Caravaggio's Angel

Rest on the Flight to Egypt by Caravaggio, c.1597

It is my favorite Caravaggio, a family taking a rest in an oddly somber but verdant landscape where they are being serenaded by an angel. Divine! Well, it is the Holy Family. Of course they are running for their lives in order to escape King Herod's fury, as his troops go about massacring the innocents. Rest on the Flight to Egypt it is called, and this is not a layover at a Red Sea resort. Nothing in this landscape looks like the deserts of ancient Israel or Egypt. This is an Italian setting, somewhere in Lombardy perhaps, and not unlike some of Giorgione's landscapes in the early 1500s. The family seems settled on the banks of a little lake (see the water in the distance on the right) under the shelter of trees, with various plants all around them. They are weary, and Mary's slumped head and limp right hand would indicate that she and the baby are both napping. Joseph, being much older, bears the weariness of his age as well as his travels. They are not shabbily dressed, but they are humble people sitting on the bare earth.

Well, so much for the obvious; now for the oddities. Mary and the Christ Child have no halos. This was done during the beginning of the Baroque period; all holy figures had halos.

Close up of Joseph, the donkey and the angel from Caravaggio's Rest on the Flight to Egypt

As well, look at the size of the donkey. He's an enormous beast; donkeys are small animals. Was it done so in order to get that magnificent head into a close frame with Joseph and the Angel, a portrait of three existences: man, beast, and a divine entity? And, of course, the most outstanding character here is in fact the angel playing the music. His placement in front of the family, all sitting in a row with the donkey in the background, puts the angel in a dominant position. He is extremely pale, with little of the flesh colors of the humans in the picture, which indicates his other-worldliness. The angel is rather scantily clad, with the front of his body only covered at the waist and below the knee, as his white garb flows elegantly around his limbs. He stands with the right foot slightly elevated, throwing his weight (angels have weight?) onto his left side causing the left hip to curve slightly outward. His face is intent upon his violin and the sheet music. Yes, sheet music, held by Joseph no less, indicating that Joseph indeed sees this angel. What is going on here?

Concert Champetre by Giorgione, c.1509 (This painting is sometimes credited to Titian who may have finished it after Giorgione's death in 1510.)

Well I had to go digging through my art history notes looking for some answers. I kept looking at that donkey, and finally it came to me. It seems a reference to the classical images of the birth of Jesus, in which the shepherds are present and along with them a cow and a donkey. Here, because of their travel, the faithful donkey, probably taken from the stable in all those nativity scenes, is still with them. Of course, his calm intent regard seems to show he is soothed by the music. Ah yes, the music. In the picture here, we see Giorgione's (maybe Titian's) Concert Champetre in which two musicians sit thoroughly engaged in music and conversation while naked women loll about. Well, not exactly. The females are muses who are inspiring the musicians from the unseen, hence why these guys are oblivious to their presence. We can also see here the way a gown of some sort has draped itself around one of the muses. Caravaggio's angel has a touch of this, though in a more elegant style, just hinting at the angel's nudity. The main thing for me, though, is that Joseph is holding the sheet music. Is this the way that Caravaggio substitutes for not having halos? If Joseph's family is specially blessed, why would they not be able to see an angel and hold his divine composition?

Now, though Caravaggio painted this ethereally innocent angel, he, Caravaggio, lived a life far from the divine. He was a master of chiaroscuro, or the use of contrast of light and dark. His life seems to have followed the same course. When we look at his representation of the young men with whom he obviously "partied," as he represents himself as The Young Sick Bacchus, we see quite a difference between them and the angel.

Young Sick Bacchus by Caravaggio, 1593-1594

Boy Bitten by a Lizard by Caravaggio, 1595.

Boy with a Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio, 1593-1594

Close up of the Angel and Joseph in Caravaggio's Rest on the Flight to Egypt, 1597.

These young men are all quite sensual, though in different ways. His young Bacchus character, the young man bitten by a lizard, and the young man with a basket of fruit are all done with a keen eye for human character and imperfection. Their coloring, of course, is that of flesh and blood. Their mouths are open, which heightens the sensuality. A sexual tone is quite evident as they handle ripe fruits, symbolic of their own youth and beauty. The angel's mouth is closed, and he shows none of the flush of humanity. His eyes look down at his violin and the sheet music. His body has the allure of a purely beautiful form. He has come to earth in a perfect body, unashamed to be naked, as his sash covers little. He is divine innocence in all its beauty, untouched and untouchable.

The angel's contrast with the seated figures, holy humans in this story, sets him apart from them but is not done using the strong contrast in dark and light that Caravaggio was so famous for. The toning down of the sharp contrasts allows for the scene to have a far gentler feel than many of his paintings of high drama. The style used here provides for a peaceful interlude during an otherwise harrowing trip, and the viewer can appreciate Caravaggio's appropriate choice of subtlety to match the theme of the painting.

Caravaggio was many things, an enfant terrible, a murderer, and a hard-living capricious man, who was also a great painter. A painter as full of darkness and light as the chiaroscuro techniques he used, his brutal life perhaps only adds to the beauty of his paintings. What he knew of the divine; whether he believed in it or not; whether he mocked religion or prayed fervently, we truly don't know. However, they say all painters paint themselves. He certainly did that when he painted his own self portrait as the head of Goliath after decapitation by David. I wonder what part of him was that divinely beautiful musical angel for whom Joseph holds the sheet music?

David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio, 1610.

For more on Caravaggio's life, here is a link to Simon Schama's Power of Art segment on Caravaggio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiH_ootDtTs

#caravaggio #powerofartcaravaggio #restontheflighttoegypt #baroqueart

For more on Marjorie Vernelle, see the author page at amazon.com/author/marjorievernelle

She also has an engaging art history blog that talks of painting and wine on ofartandwine.com

© Marjorie Vernelle 2019

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Amarna: Ancient Avant-Garde

Face of Akhenaten (1353-1336 BC) from Amarna

I first saw this face at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art show, Pharaohs of the Sun. I stood for a long time looking into this half-finished head of pharaoh Akhenaten. This was a normal version, by which I mean normally proportioned features (yes, they exist). This handsome face with rounded nose and full lips reminded me of my cousin Bobby, also an artist with an unique vision. That made Akhenaten seem closer to me in time than 3,300 years. The statue's eyes were marked in but only with a hint of where the pupils would be. It made me long to fill-in the missing detail, as if that might tell me the great secret of his kingdom: What he meant to communicate with his art.

Pharaoh Amenhotep III 1386-1349 B.C.

My looking with awe into the face of a pharaoh started when young, around the age of nine, when my mom took me to the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, where my family lived. We'd arrived early for a recital, so mom walked me through some of the exhibits. I remember turning a corner into a rather dimly lit area. I felt compelled to look up to my right, where upon the top of a partial wall, used to divide this exhibit into its own special space, was a bust in black stone of a majestic looking man, Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1386-1349 B.C.). The bust was done in classic pharaonic style, with even features, square jaw, and pupil-less eyes looking into forever. Though I was also impressed by the beautiful golden objects in the display cases, I would periodically look up at the bust of that pharaoh, wondering how anyone could be so magnificently perfect.

Statues of Akhenaten (left) and his father Amenhotep III

Of course, perfection is an ideal, and ideals change. Therefore, representations of those ideals change also. From Amenhotep III to his second son, Amenhotep IV (a.k.a. Akhenaten), there was a radical change in the concept of the ideal vision of the world (see images of father and son above). From many gods to one, from powerful priests to one priest, pharaoh himself, everything changed. When change of that sort occurs, art is put in service to the new ideal. In the Amarna period, this change was radical. Not only do we see the pharaoh and his queen in intimate scenes with their children, we also see Akhenaten and Nefertiti represented as equals, even with scenes of the queen smiting enemies like a warrior ruler. We see pharaoh represented not in idealized masculinity like the bust of Amenhotep III that was imprinted on my 9-year-old mind, but in a sort of gender-bending form with sagging belly, wide hips, narrow chest, thin arms and legs and that oddly beautiful, distorted face. But why?

Once the actual remains of Akhenaten were genetically identified, the scans of his head did not reveal any particular distortion, though there are questions about whether he suffered from Marfan Syndrome, which elongates parts of the body. However, the extreme distortions in the sculpture and other images seem to be trying to tell us something. But what? When I look at this from an artist's point of view, I see communication of a new ideal. For instance, the ancient worlds of the Greeks and Romans focused on representing the physical body. With the coming of Christianity, art changed toward minimalist figures as we see here in the Four Tetrarchs (300 A.D.), taken from Constantinople and now found in Venice.

Four Tetrarchs originally from Constantinople, 300 A.D.

This art served a new religion that was focused no longer on the body, but on the spirit. Why represent that which is here today and gone tomorrow? After all the souls of good Christians were promised life everlasting - after the death of the body. It was not that the artists who had made beautiful life-like works had forgotten how to do that. There are always artists capable of rendering the human image realistically. The main thing is whether society calls upon them to do it.

In the Amarna period artists were called upon to create that which went with the new religion. We see a sharp break with what had been and a move to what was new, unusual, different, and disturbing, or what we now call avant-garde. This is art that shakes things up and scares those who are holding on to what has been. In our day, the representations of Akhenaten would be called "gender fluid." His close companionship with Nefertiti as partners in this great experiment with reshaping the consciousness of a whole society is shown repeatedly. It is now even thought that when her name disappears in the 12th year of his reign, it is not because she died. No, she may have become an entity known as Neferneferuaten, another channel through which the Aten could be worshipped.

Whatever their grand dreams were (immortality, perhaps?), life and time caught up to them. Nefertiti's name has been found in recent years listed as the Queen in year 16 of Akhenaten's reign, and swabtis (statuettes of servents), of the quickly fashioned kind made after one dies, have been found with her name on them and marked with year 16 of the pharaoh's reign. Ahkenaten, himself, died in year 17, leaving much of his religion a mystery, something that was too far ahead of his people.

When that happens, as it did centuries later during the 16th century in Europe, when Mannerism, with its hard to decipher symbolism, moved so far ahead that we would not see the likes of it again until the art of the late 19th century, society pulls back to what was known. So, too, did the art of Ancient Egypt return to the norms of its codified classical style, as can be seen in the statues of Rameses II in Abu Simbel, done some 100 years after Akhenaten. Suddenly there were no more of the wonderful naturalistic pieces like these below of Nefertiti and one of the Amarna princesses.

Close up of bust of Nefertiti made during the reign of Akhenaten (1353-1336 BC)

An Amarna princess, child of Akhenaten and Nefertiti

Whatever it was that Akhenaten wanted to show about gender equality, the joys of his family life, and the presence of love, coming in the form of the sun's rays with little hands at the end of each beam of sunlight, those images were no longer the ideal. The culture pulled back to what had been its norm, leaving us with just suppositions about what exactly Akhenaten's art meant or was intended to do. The answers to that conundrum blow in the dusts that shroud the remains of the heretic pharaoh's capital, Amarna, just whispers in the sand.

King Tutankhamun's necklace. From Women of Egypt Magazine

What is your fondest memory of something Ancient Egyptian? Log in and tell us about it.

To see the fabulous jewelry done in Egypt and Nubia in ancient times go to Women of Egypt Magazine https://womenofegyptmag.com/2019/05/20/11-pieces-of-jewelry-from-ancient-egypt/

This is a must see: Reconstructions of Ancient Egyptian Royal Faces. Go to YouTube, Faces of Egypt posted by Jude Maris to see M.A. Ludwig's photo-shopped versions of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, along with those of other royals: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=faces+of+egypt+by+m.a.+ludwig

Image of Four Tetrarchs from Wikimedia.org used in accordance with Fair Use Policy.

Photos of Egyptian artifacts taken by me from the Pharaohs of the Sun catalog and used here for informational purposes according to Fair Use Policy.

#ahkenaten #amarna #ancientegypt #nefertiti #pharaohsofthesun

For more on Marjorie Vernelle, see the author page at amazon.com/author/marjorievernelle

She also has an engaging art history blog that talks of painting and wine on ofartandwine.com

© Marjorie Vernelle 2019

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Cezanne, Delacroix, Monet, Renoir, Picasso: In the Artists' Studios

Sunrise in my studio

Well, here's a picture of my studio, or at least a part of it. It is a good way to use a guest bedroom. I'm not the only artist to have a home studio mind you. Delacroix and Renoir had areas in their homes that were their studios. Monet's studio was on the same property as his home. Picasso seemed to turn whole houses into studios. He'd just lock up and move elsewhere when the house was full of art. People often talk about creative energy, generally in amorphous terms beyond concrete definition. One way to get a sense of it is to visit an artist's studio. Anywhere someone is creating on a consistent basis has that special vibe. However, I have noticed that it is heightened when the studio belonged to a famous artist.

Paul Cezanne's studio in Aix-en-Provence

I did not know what to expect when I climbed the hill on the edge of Aix-en-Provence to reach Paul Cezanne's studio. What I remembered as I trudged uphill was that Cezanne got thoroughly soaked in a rainstorm one evening as he made his way there, caught pneumonia, and died. I was thankful that it was not raining and that the studio is much closer into Aix now than it was in Cezanne's day.

When I arrived at what looked like a little house, completely surrounded by what appeared to be a wild garden, I saw a bicycle propped against the side of the building, the caretaker's no doubt. It seemed a typically French touch, and a wise form of transport, making his trip a lot shorter in duration than mine.

Inside things had been kept as the artist had them. Downstairs is a small kitchen, very practical for long painting sessions. The upstairs only holds a few people, in fact, only 10 visitors are allowed at one time. The windows are large, letting in an indirect light filtered somewhat by the garden's trees. Most interesting were the gray walls. It seems he had them painted in this neutral gray as it allows for the colors in the paintings to stand out. You will notice that museums often use similar tones of gray, sometimes quite dark, when showing colorful work. It seemed a good place for solitude, quite pleasant, and charming really. Afterward, I walked in the garden which seemed so wild, but upon careful observation, I saw it was carefully controlled, with branches spliced together to create a sense of organic confusion.

Renoir's studio in his home, now museum, in Cagnes-sur-mer, France

I had to climb another hill to get to the home and studio of Pierre Auguste Renoir. It was a warm, sunny day in January, with the waters of the Mediterranean sparkling. The house and its surrounding gardens were lovely and inviting. I anticipated a leisurely visit inside the house where I could look at the art and soak in the ambiance. As it turned out, I could only stand it for 30 minutes. I did not know much of Renoir's life at that point, so I was particularly shocked by the mean, fusty feeling of that house. It was anything but pleasant and seemed filled with bitterness. The only place where that feeling lifted was the studio. It was not very elaborate, with not much to let you see how he had kept it. Even so, the place where he painted seemed to alleviate the oppressiveness of the house. I later learned that Renoir suffered terribly from rheumatoid arthritis in the last 20 years of his life when he lived in Cagnes, but he painted even when in great pain and confined to a wheelchair. Being in that studio, one understands that while painting, Renoir's mind was not on the pain. I must say, though, I was glad to go outside again, where I sat on a bench under a tree looking at the sea down below and letting the breeze blow away the sadness of that house.

Now, people talk about Monet's gardens at Giverny, and they are indeed lovely. However,

Monet's kitchen at Giverny, France

Monet's dining room at Giverny, France

the kitchen in blue with its contrasting copper pots and the bright, cheery, yellow dining room are attractions all their own. Everything is spacious, airy, and very comfortable even though completely 19th century. Well, not exactly, for his studio, though built in the 1890s, is a rather indistinct modern structure, now holding a gift shop. Huge photos are there of Claude Monet painting the enormous Nymphea paintings, the ponds of water lilies, which he gifted to the French Republic after the first World War and which are now in Paris in the Orangerie. One gets the sense of him in his gardens, another great gift, where artists may get special passes to go painting.

The Studio Boat by Claude Monet, 1874

Monet had another studio and an unique one. This was his Studio Boat, which allowed him to be on the water as he painted its effects on light. It seems that during the years when he lived in Argenteuil, he found the town becoming increasingly industrialized and sought a way to be more in nature. With the aid of Gustave Caillebotte, a wealthy boat enthusiast (and artist), a boat was found and the Studio Boat was created.

One of my former hometowns is Antibes, and there after World War II, Pablo Picasso came with his new love, Françoise Gilot. He used the old Grimaldi Chateau, which sits in Vieil Antibes (old town) overlooking the sea. Though Picasso moved on elsewhere on the Riviera, the few months he spent in Antibes allowed him to work furiously, as though the years he'd spent in Paris during the Occupation had pent up his energies. The old chateau was partially a museum, and Picasso, in honor of the productive time he spent there, gave all the works he created there to the museum so people would have to come to Antibes to see them. That was a fine gesture, though I would say Antibes is worth a trip just for itself.

The Picasso Museum also has the best view of the Mediterranean. It is higher than the rampart walls that line the street below and drop off straight down to the water. The tower above is called the Sarrasin Tower, as it was where look outs in the middle ages would stand watching for pirates from North Africa. Now you can stand on the terrace and look out to sea while surrounded by sculptures by Giacometti.

The old Grimaldi Chateau, now the Picasso Museum in Antibes, France

Picasso in his studio in the Grimaldi Chateau, Antibes with his model Sylvette

The last studio I write of was the first I visited, upon my first solo visit to Paris. I have returned a time or two since then, but was so charmed by my first visit that I always remember it best. Perhaps it was because every evening that summer, I would pass a woman at her easel right at the entrance to the Place Von Furstenberg, where she stood painting the far corner of the square which holds the entrance to Eugene Delacroix's home.

The garden courtyard behind Delacroix's house with a view of the studio windows.

The home is set up as one would imagine a 19th century home to be. Every time I have been there, there has always been an art exhibition of some kind in the living space, so you don't get a sense of the person as in Monet's home or tragically in Renoir's home. However, one can cross over a narrow outdoor passage and arrive in his studio, where more art is exhibited, but where you get a sense of how lovely it would have been to paint and have light from that big multi-paned window which overlooks a garden. The garden is more than just a nice place to look at, for you can stroll through it as well. All in all, a visit there is a delight, as is the surrounding area, where an elegant elder lady called down to me as I passed by one Sunday morning to ask me the time. She was still in her white gown and robe, and when I told her the time, she waved me a thank you, showing that she was still wearing a heavy gold chain bracelet with a large gold coin hanging from it. Ah, Paris, where of course your sleep wearing your favorite jewelry.

Have you had the pleasure of visiting an artist's studio? Log in and tell us about it.

#cezanne #delacroix #picasso #renoir #monet #picassomuseumantibes #giverny #aixenprovence #renoirmuseum

Photos are mine or from public domain or free sources.

For more on Marjorie Vernelle, see the author page at amazon.com/author/marjorievernelle

She also has an engaging art history blog that talks of painting and wine on ofartandwine.com

© Marjorie Vernelle 2019

#followme