A Day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: On Second Look: Browsing Renaissance and 19th Century Paintings and Scupu

Well, after some sketching of the Finelli and Buzio scultpures yesterday, I realized that I was just not getting into my art groove. The museum was crowded and that particular hallway was a point of departure for the guided museum tours. Within an hour or so, hundreds of tourists browsed Finelli's Cardinel stopping in front of it as I was drawing while they listened to the audio on the guided tour headphone. I was also over-tired from waking up at dawn unplanned. So I decided to walk around the surrounding rooms which feature medieval and nineteenth century painting.

Last month, we accomplished an in-depth eight hour browse through these rooms so I had seen many of the pieces and had taken lots of photographs of all of the ones that fascinated me. I took a second look at a few yesterday.

Continuing my Musings ...

Renaissance period:

Artist: Titian (died 1576)
Title: Portrait of A Man

Photo by Karmen Elsen (c)

Titian is an old favorite painter. Until recently, I had a very eclectic taste in what I liked in art but at least I could always say that there was a common denominator of realism with the exception of my love of El Greco. I did not know or like much after Velasquez but have learned so much since I was young. 

Titian's portraits were always my favorites and still are. He is known for other types of painting but I think he achieved the height of his brilliance in portraiture. The realistic skin tones are what draw my eye along with his draftsmanship in portraiture. With this painting, I see it as a transitional piece hearkening  back to its medieval predecessors but also forward looking in its strive for a more realistic portrayal of the human form by staying true to a more classical rendering. The painting is a masterful example of what could be achieved by direct observation, by careful study of nature and the live model.  Somehow, for me, the eyes remind me of those you find in medieval portraiture and very early renaissance portraiture where perspective is not always carried through in a three-quarter view on the subject's left side. Far be it from me to criticize at all since many an art student still make that mistake. However,my comment is not a criticism; it is an observation that Titian's portraiture emerged in a very fluctuating time where old forms were mutating and transforming into new forms; a time when the old and the new coexisted.

Artist: Giovanni Battista Moroni (died ca. 1578)
Title:: Bartolomeo Bonghi (died 1584), a noted legal scholar.

photo by Karmen Elsen (c)

This painting stands out from across the room. It has such presence. I believe the reason why it has such presence is that Moroni has mastered the realism of the clothed figure so well that the viewer thinks he could get up from his chair and step out from the painting at any moment. What a master of color and lighting!  The background landscape viewed from the window is equally realistic. Perhaps the WHY of why I like it is that it reminds me of a painter that I have loved since I was a pre-teen - Holbein, who captured all of those Tudors and their statesmen so well. Both Holbein's paintings and this Moroni painting have a strong light source so that there is a definite highlighting in key areas. One doesn't think of that kind of light effect in painting until the modern times when a spot light could be used. Or at least that is what the lighting reminds me of, a very modern lighting condition. I have to wonder how they set this up with the lighting sources that they had available in the sixteenth century.  Yet another little research project for me. (This art blog is certainly creating little side research topics for me!)

detail of painting. Photo by Karmen Elsen (c)

If you take a look at the details of the fabric and the fur, the lighting is superb showing the different textures of  satin and sable against the coarser worsted fabric of his coat. Look at the sheen on the reds!

Regarding the flesh tones and turning of the form, he captures the ruddy complexion of the sitter which has the subtle blues underneath.

As with my post on Finelli and Buzio sculptures, I am awestruck at the technical leaps these artists made in developing their representational style in such a sort time and it was due to DaVinci, Titian and later Caravaggio who stressed the importance of painting from life and observation of nature as it was rather than the mannered and idealistic paintings of prior centuries where the artist relied on stock imagery and on imagination as reference. 

I cannot help thinking that, if you did not know that this was painted in the sixteenth century, this painting could very well be painted today with a model dressed in costume. It has such a modern and contemporary feel to it.  These painters, I think, were centuries ahead of their time.

Artist: Federico Barocci (died 1612)

Title: Saint Francis

Photo by Karmen Elsen (c)

Somehow, I cannot escape my background in Medieval history and remember lectures from back in the day about Early Christian and Mediveal art and my twenty year later academic specialization religious thought and comparative religion. Barocci's painting depicts the Franciscan story of Saint Francis receiving the stigmata while meditating on the crucifixion in the cave of Mount Verna. Lest his audience not understand who his subject is and what the theme of the painting is, he leaves lots of clues, e.g., the stigmata on his hand identifies him as Saint Francis. The artist conjures up an image of Saint Francis that is in his head  and in a setting that he contrives to honor the subject. The theme is an old one by Barocci's time. Yet. his treatment of it places his painting firmly in the Renaissance/Baroque period. Religion-centered themes were de rigueur in the counter-reformation period. Uplifting religious themes were sanctioned while self-centered and mundane society portraiture was deemed lacking in piety and vain-glorious.  His lighting and the realism he achieves demonstrate his firm control of anatomy, perspective and current artistic sensibilities. There is such depth in the painting both in the shadows and in the aerial perspective in the distance. Somehow, this piece does remind me of more modern nineteenth and early twentieth century illustration in the way he handles the turning of the form and  in the clothing. His colors seem fresh and lack the muddiness that often stems from over mixing and reliance on earth pigments.

All of these things made me go back and look at this painting again and again. And then, in addition to these things that call me to this painting, it is also Saint Francis. I have liked some of the verse ascribed to Saint Francis since high school. So again I come back to my early days but with a fresh eye and appreciation.


Late Baroque and Early Neo-Classical Period:

Artist: Gaetano Gandolfi (died 1802
Title: Head of a Bishop

Every time I walk by this painting I stop. I write it down as a Tiepolo but it is not. I am surprised. it has such a mark of Tiepolo perhaps in the rendering of the features. The brushwork is also exceptional and departs from the more refined and smoothed textures one typically sees in the Tiepolos and the Gandolfis. I love the diagonal design of the composition and juxtaposition of the hard and soft edges as well as the way Gandolfi moves from warm tones to cool and back to warm color scheme all over the painting. Drama in the design. Drama in the lighting. Drama in the fixed heaven centered gaze. We want to know who he is and what is his call. Is he a martyr and a saint? What turmoil surrounds him and urges him to send a prayer heaven bound? I would love to master what he has mastered here.

Time for a break....