral overtones? 

The bricks - warm reddish coloured walls are beautiful against the yellow-ey floor. A detailed analysis of how light and shadow play across the brickworks. Here they’re slightly uneven and slightly worn. Fascinating golden cloth/tapestry - it could be a visual enhancement (adding a contrasting colour) or simply a visual detail familiar to the original patrons.

Outstanding.

 

The roof and architecture are incredibly detailed,

capturing the texture of wood, and the roughened weathered look.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace at the Louvre (c. 200 BC)

The Winged Victory of Samothrace was discovered on the Greek island of Samothrace.

This is a very famous Greek original sculpture that was buried for centuries.

What a dynamic powerful pose. I saw this at the Louvre.

The Greek sculptor captured the goddess of victory landing on the prow of a war ship.

Incredible drapery and feathered wings. 

Hedda Sterne abstract expressionism - 1940s New York paintings - What do you think?

Hedda Sterne was an accomplished Romanian artist who worked in surrealism and then emigrated to New York. I think she was Jewish and had to escape Nazi persecution. She then subsequently morphed into the abstract expressionism movement of New York, and became a successful female artist in that world.

I saw this painting in the Tate. It’s part of the series on New York which she painted as an emigree when she arrived. I imagine its urban architecture must have been a shock to her.

To me, there is a disorienting/discomforting sense to the morass of lines and planes. The eye naturally wishes to find a “path” to finding some home (or refuge) but there doesn’t seem to be one. Up and down, and across. There are no trees, no humans, and it feels like the "structure" might collapse at any moment.

It’s interesting. 

What do you all think?

The Triumph of Divine Providence ceiling fresco by Pietro da Cortona

This is the mindblowing ceiling masterpiece at the Barberini Palace.

✲✲✲✲✲

Detail:

Painted by Pietro da Cortona between 1632 and 1639.

Divine Providence is a personified lady. An allegorical figure.

She sits in the centre enthroned on heavenly clouds.

Golden light radiating out of her.

Vestments flapping in the wind, and just about holding on.

Holding the royal scepter.

Also, obviously, a symbol of Barberini power.

 

Divine Providence surrounded by allegorical figures - Justice, Piety, Truth, and Beauty. 

✲✲✲✲✲

My YouTube video upload:

The Barberini Palace - Highlights from the collection

I managed to visit the Palazzo Barberini in Rome. It is an absolute must for art lovers with a special focus on the Renaissance and Baroque.

I couldn’t get tickets to the Caravaggio exhibition which had sold out months in advance. But, still pleased to see Raphael, Titian, Artemisia Gentileschi ... I was pleased to come across Giovanni Lanfranco and Mattia Preti.

It was also a quiet refuge from the hussle-and-bussle of Rome.

I have uploaded a selection on the most interesting paintings/artists.

✲✲✲✲✲

The Annunciation by Fra Filippo Lippi

I absolutely love Fra Filippo Lippi.

Probably my favourite of the Italian early Renaissance.

I think he manages wonderfully infuse tenderness and humanism (with a certain wistfulness) whilst also preserves the elegance and dignity of a subject in the devotional art. Here, the Madonna is regal. 

His use of perspective is innovative for its time. It’s as if we’re walking into a humble devotional abode.

The detailed decorative style is striking.

The curly hair, the laurel headpiece, the crinkles in the arm’s garment.

The golds in the robes, the gradations of the peacock-like angel wings,

The ornate/red bedspreads and so on ...

Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio at the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo

Another busy day.

We had a walk around the Piazza del Popolo and went into the Basilica to see the Caravaggio paintings.

Unfortunately, I didn't realise how many other treasures were there (thanks to wikipedia) so I didn't look around too much. 

Will have to return one day.

Enjoy the photos.

✲✲✲✲✲

The gate entry to the Piazza del Popolo

Piazza del Popolo means “Peoples’ Square”.

It is the “northern gate in the Aurelian Walls” (wiki).

I loved the grand and imposing facade.

The name of the square (in the distance) comes from the Church inside it, Santa Maria del Popolo.

I snapped a photo of this lady, ahead of me.

I thought it was a beautiful moment.

Her swaying & flapping dress reminded me of the Louvre’s “Winged Victory of Samothrace” in her momentary solitude.

✲✲✲✲✲

The Piazza del Popolo

An exquisite square.

It reminded me of St. Peter’s Square.

An Egyptian obelisk of Ramesses II at the centre of the Piazza.

Twin Churches in the background. Didn’t go in them. Next time.

✲✲✲✲✲

The façade of the basilica

A rather unadorned facade. Rubbish photo, I know ... 

Neighbouring the Museum of Leonardo da Vinci. 

✲✲✲✲✲

The nave

The Byzantine icon of The Madonna del Popolo.

Apparently painted by St. Luke himself.

Moved there by Pope Gregory IX from the Lateran.

While doing some research, I came across an interesting journal article by Shannon E. Kuziow in “Pope Sixtus IV at Santa Maria del Popolo: Marian Devotion and the Papal Agenda”. Unfortunately, it isn’t freely available. But the abstract says:

Throughout much of his career in the Catholic Church, Pope Sixtus IV was actively involved in promoting the cult of the Virgin Mary. He directly sponsored the construction or renovation of several Marian sites in Rome, including the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, which houses a miraculous icon of the Madonna. Inside the church, Sixtus performed weekly devotions and regularly held ceremonies bolstering and celebrating the major political events of his pontificate. Through an analysis of the papal rituals that unfolded before the icon, this article demonstrates that Sixtus’s dedication to the Madonna served as a vehicle of expression for advancing the interconnected theological, devotional, and political aspects of his papal agenda. It further argues that the pope’s support of the Marian cult played a crucial role in his perceived ability to harness divine aid in the larger temporal issues plaguing the universal Church.

✲✲✲✲✲

The Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio

This is the martyrdom of Saint Peter. He apparently requested to be crucified upside down - unworthy of dying in the manner of Christ.

Caravaggio captures the physical laboriousness of the execution. It all seems rather mundane. We only see Saint Peter and he doesn’t seem to be the visage of quiet resignation and acceptance. In fact, it’s unnerving and horrifying. It’s a dear old man getting tortured. It’s a sick painting. I also feel sorry for the executioners. It looks like a gruelling task. One can see the power of his chiaroscuro in storytelling.

I also wonder if the partially-illuminated man is a self-portrait? I especially love the shadow of the rope over the executioner’s back.

✲✲✲✲✲

The Conversion of Saint Paul by Caravaggio

An iconic painting.

I have seen this painting so many times in books, and it has always fascinated and horrified me.

Before being “Saint Peter”, he was the Roman/Jewish Saul of Tarsus. A persecutor of Christian for breaching the law of Moses. On the way to Damascus, he was (apparently) struck down by Holy light and heard the voice of Christ.

It’s a very intimate and psychological painting.

Saul is at the extremity of vulnerability — blinded by God, Christ speaking to him, with a powerful horse’s hindquarters raised and its hoof positioned to deliver a deadly kick to his exposed chest.

Caravaggio’s play on light is so effective. It looks like a single light bulb above the painting. Illuminating from the heavens and onto the singularity of Saul’s abdomen. 

This painting is gripping today - I can’t imagine its effect with parishioners in Rome. 

✲✲✲✲✲

The Assumption of the Virgin Mary by Annibale Carracci

Rubbish photo quality.

This is a great contrast to Caravaggio. More idealised, less chiarscuro, more balanced/dynamic painting with the viewer's eyes directed to Mary.

The Cerasi Chapel.

✲✲✲✲✲

The mosaic monument of Princess Maria Eleonora Borghese