RETURN OF THE READING LIST AND MORE MASTERPIECES

 Hallelujah!

The Reading List on the Red Cardinal dashboard has returned!!

Did Blogger hear our cries for help?

I do hope all the other Bloggers experiencing this problem have also found their list restored.

Thank you to all those who left comments on my previous post, it was such a relief to know the blog system was still working, and to receive your handy hints on maintenance of a system to ensure access to other blogs.

I have been making new lists, and generally tidying up my system.

Meanwhile, the Garden of Neglect threw up a single daffodil to herald the arrival of August.  Spring is in the air, and hopefully, a few more daffodils.

Alas, Brisbane is still in strict lockdown, and I have not been able to go to the Art Gallery for many weeks.  Guided tours are indefinitely cancelled.

However, the Exhibition of Masterpieces from the Met in New York is still there, waiting for better times and the lifting of restrictions.

Here are a few more of these wonderful paintings - Enjoy...

Fra Angelico(Guido di Pietro), Italian, 'The Crucifixion' 1420-23.

Tempera on wood, with gold ground.

The oldest painting in the Exhibition, by Dominican monk Fra Angelico, a trained illuminator working in Florence.  The figure of Christ is surrounded by six small angels, two of them holding cups which reach for the blood which drops from Christ's wounds.  The circle of soldiers gives depth, and echoes the gold arch above.  The receding line of horses is beautifully rendered.  There is drama in the foreground where the Virgin Mary collapses into the arms of the other Marys.  St John stands to the right.  The gold halos around the holy people have a lace-like effect achieved by pressing a decorative punch into the wet gold paint. 

 

Edgar Degas, French, 'Dancers, Pink and Green' c. 1890.

Degas was part of the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, which featured modern paintings in an 'unfinished' technique, very new and daring at the time.

Degas like to capture fleeting glimpses of Parisian life at the theatres and cafes, and here we are back stage with the dancers at the Opera Garnier Ballet.  They are fixing their hair and costumes, or stretching to warm up.  From the wings, we can see onto the stage and see the scenery of trees and a suggestion of people on stage.  Notice the shape of a figure observing them: half hidden by a post, the Patron in his top hat, could purchase a ticket for the ballet but also to mingle with dancers and arrange assignations.  Often from poor families, many of the dancers acquired a wealthy patron.  Degas attempted to capture the reality of the ballet life that lurked behind the artifice of the beautiful choreography.

While Degas is known for his many pastel ballet compositions, this one is oil, and he mixes the colours with white to make them opaque, applies them thickly, to approximate the pastel technique.

Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Italian, 'Venus and Adonis' 1550s.

Venus tries to stop her lover Adonis hunting, fearing he will be killed.

Pricked by Cupid's arrow, the beautiful goddess Venus is in love with the mortal Adonis.  Titian shows her beautiful back in this near-life size painting.  Her hair is braided and dressed with pearls, and she is framed luxuriously by drapery.  Adonis is famed for his looks, and loves the hunt.  See his spear, bow and arrows, and the wolf-hounds ready to go.  Alas, Adonis is gored by a wild boar and dies in the arms of Venus.  Anemones grow from the blood he sheds.  The tale comes from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'.

Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish, 'The Holy Family with Saints Francis and Anne and the Infant John the Baptist.'  c.1630.  176.5 cm x 209.6 cm

An enormous work by the indefatigable Rubens, a Baroque painting full of movement and drama, rich deep colour and detail.  The exquisite little landscape under the arm of St. Francis points to the Northern Renaissance.  Rubens lived most of his life in Antwerp, then a great centre for painting and commerce.  The Virgin Mary is dressed in contemporary dress of the era, a technique used during the Counter Reformation to encourage the viewer to identify and engage with the Holy Family.  Art was to instruct, inspire, delight and have moral and religious purpose.  Mary's arm is draped casually towards Saint Joseph.  The chubby infant Christ playfully kicks his leg, and little St John attempts to play with him.  St Anne looks kindly to Saint Francis, whose dramatic diagonal movement and eyes take our attention directly to the Christ child.  On the right, another diagonal formed by Mary's arm up to Saint Anne takes our eye back to the child.  A lamb in front of St Francis also forms a diagonal taking us back up to Christ.

I have been reading a biography of Rubens, and my goodness, he could work long and hard, with as astonishing artistic output, in demand in the Courts of Europe and England, and a part-time Diplomat to the Spanish and English Courts.  He was knighted by both Philip IV of Spain and Charles 1 of England.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Exhibition is here in Brisbane until mid-October, and hopefully our lockdown will be short so the GOMA can re-open to visitors.  

We visited the Met in 2002, and it was a wonderful day for this art lover.  I particularly loved their collection of French Impressionist art.

Interior, The Met, New York.

Be safe, take care....

and Stay Home, Brisbane.

XXXXX