The Next Best Thing?: Digitizing the Museum Experience

One of the greatest art experiences of my life was going to Paris and roaming the Louvre. Making the pilgrimage to the Mona Lisa, checking out the Nike, walking around the Venus de Milo—we hit all the highlights that time allowed. And yet time always felt like it was running out. Nothing beats standing in front of a work of art and studying every nuance. But the problem of getting to stand in front of masterpieces is insurmountable in many cases. Reproductions in books have always been “the next best thing,” but a far second. Now, with improvements in digital reproduction, “the next best thing” comes pretty darn close. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "The Next Best Thing?"

[Many thanks to Adrienne B. for tipping me off to the Halta Definizione site.]

Sex and Drugs: Botticelli’s Dirty Little Secret

While researching the Botticelli’s Venus and Mars (shown) at the National Gallery, London, David Bellingham, a program director at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, made an interesting discovery. The fruit held by a satyr lurking in the bottom right corner of the painting bore a resemblance to the fruit of the plant known to scientists as Datura stramonium, and known to others as “the thorn apple,” “locoweed,” or “the Devil’s trumpet.” Those who have tasted of this forbidden fruit often hallucinate to the point of madness and stripping off of clothes. Botticelli gives us in Venus and Mars the fifteenth century version of sex and drugs. If only rock and roll had been invented back then… Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Sex and Drugs."

The Dark Ages

Any adult who has received a Catholic education and survived will have plenty of “interesting” stories to tell of the more mystical or, as we liked to call them, weird aspects of the faith, which were usually remnants of the theology born during the time not so affectionately known as the Dark Ages. (They prefer the Middle Ages now.) Domenico di Pace Beccafumi, better known simply as Il Beccafumi, died on May 18, 1551, as the Dark Ages were giving way to the enlightening humanism of the Renaissance. Born 1486, Beccafumi, whose name translates roughly as “catching smoke,” painted the dark, smoky Self-Portrait above around 1525, at the height of his career. Little did he suspect that he was one of the last of his kind, the last of Mannerist painters of the Sienese School of Il Sodoma and others. For modern art lovers, the Florentine School stretching from Giotto to Michelangelo and Botticelli overshadows the work of their Sienese cousins, but the art of the Sienese Mannerists, particularly that of Beccafumi offers us a glimpse of the medieval Catholic mind.

Perhaps the most repulsive of all the torture-centered saints is Saint Lucy (above), painted by Beccafumi in 1521. It was common to portray saints with some token of the method of their martyrdom. Even Michelangelo’s Last Judgment shows several saints in the circle around Christ brandishing the weapons of their own destruction. Because legends has it that Saint Lucy’s eyes were gouged out before her execution, she is often shown holding her eyes. Because she’s holding the eyes, or other times (as here) displaying them on a plate, while the eyes in her head are restored, I was confused as a child as to whose eyes she was actually serving up for our viewing, uh, pleasure. The gruesomeness of this imagery emphasized the physicality of the saint’s suffering to a mostly illiterate church-going population. In an age of plagues and all-around short life expectancy, suffering was the common coin of life, the language people understood easiest. Saint Lucy’s eyes to my modern eyes seemed grotesque, whereas the eyes of a sixteenth-century boy may have recognized them as par for the course.

It’s hard for us to step into the shoes of Beccafumi and think like him and the people he worked for because we live in a post-Renaissance, humanist world (or at least like to think we do). We just don’t see ourselves as fallen into sin as Beccafumi’s time did. Beccafumi’s Christ in Limbo (above, from 1530-1535) shows Christ’s Harrowing of Hell during the time between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Today, the idea of Christ’s Harrowing of Hell and his visiting of the good, but unbaptized souls relegated to Limbo seem politically incorrect in our polytheistic world. Beccafumi might have sensed the unfairness of this doctrine of the early church by sympathetically portraying the souls approaching Christ and asking for redemption. Beccafumi unbalances the composition by outweighing Christ on the left with the abundance of dead on the right. Christ’s expression mixes both compassion and almost surprise at how death had undone so many. Yet, in Beccafumi’s world, rules are rules. Christ’s crucifixion opened the gates of Heaven for the Old Testament saints awaiting that redemptive moment, but for the unbaptized remainder, nothing could save them from a life of aimless limbo. My bleeding liberal’s heart would have made me a bad Medieval man, but I really should judge Beccafumi’s theology since I don’t know how I would have acted in his time and place. Beccafumi’s art is truly a glimpse into another worldview at the near the very end of its reign.

Seasons Greetings

Norman Rockwell's 1926 Santa Searching the Globe

First in war. First in peace. And now first in the November Art Poll By Bob that asked, in honor of the United States Presidential Election, “Which of the following official Presidential portraits seems the most presidential to you?” Gilbert Stuart's George Washington (aka, the Lansdowne portrait, 1796) won with 11 votes, followed by John Singer Sargent's Theodore Roosevelt (1903) with 7 votes and Aaron Shikler's John F. Kennedy (1970) with 6. Rembrandt Peale's Thomas Jefferson (1800) garnered 5 votes, Simmie Knox's Bill Clinton (2000) claimed 4, and George P.A. Healy's Abraham Lincoln (1869) and Anders Zorn's Grover Cleveland (1899) tied at 3. Healy's John Quincy Adams (1858) went down to ignomius defeat with 0 votes. Thanks to everyone who participated and rocked the vote.

To get in the Christmas spirit, I’ve decided to ask for December’s Art Poll By Bob the following: “Which of the following Christmas stamps from around the world says ‘Christmas’ the most to you?” (Listed alphabetically by country.)

Australia: A beautifully modern, stylized triptych featuring a Madonna and Child flanked by a Wise Man on the left and an Angel on the right.


Canada: A Madonna and Child engraved from lime wood by Italian-Canadian sculptor Antonio Caruso.

England: The Madonna of Humility (1390-1400) by Lippo di Dalmasio.

Finland: The top two stamps feature familiar characters by Finnish children’s book illustrator Julia Vuori. The bottom stamp, titled Frosty Night is believed to be the world's first transparent stamp and was designed by Nina Rintala.

Gilbraltar: A set of five stamps celebrating Christmas carols, including “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Oh Christmas Tree,” “Away in a Manger,” and “Jingle Bells.”

Ireland: Three nativity scenes painted and designed by James Hanley. From left to right, Hanley depicts The Flight into Egypt, The Birth of Christ, and the Annunciation.

Spain: A modern interpretation of Madonna and Child titled Maternidad (Maternity) by J. Carrero.

United States: Virgin and Child with the Young John the Baptist (1490) by Sandro Botticelli.


Think of this as my way of sending a card to each of you out there without bankrupting myself on postage. Happy Christmas, Hannukhah, Eid, and Kwanza to everyone! Peace, joy, and beauty to all!

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

“Immature poets borrow,” T.S. Eliot once said. “Mature poets steal.” Domenico Zampieri or Domenichino wrestled with the giants of the Renaissance but ultimately gave up and embraced their influence. Born October 21, 1581, Domenichino must have looked up countless times at the Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, engraving the famous central scene of God breathing life into Adam. When Domenichino painted The Rebuke of Adam and Eve (above, from 1626), he inserted a clear copy of Michelangelo’s depiction of God trailing clouds of glory. It’s impossible to think that anyone would miss the reference, then or now. Domenichino clearly wants you to know that he loves the work of Michelangelo. Such “theft” isn’t really theft when it’s done in the open. In the Baroque period following the Renaissance, artists such as Domenichino had to choose sides—ignore the previous generation or continue its achievement in a new, fresh way. God clearly comes straight out of the Renaissance playbook, but the rebuke of the first man and woman clearly doesn’t. Michelangelo’s gentle depiction of their banishment from Eden gives way in Domenichino’s version to a more medieval, sinners in the hands of an angry God feel. Mixing the Medieval with the Renaissance, Domenichino brews up his own Baroque concoction.

Domenichino “stole” another figure from Michelangelo’s ceiling in his version of The Cumaean Sibyl (above, from 1610). Domenichino transforms Michelangelo’s brawny version into a more idealized type of beauty, but retains the exotic dress of the original, and maybe even exceeds it. Connecting Domenichino’s work to that of his predecessors brings out not only what he takes but also what he chooses not to take. In this case, you have a figure immortalized by Michelangelo, painted with the delicacy of Botticelli, but with the sensual coloring of a Raphael. Domenichino viewed the Renaissance world as a great buffet table from which he could choose freely and combine at will. Such practice was not only acceptable but encouraged. Students learned by copying from antique statuary during the neoclassicist craze of the Renaissance. Copying from those copyists seemed only natural.

Unfortunately for Domenichino, tastes and standards change. A clear homage one day becomes a pale imitation centuries later. John Ruskin raked Domenichino over the coals in his late nineteenth century writings elevating J.M.W. Turner to the heights based on his originality. Whereas critics once hailed works such as Domenichino’s Diana and her Nymphs (above, from 1616-1617) as beautiful examples of draftsmanship and fanciful painting of the human form, later critics saw only a mimicking of Leonardo da Vinci’s ideas on rendering atmospheric effects in landscapes. Only in the twentieth century did Domenichino regain a minor place in the pantheon of great Italian artists, yet still overshadowed by his Baroque contemporary, Caravaggio. Nicolas Poussin, who studied briefly with Domenichino, championed the master’s work verbally as well as visually—infusing many of his lessons on landscape into his own ethereal, natural worlds. Perhaps some day the pendulum will swing back and Domenichino’s works will no longer be seen as acts of thievery but as acts of devotion to his art.

Teacher’s Pet

It must be a complex set of feelings for any teacher to see his student surpass him or her—a mixture of pride and, hopefully less, envy. When Andrea del Verrocchio painted the Baptism of Christ (above, from 1474-1475) for the monastery of San Salvi in Florence, he delegated some of the “minor” elements to students in his workshop. Little did Verrocchio, who died October 7, 1488, know that those “minor” elements would soon overshadow the work of the supposed master. Born sometime around 1435, Verrocchio assigned the painting of the angel on the left holding Christ’s clothes to his star pupil, Leonardo da Vinci. (Legend has it that the angel on the right was assigned to another promising student, Sandro Botticelli.) Soon viewers found themselves captivated more by that angelic face and the landscape behind the angel (also by da Vinci) rather than the central scene of Jesus’ baptism. A star was “born” in this painting, and da Vinci soon found his way to the top of the Renaissance art world. Master painters usually delegated parts of commissions to their assistants, saving the choice parts for themselves. Usually, those supporting elements go unnoticed, and the names of those assistants are forgotten. In this one case, however, the name of the master Verrocchio has been largely forgotten and da Vinci remains the household name.

Verrocchio didn’t necessary upstage his painting master, Fra Filippo Lippi, but he did learn enough to break out on his own and start his own workshop. After training to be a goldsmith as a young man, Verrocchio learned the fundamentals of painting from Lippi and the art of sculpture from Donatello. Although Verrocchio split time between painting and sculpture evenly up until the mid 1470s, he still managed to paint in a sculptor-like style. Verrocchio’s Madonna and Child (above, 1470) shows a great grasp of the depth and weight of the figures, as if they were statues. However, they are statuesque without being stiff, imbued with the humanizing psychological depth that characterized the entire Renaissance. Verrocchio clearly enjoys painting the drapery and veils of the Virgin Mary and the Christ child, showing off his ability to render fabrics convincingly. The landscape behind them, perhaps done by Verrocchio or assigned to an assistant, followed the conventions of the time but also impressed in the young da Vinci’s mind the value of such little details, which he placed not only in his religious subjects but even in secular portraits such as the Mona Lisa.

When Verrocchio tackled the story of David and Goliath in his sculpture The Young David (above, from 1473-1475), he clearly acknowledged his debt to and announced his distance from Donatello, whose own David set the current standard for that Biblical hero. Donatello’s David stands over the severed giant’s head nude, his helmet worn at a jaunty angle, one hand cockily on his hip, and a foot placed triumphantly on Goliath’s head. Verrocchio’s David plays it cooler, his head uncovered, his body covered by a simple yet elegant toga, a hand placed on his hip in a relaxed but not cocky way, and a foot placed respectfully beside his vanquished foe’s head and not on it. Donatello’s David seems ready to talk trash while Verrocchio’s version exudes quiet confidence. When Michelangelo sculpted his definitive David, he fused elements of these two predecessors together. Depicting David before the battle, Michelangelo sculpted him in the nude like Donatello and with a clear sexual energy like Donatello, but the overall mood is more like Verrocchio—calm, quiet confidence in who he is and what he can do. Perhaps Verrocchio the teacher shared that same steady confidence in his abilities even as he watched a new generation of genius grow under his watch and leave him behind.