EARLY MEDIEVIAL

Historians typically regard the Early Middle Ages or Early

Medieval Period, sometimes referred to as the Dark Ages, as
lasting from the 5th or 6th century to the 10th century. They
marked the start of the Middle Ages of European history. The
alternative term "Late Antiquity" emphasizes elements of
continuity with the Roman Empire, while "Early Middle Ages" is
used to emphasize developments characteristic of the earlier
medieval period. As such the concept overlaps with Late
Antiquity, following the decline of the Western Roman Empire,
and precedes the High Middle Ages (c. 11th to 13th centuries)

.
PAGE FROM LINDISFARNE GOSPELS

The Lindisfarne Gospels are presumed to be the work of a monk

named Eadfrith, who became Bishop of Lindisfarne in 698 and
died in 721 Current scholarship indicates a date around 715, and
it is believed they were produced in honour of St. Cuthbert.
However, some parts of the manuscript were left unfinished so it
is likely that Eadfrith was still working on it at his time of death

It is also possible that he produced them prior to 698, in order to

commemorate the elevation of Cuthbert's relics in that year which
is also thought to have been the occasion for which the St
Cuthbert Gospel (also British Library) was produced.
PAGE FROM APOCALYPSE BEATUS

The Apocalypse, or Book of Revelation, is not only the last Book

of the New Testament, but its most difficult, puzzling, and
terrifying. It provided challenges to medieval illustrators and was
the source for a number of popular images, such as Christ in
Majesty, the Adoration of the Lamb, and the Madonna of the
Apocalypse and contributed to the widespread use of the
Evangelists' symbols."
"The term "Beatus" identifies a particular medieval manuscript,
generally of Spanish origin, that contains a collection of textual
comments on the apocalypse of Saint John. The aim of the
author, Beato of Liébana, was that of indoctrinating and educating
the clergy, although, in some cases the manuscript was also used
for certain rites and rituals

PAGE FROM BOOK OF KELLS

This page marks the incipit or beginning of the 18 verse of

Matthew I. The text reads: "XPI autem generatio...." The text of
this verse in the Douay Rheims translation reads: Now the
generation of Christ was in this wise.When as his mother Mary
was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was
found with child of the Holy Ghost. Like other Hiberno-Saxon
gospel books, notably the Lindisfarne Gospels, this text is given
prominence. It almost serves as a second incipit for the Book of
Matthew which begins with the Latin incipit: "Liber generationis
Iesu Christi..." or in the Douay Rheims translation: "The book of
the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of
Abraham.
PAGE FROM HARLEY GOLDEN GOSPEL

THE BAYEAUX TAPESTRY

The Bayeux tapestry is one of the supreme achievements of the

Norman Romanesque .... Its survival almost intact over nine
centuries is little short of miraculous ... Its exceptional length, the
harmony and freshness of its colours, its exquisite workmanship,
and the genius of its guiding spirit combine to make it endlessly
fascinating.

PIETRO CAVALLINI THE LAST JUDGEMENT

The painting is currently located on the inner façade of Santa

Cecilia in Trastevere, right above the entrance. The Last
Judgement scene was first made to occupy the entire east wall,
opposite to the west apse. However, it was later covered up by
plaster and a nuns’ choir room was built around it. This
architectural design is implied to enclose women and limit female
use within church space.
 GOTHIC MEDIEVIAL

CIMABUE MADONNA AND CHILD

Madonna and Child and was painted by Cimabue around 1285.

Madonna and Child was displayed at the Santa Trinita church in
Florence, Uffizi, Italy. It is 4.27 meters tall and 2.8 meters wide. ...
Madonna and Child was used as an altarpiece panel that
promoted the icon of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Child [Nagel
2010].

GIOTTO THE KISS OF JUDAS

known (especially in art) as the Betrayal of Christ, is the act with

which Judas identified Jesus to the multitude with swords and
clubs who had come from the chief priests and elders of the
people to arrest him, according to the Synoptic Gospels. The kiss
is given by Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane after the Last
Supper and leads directly to the arrest of Jesus by the police
force of the Sanhedrin. Within the life of Jesus in the New
Testament, the events of his identification to hostile forces and
subsequent execution are directly foreshadowed both when Jesus
predicts his betrayal and Jesus predicts his death. More broadly,
a Judas kiss may refer to "an act appearing to be an act of
friendship, which is in fact harmful to the recipient
 MAESTA DUCCIO

The Maestà, or Maestà of Duccio is an altarpiece composed of

many individual paintings commissioned by the city of Siena in
1308 from the artist Duccio di Buoninsegna and is his most
famous work. The front panels make up a large enthroned
Madonna and Child with saints and angels, and a predella of the
Childhood of Christ with prophets. The reverse has the rest of a
combined cycle of the Life of the Virgin and the Life of Christ in a
total of forty-three small scenes; several panels are now
dispersed or lost. The base of the panel has an inscription that
reads (in translation): "Holy Mother of God, be thou the cause of
peace for Siena and life to Duccio because he painted thee thus."
Though it took a generation for its effect truly to be felt, Duccio's
Maestà set Italian painting on a course leading away from the
hieratic representations of Byzantine art towards more direct
presentations of reality.

ANDREA PISANO DETAIL OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST FROM

THE BAPTISTRY DOORS, FLORENCE

South Doors (Life of St John the Baptist) 1330 Gilded bronze, 486
x 280 cm
Baptistry, Florence
In 1329 a pair of bronze doors was commissioned for the
Florentine Baptistry by the Arte di Calimala (Guild of Cloth
Importers), responsible for supervising the building. Bronze
casting was a specialized activity and no one in Florence was
capable of the task. Therefore the Guild selected Andrea Pisano
from Pontedera near Pisa, renowned for its bronze tradition

.
The doors (consisting of 28 rectangular panels) were destined for
the south portal of the Baptistry, the most frequented entrance.
Since they were always open, they were meant to be read
separately, starting at the at the upper left corner like the page of
a book. At the four corners of each scene are lions, heads (the
Marzocco, symbol of the Florentines) with bands of alternating
rosettes and studs between. Each door contains 10 scenes in the
upper section from the life of St John the Baptist, the patron saint
of Florence to whom the Baptistry is dedicated. On the panels of
the lower section the theological virtues are depicted. Much
admired, Andrea's doors became a symbol of the glory of
Florence and were the model for the next set.

AMBORGIO LORENZETTI FROM THE ALLEGORY OF GOOD

AND BAD GOVERNMENT

The Allegory of Good and Bad Government is a series of three

fresco panels painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti between February
1338 and May 1339. The paintings are located in Siena's Palazzo
Pubblico— specifically in the Sala dei Nove ("Salon of Nine"), the
council hall of the Republic of Siena's nine executive
magistrateselected officials who performed executive functions
(and judicial ones in secular matters). The paintings have been
construed as being "designed to remind the Nine [magistrates] of
just how much was at stake as they made their

Considered Lorenzetti's "undisputed masterpiecethe series

consists of six different scenes (the titles are all modern
conveniences):
Allegory of Good Government
Allegory of Bad Government
Effects of Bad Government in the City
Effects of Bad Government in the Country
Effects of Good Government in the City
Effects of Good Government in the Country
 INTERNATIONAL GOTHIC

50 PAGES

Jacopo Tintoretto the last supper

 Giovannie Battista Moroni The Tailor

- 1520/4-1579
- Moroni is one of the most famous North Italian portrait
specialists of the 16th century. He was a native of Albino, near
Bergamo. In his early years he worked in Brescia and at Trent
(1551-2). Later altarpieces and portraits were painted for clients in
and around Bergamo and Albino, where he settled in 1561.

- His portraits have great psychological penetration, which owes

less to his master and more to the Venetian tradition of portraiture
as it had been evolved by Giorgione and Titian.

- The Tailor is an outstanding work of art and it is also

revolutionary. As mentioned earlier, portraits at the time were
means of documenting one’s power and proving it to the viewer.
They served almost as personal propaganda and hence were
reserved for the selected few. Here we have a craftsman instead.
One who is well off, but still no member of the aristocracy or
higher classes. Yet there is almost a challenge in his look: He
dares us to question his right to have himself portrayed.

- He proudly holds the tools of his craft – scissors and cloth – an

expert enough to be able to divert his gaze from his work and give
us a glance. The color palette is limited, but used sublimely,
allowing each shade to reverberate and create a subdued
symphony together.

- When the painting was bought for the National Gallery in London
in 1862, the wife of the director, Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake, wrote
in her diary ‘This will be a popular picture’. She was right
 Sofonisha Anguissola Self-Portrait

- Sofonisba Anguissola, (born c. 1532, Cremona [Italy]—died

November 1625, Palermo), late Renaissance painter best known
for her portraiture. She was one of the first known female artists
and one of the first women artists to establish an international
reputation.

- Among female painters, she was unusual in that her father was
a nobleman rather than a painter.

- In a cyclical way, Anguissola has finished her life's work the

same way she began it - with a self-portrait. The artist shows
herself majestically seated on a red velvet tasselled chair, which
contrasts with the usual sombre, dark clothing that she can be
seen wearing throughout most of her self-portraits. In earlier
portraits she paints herself at an easel with brushes and palettes
in hand, playing a musical instrument, or holding the emblems of
her noble family - attributes that she promoted as a prospective
young courtier. Here she shows herself as a woman of letters.

- In her right hand she is holding a letter, while she holds a book
in her left hand, marking her place with her index finger between
the pages. Anguissola's lined face and deeply hooded eyes
suggest that she recognizes that this painting might be her last as
she maintains eye contact with the viewer. She understood the
power of art to survive through time and uses it here to
commemorate her own life and reputation.
 Paolo Verones the Marriage Feast of Canaan

- Paolo Veronese, by name of Paolo Caliari, (born 1528, Verona,

Republic of Venice [Italy]—died April 9, 1588, Venice), one of the
major painters of the 16th-century Venetian school. His works
usually are huge, vastly peopled canvases depicting allegorical,
biblical, or historical subjects in splendid colour and set in a
framework of classicizing Renaissance architecture. A master of
the use of colour, he also excelled at illusionary compositions that
extend the eye beyond the actual confines of the room.

- In 1553, Veronese was summoned to Venice where he gave

free rein to his decorative talent in vast canvases that blended
masterful composition, splendid contemporary costumes, and
luminous colors. The Wedding Feast at Cana graced the refectory
designed by Palladio for the Benedictine monastery on the
Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore. With masterly freedom
of interpretation, Veronese transposed the biblical episode to the
sumptuous setting of a Venetian wedding. A biblical scene within
a Venetian banquet - In Cana, Galilee, Christ is invited to a
wedding feast during which he performs his first miracle. At the
end of the banquet, when the wine is running low, he asks the
servants to fill the stone jars with water and then offer them to the
master of the house, who finds that the water has been turned to
wine. This episode, told by the Apostle John, is a precursor of the
Eucharist.

- The bride and groom are seated at the left end of the table,
leaving the center place to the figure of Christ. He is surrounded
by the Virgin, his disciples, clerks, princes, Venetian noblemen,
Orientals in turbans, several servants, and the populace. Some
figures are dressed in traditional antique costumes, while others—
the women in particular— wear sumptuous coiffures and
adornments.
- Veronese depicts, with apparent ease, no less than 130
feastgoers, mixing biblical figures with men and women of the
period. The latter are not identifiable, although according to an
18thcentury legend, the artist himself is depicted in white with a
viola da gamba next to Titian and Bassano, all of whom contribute
to the musical entertainment. The bearded master of ceremonies
could be Aretino, whom Veronese greatly admired. Several dogs,
birds, a parakeet, and a cat frolic amidst the crowd.

The sacred and the profane - Veronese mixes the sacred and the
profane in establishing the decor. Religious symbols of the
Passion are found next to luxurious 16th-century silver vessels
and tableware. The furniture, the dresser, the ewer, and the
crystal goblets and vases reveal the feast in all its splendor.

- Each table guest has an individual place setting, complete with

napkin, fork, and knife. In this doubling of meaning, no detail
escapes the artist's eye. While in the center of the composition a
servant slices meat, symbolic of the body of Christ, quinces—
symbols of marriage—are served as dessert to the guests.

- Veronese orchestrates a veritable mise-en-scène. The theme

allows him to create a theatrical decor in which to place his
figures. The composition is divided into two sections: in the upper
part, clouds skate across a blue sky; in the lower, terrestrial
section, there is the bustling crowd of people. The fluted columns
topped with Corinthian capitals evoke the recent constructions of
the architect Palladio.

- The painter selected costly pigments imported from the Orient

by Venetian merchants: yellow-oranges, vivid reds, and lapis
lazuli are used extensively in the drapery and the sky. These
colors play a major role in the painting's legibility; they contribute,
by their contrasts, to the individualization of each of the figures.
- Thanks to a three-year restoration, the colors have regained
their force and brilliance, sometimes even undergoing complete
modification as in the case of the master of ceremony's mantle,
which was changed from red to green—its original hue

Titian Self-Portrait

- The great Italian painter Titian was not merely an extraordinary

talent, but his work was considered ground-breaking. His style
was unprecedented for artists of that era, which was the early
1500s to perhaps 1560 or 1570.

- Titian’s Self-Portrait which he composed in about 1560 depicts

himself at approximately age 70 – a man withered by the years,
lean, drawn, hook-nosed, and with a long gray beard. He is
arranged in simple, yet luxurious, expensive clothing which could
only have been owned by the wealthy man that he was.

- Titian’s Self-Portrait is oil-on-canvas. It shows him in three-

quarter view, and he appears to be looking out into the middle
distance with a contemplative, yet alert gaze. His robes are a rich
black-brown and he wears a close fitting black full-skull cap

- Titian’s sallow skin and white beard form a significant contrast

with the mostly black-brown environment of the painting taken up
by his billowing garments. An expensive double-gold necklace
and a semi-vertical slash of white collar are the only other points
of light providing relief among the area beneath his facial features.

- Some have called Titian’s portrayal of himself “unflattering,” but

he was likely simply acknowledging that he was now an elderly
artist who had lived a long life, achieved great status and wealth,
and facing his twilight years with dignity.

- The painting lacks some of the sharpness of his earlier works

with broader brushstrokes and softer, almost blurred lines, but this
was not due to infirmity or poor eyesight, art historians say. More
likely it is the effect Titian intended – his sharp nose, piercing
eyes and prominent cheekbones are relaxed, but not denied by
this rendering.

- In the lower left of the painting we can see a rather blurred

version of Titian’s hand which grasps a paintbrush, a testament to
his life-long profession.

- Titian’s Self-Portrait now resides in The Gemäldegalerie, an art

museum in Berlin, Germany. While its value is certainly
“priceless” bidding for this masterpiece might start at $50 to $75
million

MANNERIST

Andrea Del Sarto Portrait of A Young Man

- Andrea del Sarto, original name Andrea d’Agnolo, (born

July 16, 1486, Florence [Italy]—died before Sept. 29,
1530, Florence), Italian painter and draftsman whose
works of exquisite composition and craftsmanship were
instrumental in the development of Florentine Mannerism.
His most striking among other well-known works is the
series of frescoes on the life of St. John the Baptist in the
Chiostro dello Scalzo (c. 1515–26).

Jacopo Da Pontormo the Visitation

- Jacopo da Pontormo, original name Jacopo Carrucci,

(born May 24, 1494, Pontormo, near Empoli, Republic of
Florence [Italy]—buried January 2, 1557, Florence),
Florentine painter who broke away from High Renaissance
classicism to create a more personal, expressive style that
is sometimes classified as early Mannerism.

The (Carmignano) Visitation (1528- 1529)

- In this, the second of two Visitation scenes painted by

Pontormo, we see an interesting Mannerist
reinterpretation of his earlier much work. Here, Pontormo
disposes of the crowd of people, instead bringing the
viewer up close to the intimate meeting of the two
pregnant women who almost entirely fill the frame,
situating the in-utero Jesus and John at the centre of the
image.

- Unlike Pontormo's earlier Visitation, in which Elizabeth

bows to Mary Pontormo now paints Mary and Elizabeth
embracing as equals, standing at the same height as one
another. This compositional choice indicates sympathy
with the Lutheran (Protestant) ideals that were spreading
throughout Europe at the time. Standing immediately
behind the embracing protagonists are a second Mary and
Elizabeth pairing who gaze directly toward the viewer with
haunted expressions.

- These two companions thus implicate the viewer further

into the intimate scene, using eye contact to force the
viewer to adopt a more active role. Furthermore, the
companions appear to be idealized doubles, with
Elizabeth's double in particular appearing more youthful
suggesting perhaps that they are spiritual companions.

- Other Mannerist trademarks are visible in this painting,

such as the crisp, brilliant colors of the figures' billowing
drapery, and the serpentine positions of the foremost Mary
and Elizabeth. Mannerist in nature too is the distorted
perspective and the ambiguous setting, in which only a
hint of urban architecture is visible

Correggio Noli Me Tangere

- Correggio, by name of Antonio Allegri, (born August

1494, Correggio [now in Emilia-Romagna, Italy]—died
March 5, 1534, Correggio), most important Renaissance
painter of the school of Parma, whose late works
influenced the style of many Baroque and Rococo artists.
His first important works are the convent ceiling of San
Paolo (c. 1519), Parma, depicting allegories on humanist
themes, and the frescoes in San Giovanni Evangelista,
Parma (1520– 23), and the cathedral of Parma (1526–
30). The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine (c. 1526) is
among the finest of his poetic late oil paintings.

- Antonio Correggio’s stay in Rome between 1518 and

1519 powerfully affected his late work, which reflects that
of late Raphael and the Michelangelo of the Sistine
Chapel. Without ever abandoning Andrea Mantegna, and
especially Leonardo, Correggio drew on those influences
to shape his personal and decisive contribution to the
classical style. After returning to his native Parma in 1520
he focused on frescoes and large altarpieces, painting few
religious works for private use

- Noli me tangere, c.1525, constitutes one of Correggio’s

first mature paintings. It was first mentioned in print in
Pietro Lamo’s Graticola di Bologna, c.1560, after the
author saw it at the Hercolani house in Bologna, and the
painting was still there in 1568 when Giorgio Vasari
admiringly mentioned it in the second edition of his Le Vite
de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori (Lives of
the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects):

- The work is painted with such delicacy that it defies

belief. There is no documentation of the painting having
been commissioned by a member of the Hercolani family,
but it is most likely that it was Vincenzo Hercolani (1500-
57). The identity of the painting’s first owner is important,
as it provides evidence that it was made for a private
chapel, which its formal characteristics seem to indicate
- Correggio was very aware of where his works were to be
hung, so the refined landscape and careful rendering of
the farm implements -a magnificent fragment of still life
avant la lettreimply that he knew viewers would be close
enough to see them. Vincenzo Hercolani was a member of
the Brotherhood of Buon Gesù, whose bylaws urged its
members to hang religious images in their homes. It also
encouraged meditation exercises focused on Christ’s
Passion

- The apparently straightforward composition is

extraordinarily balanced. Along a vertical axis running from
Mary Magdalene’s right foot to Christ’s left hand, the
characters stand out against a beautiful landscape
tenuously lit by the dawn. Mary Magdalene wears the
yellow garb characteristic of prostitutes and appears
deeply moved by the meeting.

Parmigianino Madonna with The Long Neck

- According to Gould, this picture (1535) "is Parmigianino's

most famous and also his most characteristic and most
extreme". That a single work can be simultaneously his
most 'extreme' and his most 'characteristic' hints at the
kind of visionary artist Parmigianino was. The elongated
figure of the Madonna is a stunning realization of those
two words most often associated with Parmigianino: grace
and elegance.
- The assemblage of the various limbs and their angles in
relation to one another is as harmonious as it is erotically
charged; and as balanced as it is asymmetrical. The
painting certainly garnered the consent of E. H. Gombrich
who, in The Story of Art, suggested that his goal, and that
of other Mannerists, was to create something "more
interesting and unusual" than that of the former generation
of Italian masters.
- The elongated and stylized infant Christ stretches across
the scene, joining interior and exterior, flesh and the ether.
The bottom third of the panel meanwhile seems striped in
alternate marble-white and deep blue, symbolizing both
the innocence and the royalty of the Divine Mother and
Child.

- Gombrich argued moreover that Parmigianino (as part of

the Mannerist movement) might even be grouped amongst
the first truly "modern" painters because he "sought to
create something new and unexpected, even at the
expense of 'natural' beauty [as] established by the great
masters".

- Gombrich agreed with Gould in the suggestion that the

artist's goal was to imbue the Madonna with grace and
elegance, and in his attempts to do so, Parmigianino
painted her in a "strangely capricious way," with "long
delicate fingers" and with an elongated neck "like that of a
swan." Other compositional innovations stand out too. The
twinning of the planted right leg of the angel in the left
foreground with the monumental marble pillar collapses
the painting's depth into a narrow and immediate aperture.

- The figure of St Jerome and the scroll is relegated to an

odd and arresting position, the de Chirico-esque
architectural landscape, combined with the fact that the
figure (added later) is faded and translucent, and also the
fact that a disembodied foot (to the left of St. Jerome)
remains from an earlier rendering, gives the painting a
somewhat surreal edge.

- The painting then retains some of the "violent

asymmetry" that Gould observes in its preparatory
sketches, and though it might be a radical statement at
this point in the history of devotional art, just "One step
farther in this same direction", argued Freedberg, and "we
should fall either into vapidity or hysteria"). Freedberg's
point was that, though highly idiosyncratic, Parmigianino's
instincts had known when to kerb his creative indulgences.
Gombrich summed it up best perhaps when he said of
Madonna dal Collo Longo "if this be madness there must
be method in it."

Agnolo Bronzino Eleanora of Toledo and her Son

- The double portrait depicts Eleonora of Toledo with her

son Giovanni de' Medici. Eleonora, who was
approximately 22 years old when this portrait was painted,
was the daughter of the Viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro di
Toledo. In 1939 she married Cosimo I de' Medici, duke of
Florence who later became the first Grand Duke of
Tuscany in 1569. The boy to Eleonora's right is her son
Giovanni de' Medici aged about two. Mother and son both
died in 1562 from malaria.

- Bronzino became a court painter to the Medici family,

who ruled Florence in the 16th century when he was
working in Italy, in 1539 and continued in that role until his
death in 1572. This painting, like scores of portraits and
other works that Bronzino painted, was a painting of and
for the Medici.

- The basic format of this work, Eleonora sitting on a

balcony with a watery landscape to her left, is reminiscent
of the Mona Lisa. Yet, her pale, oval face, harsh stare and
rigid bodice counterbalance this. Her dress symbolizes the
revival of the Florentine silk industry and like Ingres and
Matisse, Bronzino depicts patterned textiles with elegance.
It is said that Eleonora loved this particular dress and wore
it often. It was also rumored that she was buried in it when
she died in 1562 from malaria, but that claim has been
refuted.

- Eleonora rests her hand on the shoulder of her son and

the motif on her dress refers to her role as a mother. The
child in this painting has been identified as Francesco,
Garzia and Giovanni but as the painting is dated c. 1545 it
is now thought it must be Giovanni, given his age at this
time.
 - Bronzino found his greatest success in portraiture, more
accurately, portraiture of noble, high-class sitters. This
painting is one of his most famous and exemplary of his
portraiture style.

Blank stares:
- One of the hallmarks of Bronzino's portraits is to depict
his sitters with placid, uninvolved facial expressions that
reflect the smug arrogance common amongst the noble
class in Florence currently. The faces of mother and son in
this portrait, although slightly more expressive than some
of Bronzino's portraits, are void of any real emotion.

- They are painted with meticulous detail and are

extremely life-like, but they are like masks, revealing
nothing about the individual’s thoughts or feelings.
Bronzino also takes great care to paint the faces using
light and shadow, giving them a three-dimensional
appearance on the canvas.

Common subjects:
- Bronzino painted Eleonora and Giovanni several times in
other portraits. The portrait of Giovanni (see Related
Works below) is interesting because it’s one of Bronzino’s
only portraits that give his sitter an expressive,
spontaneous facial appearance.

The dress:
- Bronzino's court portraits are known for the elaborate
and detailed costumes of his sitters that he captures in all
their decadent glory. The dress worn by Eleonora in this
portrait is no different and in fact, it's one of the more
flamboyant outfits of all clothing worn by his wealthy sitters
in his portraits

- The dress, which its creams, golds, and greens and

spindley details weaving throughout the pattern, takes on
a character of its own and almost overshadows Eleonora
and her son in this work. The dark blue, static background
makes the dress stand out even more. It juxtaposes the
blank looks on their faces with his exuberance that is
begging for attention.

Giambologna The Rape of the Sabine

- Giambologna, also called Giovanni da Bologna, or Jean

Boulogne, (born 1529, Douai, Spanish Netherlands [now
in France]—died Aug. 13, 1608, Florence [Italy]),
preeminent Mannerist sculptor in Italy during the last
quarter of the 16th century.

- In 1563, Giambologna was elected a member of the

prestigious Academy of Art, Florence, where he became
the most important court sculptor of the Medici family
under the Duke Cosimo I de' Medici (1519-74) and
Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1541-87).
However, he created his first masterpiece for the city of
Bologna, after Pope Pius IV awarded him the commission
for the huge bronze sculpture of Neptune, for the Fountain
of Neptune (1563-66)
- He went on to create several marble groups - including:
Samson Slaying a Philistine (1561-2, V&A Museum,
London), and Florence Triumphant over Pisa (1575,
Bargello, Florence) - all of which demonstrated his
growing virtuosity in the carving of complex twisted poses.
The series reached a highpoint in 1583, in The Rape of
the Sabine Women, and later in Heracles beating the
Centaur Nessus (1599, Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence)

- The project for the Sabine sculpture began in 1579 when

the Medicis offered Giambologna a huge block of marble
from which to sculpt another complex group of figures.
Initially, the artist planned to carve only two figures - as
can be seen from his preparatory bronze in the
Capodimonte Museum, Naples - but then added a third
figure to the group, as illustrated by the two wax models in
the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The full-scale
plaster model for the completed work can be seen at the
Academy Gallery in Florence.

Narrative Theme
- The actual theme of the finished statue was not
determined until shortly before its installation in the Loggia
dei Lanzi, in the centre of Florence. It was then that
Giambologna finally decided that it should illustrate the
legendary "Rape of the Sabines", an event from early
Roman mythology, when Romulus and his male followers
were anxiously seeking wives with whom to start families
- The local Sabine tribe refused to permit their women to
marry anyone from Rome, so the Romans staged a
festival of Neptune Equester, invited their Sabine
neighbours, and on a given signal snatched numerous
Sabine women, whilst fighting off their men. Note that, in
this context, the translation of the Latin word raptio as
"rape" is misleading, as no physical violation was involved.
A more accurate translation is "The Abduction of the
Sabine Women".

El Greco the Burial of Count Orgaz

- El Greco, by name of Doménikos Theotokópoulos, (born

1541, Candia [Iráklion], Crete—died April 7, 1614, Toledo,
Spain), master of Spanish painting, whose highly
individual dramatic and expressionistic style met with the
puzzlement of his contemporaries but gained newfound
appreciation in the 20th century. He also worked as a
sculptor and as an architect.

- El Greco's The Burial of the Count Orgaz is universally

considered his greatest masterpiece. Some even claim
that this is the most beautifully crafted religious painting of
all time.
- Ever since El Greco completed the painting in the late
1500s, people have been flocking to the Santo Tome
church in Toledo, Spain, where the impressive 16 by 10-
foot image lives

The Commission:

- When the Count of Orgaz was alive, he donated a large

sum of money to the Santo Tome church. After his death
however, the officials in the town ignored his request to
bequeath the money for over 200 years. - After the Count
died in 1312, he was interred by the Cardinal and a host of
clerics.
- Then came along Father Andres Nuñez, a humble priest
at the Santo Tome who filed a lawsuit in 1569 and won
back payments of the Count's original endowment. - The
priest decided to use this money to decorate the church in
honor of the Count and on March 15, 1586, he chose El
Greco as the man for the job.
- The theme of this painting is an historical-mystical series
of events surrounding the death of local hero Count
Orgaz, who died in his native Toledo in the early 1300s.
The Count was said to be a pious man, a philanthropist,
and a knight.
- The story goes that during this ceremony, the heavens
erupted spontaneously, and friends and mourners
witnessed a sky filled with images of Jesus, the Virgin, St.
John, and several other saints and angels.
- Legend explains that Saint Augustine and Saint Stephen
appeared to reward the Count for his generosity to the
church by burying him with their own hands and dazzling
all those present. - Being a pious Toledan himself, El
Greco chose to recapture this remarkable legend, painting
both the mortals and immortals in attendance at Count
Orgaz's funeral.

Paying Tribute:
- By way of thanks for this commission, El Greco painted
Nuñez into this masterpiece (located in the far right of the
image). Furthermore, as a tribute to the aristocracy of
Toledo, El Greco honored various prominent Toledan
social figures by immortalizing them in the painting

- El Greco even allegedly painted himself, as the figure

looking straight out toward the viewer next to Saint
Stephen.

- In addition to immortalizing Santo Tome's priest and

several prominent men of Toledo, El Greco also honored
his own son in The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. The
young boy looking directly at viewers from the bottom left-
hand corner of the painting is Jorge Manuel, El Greco's
beloved illegitimate son.

- Inscribed on the handkerchief in his pocket are both El

Greco's Greek signature and the date of his son's birth
1578.
 Northern renaissance
Albrecht Dürer Portrait of Dürer’s Father
- Albrecht Dürer, (born May 21, 1471, Imperial Free City of
Nürnberg [Germany]—died April 6, 1528, Nürnberg), painter and
printmaker generally regarded as the greatest German
Renaissance artist. His vast body of work includes altarpieces
and religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and
copper engravings. His woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series
(1498), retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work.

- The portrait is inscribed `1497 Albrecht Dürer the Elder at age

70'. Dürer's father appears considerably older than in the portrait
of seven years earlier. His lips are thinner, his face more heavily
lined with wrinkles and his narrow eyes have a wearier
appearance. Yet Albrecht the Elder has retained his wisdom and
dignity. After his death, Dürer wrote that his father `passed his life
in great toil and stern, hard labour...He underwent manifold
afflictions, trials and adversities.' Albrecht the Elder died five
years after this portrait was painted, at the age of 75.

- The condition of this painting is poor, particularly in the

background and the cloak, and in the past many scholars
believed that it was a copy of a lost original. However, since it was
cleaned in 1955, there has been more support for the view that
this is indeed the original. Fortunately, the face is the part of the
picture which remains in the best condition.

- This portrait may originally have been displayed with Dürer's

self-portrait of the following year, either hung in the same room in
the family home or even linked as a diptych. Although Dürer and
his father are wearing very different clothing and the backgrounds
do not match, the two portraits are almost the same size and the
half-length poses are similar.

- The pictures were apparently kept together as a pair since they

were presented by the city of Nuremberg to the Earl of Arundel in
1636 as a gift for Charles I of England. Both paintings were sold
in 1650 by Cromwell. The portrait of Albrecht Dürer the Elder
stayed in Britain and was eventually bought by the National
Gallery in 1904.

Cranach Venus with Cupid the Honey Thief

- The goddess Venus and her son Cupid stand beside a tree at
the edge of a leafy thicket. Wearing golden neck jewelry and a
large red hat over a goldembroidered snood, Venus gazes out
toward the viewer. She holds a diaphanous veil across her hips.
Cupid, who carries a honeycomb taken from a hive in the tree
trunk, is attacked by a swarm of bees and cries out to his mother
in distress.

- Lucas Cranach the Elder began painting depictions of Venus

with Cupid taking honey from a beehive in the mid-1520s. To
judge from the numerous surviving variants, the theme was one of
the most successful products of that artist’s workshop

- The subject is based ultimately on the nineteenth idyll of

Theocritus, which tells of Cupid being stung by bees, whose hive
he raided in search of honey, and then complaining to Venus of
the great pain inflicted by such small creatures. Venus, amused,
likened Cupid to the bees, remarking that he, too, is small and, as
the god of love, also a bringer of great pain
- The Latin quatrain that appears in Cranach’s paintings is an
adaptation of Theocritus’s verses by the poet Georg Sabinus.
During the 1520s — concurrent with the appearance of this
subject in Cranach’s oeuvre — Sabinus studied ancient Greek
literature at the University of Wittenberg under Philipp
Melanchthon.

- It is thought that Melanchthon, as a friend of Cranach, may have

brought Sabinus’s verses to the artist’s attention and advised him
on the subject matter.

Hans Holbein the Younger the Ambassadors

Holbein was one of the most accomplished portraitists of the 16th

century. He spent two periods of his life in England (1526-8 and
1532- 43), portraying the nobility of the Tudor court. Holbein's
famous portrait of Henry VIII (London, National Portrait Gallery)
dates from the second of these periods. 'The Ambassadors', also
from this period, depicts two visitors to the court of Henry VIII.
'Christina of Denmark' is a portrait of a potential wife for the king.

- Holbein was born in Augsburg in southern Germany in the

winter of 1497-8. He was taught by his father, Hans Holbein the
Elder. He became a member of the Basel artists' guild in 1519.
He travelled a great deal, and is recorded in Lucerne, northern
Italy, and France. In these years he produced woodcuts and
fresco designs as well as panel paintings.

- With the spread of the Reformation in Northern Europe the

demand for religious images declined and artists sought
alternative work. Holbein first travelled to England in 1526 with a
recommendation to Thomas More from the scholar Erasmus. In
1532 he settled in England, dying of the plague in London in
1543.
- Holbein was a highly versatile and technically accomplished
artist who worked in different media. He also designed jewelry
and metalwork.

- One of the most famous portraits of the Renaissance is without

question Hans Holbein the Younger’s the Ambassadors from
1533. Even today, it is a favored portrait to parody, mimic, or cite
in art, TV, film, and social media, and it remains an important
source for contemporary artists.

- This double portrait depicts two men standing beside a high

table covered in objects. On the left is Jean de Dinteville, age 29,
a French ambassador sent by the French king, Francis I to the
English court of Henry VIII. On the right is Georges de Selve, age
25, the bishop of Lavaur, France.

- They stand on an elaborate abstract pavement, which has been

identified as belonging to the sanctuary in Westminster Abbey—
the same space where Anne Boylen, second wife of Henry VIII,
had been crowned and more recently, the Duke and Duchess of
Cambridge were married.

Nicholas Hilliard Young Man Against a Rose Tree

- Nicholas Hilliard, (born 1547, Exeter, Devon, Eng.—died Jan. 7,

1619, London), the first great native-born English painter of the
Renaissance. His lyrical portraits raised the art of painting
miniature portraiture (called limning in Elizabethan England) to its
highest point of development and did much to formulate the
concept of portraiture there during the late 16th and early 17th
centuries.

- This portrait is perhaps the most famous of English miniatures. It

epitomizes the romantic Elizabethan age and is a masterpiece of
miniature paintings by its greatest exponent, Nicholas Hilliard.
The large elongated oval shape of this miniature was never
repeated in Hilliard's work and must relate to the now unknown
purpose of the object. Possibly it was incorporated into an
expensive object such as a looking glass

Subjects Depicted
- Elizabeth was the heart of government and the focus of power
in England. As a woman ruler she encouraged a unique court
culture, exerting her authority through elaborate rituals of
courtship with her male courtiers. This role-playing reached a
pitch at the Accession Day ceremonial jousts at which the Queen
received the homage of her knights.

- Each courtier presented her with a shield bearing an ‘impressa’,

a combination of picture and motto ‘borne by noble personages.to
notify some particular conceit’, usually their devotion to the
Queen. This culture is reflected in this portrait of a young courtier.
He wears the Queen’s colours, black and white, and is
surrounded by the eglantine rose, a symbol of the Queen.

The Sitter
- It has been suggested that this unknown young man is Robert
Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, the Queen's young favourite. At this
date he was about 30 years younger than the Queen he pays
homage to, hand on heart.
 NORTHERN LANDSCAPE
Joachim Patenier Charon Crossing the River Styx

Landscape with Charon Crossing Styx fits into common Northern

Renaissance and early Mannerist trends of art. The 16th century
witnessed a new era for painting in Germany and the Netherlands
that combined influences from local traditions and foreign
influences. Many artists, including Patinier, traveled to Italy to
study and these travels to the south provided new ideas,
particular concerning representations of the natural world.
Patinier’s religious subjects, therefore, incorporate precise
observation and naturalism with fantastic landscapes inspired by
the northern traditions of Bosch.

Joachim Patinir, also called Patenier ( October 15) was a Flemish

Renaissance painter of history and landscape subjects. He was
Flemish, from the area of modern Wallonia,but worked in
Antwerp, then the centre of the art market in the Low Countries.
Patinir was a pioneer of landscape as an independent genre and
he was the first Flemish painter to regard himself primarily as a
landscape painter. He effectively invented the world landscape, a
distinct style of panoramic northern Renaissance landscapes
which is Patinir’s important contribution to Western art.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder the Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel is one of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s most

famous paintings. However, the motif has created some confusion
at times, because there are two versions
Tower of Babel (Vienna) Tower of Babel (Rotterdam)

The Rotterdam painting is about half the size of the Vienna one.
In broad terms they have exactly the same composition, but at a
detailed level everything is different, whether in the architecture of
the tower or in the sky and the landscape around the tower. The
Vienna version has a group in the foreground, with the main figure
presumably Nimrod, who was believed to have ordered the
construction of the tower,[3] although the Bible does not actually
say this. In Vienna the tower rises at the edge of a large city, but
the Rotterdam tower is in open countryside.

The paintings depict the construction of the Tower of Babel,

which, according to the Book of Genesis in the Bible, was built by
a unified, monolingual humanity as a mark of their achievement
and to prevent them from scattering: “Then they said, ‘Come, let
us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens,
and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be
scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’” (Genesis
11:4)

Pieter Bruegel , commonly known as Pieter Bruegel the Elder,

was the greatest member of a large and important southern
Netherlandish family of artists active for four generations in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A longtime resident of
Antwerp, the center of publishing in the Netherlands and a vibrant
commercial capital, Bruegel brought a humanizing spirit to
traditional subjects and boldly created new ones. He was an
astoundingly inventive painter and draftsman, and, due to the
continuity of the family trade and the industry that developed in
prints after his works, Bruegel’s impact was widespread and long
lasting. Born in or near Breda about 1525, Bruegel settled fairly
early in Antwerp, where he became a master in the painters’ Guild
of Saint Luke between 1551 and 1552.
 Jan Brueghel the Elder Vase of the Flower

Jan Brueghel the Elder was one of the first artists in the
Habsburg Netherlands who started to paint pure flower still lifes. A
pure flower still life depicts flowers, typically arranged in a vase or
other vessel, as the principal subject of the picture, rather than as
a subordinate part of another work such as a history painting. Jan
Brueghel is regarded as an important contributor to the emerging
genre of the flower piece in Northern art, a contribution that was
already appreciated in his time when he received the nickname
‘Flower Brueghel’. While the traditional interpretation of these
flower pieces was that they were vanitas symbols or allegories of
transience with hidden meanings, it is now more common to
interpret them as mere depictions of the natural world.Brueghel’s
approach to these works was informed by his desire to display his
skill in giving a realistic, almost scientific rendering of nature.
These works reflected the ideological concerns demonstrated in
his work, which combined the worldview that nature was a
revelation of a god with the interest in gaining a scientific
understanding of nature.

Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) was born 1568 – 13

January 1625 he was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He
was the son of the eminent Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter
Bruegel the Elder. A close friend and frequent collaborator with
Peter Paul Rubens, the two artists were the leading Flemish
painters in the first three decades of the 17th century

Hendrick Avercamp A Winter Scene with Skaters by a Windmill

Avercamp used the painting technique of aerial perspective. The

depth is suggested by change of color in the distance. To the front
objects are painted in richer colors, such as trees or a boat, while
farther objects are lighter. This technique strengthens the
impression of depth in the painting. Avercamp has also painted
cattle and seascapes.
Sometimes Avercamp used paper frames, which were a cheap
alternative to oil paintings. He first drew with pen and ink. This
work was then covered with finishing paint. The contours of the
drawing remained. Even with this technique, Avercamp could
show the pale wintry colors and nuances of the ice

BAROQUE
Giuseppe Arcimboldo Spring

Spring is an oil on canvas painting created by Giuseppe

Arcimboldo in 1563. It lives at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes
de San Fernando in Spain. The image is in the public domain,
and tagged flowers and portraits. Historians used to wonder if
Giuseppe Arcimboldo was a madman, assembling human faces
from vegetables and flowers. But Arcimboldo was just wildly
creative. Spring is from his Four Seasons collection — a suite of
paintings showcasing the literal fruits of the prosperous reign of
Emperor Maximilian II. The Emperor loved the work so much, he
had Arcimboldo reproduce the paintings multiple times, so he
could send them to his friends and family.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian painter best known for

creating imaginative see portrait heads made entirely of objects
such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish and books. These works
form a distinct category from his other productions.
 Annibale Carracci Portrait of a Man Drinking

Among the early works of Carracci, his genre scenes are most
impressive. At that time, genre scenes were written by some other
Italian artists, but none of them could compare with Annibale
Carracci.

The naturalism of these scenes surprisingly contrasts with the

traditions of classicism, which so clearly manifested in the late
works the master. Among the best genre scenes of our hero is,
for example, “Portrait of a Drinking Youth”. It may very well be that
this writing Carracci wrote from a peculiar panache, wishing to
demonstrate his skill, because the young man is written in a very
Complex perspective, and in order to write a glass glass, you
need a remarkable skill.

Annibale Carracci (1560–1609) was the most admired painter of

his time and the vital force in the creation of Baroque style.
Together with his cousin Ludovico (1555–1619) and his older
brother Agostino (1557–1602)—each an outstanding artist—
Annibale set out to transform Italian painting. The Carracci
rejected the artificiality of Mannerist painting, championing a
return to nature coupled with the study of the great northern
Italian painters of the Renaissance, especially Correggio, Titian,
and Veronese.
 Caravaggio Supper at Emmaus

The Supper at Emmaus – a popular theme in Christian art –

represents the story, told in St. Luke’s Gospel when after the
Crucifixion, two of Christ’s apostles invite an apparent stranger,
whom they have just met, to share their meal with them. When he
blesses and breaks the bread, they realize that their guest is, in
fact, the Resurrected Christ. St. Luke names one of the apostles
as Cleophas, but he does not identify the other. “And their eyes
were opened and they knew him and he vanished out of their
sight.” Behind them, the innkeeper gapes uncomprehendingly.

Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic

use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He made
the technique a dominant stylistic element, darkening shadows
and transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light. Caravaggio vividly
expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent
struggles, torture, and death. He worked rapidly, with live models,
preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas.
His influence on the new Baroque style that emerged from
Mannerism was profound. It can be seen directly or indirectly in
the work of Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo
Bernini, and Rembrandt, and artists in the following generation
heavily under his influence were called the “Caravaggisti” (or
“Caravagesques”), as well as tenebrists or tenebrosi
(“shadowists”).

Artemisia Gentileschi Judith Slaying Holofermes

Judith Slaying Holofernes is a painting by the Italian early

Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi, completed in 1612-13 and
now at the Museo Capodimonte, Naples, Italy.It is considered one
of her iconic works. The canvas shows the scene of Judith
beheading Holofernes. Early feminist critics interpreted the
painting as a form of visual revenge following Gentileschi’s rape
by Agostino Tassi in 1611; more recent analysis of the painting
has taken a broader view, seeing the painting in the context of
Gentileschi’s achievement in portraying strong women.The
subject takes an episode from the apocryphal Book of Judith in
the Old Testament, which recounts the assassination of the
Assyrian general Holofernes by the Israelite heroine Judith. The
painting shows the moment when Judith, helped by her
maidservant Abra, beheads the general after he has fallen asleep
drunk.

Artemisia Lomi or Artemisia Gentileschi Italian: July 8, 1593 – c. 

1656) was an Italian Baroque painter, now considered one of the
most accomplished seventeenth-century artists, initially working in
the style of Caravaggio. She was producing professional work by
the age of fifteen. In an era when women had few opportunities to
pursue artistic training or work as professional artists, Artemisia
was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di
Arte del Disegno in Florence and she had an international
clientele.

Guido Reni St. Sebastian

Saint Sebastian is an oil on canvas painting of Saint Sebastian,

now in the Dulwich Picture Gallery. It was worked on by Guido
Reni himself from 1620 to 1639 but left unfinished. It is almost
identical to another copy of the work in Auckland, though that
work is much smaller and has slightly different colouring.

The Dulwich work was catalogued as a studio work in 1880 and in

1980 as a copy, but is now accepted as one of two autograph
copies of the original.
 Guido Reni 4 November 1575 – 18 August 1642) was an Italian
painter of the Baroque period, although his works showed a
classical manner, similar to Simon Vouet, Nicholas Poussin, and
Philippe de Champaigne. He painted primarily religious works, but
also mythological and allegorical subjects. Active in Rome,
Naples, and his native Bologna, he became the dominant figure in
the Bolognese School that emerged under the influence of the
Carracci.

Pietro da Cortona Glorification of

the Reign of Pope Urban VIll

Pietro da Cortona’s Glorification of the Reign of Urban VIII (1633-

1939) on the ceiling of the great hall of the Palazzo Barberini is a
terrific example of the Catholic Church’s effect on art during the
Baroque era. It is the largest private painting ceiling in Rome. The
subject to be glorified by this fresco painting was Maffeo Barberini
(1568-1644) who was elected Pope Urban VIII. As the last pope
to practice nepotism (favoritism granted in politics to relatives
regardless of merit) on a grand scale he was not popular. Galileo
was sentenced by Urban VIII in the Roman Inquisition as a
suspect of heresy. As pope he was a major reformist for the
church, a poet, and Bernini’s most powerful patron and trusted
friend.

He was born Pietro Berrettini, but is primarily known by the name

of his native town of Cortona in Tuscany. He worked mainly in
Rome and Florence. He is best known for his frescoed ceilings
such as the vault of the salone or main salon of the Palazzo
Barberini in Rome and carried out extensive painting and
decorative schemes for the Medici family in Florence and for the
Oratorian fathers at the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella in
Rome. He also painted numerous canvases. Only a limited
number of his architectural projects were built but nonetheless
they are as distinctive and as inventive as those of his rivals

Nicolas Poussin Et Arcadia Ego

Poussin painted this subject twice; this is the second version,

more austere, which still relates to the discovery of a tomb on
which is engraved with the epitaph “Et in Arcadia Ego” in the
wilderness by shepherds. It is subject to many interpretations,
depending on whether the words relate to Death, the body in the
tomb, the Beauty.

Was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style,

although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his
works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a
small group of Italian and French collectors. He returned to Paris
for a brief period to serve as First Painter to the King under Louis
XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, but soon returned to Rome and
resumed his more traditional themes. In his later years he gave
growing prominence to the landscapes in his pictures. His work is
characterized by clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over
color. Until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for
such classically-oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-
Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne
.

Claude Lorrain the Embarkation of Ursula

Is an oil painting on canvas of 1641 by Claude Lorrain, signed

and dated by the artist. The work was produced for Fausto Poli,
who two years later was made a cardinal by Pope Urban VIII. It is
now in the National Gallery in London, which acquired it in 1824
as part of the collection of John Julius Angerstein.
Was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque
era. He spent most of his life in Italy, and is one of the earliest
important artists, apart from his contemporaries in Dutch Golden
Age painting, to concentrate on landscape painting. His
landscapes are usually turned into the more prestigious genre of
history paintings by the addition of a few small figures, typically
representing a scene from the Bible or classical mythology.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini Ecstasy of St. Teresa of Avila

St. Theresa of Avila was a Spanish nun, mystic and writer during
the CounterReformation. Some sources suggest that as a girl,
Theresa was willful and spoiled, and chose to enter the Carmelite
sisterhood instead of marrying a wealthy hidalgo based on the
mistaken belief that as a nun she would be afforded more
freedom.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, (born December 7, 1598, Naples, Kingdom

of Naples [Italy]— died November 28, 1680, Rome, Papal States),
Italian artist who was perhaps the greatest sculptor of the 17th
century and an outstanding architect as well. Bernini created the
Baroque style of sculpture and developed it to such an extent that
other artists are of only minor importance in a discussion of that
style.

FLEMISH BAROQUE
Flemish Baroque painting refers to the art produced under
Spanish rule in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Southern
Netherlands. The history of Baroque art in Flanders during the
17th century represents the country's own steady decline. It was
controlled - along with the northern part of the Low Countries
known as Holland - by the unpopular Spanish Hapsburgs, who
had taken control from the French Dukes of Burgundy, ruling the
southern part of the Low Countries or the Netherlands. The
religious and political tensions between the Catholic Hapsburg
authorities and Protestant Dutch merchants have undermined its
once important economic and cultural centers, such as Bruges,
Ghent and Antwerp. Thus, while Dutch Baroque art flourished like
never, a small handful of Flemish painters, mainly active in
Antwerp, focused on art in Flanders.

Peter Paul Rubens The Raising of the Cross, c. 1610–1611

Sir Peter Paul Rubens “Samson and Delilah”

Rubens portrays the moment when a young man cuts Samson's

hair after falling asleep on Delilah's lap. Samson and Delilah are
in a dark room, lit mostly by a candle held to the left of Delilah by
an old woman. With all her clothes, but with her breasts exposed,
Delilah is depicted. On the top of Samson's right shoulder is her
left hand, as his left arm is draped over her legs.

The man who snips Samson's hair crosses his hands, a sign of
betrayal. In the right-hand background of the painting, Philistine
soldiers can be seen. A statue of Venus, the goddess of love, and
her son, Cupid, are in the niche behind Delilah. Cupid’s mouth,
rather than his eyes, is bound. The cause of the destiny of
Samson and the instrument of the actions of Delilah can be taken
to represent this statue
 Frans Hals “The Laughing Cavalier”

Frans Hals the Elder was a Dutch Golden Age painter, normally of
portraits, who lived and worked in Haarlem. Hals played an
important role in the evolution of 17th-century group portraiture.
He is known for his loose painterly brushwork

The Laughing Cavalier (1624) is a portrait in the Wallace

Collection in London by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals,
which has been described as one of the most genius of all
Baroque portraits.'

The man's name remains uncertain, and although the titles

recorded in Dutch, English and French in the 19th century mostly
mean a military man, or at least an officer in one of the parttime
militia companies that were often the objects of group portraits,
including those of Hals and later Rembrandt's Night Watch (1642)

Anthony van Dyck

“Charles I of England”

Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became
the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern
Netherlands and Italy. The seventh child of Frans van Dyck, a
wealthy Antwerp silk merchant, Anthony painted from an early
age.

Van Dyck aimed to solve the question of the humble status of the
Monarch, to raise the sense of height by taking a low point of view
and gazing upwards. At the base of the column, there is a
pentimento, indicating that the crown's location may have been
significantly lowered. The portrait was painted for the Monarch,
probably in the Cross Gallery at Somerset House to become part
of the royal family portrait gallery. In 1649, it was sold but later
returned to the monarchy.

Jacob van Ruisdael

“Landscape with Windmills”

Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael was a Dutch painter,

draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-
eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of
great wealth and cultural achievement when Dutch painting
became highly popular.

It shows a windmill and fields in the foreground, with in the

background the sand dunes of the North Sea near the birthplace
of the painter, Haarlem. Signed and dated JvR 1646. The work
shows that Jacob was still strongly influenced by the style of his
uncle and teacher, Salomon van Ruysdael, at that time.

The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden now houses four

preparatory drawings for the work. Throughout his career, as in
Evening Landscape: A Windmill by a Stream, he returned to
similar compositions with a landmark in the left- or right-hand
corner of the foreground and a landscape in the background.

Jan Steen
“Skittle Players Outside an Inn”

. Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael was a Dutch painter,

draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the
preeminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period
of great wealth and cultural achievement when Dutch painting
became highly popular.
 It is an oil painting by the Dutch artist Jan Steen on oak panels,
probably painted during his time in Haarlem between 1660 and
1663. It depicts the playing of a game of skittles, and is now in the
National Gallery, London, where George Salting bequeathed it in
1910. Among Jan Steen's paintings, this sparkling little picture is
unusual. The White Swan, to judge by its sign, we are outside an
inn, rather than in its dark interior, Steen's more typical setting.
The man bowling's energetic pose indicates that he's serious
about his game and that the skittles will be scattered everywhere
after a moment or two

Carel Fabritius
“The Goldfinch”

Carel Pietersz. Fabritius was a Dutch painter. He was a pupil of

Rembrandt and worked in his studio in Amsterdam. Fabritius, who
was a member of the Delft School, developed his own artistic
style and experimented with perspective and lighting. Among his
works are A View of Delft, The Goldfinch, and The Sentry..

It was probably a bringer of good health, and was used as a sign

of Christian regeneration and the Passion of Jesus in Italian
Renaissance art. The Goldfinch is unique in the simplicity of its
composition and use of illusionary techniques during the Dutch
Golden Age painting period. It was missing for more than two
centuries until its rediscovery in Brussels, after the death of its
founder. In Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The
Goldfinch and its movie version, it plays a key