The black death. It terrorized Europe for centuries. Although the knowledge of modern medicine means that plagues are not widespread today, the power of disease and its strain on society is still evident.
Tag: European art
Italian baroque painting can be bold, dramatic—and downright gruesome. Artememsia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes or Caravaggio’s David with the Head of Goliath are two great examples. The theatricality is in part a result of the demands of the Catholic Church, which was reacting to the Protestant movements spreading throughout Europe. Their response was called the Counter-Reformation. In order to encourage a return to Catholicism, the Church commissioned art that would capture the viewer’s attention with drama and emotion.
But not all Italian Baroque paintings are blood and guts. Some can draw in the viewer with a quiet, contemplative air. One such painting is the Milwaukee Art Museum’s St. Dorothy by Antiveduto Gramatica (Italian, 1571-1626).
A number of artists featured in the special exhibition Of Heaven and Earth: 500 Years of Italian Painting from Glasgow Museums are represented in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum. This is the third in a series of blog posts that will highlight Milwaukee’s paintings during the run of the exhibition.
In researching a museum’s collection, the story behind the acquisition of an artwork can sometimes be just as interesting as the artwork itself. The Milwaukee Art Museum’s On the Eve of Her Wedding by Antonio Mancini (Italian, 1852-1930) is a great example.
Mancini began his artistic studies at the age of 12. In 1875 and again in 1877, he visited Paris—then the center of the avant-garde world—where he met French Impressioninists Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) and Edouard Manet (French, 1832-1883). Mancini’s loose, expressive brushstroke and dark color choices were clearly influenced by Manet. At one point, John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925) declared Mancini to be the greatest living painter.
A number of artists featured in the special exhibition Of Heaven and Earth: 500 Years of Italian Painting from Glasgow Museums are represented in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum. This is the second in a series of blog posts that will highlight Milwaukee’s paintings during the run of the exhibition.
Imagine it is the early 18th century. You are an Italian noble and need to decorate your villa. Who do you hire to make some paintings for you?
For many, the answer would have been Andrea Locatelli (Italian, 1695-1741). He’s not a household name today, but during his lifetime, Locatelli was famous. The venerable Colonna family of Rome, who were great art patrons, owned 80 of his paintings!
The Milwaukee Art Museum has a lovely pair of paintings from Locatelli’s late career: Landscape with a River and Group of Figures Near A Roman Altar and Mountainous Landscape with Shepherds and Animals.
A number of artists featured in the special exhibition Of Heaven and Earth: 500 Years of Italian Painting from Glasgow Museums are represented in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum. This is the first in a series of blog posts that will highlight Milwaukee’s paintings during the run of the exhibition.
Active in the very end of the 17th century and the first part of the 18th century, Antonio Balestra was an Italian painter of the “late Baroque.”
What does that mean? Well, it means that he worked during a time of transition between the theatrical narratives and dramatic light and shadow of the high Baroque (think Caravaggio) and the bright, elegant style called Rococo (think Tiepolo).
![Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917), Dancer Holding Her Right Foot in Her Right Hand [Danseuse tenant son pied droit dans la main droit], ca. 1904; cast 1919–20. Bronze. Purchase, Bradley Conservation Endowment Fund M1984.70. Photo credit: John R. Glembin.](http://blog.mam.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/degasr_m1984_70.jpg?w=235)
Speaking of the holidays, one of my favorite paintings in the Museum Collection is Meissen in Winter by German artist Ernst Ferdinand Oehme. Oehme (pronounced EHR-ma) shows us a snowy street in the German town, with the church tower silhouetted against the dusky sky, and a single star shining brightly.
I’ve seen many evenings like this in Wisconsin!
A few inhabitants have braved the cold, crisp air in this Meissen scene: a couple is talking a walk, a man makes his way up the hill, and a gentleman in the foreground has stopped to gaze up at a brightly lit bay window with a cheerfully decorated Christmas tree shown in the detail at left.
The holiday scene is subtle, quiet and calm—and clearly chilly—but I think that the happy glow of that window and the hopeful promise of the single star in the darkening sky are reassuring in what could be a desolate winter scene.
I see hope in that star, and spirit.
In my August post for the Museum’s blog, Mythology at the Milwaukee Art Museum-Part 1, I focused on some great examples of Classical mythological figures in the Museum’s Collection—hopefully with the result that you will be able to identify those characters the next time you see them.
This month, I am going to explore another aspect of mythology in art. (Don’t worry, we’ll still learn how to identify a myth or two.) But we’ll also see that classical mythology can be both straightforward and convoluted at the same time.
First, let’s start with a basic question: what is “myth”?
There is a lot of scholarship on the definition and meaning of myth in disciplines such as anthropology.
It’s hard to study art and not learn something about classical mythology. The gods and heroes of ancient Greece and Rome are not only prevalent in ancient art (as in the Museum’s two Greek Hydria), but in later periods such as the Renaissance (which saw a “rebirth” of classical antiquity, which you can see in our Orpheus Clock) and the Neoclassical era (a perfect example is Hiram Powers’ Proserpine).
So, for the next two months, I want to take you on a tour of the Museum Collection with mythology as our theme. And what’s fun about myth is that once you learn some of the basics in iconography, or the standard in how figures and stories are depicted, you’ll be able to recognize it in other works at other museums, and even in daily walks around your city or shopping mall.
The Museum’s current exhibition Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and his Contemporaries features a number of posters by Pierre Bonnard (French, 1867-1947)—including the fantastic France-Champagne lithograph, a work that inspired the master Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to make ground-breaking posters.
Did you know that the Museum’s Permanent Collection has two paintings by Bonnard?
The paintings are gorgeous, and can be found on the upper level in the Bradley Collection Galleries.
One of the two paintings, Girl in Straw Hat (Femme au Chapeau Rouge), has long been one of my personal favorite artworks. I suspect that Girl in Straw Hat was also one of Mrs. Bradley’s favorites, and there is good reason why.