I will be publishing a new Art Mystery tomorrow. It deals with the painting above. As part of the investigation for this mystery, the age of the female has become important, perhaps crucial. Here’s how you can help! Please study the detail above and estimate her age. When you have arrived at your estimate, please indicate it in the poll below. If the age you selected is not represented in the poll, please choose the age option closest to it. This is for Science! Thank You!
Here is a tiny snippet from tomorrow’s Art Mystery:
So, let us journey together into a precarious opacity that could be described as a lion’s den filled with land mines, angry badgers, hornets’ nests, still more land mines, you and I, and of course, lions; the latter feeling justly put-upon because their den is now uncomfortably crowded. You see, there are decades-long grudges regarding the provenance of this painting.
Proper British grudges.
AN ART QUIZ
Now let’s start the Quiz! I will provide you with tiny snippets of paintings and ask that you identify the artist, subject matter and the painting. Remember that this is a game played by Art experts, so don’t get disappointed because you couldn’t identify a couple of the paintings, their subject matter or the artists based on one tiny snippet (what Art experts call a “detail”). One of the overall clues is in the title. Look for strong women. They abound.
So, pencils ready. Begin!
1. A Strong Woman Inside a Halo.
Our first detail shows a strong woman. You can probably tell that from her halo. The depiction certainly shows traces of the Byzantine Era, but look at that nose. The artist made the nose very three-dimensional. He also depicted shadow on the left side (our right side) of the strong woman’s nose. I love that shadow!
So, if you guessed that this was an artist who provided a bridge from Byzantine Art to the Renaissance, you would be on the right track. An Italian Master created this piece sometime from 1280 to 1290.
2. Even a Strong Woman Can Have a Bad Hair Day!
The detail above shows two snakes apparently in mortal combat. The snippet has been greatly enlarged to show detail, including the glints in the eyes of the snakes. The painting this came from is even more horrifying than this little fragment. Indiana Jones wasn’t the only person who turned to stone when confronted with snakes! It was painted by a mercurial Italian Master in 1597, after the Renaissance and during the Baroque Period.
3. The Strong Woman’s Gun Show!
That is a woman’s bicep, her massive elbow bone, and a portion of her forearm. Yet, this woman was an icon of gentleness. Physical strength was, as far as I know, never a celebrated quality of this female. But, there was one artist who simply couldn’t resist.
This Artist is one of my favorites because each time he took up his tools of trade he invariably depicted somebody who looked like a Marvel or DC Comics superhero. Even babies and cherubim were depicted like tiny superheroes! As I said, he just couldn’t help himself.
The painting was completed in 1507, during the High Renaissance, by one of the great Italian Masters. As a final clue, let me just note that the biceps in the painting weren’t really part of a “gun show.” She wasn’t showing off like the famous tattooed MMA fighter pictured. She was actually holding something up. In Byzantine, Renaissance and Baroque Art, this woman was frequently depicted holding something aloft.
4. Beauty Can Be Strength.
The ancient Greeks and Romans believed this adage to be true. Beauty could start wars between armies of men and squabbles amongst the Gods. This should be an easy one for you. The painting is, itself, an icon of beauty, and it depicts an icon of beauty. The Artist used brilliant colors to paint beautiful scenes of beautiful people (and Gods).
This Masterwork of Renaissance Art was painted in 1486 by an Italian. This Italian’s name has, itself, become synonymous with voluptuous beauty. What you see here is the small focal point of a painting that measures 5.65 feet in height by 9.13 feet in length. Beauty is in the eye of this beholder.
5. Strength Can Be Beautiful.
Just as beauty can be strength; strength can be beautiful. Again, I have highlighted the strong arm of a woman. She is holding a massive sword and putting it to use. What is that streaking up diagonally from the sword blade? This is the culmination of a violent biblical tale.
It is a painting of a strong woman that was painted by a strong Italian woman around 1614 to 1620. Notice the darkness, the deep shadows. Perhaps she was a one-time follower of Caravaggio?
6. Beauty Can Be Tricky.
This looks like a very famous painting. It is. But it is not likely the first one that came to your mind. What is that near the upper left corner of this detail? I’ll tell you what that is: It’s a clue! It was painted from 1772 to 1778 by a German, although you could also say that it was painted by an Italian in 1538. Here we have a small but very important detail of a massive and massively stunning piece of Art.
ANSWER KEY
1.
The painting is entitled, Maestà di Santa Trinita, and it pushed the Byzantine envelope so that, one day, we could marvel at Renaissance Art. The painting’s name is partially derived from the fact that it was commissioned as an altar piece for the church of Santa Trinita in Florence. Situated on either side of the Virgin and the Child are angels who appear to look very much alike. More on that to follow! Below the holy pair, Cimabue inserted Jeremiah, Abraham, David and Isaiah.
“Jeremiah and Isaiah gaze up towards the child as if to confirm the prophecies written in their documents on the miraculous virgin birth of Jesus. Abraham and David in the center below the throne recall that Jesus descended from their lineage.” It’s a giant photo album filled with pictures of family and friends!
The painting depicted in the green graphic on the side is also by the great Cimabue, and it is called, Virgin Enthroned with Angels. It was painted in 1280 and can be viewed at the Louvre.
You may call this idle curiosity, but I’ve always wondered why all the angels looked the same in many pre-Renaissance paintings. Was this custom or tradition? An edict from the church? A Nostradamus-like homage to the great Eric Idle? Was Cimabue only able to afford one model?
This was the answer given by Kossack mettle fatigue in a previous diary: “[A]ngels are not human as the ancient literature saw them, and in respect of free-will not fully sentient, but rather a form of almost mechanical if ethereal servants of god. Being imagined in more or less human shape plus wings —six wings, rather insectoid— and whatever other traits distinctive to their ‘species’ wouldn’t necessarily mean their faces would differ any more than the individual faces of a particular species of insect or bird or hippopotamus would differ. (Cats, dogs, & horses might. Cows, goats, etc probably not.)” So, I guess the strong woman wasn’t really even a woman!
2.
Caravaggio! A painter of sublime darkness. Sometimes his subject matter is as dark as the trademark shadows he loved to utilize in his masterworks. This painting, of course, is Medusa after she has had her head carefully removed by Perseus. The red streaks below her neck evidence, I believe, two propositions about Caravaggio: (1) He was not afraid of gory detail, and (2) he wanted to show actual motion in this static painting.
My first Art Mystery diary explains a theory of mine about how Caravaggio sought to depict a full panoply of motion in his masterpiece, Supper at Emmaus. He also showed blood spurting out in his depiction of the biblical story of Judith Beheading Holofernes. I’ve looked at Greek and Roman pieces of Art, including vases, architecture, sculptures and other odds and ends, and they don’t show blood draining from Medusa. Caravaggio was audacious enough to try it.
This particular painting of Medusa was made on canvas that was placed onto a wooden shield. What a spectacular impression it would have made in battle! I think it was meant as Art, though, and not so much for actual combat.
3.
Michelangelo! The painting is called the Doni Tondo. It gained that name from the person who probably commissioned it, Agnolo Doni, and its round, or tondo, shape. As you can see in this and his other works, Michelangelo was committed to depicting humans as superheroes some 432 years before Marvel Comics existed. The Virgin is usually portrayed as serene and gentle, but Michelangelo gave her biceps of steel. Her elbow bones would make a professional footballer proud. The artist used male models for his depictions of female bodies. Behind her, Joseph looks like he could still wrestle in the Olympics!
The painting is on display in the Uffizi gallery in Florence in its original frame. It is said to be the “only finished panel painting by the mature Michelangelo to survive.” What a shame! It is my favorite of this genre. In between the holy family and the five nudes in the background we see a young John the Baptist. This painting was completed before the Sistine Chapel frescoes, and the nudes in it are precursors of the ignudi in the later, Vatican work.
4.
Botticelli! The Birth of Venus is one of the most famous and beautiful paintings of all. Like the other paintings in our quiz so far, it can be found at the Uffizi in Florence. The museum has multiple rooms full of Botticelli! Can you imagine that? Not a Botticelli painting. Not a room full of Botticelli paintings.
Multiple rooms full of Botticelli.
5.
All of the paintings up to this point are in the care of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. This painting by Artemisia Gentileschi is as well. The “location” information in the graphic above is a bit of a trick. Sorry about that.
It had to be included in any review of strong women in Art. She was the first woman to gain admission into the prestigious Accademia di Arte del Disegno, joining such artists as Bronzino, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Vasari. She was a friend of Galileo Galilei and a court painter for Charles I of England.
At the age of eighteen, Artemisia was raped by her Art tutor. The pain continued during a seven-month trial that included the use of thumbscrews on Gentileschi to ensure that her testimony was truthful.
Her painting is called Judith Slaying Holofernes, and it depicts another strong woman taking action. Like her inspirations, Caravaggio and her father, she wasn’t afraid to show the gory details, all shrouded in shadows.
You might have noticed that my clue doesn’t quite match up to the art work. There’s no blood splaying upward in this piece! Artemisia Gentileschi painted two of these paintings. Here is the one from which the clue was taken (on the right):
Caravaggio painted some scenes a number of times. So did Artemesia Gentileschi. Besides painting the actual beheading twice, she painted Judith and Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes three times! I think she derived some satisfaction out of these five paintings. All of them are but a small part of a portfolio of Art that ranks at the very apex of the craft.
“’There are about fifty-seven works by Artemisia Gentileschi and 94% (forty-nine works) feature women as protagonists or equal to men.’… These characters intentionally lacked the stereotypical feminine traits—sensitivity, timidness, and weakness—and were courageous, rebellious, and powerful personalities.”
6.
The first four paintings in our quiz are shown at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The fifth is also in the Uffizi, although its twin is at the National Museum in Naples. Zoffany’s painting is housed elsewhere, but it is a tribute to the Uffizi. It is called, Tribuna of the Uffizi. That’s because it depicts one octagonal room called the Tribuna in that museum. Actually, just the northeast section of the Tribuna. What a remarkable room.
Johann Zoffany was a German-born descendant of Hungarians, who painted for the royal family in England, including this tribute to an Italian Art museum. This couldn’t be more cosmopolitan if you added vodka, triple sec, cranberry juice and a lime wheel!
The painting was created during the Great War of Yankee Aggression for King George’s wife, Queen Charlotte, who didn’t want to be bothered with actual travel to Italy. It shows many great works of Art, including those by Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Hans Holbein, Perugino, and many others.
If you go to this link, you can hover your cursor over the various subjects and people in the painting to identify them. Then, if you click, you will be transported to that person’s or that piece of Art’s wikipedia page. (If it exists.).
Your clue was a portion of Titian’s famous Venus of Urbino, which was central to the chaos in Zoffany’s painting. It is housed in the Uffizi now, but was completed by Titian in 1534, eventually becoming part of the Medici collection.
In turn, that great Medici collection became part of the Uffizi museum, housed in the Tribuna room.
The Titian painting has been described as “undisguised hedonism.” There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a little undisguised hedonism! Just ask Queen Charlotte of England.
By the way, Johann Zoffany gets an important mention in the Art Mystery diary tomorrow. I hope to see you there!