Art in 17th-Century Life: Robert Nanteuil

At work we have been incredibly busy preparing for a new exhibition opening tomorrow in Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library. The show is entitled "Art in Life: Engravings by Robert Nanteuil (c. 1623-1678) from the Frederick Paul Keppel Collection," and was curated by students in the MA program in Art History at Columbia, under the guidance of the MA director Frédérique Baumgartner and the Curator of Art Properties (yours truly). This is the first time that the MA program has partnered with Art Properties to utilize art from the permanent collection for an exhibition, thus giving the students an opportunity to curate an exhibition. It has been a lot of work to do this for all involved, including everything from selecting the prints, digitizing them, conserving one, mounting and matting them, and so on, not to mention all the work we've done environmentally, including retrofitting display cases, installing new LED lighting, and constructing faux walls. The short-term work, however, is going to benefit all in the long run, as this is the beginning of what we hope will be a recurring annual exhibition curated by a new student group each year. Below is a view of one of the cases showcasing some of the prints on display.

Nanteuil grew up in Reims, France, where he trained as an engraver. He settled in Paris in 1646-47 and soon established himself as portraitist to the court of King Louis XIV, the famous Sun King, eventually rising to the position of Designer and Engraver to the King. Over the course of his career Nanteuil made over 230 painstakingly realistic portraits, most of which were ad vivum (taken from life). Many of the prints went through multiple states and editions with altered backgrounds. Most are traditional window-style framed portraits as you see in the installation view here. However, a few show individuals in particular settings. The 1659 print of Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602-1661) at the top of this post is taken from a portrait by Pierre Mignard, rather than life, but Nanteuil depicts him seated in his palace with his kunstkammer of scientific instruments and gallery of ancient and modern sculpture behind him. Among the prints in the exhibition this one is one of my favorites, even if it is atypical of Nanteuil's style. Rather than a straight-on portrait, the print contextualizes Mazarin as a connoisseur and collector, and arguably foreshadows depictions of over famous collectors over time, most notably Charles Willson Peale's The Artist in His Museum, 1822 (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts).

These prints were owned by Frederick Paul Keppel, a former dean of Columbia College and son of the NYC print dealer Frederick Keppel. In 1947, 184 of the Nanteuil prints were donated to Avery Library by F.P. Keppel's widow, and for this exhibition the students selected 16 to showcase, arranged in 4 cases with various themes. The exhibition is open to all 9am-5pm Monday-Friday, until May 18, 2018. There is also an online exhibition: http://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/ma/2017.

The Passing of Walter Liedtke

The horrible news of the train crash on the Metro North railroad yesterday evening was tragic unto itself. This afternoon, however, the names of some of those who died were released and, like many others active in the art and museum world, I was startled and disturbed to discover that Walter Liedtke was among the deceased. Walter (as I and many others knew him) was a curator for 35 years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and an internationally renowned specialist in Dutch and Flemish paintings by famous artists such Rembrandt, Rubens, and Vermeer. I had the privilege of meeting Walter a number of times during the 7+ years I worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I actually taught him (along with my colleagues) how to use PowerPoint for his art historical presentations, and he attended a few of my instructional sessions on digital imaging. Whenever he came into the Image Library, he would ask me about how my graduate work and dissertation was coming along and encouraged my pursuit of art history as a career. I doubt he would have remembered me outside of my former role at the Met; nevertheless, the news of his death has impacted me more than I expected.

When I think back over those years when I was in graduate school and working at the Met, Walter was one of the more significant curators who inspired me. His art historical scholarship was brilliant, easy to read but always insightful. His presentations were engaging. His exhibitions were thought-provoking in the most creative ways, even when they were at the simplest. He curated, for instance, the loan of a single painting from the Rijksmuseum, Vermeer's Milkmaid, and combined with it a selection of paintings, works on paper, and decorative arts from across the Met's collections, exploring not only Vermeer's genius with this painting but the hidden symbolism behind what ordinarily would be seen otherwise as merely a genre scene. (I blogged about the show at the time.) It opened my eyes to the notion that one could successfully launch an informative show that focused on a single work of art. Similarly, his exhibition of paintings by Frans Hals from the Met's collection was fascinating because he wasn't afraid to move outside his comfort zone of the 17th century and demonstrate how Hals's brushstroke influenced modernist artists such as Manet and Sargent in the 19th and 20th centuries. His work on Rembrandt was legendary, and his Vermeer and the Delft School was always championed as a masterful exhibition and catalogue, although regretfully I never saw the show. Beyond his brilliance and creativity, there was an incredible charm and wit to him that always made one smile. Indeed, I learned from his example as a person how one could balance the international accolades of recognition for scholarship with a down-to-earth persona that could put anyone at ease. The Met has a few video segments and features in which Walter appears, but I think this one video, "Living with Vermeer," does a lot to help viewers understand not only the curator as a scholar but the curator as a man, mirroring the quotidian existence one finds in the Dutch and Flemish paintings he admired and taught so many people how to enjoy. I urge you to watch the short video by clicking here.

MWA XXV: Bernini's Teresa

It's been some time in my Monthly Work of Art posts since I wrote about sculpture, so I thought I would return to that medium by writing about one of my favorite works of Baroque sculpture, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, 1647-52, by GianLorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) [image: Web Gallery of Art]. The sculpture itself is located in the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, in Rome. I've been fortunate to visit this church twice in order to see this work, and I will return to see it again the next time I am there. The subject is taken from the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), who wrote about spiritual ecstasy in the form of an angel visiting her and piercing her heart with an arrow. Here is an excerpt from her text that describes the experience (which I sheepishly admit I've ripped from Wikipedia):

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.


Bernini's sculpture is breathtaking to behold, as Teresa lies half-asleep on a cloud as the grinning angel holds an arrow aloft like a spear about to stab her. We clearly have caught them in medias res because we can see from the way her face writhes and her mouth moans in ecstasy that the angel has already been piercing her. The scene is truly nothing less than a representation of a woman experiencing an orgasm. The talents of Bernini's studio workers and the master himself in the carving of these dynamic figures in marble is incredible. Their stone bodies undulate like waves of water, fooling the viewer into thinking this isn't stone at all. But Bernini's talents lie not only in his skills as a sculptor but also in his use of a theatrical tableau to frame his work (see the full installation of this work below). Above the figures are gilded wood rays that emanate the light coming from an unseen window, suggesting divine light from God, and on the left and right are balconies in which members of the Cornaro family--all male--gaze with varying degrees of emotion at the scene before them. Saint Teresa's ecstasy is a performance, arguably not unlike the performance art of Marina Abramovic and others in contemporary art today. The saint's spiritual contortion serves to entertain the Cornaro men, and all men who enter the church and stare along with them at the saint in ecstasy. This is artistic voyeurism at its finest, the spying on a female body in one of its most private moments.


In 2009, I included Bernini in my Top 10 Favorite Things About Rome series of posts. As I noted in that post then, you cannot avoid Bernini and his influence on Rome. He defined Baroque sculpture, and he made Rome the center of that artistic universe. The contortions and vibrancy of his sculpture and architecture is everywhere, whether it's the baldacchino and Cathedra Petri in St. Peter's, Vatican City, or Saint Teresa in Ecstasy at Santa Maria della Vittoria. Bernini is just one of the many reasons why it is worth visiting Rome.

UPDATE 9/24/14: My dear friend MT recently took a trip to Rome and, although she had been there before, it was the first time she saw Bernini's St. Teresa. She described to me in an email her experience in seeing it, and I've decided to record it here for posterity because I found her words and experience so moving. Seeing this work for the first time in-person is an incredible experience: "I had been in Rome in 1979 and 1989 but missed the St. Teresa both times because I was trying to cross reference my guide books with my art books and missed the crucial info of the location of the chapel in the church. But this time I was armed. Who says Google is a bad thing? And we went to the chapel almost directly from the airport. I was so struck by how small the saint is. I had expected her to be monumental in scale. But she looks so tiny and delicate, yet life-like. She brought tears to my eyes. I also wished that I had never seen photographs because I felt that I had to work hard to have a direct encounter with the sculpture. It is as if her fame had  changed her meaning for me."

MWA XVIII: Caravaggio's Medusa

If you weren't shocked by this Monthly Work of Art, then you're watching too many zombie movies. Our society today is overexposed to sensation. Every thrill has to be bettered by the next thrill. Special effects have to be even more realistic or over-the-top than what was seen before. And each time you're scared, you need to be scared even more by the next encounter. This all especially applies to the movies, our most popular of art forms, and you can probably blame Hitchcock and Psycho for starting that trend. But in the world of art (i.e. the "fine" arts), the ability to shock can still do that. We expect beauty, finesse, refinement, and serenity from paintings and sculptures of figurative subjects. Think Madonnas and Nativity scenes, Grand Manner portraits, and picturesque landscapes. So it startles us when we see something ugly or shocking or repulsive in a painting or sculpture. For some it is the sublime at work--beauty so terrifying it scares them. But for others it is simply the shock value of the grotesque.

Michelangelo Merisi, aka Caravaggio (ca.1571-1610), excelled in extreme forms of realism and in many ways ushered in the Baroque style, with dramatic lighting and unusual scenes, in Southern European painting. This work is no exception, and it is among Caravaggio's most disturbing. Painted in the late 1590s, this painting, oil on canvas laid on board, at the Uffizi in Florence (image: Web Gallery of Art), shows the decapitated head of Medusa. According to ancient the Roman poet Ovid, Medusa was a beautiful maiden who was raped by Poseidon, the sea god, in the temple of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war. Athena blamed Medusa for seducing Poseidon and defiling her temple, so she cursed her and transformed her into a hideous monster with snakes for hair. One look at Medusa and you turned to stone (literally, petrified). She was eventually killed and beheaded by Perseus, who used his shield as a mirror to help him cut off her head. Athena then used the head as the aegis on her shield, a symbol to inspire fear in others. Hence, Caravaggio's painting depicts, rather shockingly in its naturalism, Medusa's head on Athena's shield. The blood and guts of the severed head are frightening enough, but it is the pathos of the painting that chills us even more. We fear her gaze, but we realize she is as frightened of us as we are of her. And that frozen scream of pain echoing from her gaping mouth makes us aware that she too was once was just a poor girl who suffered great tragedies in life. Beautiful works of art can convey many things, from spirituality to morality, but sometimes with gruesome, visceral subjects, they generate catharsis, that jolt, that sensation, which makes a viewer stop and pause, and feel something about what s/he sees, perhaps for the first time.

And, oh, yes...Happy Halloween!

MWA XVI: Rubens's Wife

Following up on the last MWA in honor of Rembrandt, it seems only fitting to turn to his famous Baroque contemporary from Flanders, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). This large painting, Rubens, His Wife Helena Fourment (1614-1673), and Their Son Frans (1633-1678), is approximately 6 1/2 ft. x 5 ft., and was painted in oil on wood ca. 1635. It is one of the highly prized paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The curators note that it is a portrait of the artist with his second wife and their first-born son strolling in an allegorical Garden of Love: "The picture is not a family portrait but an homage to Helena as wife and mother, one of whose most important attributes was providing her husband with a son. The gestures and glances of both male figures and symbols of fecundity such as the fountain and caryatid pay tribute to Helena, who has the innocence and serenity of a female saint." The painting was a gift in 1981 from the well-known art collectors Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, in honor of the famous art historian John Pope-Hennessey, who at the time was (I believe) retiring from the Met as a curator. Although this is scandalous to say, I've never been a big fan of Rubens's rather mellifluous work, but this picture is without a doubt an exquisite painting in its handling, color, and composition.

The main reason why I've chosen this work as July's MWA, however, is because of the painting's provenance, or the history of its ownership. The Met has been among those museums who, in putting their collections online, have attempted to make more publicly available the provenance of many of the works in their collection. If you click on the title above, it will take you to the webpage for the painting, and if you scroll down to click on the tab for "Provenance," you will discover that among the illustrious past owners of this picture were the Dukes of Marlborough, and that it hung for a time in Blenheim Palace. From 1884 through 1975, the painting was in Paris at the Hôtel du Duc de Nemours, the home of the Barons de Rothschild. Indeed, if you take a look to the right, this is an image of the painting as it hung in the dining room of this Paris mansion, just before it was sold by the Rothschild estate. This image was a discovery I made when I was working with the William Keighley Collection at the Met Museum (he had been given permission to photograph the Rothschild's home). You may recall I blogged about this when the last phase of the digitization of the Keighley Collection had been released by ARTstor in December 2012. This was a multi-year project that I had overseen while working at the Met, including curating Keighley's original slides to be digitized. Much the same way I recently wrote about exhibition installation views, images such as this offer us a fascinating perspective in how paintings such as this one by Rubens--which we now only envision hanging on a wall in a museum--originally were meant to be seen, hanging among decorative arts and other works paintings and sculptures collected by wealthy owners in the past. Visual provenance helps restore the past incarnations of works of art, and thus are vitally important tools in the history of these art objects. It makes one realize that art objects are not static; rather, they have rich histories that tell a new story for each passing generation.

MWA XV: Rembrandt's Trip

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, one of the greatest art museums in the world, reopened its doors this year after a major building renovation. But for those who can't visit the museum, the organization has launched Rijksstudio, a website where you can download over 125,000 high-resolution images of works from the collection for personal or professional use. And it's all free. We're talking about masterpieces of Dutch art by Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh, Frans Hals, Jacob van Ruisdael, Johannes Vermeer, and so on. The New York Times lauded them for this feat, and certainly it is monumental, in particular because of the number of images that were launched upfront. Although they are the first major European museum to do this on a grand scale, others in the U.S. have done this, as I've reported on this blog about the National Gallery of Art and the Yale Center for British Art. Other museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, offer high-resolution JPGs for PowerPoint presentations for free and offer free publication of images for academic purposes through ARTstor's Images for Academic Publishing initiative. But the Rijksmuseum's release of high-detailed images reinforces the ever-rising interest on the part of museums to ensure that if you are going to use an image of an object from their collection, then you should use the highest-quality image available, as color-corrected and authorized by the museum itself.

In recognition of this accomplishment, our Monthly Work of Art for June (seen here) is Portrait of a Young Woman, probably Maria Trip by Rembrandt van Rijn. This oil on panel painting is signed by the artist and dated 1639. I know this is sacrilegious to admit, but I've never been a huge fan of Rembrandt's work. I know this is typically because his brushstroke in his paintings is usually looser, which is often what people most admire about his work. Certainly he is a master of dramatic chiaroscuro. But there are works by Rembrandt that I do admire, frequently his portraits, and this one is an excellent example. I'm amazed by his handling of details, such as the intricacy of the lace and pearls, and the fine strands of her hair that crown the charmingly beautiful face of this woman. She practically glows in a spotlight that highlights not only her beauty but also her socio-economic status. Here is what the Rijksmuseum's curators have to say about this picture: "Maria Trip, daughter of one of Amsterdam's wealthiest merchants, was twenty when Rembrandt painted her portrait. The artist placed Maria against a stone arch and devoted particular attention to the reflected light, the fashionable dress and jewellery. The costly garments are trimmed with strips of gold lace and Maria is wearing a profusion of pearls."

Christmas 2011

The tree you see here is from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. It is installed in the Medieval Hall during the holidays. The enormous tree and the nativity scene, with accompanying angels decorating the tree itself, were made in Naples in the 18th century. To all the bklynbiblio readers out there, here's wishing you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas!

Is It Baroque, and Do We Fix It?

A couple of days ago I had an email conversation with SFR, who lives in northern Florida. Her local museum is hosting a loan of 16th- and 17th-century Italian paintings from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milano (a lovely gem of a museum itself). This loan exhibition is being marketed as "Baroque" art, about which SFR wanted to know more. This is a good question, because when you think about it, what does Baroque actually mean? When I emailed her back, this was my quick, off-the-cuff response: "Baroque typically means it's more dramatic than Renaissance art, which is more balanced and harmonic. In Italy this was a period of intense religious fervor, so you get lots of contrasts of lighting and shadows for dramatic effect, sometimes some violent scenes. ... But then you also get these delightful still lifes ... which symbolize bounty and the wealth of the patrons." From the picture you see here of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Decapitating Holofernes (1612-21, Uffizi), you can get a sense of what I meant by the first part of my definition. This painting to me captures the spirit of the Italian Baroque because it is a Biblical (i.e. Apocryphal) subject presented in a way that’s highly melodramatic and incredibly violent, driving home the intensity of Judith’s determination to save the Jewish people from the Babylonian general. The fact that it was painted by a woman (a rare feat itself at this time) makes the picture even more fascinating because of our ongoing societal belief that women in general are less violent then men, driving home even more the determination of Judith and her maidservant in this picture. The painting also has a spotlight effect, making the figures stand out from the darkness around them. This results in thrusting the subject into the viewer’s plane more sharply, so that you cannot escape the work's visceral intent.

I could go on about this painting (which I love, in case it wasn't obvious), including talking about the influence of Caravaggio on Baroque art, but now take a look at the picture you see here, Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas, or The Family of Philip IV (1656-57, Prado), which also is Baroque (and another favorite of mine). What makes this picture Baroque? It’s certainly not violent. You could say it’s dramatic, but more like a theatrical tableau. The intricacies of what’s going on in this picture have been debated by numerous art and cultural historians, including Leo Steinberg and Michel Foucault. Although people differ on the specifics, everyone seems to agree that there’s a determined level of psychology and interpersonal communication taking place, with the artist looking out at the viewer, who stands in the place of the king and queen whose portrait he is painting. The king and queen in turn are reflected in the mirror in the background, while their children and servants are positioned staring back at them, i.e. you the viewer. Are we to understand then that Baroque art also implies psychology? Not necessarily, because one could argue that the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci also have a psychological subtext to them (Freud certainly believed so!). The intricacies of light and darkness are at work in Velázquez's painting, so perhaps that is why the picture is Baroque. Does this fit in then with pictures by other so-called Baroque artists from the North, like Rembrandt and Vermeer, both of whom painted in very different styles but were known for manipulating the power light for dramatic purposes? But if it's all about light, then how does this fit in with Nicolas Poussin's Et in Arcadia Ego (1637-39, Louvre), whose classical referencing clearly seems to call into question what French Baroque might mean.

My point is this: isn't it time we stopped using useless labels like Baroque? Or even the ever more popular Renaissance, for that matter? PR told me he’s teaching a course this fall on the Renaissance, and while I have no doubt Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael will appear in his course, will he go further back to include the "early" Renaissance art of Fra Angelico? And will he go forward to include the "late" manneristic Renaissance art of Parmagianino? Will he stay in Florence and Rome, or cover Venice too? And what about Netherlandish and German "Renaissance" art of the same period? In this context, I ask, what does "Renaissance" actually mean, and what does it tell you about the art itself? In truth, nothing.

I'm certainly not criticizing PR at all, just using his upcoming course as an example of the problematics of these stylistic terms. There was a point in art history when these labels made sense because in general people understood the unfolding of Western art in terms of historic appellations. You went from ancient to Greek & Roman classical, then Early Christian, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Romantic, Realist, etc., until you got to the modernist 'isms' from Impressionism to Cubism and so on. Most large museums still arrange their galleries in this fashion. What made these labels work was the assumption that students/viewers were all White and Judaeo-Christian. But as every professor can tell you today, it’s not like that anymore in our ever-expanding global communities. There are students who have no idea who that guy Jesus really was, heaven forbid be able to identify the gods Mars and Venus. Complicating this is that the idea of history unfolding on a timeline also has lost its meaning, so that the Apollo Belvedere and Michelangelo's David are seen as parallel creations by some students, without any sense as to which came first and how one may have inspired the other. And yet, for some reason, academic programs are still teaching classes using these terms. Columbia University’s Fall 2011 undergraduate program has a course on "Early Italian Renaissance Art," and Princeton is offering "Neoclassicism through Impressionism." In truth, the reason why these terms are still used is because they are easy catch-all phrases that help (supposedly) get across similar ideas and concepts about art produced by a European cultural group during a particular period in time. After all, the alternative of offering classes on "Italian Art, 1400-1490" and "French Art, 1750-1886" are actually less helpful in giving students or the general public any sense of what they are actually going to see and study. And switching to using the names of artists ("Fra Angelico to Botticelli" and "Jacques-Louis David to Camille Pissarro") may make matters even worse because that assumes the student/viewer already knows who these people are and can date/contextualize them.

My art history survey textbook Gardner’s Art Through the Ages (12th ed., 2005) more-or-less says the same thing I said to SFR about what Baroque actually means. The authors also mention that the word comes from the Portuguese barroco, meaning an irregularly shaped pearl, and that it contrasts "with the rational order of classicism" (689). More noteworthy is that they acknowledge "the problematic associations of the term and because no commonalities can be ascribed to all of the art and cultures of this period," they have restricted its use to very specific cultures as it seems most appropriate. But then as you go through the chapter, you see that they use the term in each section on Italy, Spain, Flanders, The Netherlands, etc., showing that even they fall into the trap. Clearly relying on art historical terms like Baroque are now "baroquen" and need to be fixed, but it seems the only way to do this is to ensure the terms are explained as having some, but not all, defining characteristics that are appropriate to a particular time period because of current social and political events in a particular geographical area. And even with all that, it's important to note that not every artist shared the same styles and thus there are exceptions to every rule. Admittedly, it may confuse some, but need in the past to pigeon-hole everything into single broad-sweeping categories just doesn't work anymore for contemporary audiences. The new world order of art history needs a more nuanced explanation. (Images: Web Gallery of Art)

Reattributing Velázquez

Every once and a while, great news comes from the museum world that works of art have been found, discovered, purchased, attributed, or even occasionally reattributed. Today was such a day. During a meeting at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas P. Campbell (Director), Keith Christiansen (newly appointed Chair of European Paintings), and Michael Gallagher (conservator in Paintings Conservation) gave a presentation announcing that the collection's Portrait of a Man, c.1630, formerly attributed to the 17th-century painter Diego Velázquez, then attributed to his workshop, has now been reattributed back to being by the Spanish master himself. All of this has come about after conservation work was done on the picture. The removal of a heavy varnish showed new details that revealed it to be undoubtedly by the artist himself. Further analysis is showing that the work could in fact be an early self-portrait. The picture you see here is a detail of the face from the newly cleaned painting. (This image comes from The Metropolitan Museum of Art and was published online in The New York Times.) The work itself is a tour de force. For instance, look closely at the finesse and detail in the brushstroke of the mustache. It's brilliant! For those who are uncertain why this is a big deal, reattributing works to the master and not just to a workshop elevates the work's importance in the art world. It establishes a benchmark and thus adds to the level of appreciation of the artist and his (or her) works in general. Of course, it would be foolish to deny the other obvious factor: it also means the museum has a piece now valued even greater in the art world and adds to the already enormous respect the museum has garnered for its collections. Now, admittedly, I have written on this blog a bit disparagingly about the hoopla over things like whether a particular painting was actually of Shakespeare or not, and one could argue that this situation is just like that. But I would disagree, because the Shakespeare portrait was not by a well-known artist and creates more of a debate over what the playwright actually looked like. In this case, Velázquez is an extremely well-known and important artist (e.g., you know his Las Meninas at the Prado, and he painted the portrait of Pope Innocent X about which I wrote following my trip to Rome). Furthermore, this reattribution can only assist in continuing dialogues about the artist's style, technique, themes, self-perception, and so on. All that said, I have to admit that probably I was most intrigued by the whole announcement because I was sitting in the audience when they made it. They showed the image you see here and before and after shots, as well as related works. The excitement in all of their voices quickly spread throughout the audience, and I couldn't help but be as excited about the whole thing. It was like discovering a hidden treasure. That, my friends, is just one of the many reasons why I love art history. For more information, click here for the museum's press release, or click here to read Carol Vogel's article about the painting appearing in Thursday's New York Times.

Rome 2009 - Part 3

The final countdown of my Top 10 Favorite Things about Rome 2009…

4. Andersen Museum. If you go just north-northwest of the Piazza del Popolo (that's the piazza in the picture above) and look for Via P.S. Mancini, you’ll find a lovely pink palazzo that houses the Hendrik Christian Andersen Museum. Affiliated with Italy’s National Gallery of Modern Art, this museum is one of the hidden gems of Rome, and it was the first time that even Luca had been there when we visited. Andersen (1872-1940) was born in Norway. He emigrated with his family to America, but eventually made his way to Rome to study sculpture and lived there the rest of his life. Andersen is little known today but for those who are fans of the novelist Henry James, who met Andersen in Rome in the late 1890s when James was in his 50s and Andersen in his 20s. The two became lovers of a sort, as evidenced by their exchange of letters. The museum was once Andersen’s studio and it now houses many of his full-size models and finished works. The work you see here, for instance, is a picture I took of his model for Evening, a sculptural group from around 1907 for the planned Fountain of Life that was never completed. These erotic figures are larger-than-life, and their idealized nudity reveals Andersen’s affinity for classicism, but on a superhuman level. This isn’t the delicate sensuality of Canova, but the sublime forms of Michelangelo. Yet, their delicately harmonic bodies show his knowledge of Carpeaux and Rodin, and thus betray his true interest: abstracting the motion of the body, like music being performed for you. The museum is filled with these enormous bodies, to the point that it almost overwhelms you. But a visit here is worth the extra few minutes of walking, if for no other reason than you’ll be the only one in the museum, and it’s in a beautiful upscale neighborhood without a tourist in sight.

3. Caravaggio. If GianLorenzo Bernini is one of the leading artists of Baroque Rome (see #8 on my list), the other is undoubtedly Caravaggio (ca. 1571-1610). This artist’s reputation precedes him. He was bisexual, an alcoholic, and a murderer, and yet Caravaggio also was one of the most prized artists of cardinals and churches, despite the frequent controversy of his subjects. Using stark realism and a heightened tenebrism (the effect of light and shadow), Caravaggio helped define artistic drama. His Bacchus at the Uffizi is one of my all-time favorite paintings, and previously I had seen works like David and Goliath at the Villa Borghese. On this trip, however, I finally had an opportunity to see other famous Caravaggio works. At the Palazzo Barberini, paintings like the psychological Narcissus are paired near the serene St. Francis in Meditation, one of the most simplistically spiritual paintings ever. I was unable to see his paintings in the churches near Piazza del Popolo, but the 3 paintings on the life of St. Matthew at San Luigi dei Francesi were worth fighting the crowds to see. Sant’Agostino, however, has another of my favorite Caravaggio paintings, the Madonna of Loreto (left, image courtesy of Web Gallery of Art). This painting was considered controversial in its day because the Madonna and Christ child are unidealized and pushed to the side, literally standing in a doorway with Mary struggling to hold the baby as most young mothers would. Instead of wealthy patrons, there are farmers who worship them (note their filthy feet), adding to the startling realism of the work. Rome is where Caravaggio lived for most of his career. If it wasn’t for him, the spirit of the Baroque never may have happened at all.

2. Local Guides. There’s nothing like having friends and colleagues in other cities. They make site-seeing a new experience. While in Rome on this trip, I met up with Christina, whom I had met at Yale back in April. We had drinks at a fantastic little wine bar not far from the Campo dei Fiori called Coco e Mimi (by the name alone, I’m convinced two drag queens own it). Luca, whom I met at another conference last year at Yale, took me all over Rome, from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church with paintings by Edward Burne-Jones to dinner at a fantastic ristorante called Tre Scalini run by friends of his. Luca’s friend Marcello met up with us one afternoon, and he was the one responsible for giving us the Jesuit tour, not to mention convincing us to visit churches like Sant’Agostino. The best part about having local guides is that you get to see and do things off the beaten path, but their companionship alone also made the week an even more enjoyable experience. Saluti e grazie a Christina, Luca, e Marcello!

1. Cremolato. Just about everyone has heard of gelato, the Italian version of ice cream. Luca took me to San Crispino for some delicious gelato, but then Christina told me I absolutely had to go to Giolitti and I have to admit theirs was better. On my last night, Luca took me outside the city center southeast of Santa Maria Maggiore, into Rome’s Chinatown, for one of the great gelato experiences at Palazzo di Freddo. It’s their equivalent of an ice cream parlor, but they’ve become quite famous and have a few branch gelati parlors around the world. But with all the gelato, Luca outdid himself by introducing me to cremolato. Like gelato, cremolato is cold and delicious, but it’s even more creamy and available in fruit flavors. It tastes like a combination of frozen yogurt and sorbet, but it’s even better than that. Top it with panna (whipped cream), and you’ll think you’re in dessert heaven. We had it at a road-side bar and coffee shop just near the Protestant Cemetery. I had fragoli (strawberry) topped with panna. I swear it was one of the best desserts ever, perfect for a hot afternoon. It was so good, in fact, that it is officially #1 on my list of great things to do in Rome! So next time you’re there, check it out. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

Rome 2009 - Part 2

Continuing the countdown of my Top 10 Favorite Things about Rome 2009...

7. Palazzi. Everywhere in Italy there are palaces–palazzi–in a classical, Renaissance-style design. You see small signs on one building after another, identifying it as the "Palazzo Ugolino" (or some other such name) with the centuries of its construction. Occasionally you get to see through the main doors of some of these places to discover their inner courtyards with ancient fountains, sculpture, and gardens. Many of these palazzi are now apartments. Others, however, are museums, and I enjoyed going into some of these on this trip. They make for some of the best things to do in Rome, because they are practically empty. Only true art lovers find these places. The picture you see above is one I took of the Palazzo Barberini, constructed by various architects over time from the 1600s. Inside, the historic collection of paintings owned by the Galleria Nazionale dell’Arte Antica includes important works by Raphael, Caravaggio, and others. My interest in this place was that in the 19th-century the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvalden lived and worked in the theater (later demolished in the 20th-century), and the American sculptor William Wetmore Story lived and worked here as well. I also visited the Palazzo Corsini, which houses another part of the collection of paintings owned by the Galleria Nazionale. The two most superb palazzi I visited on this trip were the Villa Farnesina and the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj. The former is not very large, so a visitor can see it in about 30 minutes. The most beautiful parts of this villa are the frescoes, all of which have been cleaned and conserved to reveal their original brilliance. Two rooms have frescoes by Raphael, including his famous water nymph Galatea. Upstairs the main bedroom has a series of frescoes from the life of Alexander the Great by the Sienese artist Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, better known as Sodoma, who proudly wore this sobriquet as an acknowledged homosexual. The one fresco of the Marriage of Alexander and Roxana is breathtaking with its bright colors and larger-than-life figures, in particular the ephebic, nearly-nude Hephaestion, Alexander’s lover, who reaches out as if to stop him from marrying Roxana (click here to see a picture). The Palazzo Doria Pamphilj is still owned by the same family after hundreds of years. They live in private quarters, but have available for tours many of the public and historic rooms, some dating back to the 1600s. I’m not a huge fan of audio tours, but the one for this palazzo narrated by the family is worth listening to, as they recount personal feelings on their home, art, and the historic events that have taken place in the palazzo. Their painting collection is enormous, although there aren’t too many major works. Most significant is Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650), seen here courtesy of the Web Gallery of Art. It is a portrait so stunning in its psychological naturalism that when the Pope saw it, he hated it because it was too realistic. It’s no wonder this picture has influenced artists over the century, including most notably Francis Bacon, about whom I’ve written before on this blog, and on whom there is currently a fantastic exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

6. The Jesuit Experience. It sounds like a ride at an amusement park or a diorama display at a Christian institution, but in fact I’m referring to the experience of the Church of Il Gesú (the Holy Name of Jesus). The Society of Jesus, or Jesuit Order, was founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556). He received his divine calling to teach and spread the word of God throughout the world. As a result, there are numerous Jesuit schools throughout the world (e.g. Georgetown University), many of which have a reputation for being among the most academically challenging institutions. From early on, the Jesuits also were the first missionaries who traveled to places as far-flung as China and the Americas, sending back to Europe some of the first detailed recordings of what these mysterious lands were like. This particular church, Il Gesú, was Ignatius’s church when he settled in Rome. Under his guidance, it was reconstructed, but not consecrated until 1584. It continued to be decorated in the ever-burgeoning Baroque fashion of the day, ultimately becoming not only the model for all Jesuit churches but also for many Counter-Reformation Catholic churches as well. When I was in Rome, I did not anticipate even going into this church. My friend Luca and I met up with his friend Marcello, and he brought us here. As it turns out, it was one of the best "churchy" afternoons of my trip. Marcello led us into the back rooms where we visited the austere chambers of St. Ignatius. It is the interior of the church, however, that is mind-boggling. The frescoed ceiling by Baciccia, painted 1672-85, incorporates incredible effects of perspective, displaying the apotheosis of the name of Jesus. (I had forgotten my camera that day, so the picture you see here of the ceiling and apse is by earthmagnified on Flickr.) Segments of the ceiling literally poke out as wooden panels, so that painted figures float, extending from the ceiling. Incorporated into this are sculptures of angels in the sinewy curvaceous forms that Bernini made famous. These angels become architectural components, reaching out and holding up what looks like segments of the ceiling, that is heaven itself. Even the architecture fools you with actual three-dimensional columns blend into painted columns and vice-versa. You cannot figure out where illusion begins or ends. And as if that weren’t enough, the entire church is gilded, dazzling you everywhere you walk. The best part, however, was that at 5:30pm on the day of our visit, we were able to watch the visual spectacle of the unveiling of the statue of St. Ignatius. This takes place in an elaborate side chapel where a panel painting about Ignatius and the Jesuits measuring at least 18 feet long is surrounded by sculpted angels, saints, and allegorical figures in marble, lapis lazuli, gold, and silver. A sculpted representation of the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is at the very top of the display. Recorded music and choral singing begin, suggesting an angelic chorus. Suddenly, a voice resounds and tells the story of St. Ignatius in florid Italian. As each segment of the story is told, spotlights flash on one part of the altar after another. The choir continues to sing between each segment. All of this builds up to the climax, the grand finale, when suddenly in a boisterous exclamation of singing voices, the panel painting rolls downward and shining out from behind is a larger-than-life statue made out of silver and gold of St. Ignatius floating toward heaven. It was nothing less than a total theatrical experience. Mind you, it’s also the gaudiest, most ostentatious form of religious entertainment I’ve ever seen in my life. But you cannot help but get caught up in its theatricality. The combination of music, singing, lights, the dazzling display of art and gilding, and the climactic reveal at the end...it is true Baroque theater at its very best. If you’re fortunate to partake in the Jesuit experience, don’t forget also to visit the even-larger Basilica of St. Ignatius nearby, decorated with Andrea Pozzo’s enormous frescoed ceiling.

5. Hot Italian Men. You knew this was coming! What can I say? Rome has lots of HIMs (Hot Italian Men). You just have to be there and look around. In fact, you’ll get whiplash. And they know you’re looking at them, and they look back at you, longer than Americans usually feel comfortable, to the point that you’re not sure if they’re cruising or testing you, knowing you’re admiring them with their cocky grins and tanned complexions, smelling of some fragrance we haven’t even marketed yet in the States. Their dark hair is perfectly coiffed, their seemingly form-fitted bodies are decked out in Armani jeans, black Dolce & Gabbana belts, and white linen shirts. They saunter down Via del Corso and Via Veneto just waiting to be looked at by silly Americans, who desperately wish they had the guts to dress so confidently. (Note however that this look only works in Italy; dressing like that in America, and you’re a guido named Tony or Frankie who’s trying way too hard.) I could go on talking about HIMs, but let’s face it, if you’ve been there, you know what I mean. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then go there. Now.

The countdown will continue...

Rome 2009 - Part 1

Ever since I returned from my trip, I've been thinking about what I should blog. After all, how does one describe Italia? Perhaps one just needs to experience it visually. (You can see my photos by clicking here.) But trying to write about Italy is always a challenge. In some ways, it's been done so many times by so many people, that it's almost impossible to say anything new. I read Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun (1860) while I was there, and although the story is tedious with an overwrought Romantic plot, Hawthorne's descriptions about Italian culture in the mid-19th century are engaging, and with a city as old as Rome it's not surprising to discover that some of the sites he describes, from the Piazza Spagna to Via del Corso, actually haven't changed that much. And ever since the wealthy began taking Grand Tours to Italy in the 1700s, and the middle classes embarked on their Baedeker trips--I'm now thinking of E.M. Forster's superb book A Room with a View (1908)--it seems difficult to try to describe the country, its people, its food, its art, and its culture, with a freshness and vivacity to enthrall others. In truth, you simply have to experience it first-hand. The fact that I've been to Italy a few times also seems to have stripped away my objectivity to some extent. But I don't want to convey that there's nothing new to say. On the contrary, rather than go through a day-by-day recounting of my trip, I thought it might be more fun to give you a descriptive list of things I encountered, noticed, and took part in on this trip, keeping in mind that I've done many of the main touristy things like the Colosseum in the past, so I'm not counting those things on this list. There is still so much to see and enjoy in Rome, and there were things that I never got around to doing this time. All that means, of course, that I cannot wait to go back! For now, though, I present to you Part 1 of my Top 10 Favorite Things about Rome 2009, counting down from number 10.

10. Pantheon Oculus. Buildings are always covered with scaffolding in Italy because restoration work is ongoing, so the last two times I was in Rome, it was difficult to fully appreciate the Pantheon because of said scaffolding. This time, however, I was able to see the entire interior of the Pantheon gleaning in all its marble brilliance. The Pantheon was reconstructed in the 2nd century by Emperor Hadrian as a temple to all the gods, and later became a church. It is an architectural marvel in many ways, but specifically because of the stone dome that crowns the building. Most impressive about it, however, is the oculus, or eye, that is open to the sky in the middle of the roof. (The image you see here is by IceNineJon on Flickr.) For nearly 2,000 years, this oculus has allowed the elements to enter the temple, and at times it was a practical way of capturing rainwater in a reservoir. But what impressed me most this time about the oculus was the way the sun poured through the oculus. It shines down with a golden-white glow that gleans off the marble floor and walls. In the days before electricity, this was the only source of lighting in the Pantheon (aside from oil lamps), and as the sun shifted in the sky over the course of the day and seasons, it would have helped light one altar after another. Today, it's fascinating to watch people huddle in the glow of the sunshine as the oculus forms a large space on the floor that could hold about 100 people. I returned two other times, just to see the sun in a different location in the space. But the best part isn't the oculus itself, or the sunshine on the floor. It's the incredible light itself that pours down through the space in a spectacle that illuminates the marble and glistens off of natural dust particles filtering through the air. It is nature penetrating the marble mass of human construction, superimposing its power, reminding us of its control over us and our space. It is brilliant, architecturally, spatially, and naturally speaking.

9. Religious Fervor. Okay, so no surprise, Vatican City and the Pope are nestled in the heart of the capital of Italy. Naturally, Catholicism is going to dictate much about the way Italians live and what they believe. There must be over 200 Catholic churches in the center of Rome itself, and there are always people in them. I actually visited on this trip at least 15 churches (I lost count), from the awesomeness of St. Peter's Basilica to the charming simplicity of the early Christian Basilica of Santa Sabina. In many of these churches, there are confessionals with priests hidden in their recesses and signs representing different languages spoken, giving people from around the world opportunities to confess their sins and receive absolution. (Does receiving penance in Rome has a greater significance than doing it in Secaucus, New Jersey, I wonder?) And then there are all the chapels, most set up during the Renaissance and Baroque periods by wealthy families who hired the greatest artists to decorate them. There are more named saints in Rome than I ever encountered in my entire Catholic upbringing in elementary school. And, lest we forget, there are relics--body parts and whole corpses--enshrined in gold chests and glass caskets, and for a mere Euro you can illuminate the electric lighting and say a prayer to the dead saint's body. There are icons as well, like the statue of St. Peter in the Vatican that people have kissed and rubbed for centuries to the point that his bronze foot has morphed into a fin-like appendage. Now, if I seem cynical with all this, I don't mean to be. I was actually fascinated watching all of this. It intrigues me that people are still spiritually enthralled by all of this. You would think the Western world stopped needing relics of saints as symbols of God's power ages ago. And confession? Really...what can the old Italian woman in the confessional really be confessing...that she cheated the fishmonger by stealing an extra octopus for her calamari? But I should point out that this isn't just about Italians. The Americans are perhaps even more zealous. There were numerous groups of Catholic tour buses, and the people who come into these churches collectively pray aloud. I heard prayers spoken aloud in American English by groups of people at least four times during the week. The religious fervor in Rome is amazing. Go into any church and watch the rituals, and mantras, in action. It's worth it.

8. GianLorenzo Bernini. If Florence is a city of the Renaissance, then Rome is a city of the Baroque, and the artist who made it so was GianLorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). Everywhere you look, you will find sculptural and architectural monuments designed by this genius. In true Baroque form, they undulate and sway, they are dramatic, they show action, they draw you into their world and make you feel like they are alive, a frightening concept since so much of his work is larger than life. In the past I had visited the Villa Borghese, where some of his exquisite works are on display. David flings a rock at Goliath, and Apollo chases Daphne as she turns into a tree. Outside St. Peter's, the all-embracing colonnades that surround the piazza are by Bernini. They draw you into the fold of the Church. Inside the Vatican, he also designed the bronze baldacchino over the altar and the Cathedra Petri as a sculptural stage for the throne of St. Peter. He even designed the Fountain of the Four Rivers at Piazza Navona. Even things Bernini did not design show his influence, like the Trevi Fountain. But on this trip I made a point of spending time looking at what is one of the best Bernini experiences: The Ecstasy of St. Teresa in the Cornaro Chapel at Santa Maria della Vittoria, a church which just happened to be around the corner from my apartment. The angel prepares to pierce St. Teresa, just as her autobiography described it, the burning sensation of the angel's arrows entering her with a spiritual ecstasy transcending human sensibility. She floats on a cloud and her face glows in orgiastic delight. (The image you see here is by Nick in exsilio on Flickr.) But to see the sculpture in true Baroque form, one has to understand that it is framed by its own stage, and you realize you are watching a theatrical performance. You are not alone either. On each side, Bernini also carved balconies, and in these balconies are the patrons who commissioned the chapel. They too watch the performance, and once again you are drawn into their world. You are part of the spiritual spectacle. You are made to ache along with St. Teresa. You are invited to participate in her ecstasy. That is Baroque art. That is Bernini. That is Rome.

To be continued...