Art History book of the week

Renaissance Siena: Art for a City by Luke Syson, Alessandro Angelini, Philippa Jackson and Fabrizio Nevola, Yale University Press

I have not read the book, but it's definitely on my wish list for the New Year. Here is a summary from Amazon UK:"Sienese art was very deliberately shaped and sustained by the patronage of powerful and wealthy families, such as the Petrucci, Piccolomini and the Spannochi, to provide an artistic language for an ambitious city. These commissions drew on Siena's famed decorative traditions and introduced the influences of foreign artists, such as Signorelli, Pintoricchio and Raphael. Rarely enslaved to the emerging naturalistic convention, a direct line can be traced from Sienese artists such as Vecchietta and Francesco di Giorgio to Matteo di Giovanni, Neroccio de' Landi, Pietro Orioli and Beccafumi. These artists combined exquisite colour, decoration, sinuous line and delicate beauty, with ambitious compositions and figure style. This beautiful catalogue reveals Sienese painting, drawing and sculpture as one of the most distinctive, elegant and moving schools of Italian art, created during a period of fascinating power shifts within the city itself".

Artwork of the day

Mary Cassatt, Woman in Black at the Opera, 1879, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In the 19^th century Parisian bourgeois society the public sphere was a forbidden area for a honourable woman on her own but as in all rules there was an exception. There was one public space that was actually available to both men and women: the opera. This painting by Mary Cassatt has been –for obvious reasons- central when discussing feminism and 19^th century French art. When compared with paintings from male artists, striking differences can be noted.  For example in Renoir’s famous La Loge some the female protagonist seems to invite with the position of her body, the clothes she is wearing and the abstract look the gaze of the viewer while at the same time she avoids direct eye contact with him/ her.

Auguste Renoir, La Loge, 1874, oil on canvas, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London

On the contrary, in Cassatt’s Woman in Black at the Opera, the woman is actually involved in looking turning her head away from the viewer. This is not only an apparent defiance of traditional roles from a female artist, but a defiance by at the same time a critical departure from the part of the Cassatt from the traditional representations expected from her as a woman, but as an artist as well. She enters the world of artistic creativity and defies the traditional role of art object assigned to her. A sign of Cassatt's realisation and deep understanding of these social conventions might be the man in the background who has turned his head away from the spectacle and concentrates on the protagonist of the painting, although she seems to have not noticed him.

Artwork of the day

Nike of Samothrace, c 180 BC. Marble, Musée du Louvre, Paris

 

Nike of Samothrace is without a doubt one of the most recognizable works of antiquity. It comes from the Hellenistic period and displays all the characteristics of the style. Monumental, theatrical, the statue seems to escape all boundaries, gives the spectator a sense of constant movement which is further enhanced by the different treatment of the stone in the various parts of the statue. It has multiple viewpoints, all of equal importance and invites the spectator to investigate all of them.

Nike, who is represented standing on the front part of a ship was a dedication –most probably by the inhabitants of Rhodes after a naval victory- to the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace (a Greek island in the Aegean).

Art History book of the week

The Art of Ancient Egypt by Gay Robins, Harvard University Press 

An excellent introduction to the basics of ancient Egyptian art covering the whole period of Egyptian history and discussing the issues of canon, function and most importantly what art meant for the ancient Egyptians. It is a magical trip to an art thousands of years old from a civilisation that has acquired the status of legend in the modern world. And at the same time, it is a successful attempt to place these works of art in the social, religious, cosmological and political context of the people that created them. 

Picture from www.amazon.co.uk

Artwork of the day

The daughters of Edward Darley Boit, John Singer Sargent, 1882, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Art, Boston

A painting I personally adore for the simplicity of its arrangement, the tenderness of its theme and the ability of the artist to show the viewers bits of character traits of the girls he represented. 

Sargent was a celebrated portraitist of the 19th century and his ability to portray both the outer and inner world of his sitters is compared only to the skill of Diego Velasquez. Indeed this painting has often been compared to Velasquez's famous painting Las Meninas. 

The 4 girls are presented posing in the interior of their house, a space they are obviously familiar with. But at the same time they show familiarity with the artist himself to the point that the painting looks like a snap shot. What is interesting is that the two eldest girls, in their early teens at the time, are almost hidden in the background. One avoids all eye contact and we can hardy see part of her face. On the contrary the youngest girls seem more eager to engage with the viewer / visitor, probably a sign of their childhood innocence. 

Natasha Wallace discusses the future of the 4 girls, explaining that the two eldest have suffered from emotional and mental problems for all their adult lives (http://jssgallery.org/paintings/Daughters_of_Edward_Darley_Boit.htm).
I have not been able yet to find more evidence about this, however if it is correct, then Sargent was not only able to show characterics of their age, but also to capture their distinct personalities.

Artwork of the day

The Starry Night, Van Gogh, 1889, oil on canvas, Museum of Modern Art, New York

A way to express himself, his feelings and emotions. This is how Vincent Van Gogh saw painting. Knowing his turbulent and often tragic life and death we can easily understand why he believed so. 

Created just one year before his death, The Starry Night is one of the artist's most famous works. The painting has been linked to one of the letters Van Gogh sent to his brother Theo:

"This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big." 

It is believed that this sentence inspired The Starry Night, which in the mind of the artist was also connected with death:

"Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star."

At the same time, the painting displays Van Gogh's characteristic technique: thick, evident brush strokes, dominant colours.

The quotations and picture are taken from the website of the Museum of Modern Art,

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79802

Artwork of the day

Venus of Willendorf, c 28.000-23.000 BC, Natural History Museum, Vienna

This figure of a voluptuous female might seem uninteresting or even ugly to the modern viewer. However, this limestone statuette, known today as Venus of Willendorf is one of the most important artefacts that survived from the prehistory of human kind as it was created sometime between 28.000 to 23.000 BC. 

The emphasis on the belly, the breasts and the hip is evident in a series of mid-upper Palaeolithic figurines representing females and it is believed that they were linked to fertility and pregnancy. Recent theories give them other meanings and it is possible that they served a variety of purposes and functions. 

This ball shaped, faceless and small (it's just 4 inches/ 10 cm tall) statuette is one of the few remains from the beginnings of the human past and its inevitable mystery is both a challenge for the contemporary researcher and a true magic for the modern viewer.