Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Bernini's Terracotta Sketches

workshop of Gianlorenzo Bernini
Portrait-head of Bernini
1680s
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

The portrait head of Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) was produced in the decade after his death by members of his busy and loyal Roman workshop. It eventually made its way to Russia and the Hermitage, along with other studio material. The bozzetto was a small terracotta model or sketch used by sculptors like Bernini to work out the forms to be rendered later on a larger scale in marble or bronze. A collection of these bozzetti in Saint Petersburg gives an immediate and vivid impression of the swirling spirals Bernini elaborated as a preliminary to each commission.

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Tritons with Dolphins
ca. 1653
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Torso of Pluto
ca. 1621-22
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Torso of Neptune
1622
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Angel
before 1680
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Angel
ca. 1670-75
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Abduction of Proserpine
before 1680
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Prophet Habbakuk and Angel
before 1680
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Daniel in the Lion's Den
before 1680
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
St Ambrose
ca. 1657
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Ecstasy of St Teresa
1640s
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Blessed Ludovica Albertoni
ca. 1672
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
David
1623
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Constantine the Great
ca. 1662-63
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"Architects who say, 'I don't think I can or should control the whole environment' are usually in fact claiming control. Rather than simply accepting any interference to their vision that might occur, they insist upon indeterminacy or incompletion to regain control of those zones that elude them. They label them as danger or pleasure zones  red light districts, in a sense. And, of course, red light districts are never all that dangerous; usually they are highly regulated and predictable. If you study the work of these architects, you will find no gaps. Every potential gap is labeled 'gap' and thereby brought back into line. Incompletion is an aesthetic. It is a design choice, and a good choice for many designers."

– from Whatever Happened to Total Design? by Mark Wigley (1998)

Flemish Baroque

Jan Philip van Thielen
Angel in Garland
ca. 1650-1700
oil on panel
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Jacob Jordaens
Cleopatra's Feast
1653
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Simon de Vos
Death of Decius Mus
1641
oil on copper
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"When Heinrich Wölfflin constructed formal stylistic categories to oppose Baroque and Renaissance art he did much to create a positive image of seventeenth-century art, but it is nonetheless significant that "Baroque" was still seen as the contrary of something else. Writing at a time when Impressionism was gaining acceptance, Wölfflin introduced the idea of a perpetual cycle of styles in which a classical phase is followed by a Baroque phase. Thus "Baroque" became an ahistorical term that defined the style that arose when the rules of art were broken and transformed, bringing dynamism to Renaissance forms. This was a notion coined in an enthusiasm for anti-academic Impressionism that turned out to be extremely efficacious  for the description of some seventeenth-century works, but it failed to grasp the transformation in content that necessarily accompanied changes in form." 

 from The Artist by Giovanni Careri, published in Baroque Personae, edited by Rosario Villari (Italian edition, 1991), translated by Lydia G. Cochrane (University of Chicago Press, 1995)

Gotfried Maes
Holy Family
ca. 1675-1700
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Victor Wolfoet
Hercules and Minerva expelling Mars
ca. 1630-50
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Theodor van Rombouts
Cephalus and Procris
ca. 1610-20
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Peter Paul Rubens
Venus and Adonis
1610-11
oil on panel
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Jan Davidz. de Heem
Still-life with Oysters and Grapes
1653
oil on panel
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Michiel Sweerts
Portrait of a man - Tempus fugit
before 1664
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Pieter Thys
Portrait of a man holding a letter
ca. 1640-60
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

David Teniers
Dull Grief - Mad Meg
1640s
oil on canvas
private collection

follower of Anthony van Dyck
Andromeda chained to the Rock
ca. 1638-39
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Anthony van Dyck and Paul de Vos
Rest on the Flight into Egypt, or, Madonna with Partridges
ca. 1630-32
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg
from Sir Robert Walpole's collection at Houghton Hall

The Van Dyck above  Madonna with Partridges hanging as it does in the Hermitage, happens to be the centerpiece of a sequence in Russian Ark, Alexander Sokurov's film of 2002 set entirely within the Hermitage. The art galleries were shot in ambient light, providing period murk. At that time the Van Dyck was still living under a coat of old brown-yellow varnish  from the photograph above it has obviously been cleaned since then. But the dirt on the picture served Sokurov's purpose very well  the infant dancing angels made to loom, one by one, out of dimness. The ghost-protagonist-narrator spoke to them  ". . . so live on, live on . . . you'll outlive them all, eternal people . . ."

Anthony van Dyck
Self-portrait with Sunflower (both a standardized symbol of love and the artist's personal emblem)
ca. 1632
oil on canvas
private collection

Monday, January 30, 2017

17th-century Faces by Daniel Dumonstier

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of young man with blond hair
1640
charcoal, colored chalks
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of man wearing a beauty spot
1632-33
charcoal, colored chalks
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Art and Architecture in France 1500-1700 is an authoritative sourcebook by our good friend Anthony Blunt, whose grasp of the subject is famous for balance and clarity. Coming across Daniel Dumonstier's amazing portrait-drawings at the Hermitage (as above) I was keen to see what Blunt had said about this artist I had somehow overlooked until the present. Yet Art and Architecture in France accorded poor Dumonstier only the briefest of mentions (not even in the text, but in a footnote)  "The sixteenth-century style of portrait-drawing continues in Daniel Dumonstier."


Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of Cardinal d'Ossat
before 1646
charcoal, colored chalks
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait, possibly young Anne of Austria
1615
charcoal, colored chalks
British Museum

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of the Duc de Montmorency
ca. 1630
charcoal, colored chalks
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of unknown woman
ca. 1620
charcoal, colored chalks
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of a cleric
before 1646
charcoal, colored chalks
British Museum

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of Madame de Bouchepiscot
before 1646
charcoal, colored chalks
British Museum

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of unknown young man
before 1646
charcoal, colored chalks
British Museum

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of unknown woman
before 1646
charcoal, colored chalks
British Museum

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of unknown man
before 1646
charcoal, colored chalks
British Museum

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of unknown woman 
before 1646
drawing, colored chalks
British Museum

Daniel Dumonstier
Portrait of unknown woman
before 1646
charcoal, colored chalks
British Museum

Daniel Dumonstier
Bust of Cardinal Rochefoucault
1624
charcoal, colored chalks
Art Institute of Chicago


Roman Marbles in Saint Petersburg

Pan
Rome - 2nd century BC
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Danaë
Rome - 2nd century AD
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Torso of an athlete
Rome - 1st century AD
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Torso of an Emperor
Rome - 2nd century AD
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

An antique statue without a head is a great inspirer of confidence. Relatively few antique torsos were discovered with attached heads, yet a quite high proportion of the antique torsos on view in the world since the Renaissance have been displayed with attached heads. How is this possible? Patched-together composites of ancient fragments (with newly carved bits filling in gaps) were created, mostly in Italy, and marketed all over Europe until well along in the 19th century. A frankly headless torso or statue is simply less likely to have been misleadingly interfered with.

Isis
Rome - 2nd century AD
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Portrait head of a woman
Rome - AD 160-170
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Head of an athlete
Rome - 2nd century AD
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Portrait of Cornelia Salonina
Rome - AD 250
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Portrait of Emperor Lucius Verus
Rome - AD-150-175
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Artemis
Rome - 2nd century BC
marble relief-fragment
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Ganymede with Eagle
Rome - 2nd century AD
marble
Hermitage, Saint Peterburg

Funerary statue of a man
Rome - AD 150-175
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Funerary statue of a woman
Rome - AD 150-175
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Fountain statue of Cupid riding Dolphin
Rome - 3rd century BC
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Panther head on Sphinx body
Rome - 1st century AD
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg