Monday, December 12, 2016

Baroque Eloquence, Wadsworth Atheneum

Abraham Bloemaert (Netherlands)
Neptune and Amphitrite
ca. 1630-35
oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Salvator Rosa (Naples)
Poetry
ca. 1641
oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

"Poetry shows a half-length standing female who turns to look out of the picture towards the spectator, her pen posed to write, her book in her hand. A headscarf entwined with laurel leaves crowns her unruly hair, which tumbles out over her shoulders. She is not a Sibyl, as the inscription on the back suggests, but a personification of Poetry, and Rosa took Poetry's attributes, of pen, book and laurel leaves, from Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, the popular reference work for seventeenth-century artists searching for descriptions of allegorical figures. ... The painting is distinguished by its brilliant handling of paint and the bright clear colors of Poetry's gown, while shawl and headdress are an unusually subtle range of cool greys, blues and lilacs."

 Helen Langdon, from Salvator Rosa (Paul Holberton, 2010)

Cornelis van Haarlem (Netherlands)
The Prodigal Son wasting his substance
1604
oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Francisco de Zurbarán (Spain)
St Serapion
1628
oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

workshop of Evaristo Baschenis (Lombardy)
Still-life with musical instruments
mid 17th century
oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Artemisia Gentileschi (Rome)
Self-portrait as lute-player
ca. 1615-18
oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Le Nain Brothers (France)
Peasants in a landscape
ca. 1640-45
oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Hendrik Goltzius (Netherlands)
Adam
1613
oil on panel
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Philips Wouwerman (Netherlands)
Man on horseback
ca. 1650
oil on panel
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Domenico Gargiulo and Viviano Codazzi (Naples)
The men's bath
ca. 1645
oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Domenico Gargiulo (1609-1675) was a figure painter who collaborated in Naples with Viviano Codazzi (1604-1670), specialist in architectural scene-painting, or quadratture.  During the 1640s they painted a series of archaeologically-informed recreations of Roman military life for the new Buen Retiro palace of King Philip IV of Spain  who also at this period ruled over Naples. The baths in the painting at the Wadsworth Atheneum are not further identified, but appear to represent an actual space in contemporary Naples.

Claude Vignon (France)
Banquet of Antony and Cleopatra
ca. 1630
oil on panel
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut 

Sisto Badalocchio (Bologna)
Holy Family
ca. 1610
oil on panel
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Guercino (Bologna)
Landscape with figures
ca. 1630
drawing
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Anonymous American craftsperson
Taxidermied hummingbird-heads mounted as brooches
1880s
rhinestones, gold, hummingbird heads
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

I am grateful for the excellent reproductions made available by the Wadsworth Atheneum.