Making a Masterpiece

Today I took a break from writing a chapter about Raphael’s masterpiece Madonna del Cardellino (Madonna of the Goldfinch) and spent a day in London.

 

There I visited the Royal Academy which is proud to own the only Michelangelo sculpture in the UK.  Called the Taddei Tondo it is an image of Mary, Jesus, John the Baptist and … yes a goldfinch!

You might not notice the goldfinch at first because Michelangelo never actually finished the work and it’s a bit vague:

The remarkable thing about the image is that it’s the only known image of John, Jesus and the goldfinch where John seems to be scaring Jesus with it:

Mary doesn’t look too impressed:

And while it’s hard to pick out in the unfinished carving, she actually seems to be pushing John away with her hand

While Jesus (far more finished) retreats into his mother’s lap:

The sculpture itself is fascinating – but what really interests me is its role in the composition of Raphael’s Madonna of the Goldfinch.  The work I’ve been doing on that has included Raphael’s process of composition.  Here in Oxford the Ashmolian Museum owns a preparatory sketch he made for the painting (I hope to see it on Monday – this is from the internet):

At this stage Raphael was working on a triangular composition (following the example of Leonardo do Vinci) with Mary sharing a book with Jesus while John, standing very statically, looks on.  But part of Raphael’s genius was the way all the figures in his paintings interact with one another.  Clearly he was dissatisfied with the composition.  His eventual solution was the inclusion of the goldfinch.

He had used the device once before in the Solly Madonna of 1502:  

This painting was effectively a combination of his tutor Perugino’s own painting of the scene:

And da Vinci’s one and only goldfinch painting, the Madonna Litta (in the Hermitage):

 

The idea of using the goldfinch to resolve his compositional issues in 1505, I believe, probably came to him when he saw Michelangelo’s Taddei Tondo.  In 1505 Michelangelo left Florence for Rome and he left the unfinished tondo behind him.  While they were rivals with little love between them, Raphael is known to have studied Michelangelo’s work and learnt from it.  Later in Rome the Pope would secretly let Raphael in to the Sistine Chapel to see the ceiling in progress – something Michelangelo had insisted no-one should do.  After his death Michelangelo wrote of Raphael  "everything he knew about art he got from me”. 

When Raphael saw the marble he probably recognised the possibility for his own painting.  The idea of John teasing Jesus with the goldfinch, and Jesus recoiling, was not Raphael’s style.  The painting was after all a wedding present for a close friend – intended to be an image of love and harmony.

But the use of the goldfinch as a focal point, engaging all three figures, hinting at their shared premonition of things to come made for a perfect picture.  A masterpiece was born:

Footnote: This blog is a short summary of part of a much longer piece I am writing on Raphael’s Madonna of the Goldfinch.

 

The Forgotten Man

Last year one of my Lent talks was on paintings of "Jesus and the woman caught in adultery".  Mainly using images from the Hermitage (they have 11 paintings of this subject - all on the web though not all on display) I showed how some concentrate on the contrast between the participants, often using the compositional technique of half figures to draw us close - like this version in the Hermitage by the early C16th Italian artist Negretti:

Other artists emphasise the confrontation between the authority of the 'old law' and the authority of Jesus by concentrating on the monumental setting of the Temple.  Rembrandt's version in the National Gallery (London) is a good example of this:

Burt in the Russian Museum in St Petersburg I came across a very different composition by the Russian artist Vasily Polenov:

Just like Ivanov's "Appearance of Christ before the People" of 1889 (featured in my last blog) this painting was Polenov's 'masterpiece completed in 1888 after many studies and preparatory versions. 

The painting includes the contrast between the calm figure of Jesus;

 the accusing challenge of the 'elders';

the excited anger of the crowd and the fear of the woman;

It also contrasts the figure of Jesus writing in the sand with the laws of the Temple carved in stone;

 and hints at the 'blindness' of the teachers of the law (a recurring theme in John's Gospel, particularly in Ch 9 soon after the story of the woman caught in adultery in Ch 8 - we see on the steps the blind man waiting to be healed in the next chapter and a well dressed figure being led out of the Temple at the top of the steps);

But the really interesting feature of Polenov's painting is the other figure in the foreground, riding a donkey out of the picture and towards us the viewer:

Could this be the man with whom the woman was caught committing adultery?  Is he making a quick getaway (C1st style on a donkey!) while all the attention is on the woman?  Polenov has certainly composed it so the donkey is heading straight towards us.  We are supposed to notice him and reflect on the meaning of this figure in the shadows.

Deuteronomy is clear that both the man and the woman should be punished.  It is not clear in the Gospel story why only the woman is brought before Jesus (though we can speculate that in a heavily patriarchal society the blame is laid primarily upon the woman).  It may be that 'justice' would turn on the man later, but he is not waiting around to see.

Intriguingly the plaque on the page is this:

In English the title is "Christ and the Adulteress" but in Russian it says "Christ and the Sinner" (I know you are all impressed by my Russian!).  The story is of course about the sinfulness of us all and the mercy of Christ, who dismisses the woman with the words "Go and sin no more".  The man, having sneaked away earlier misses this life-changing encounter and, not being penitent, is perhaps 'the sinner' left-over at the conclusion of the story.

From solitude to destiny

Today I visited the State Tretyakov Gallery of Russian Art in Moscow.  It contains three Christian paintings of international significance (or a few more if you include other icons).  I'll begin with Rublev's Trinity, the most famous icon of all time.  I don't intend to say anything about it (at least yet), just leave it here for you to admire:

The second is Ivan Kramskoy's Christ in the Desert (1872).  This is a painting possibly better known outside Russia than in it -having been used in a number of meditative collections in Western Christian circles over the last 20years.  Unlike most paintings of the temptation in the wilderness, which usually include the devil showing Jesus the temptations, or angels ministering to him afterwards, Kramskoy stresses Christ being alone:

 

The Tretyakov seems to have an ambivalent attitude to its religious art.  It appears that the Soviet years have left their legacy, clearly displayed in the gift shop which largely ignores these works.  One of the official guides showing some Americans round, passed quickly over Christ in the Dessert, turning instead to the next Kramskoy saying "Here we have his real masterpiece:"

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I despair!  They don't even know who this girl is.  Its 'A Portrait of an Unknown Girl'!
Returning to Christ, a far deeper psychological painting, we are drawn into his reflective posture and quiet stillness:

 

Before him one or two stones stand out.  Would it hurt to turn just one onto a small bread roll?  You can almost hear his thoughts:

In the distance the sun rises and sets for forty days, but Jesus has no time for the beauty of creation - he faces challenges of his own.

 

 

The third painting is 'The Appearance of Christ Before the People'  by Alexander Ivanov.  This was quite literally his life's work -taking over 20 years to paint.

 

John the Baptist points his followers towards 'the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World'

To John's left are disciples who left John to follow Jesus, including a red haired young John who is keen to go and Nathaniel (in turquoise) who is wondering "can anything good come out of Nazareth".  But Jesus does not head towards these disciples-to-be but rather towards the crowd including soldiers, Pharisees and the as yet unbaptised.  He has come not to see the faithful but to seek the lost.

But the thing I love about it is the contrast with Christ in the Desert.  Christ is recognisably the same - Kramskoy was painting 17 years after Ivanov and will have consciously and deliberately modelled his Christ on the earlier work.  The Appearance comes chronologically immediately after the temptation in the wilderness. So the contrast is there between Christ praying alone and Christ being surrounded by people -with a wide variety of responses to him.  There is a sense of trepidation as he approaches his public ministry that is carried over from the trepidation he felt on the desert.

Perhaps these are images I will return to when my sabbatical ends and I return to my work among parishioners!

How to make a sparrow

Yesterday I saw Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna Litta along with five other paintings of the baby Jesus with a goldfinch or similar bird:

 

 My research into this much neglected Christian symbol has included learning how a legend from Pseudo-Matthew (an Apocryphal book telling stories of Mary & Jesus’ early lives) may be one source of inspiration for the artists using these birds.

The story tells how as a four year old boy, Jesus one day started making model sparrows out of clay.  Unfortunately it was the Sabbath and some of his playmates (who would presumably would grow up to be Pharisees) told their parents about this ‘work’ Jesus had been doing.  In response Jesus breathed on the twelve model sparrows and they came to life – so the evidence of his Sabbath breaking flew away!  Renaissance artists were certainly familiar with this story and may have used it as a resurrection symbol.  If that all sounds a bit far-fetched then consider that the same Pseudo-Matthew is the source of the ox & ass being present at the nativity (you won’t find them in the Bible).  So all those people campaigning to ‘keep the school nativity play’ are presumably fans of Pseudo-Matthew.

(Ghirlandaio's Nativity in Santa Trinita, Florence)

Anyway, today I visited the Russian Museum and came across this delightful piece by a C19th Russian sculptor Fiodor Kamensky: 

 

 

The young boy is making birds out of a clay brick:

 

I especially like the discarded head that looks like a cross between Morph & Angry Birds!

 

The boy wears an Orthodox cross round his neck and nothing explicitly makes a link with the Jesus story.  But then a little internet digging reveals that Kamensky was abroad when he made this sculpture – in Florence of all places.  Perhaps he too heard the stories surrounding the paintings produced in that city half a century earlier?

 

 

A Second Chance

While in Leeds a couple of weeks ago a colleague came up to me and said “I’m so jealous – I hear you are going to the Hermitage and will get to see Rembrandt’s ‘Prodigal Son’”.  To be honest I’m not a great fan of Rembrandt.  His ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’ in the National Gallery is about as good as it gets for me (or was that one of his pupils?).  I suspect many Christians’ love of Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son is actually love of Henry Nouwen’s book meditating on it (which is his masterpiece).

Still, the art historian Kenneth Clark described it as "a picture which those who have seen the original in Leningrad may be forgiven for claiming as the greatest picture ever painted".  So being in Leningrad (or St Petersburg) it only seemed right to pay it a visit.

My first impression was that it is impressive.  The canvas towers over the viewer with its larger than life portraits.  While I am still not won over as a Rembrandt fan, I was surprised how meditative the painting is.  Prayer comes easily and I sat next to it while tourists came and went – guides sharing their knowledge or ignorance in a variety of languages.  I opened Morning Prayer on my phone and prayed for family, friends and all sorts of situations that came to mind.

Regarding the painting itself I have two observations.  Firstly many people (including Nouwen) make much of the fact that one of the father’s hands is bigger than the other.  This represents the masculine and feminine sides of God they say – I suspect Rembrandt just couldn’t paint very well (Hockney has similar problems with feet – which is why they tend to be hidden from view).

Secondly I am left wondering who is the elder brother?  Most people assume that it is the man on the right.  But he doesn’t look very upset to me.  And if you read Luke 15 the brother doesn’t appear back from working in the field until after the prodigal is changed and the party has started.  The bloke in the red coat looks as old as the father and doesn’t look like he’s been in the fields.

But if the elder son is the man in shadow, in the middle and towards the top then the painting starts to make more sense.  He is still ‘in the dark’  He is standing in the doorway, undecided whether to come in (the door arch is very dark but clearly an entrance). 

Two compositional issues make my case.  Firstly the man in red on the left is in exactly the same position as a chief steward in a painting of the same subject by the Spanish artist Murillo (in that painting he is holding out the new robes requested by the father – in Rembrandt’s he is wearing them – perhaps alluding to the Prodigal’s thought that his father’s servants are better off than he is?). 

 

But the second point is more satisfying to me.  On a conventional reading of the painting Rembrandt’s composition (usually very good) is rubbish.  All the action is squeezed in on the left.  The ‘son in the shadows’ however is in a perfect compositional position.  So the son who believes that he deserves to be the centre of attention is where he belongs – in the middle.  Yet the ‘action’ has moved off to the left where the father reaches out to the lost.  The older son, on this reading, looks straight out at the viewer as if to ask “what’s going on here?”  Which is of course the question of the painting.  So perhaps Rembrandt knew what he was doing?  And perhaps it’s much better than I first thought.

Living, Loving, Learning

Last week I was in Liverpool for the first Leeds Diocesan Conference.  Being 'on Sabbatical' I had mixed feeling about going, but managed a compromise by which I visited a Liverpool Art Gallery each day (Walker Gallery on Tuesday, Tate North on Wednesday & Lady Lever Gallery on Thursday).  I'm not a fan of the new Diocese.  On the web-site Bishop Nick claims ""Our vision is to equip confident clergy to enable confident Christians to live and tell the good news of Jesus Christ in West Yorkshire and the Dales."  As far as I can tell he said it and while many of us consider this a ridiculous and counter-productive claim, no-one has publicly challenged it so there it sits, our 'Diocesan Vision Statement'.  Arriving in Liverpool on Tuesday I found myself relating to a Simone Martini painting in the Walker Gallery  - "Jesus in a Teenage Strop": 

The label actually records its title as "Christ Discovered in the Temple" but looking carefully at Jesus, as Joseph returns him to his mother, any parent can recognise the emotion the artist has in mind:

Anyway, two days later, at the final Eucharist, Bishop Nick announces that he has seen the light (well actually a secular marketing company had pointed out how ridiculous the Vision Statement was - the Holy Spirit working through C21st channels).  So now we have a new Diocesan Mission Statement (or was it a 'tag-line'? the jargon defeats me).  "Living, Loving, Learning".  I could hardly believe it.  A statement I could sign up to.  A Christian message that can inspire rather than criticize.  Perhaps the Diocese will be alright after all.

It brought to mind an image I had seen recently of Mary teaching the Christ-child to read.  The idea of the 'Word'  being taught to read words by his human mother had intrigued me.  The love conveyed in this exchange between parent and child was touching.  Perhaps such a painting could be a visual metaphor for the new Diocesan Vision?

Going back to the Walker on the way home I was disappointed to discover the image I vaguely remembered was actually a sculpture (by an unknown artist of Northern Italy) rather than a painting, and as a result perhaps failed to convey something of the emotional bond between Mary and Jesus: 

An internet search revealed a somewhat warmer painting of the same subject by Pinturicchio:

In the background to the left you can see the Holy Family as refugees fleeing for their lives to Egypt so it is even more an illustration of Living, Loving & Learning.

Another version of the same subject, this time by Carlo Maratti, is in the Hermitage something to look forward to next week?

Before and after Raphael

We’ve been visiting Cheryl’s parents for a couple of days so last Friday I took the opportunity to explore Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.  The first lesson was not to ignore provincial galleries.  Here we find works by Bellini, Martini, Murillo, Botticelli, Rubens, Pissarro and others.  Not as many as Paris, London or Milan, but quality paintings nonetheless.

But the gallery is famous for its collection of Pre-Raphaelites.  The work of those pretentious young Victorians who believed art had ‘gone wrong’ after Raphael & the Renaissance and so looked to produce paintings inspired by earlier works and ideas.

A key work of the movement is William Holman Hunt’s ‘Finding the Saviour in the Temple’, part of Birmingham’s collection.

Begun on his first visit to the Holy Land, the subject is deliberately less common, a sort of Protestant variation on the Annunciation or Madonna & Child.   Holman Hunt paints Mary and Jesus as very human figures (rather than the idealised forms of Italian art).

 

The ‘teachers of the law’ are a study in various responses to Jesus’ teaching (from the blinds Pharisee clinging on to the scroll of the ‘old’ law to the fat self-satisfied character at the other end of the row. 

 

The child on the left kisses the Torah scroll in a ritualistic gesture contrasting to the child Jesus’ new teaching.

 

Outside a blinds beggar awaits the healing of an adilt Jesus (he will receive sight while the Pharisee remains blinds) and the old temple is still being completed as a keystone is lifted into place (on cross-shaped scaffolding) while “the stone the builders rejected” is hugged by his mother.

 

On the wall behind Jesus is a quote from Malachi, "The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple"

Next to this the Holy Spirit hovers (more of a pigeon than a dove):

While outside a flock of pigeons fly in to join him, looking like a formation of spitfires from a Battle of Britain film (perhaps they remember the less happy end for two pigeons last time Jesus' parents brought him to the Temple:

Speaking of which, a couple in the background bring their child with the 'proper' offering of a lamb (rather than the 'poor person's offering of two pigeons Luke tells us Jesus' parents brought).
So a lamb is offered under the old covenant even as the 'lamb of God' himself appears in the temple.

Even the picture frame contrasts Moses serpent representing the Old Covenant with the cross representing the New:

In all the picture is alive with symbolism which is both the glory and the shortcoming of so many Pre-Raphaelite paintings.  'Glory' because it provides a rich tapestry of design and glorious detail but 'shortcoming' in that the 'photo-realism' is so overwhelming the paintings tend to look unrealistic.

In the very act of trying to faithfully reproduce every detail, the Pre-Raphaelites failed to recognise that this is neither how the human eye sees the world, nor the role of artists who usually seek to draw out significant parts of a painting by contrasting sharp detail with paler or impressionistic backgrounds. 

Their revival of Christian subject matter makes them interesting but their attempt to 'restart' the history of art from early Renaissance roots ultimately fails.