Famous Picturest (1)

Famous Pictures

(1)

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de The Nude and Clothed Maja1799-1803Oil on canvas, 97 x 190 cm (each)Museo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de The Nude and Clothed Maja

Goya's Majas (fashionable young women) are two of his most famous and most discussed masterpieces.Though it was no doubt painted earlier, the first record of The Clothed Maja and the first mention of the paintings together is in an inventory of Godoy's collection dated 1 January 1808, where they are called 'gipsies'. In an article on Los Caprichos published in Cadiz in 1811, it is as Goya's Venuses that they are mentioned amongst his most admired works (they are also called Venuses in Goya's biography by his son).

The next mention of the Majas is towards the end of 1814, when Goya was denounced to the Inquisition for being the author of two obscene paintings in the sequestrated collection of the Chief Minister Godoy, 'one representing a naked woman on a bed...and the other a woman dressed as a maja on a bed'. On 16 May 1815, the artist was summoned to appear before a Tribunal 'to identify them and to declare if they are his works, for what reason he painted them, by whom they were commissioned and what were his intentions'. Unfortunately Goya's declaration has not yet come to light.

As a pair of paintings of a single figure in an identical pose, the Majas are a highly original invention. The theory that the clothed woman was intended as a cover for the naked one is very credible. It is not surprising that the Majas attracted the attention of the Inquisition in Madrid in 1814. As late as 1865 Manet's Olympia (which bears such a close resemblance to The Naked Maja that it is difficult to believe that the artist had not seen Goya's paintin

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de The Nude Maja (La Maja Desnuda)1799-1800Oil on canvas, 97 x 190 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de The Nude Maja (detail)1799-1800Oil on canvasMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de The Clothed Maja (La Maja Vestida)1800-03Oil on canvas, 97 x 190 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de The Clothed Maja (La Maja Vestida) (detail)1800-03Oil on canvas, 97 x 190 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GIOTTO di BondoneNo. 31 Scenes from the Life of Christ: 15. The Arrest of Christ (Kiss of Judas)1304-06Fresco, 200 x 185 cmCappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua

GIOTTO di BondoneNo. 31 Scenes from the Life of Christ: 15. The Arrest of Christ

(Kiss of Judas), Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua

This dramatic scene takes place at night. Torches shine out among the sticks and halberds against the blue of the sky. The throngs of people crowd into the centre, towards Christ, who is betrayed by Judas' kiss. Every movement, even that of Peter as he cuts off the ear of an attacker, and every gaze heightens the tension of the central confrontation.

With the force of his body Judas presses against Christ, who appears to disappear beneath the traitor's cloak. This expresses the inevitable outcome of this overwhelming confrontation. Surrounded and hemmed in by numerous faces, the profiles of Christ and Judas almost collide. The two look at one another — the one with dignity and seriousness, the other full of malice. The whole drama of the event is captured in this infinitely long exchange of glances.

The contrast between the caricature-like figures and the introverted Christ, who has had the royal mantle wrapped round him in mockery, could not be greater. Two completely different worlds are depicted in the one picture. As in all the scenes which follow his arrest, Giotto also shows Christ here as a changed character: submissive and lacking all vitality.

GIOTTO di BondoneNo. 31 Scenes from the Life of Christ: 15. The Arrest of Christ (Kiss of Judas) (detail)1304-06Fresco, 200 x 185 cmCappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua

GAUGUIN, PaulIa Orana Maria 1891Oil on canvas, 114 x 88 cmMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

GAUGUIN, PaulIa Orana Maria

Gauguin's Tahitian paintings celebrate the lushness and mysterious splendour of his new environment. At the same time they are seldom correct pictures of Tahitian life, from an anthropological standpoint, but rather feature recastings and recombinations of objects and persons taken out of their normal settings, as was the case with several of his paintings done in Brittany.

The most important paintings executed during Gauguin's first stay in Tahiti are the Ia Orana Maria (Hail Mary) and The Spectre Watches over Her (Manao Tupapau). In Ia Orana Maria Gauguin places the Christian story into a setting where both the figures and the vegetation are Polynesian. A Tahitian woman, her young son, and two women standing nearby are shown in the obvious attitudes of the Virgin and Child with attendant saints or worshiping angels.

Once again Gauguin has returned to the theme of the effect of profound religious faith on an apparently simple people, which had preoccupied him in some of his most important Breton works. The apparently effortless fusion of Christian iconography with Tahitian subject matter is in fact carefully contrived, with the poses of the background figures lifted from the relief carving on the Javanese temple of Borobudur, photographs of which Gauguin had taken with him to Tahiti.

GAUGUIN, PaulIa Orana Maria (detail)1891Oil on canvas, 114 x 88 cmMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

GOGH, Vincent van Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at NightSeptember 1888, ArlesOil on canvas, 81 x 66 cmRijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo

GOGH, Vincent van Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night

In a letter to his sister Wilhelmina of September 1888 van Gogh described two paintings he had just done of cafés at night. One was a working-class café, where 'poor night wanderers sleep'; the other was a fashionable café in the Place du Forum in the town centre, painted under a brilliant starry sky. The former was painted in virulent reds and greens, clashing yellows and oranges; in the latter van Gogh has used intense and cheerful yellows and blues. These paintings indicate that van Gogh was indeed responsive to the urban subject-matter of modern Parisian artists.

GOGH, Vincent van Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night (detail)September 1888, ArlesOil on canvas, 81 x 66 cmRijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo

ANDREA DEL SARTO Madonna of the Harpies1517Oil on wood, 208 x 178 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

ANDREA DEL SARTOMadonna of the Harpies

Perhaps the most famous work of Andrea del Sarto is the altarpiece painted for the nuns of San Francesco dei Macci, known as the Madonna of the Harpies.

According to the contract signed on May 14, 1515 the picture was to depict the Madonna and Child crowned by two angels and flanked by St John the Evangelist and St Bonaventure, and to be delivered within a year. But in fact the work is dated 1517, and shows St John the Evangelist and St Francis on either side of the Madonna and Child on a high polygonal pedestal. The latter is decorated at the corners with monster-like figures (the so-called Harpies), while in the centre, beneath the artist's signature, are the opening words of a hymn to Our Lady of the Assumption. We therefore have not the Coronation of the Virgin but the Virgin of the Assumption.

ANDREA DEL SARTO Madonna of the Harpies (detail)1517Oil on wood, 208 x 178 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

BOTTICELLI, Sandro Madonna of the Pomegranate (Madonna della Melagrana)c. 1487Tempera on panel, diameter 143,5 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

BOTTICELLI, SandroMadonna of the Pomegranate (Madonna della Melagrana)

The picture's title is explained by the pomegranate in Mary's hand: this should be understood as symbolizing Christ's Passion, the wealth of seeds conveying the fullness of Christ's suffering. A comparison of this painting with Botticelli's earlier tondo Madonna del Magnificat reveals that the artist has now arranged the angels symmetrically, thereby avoiding the compositional difficulties of the older depiction.

The Christ Child, whose hand is raised in blessing, is lying securely in the arms of Mary, but the sad, melancholy expression on the faces of mother and child are intended to remind the observer of the torments the Son of God will suffer in the future. The angels are worshipping Mary with lilies and garlands of roses. The Rosary is a prayer that was created in its present form in the 15th century, and rapidly became widespread. The beginning of this prayer is embroidered on the left angel s stola: AVE GRAZIA PLENA (Hail Mary, full of grace).

BOTTICELLI, Sandro Madonna of the Pomegranate (Madonna della Melagrana) (detail)c. 1487Tempera on panel, diameter 143,5 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

CARAVAGGIO The Calling of Saint Matthew1599-1600Oil on canvas, 322 x 340 cmContarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

CARAVAGGIO The Calling of Saint Matthew

This painting is the pendant to the Martyrdom of St Matthew and hanging opposite in the Contarelli Chapel of the San Luigi dei Francesi, the French Church in Rome. Caravaggio represented the event as a nearly silent, dramatic narrative. The sequence of actions before and after this moment can be easily and convincingly re-created. The tax-gatherer Levi (Saint Matthew's name before he became the apostle) was seated at a table with his four assistants, counting the day's proceeds, the group lighted from a source at the upper right of the painting. Christ, His eyes veiled, with His halo the only hint of divinity, enters with Saint Peter. A gesture of His right hand, all the more powerful and compelling because of its languor, summons Levi. Surprised by the intrusion and perhaps dazzled by the sudden light from the just-opened door, Levi draws back and gestures toward himself with his left hand as if to say, "Who, me?", his right hand remaining on the coin he had been counting before Christ's entrance.

The two figures on the left, derived from a 1545 Hans Holbein print representing gamblers unaware of the appearance of Death, are so concerned with counting the money that they do not even notice Christ's arrival; symbolically their inattention to Christ deprives them of the opportunity He offers for eternal life, and condemns them to death. The two boys in the center do respond, the younger one drawing back against Levi as if seeking his protection, the swaggering older one, who is armed, leaning forward a little menacingly. Saint Peter gestures firmly with his hand to calm his potential resistance. The dramatic point of the picture is that for this moment, no one does anything. Christ's appearance is so unexpected and His gesture so commanding as to suspend action for a shocked instant, before reaction can take place. In another second, Levi will rise up and follow Christ_in fact, Christ's feet are already turned as if to leave the room. The particular power of the picture is in this cessation of action. It utilizes the fundamentally static medium of painting to convey characteristic human indecision after a challenge or command and before reaction.

The picture is divided into two parts. The standing figures on the right form a vertical rectangle; those gathered around the table on the left a horizontal block. The costumes reinforce the contrast. Levi and his subordinates, who are involved in affairs of this world, are dressed in a contemporary mode, while the barefoot Christ and Saint Peter, who summon Levi to another life and world, appear in timeless cloaks. The two groups are also separated by a void, bridged literally and symbolically by Christ's hand. This hand, like Adam's in Michelangelo's Creation, unifies the two parts formally and psychologically. Underlying the shallow stage-like space of the picture is a grid pattern of verticals and horizontals, which knit it together structurally.

The light has been no less carefully manipulated: the visible window covered with oilskin, very likely to provide diffused light in the painter's studio; the upper light, to illuminate Saint Matthew's face and the seated group; and the light behind Christ and Saint Peter, introduced only with them. It may be that this third source of light is intended as miraculous. Otherwise, why does Saint Peter cast no shadow on the defensive youth facing him ?

CARAVAGGIOThe Calling of Saint Matthew (detail)1599-1600Oil on canvas, 322 x 340 cmContarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

RUBENS, Peter Paul The Three Graces1639Oil on wood, 221 x 181 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

RUBENS, Peter Paul The Three Graces

The Three Graces is one of the artist's final works. He had portrayed this theme several times since about 1620, but only later adopted the form that prevailed in classical Antiquity, with the three figures forming a circle so that one of them has her back to the spectator. "They were the goddesses of pleasant charm, of charitable deeds and of gratitude . .. without them nothing would be graceful or pleasing. They gave people friendliness, uprightness of character, sweetness and conversation...They were presented as three beautiful virgins and were either completely naked or clothed in some fine, transparent fabric...They stood together all three so that two of their faces were turned towards the spectator and only one was turned away from him."

Rubens' late painting of three nude figures magnificently illustrates the artist's extraordinary handling of incarnate or human flesh tones. Rubens builds them up using the three primary colours yellow, red and blue. An unusually high proportion of blue is evident here. In this way, the human figure bears the same primary colours that make up the appearance of the world and the entire cosmos, and all that is gathered here in the landscape and flowers, the sky and the trees.

RUBENS, Peter Paul The Three Graces (detail)1639Oil on wood, 221 x 181 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

LEONARDO da Vinci Mona Lisa (La Gioconda)c. 1503-5Oil on panel, 77 x 53 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

LEONARDO da VinciMona Lisa (La Gioconda)

According to Vasari, this picture is a portrait of Mona or Monna (short for Madonna) Lisa, who was born in Florence in 1479 and in 1495 married the Marquese del Giocondo, a Florentine of some standing - hence the painting's other name, `La Gioconda'. This identification, however, has sometimes been questioned.

Leonardo took the picture with him from Florence to Milan, and later to France. It must have been this portrait which was seen at Cloux, near Amboise, on 10 October 1517 by the Cardinal of Aragon and his secretary, Antonio de Beatis. There is a slight difficulty here, however, because Beatis says that the portrait had been painted at the wish of Giuliano de Medici. Historians have attempted to solve this problem by suggesting that Monna del Giocondo had been Giuliano's mistress.

The painting was probably acquired by François I from Leonardo himself, or after his death from his executor Melzi. It is recorded as being at Fontainebleau by Vasari (1550), Lomazzo (1590), Peiresc, and Cassiano del Pozzo (1625). The latter relates that when the Duke of Buckingham came to the French court to seek the hand of Henrietta of France for Charles I, he made it known that the King was most anxious to own this painting; but the courtiers of Louis XIII prevented him from parting with the picture. It was put on exhibition in the Musée Napoléon in I8o4; before that, in 1800, Bonaparte had it in his room in the Tuileries.

From the beginning it was greatly admired and much copied, and it came to be considered the prototype of the Renaissance portrait. It became even more famous in 1911, when it was stolen from the Salle Carrée on 21 August 1911 by Vicenzo Perrugia, an Italian workman. In 1913 it was found in Florence, exhibited at the Uffizi, then in Rome and Milan, and brought back to Paris on 31 December in the same year.

This figure of a woman, dressed in the Florentine fashion of her day and seated in a visionary, mountainous landscape, is a remarkable instance of Leonardo's sfumato technique of soft, heavily shaded modeling. The Mona Lisa's enigmatic expression, which seems both alluring and aloof, has given the portrait universal fame.

Taking a living model as his point of departure, Leonardo has expressed in an ideal form the concept of balanced and integrated humanity. The smile stands for the movement of life, and the mystery of the soul. The misty blue mountains, towering above the plain and its river, symbolize the universe.

LEONARDO da VinciMona Lisa (La Gioconda) (detail)c. 1503-5Oil on panel, 77 x 53 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

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Famous Picturest (1)

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