252 – Beauty and the Beast

Netherlandish or French, The Madonna and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret, about 1510. The National Gallery, London.

My first talk about the newly refurbished Sainsbury wing, this Monday, 30 June at 6pm, is entitled Opening up the North. There are various reasons for choosing this title, which I will discuss during the talk itself. If you click on either of those two links you can book for that talk on its own. However, up until 6pm on Monday you will still be able to book, on the next two links, for all three of the Three Sainsbury Stories at a reduced rate – which admittedly equates to what has been the price up until now. The other two talks will be At home in the Church on Monday 7 July, and In Church and at Home the following week. I shall then head off to the northern extremities of the British Isles for a holiday, before returning to revisit Duccio’s Maestà with a repeat of my National Gallery ‘in-person’ lecture, Seeing the Light – which I will expand a little – on 4 August. For any other dates which might arise, do keep an eye on the diary – although I might add that, by 4 August, I will already be in rehearsal for two plays at the Sidmouth Summer Play Festival, which seem to confirm my type-casting as either a police detective or a vicar… But before we get there, let’s think about Opening up the North – one of the things that the National Gallery’s latest acquisition certainly does. Have a good look at it before reading further! I make no apologies for this being one of the longest posts I have ever written, it’s that intriguing, and I’m indebted to the entry on the National Gallery’s website, which says some of the following far more concisely!

I was first alerted to the NG’s acquisition of the painting by one of you, wanting to know more about it: thank you! That’s one of the reasons why I’m writing about it today. Well, that, and the fact that, initially, I was equally baffled! However, the more I have looked, the more I have become intrigued, the more I appreciate the acquisition – and the more I like the painting. I don’t know what first grabs your attention, but I was initially shocked by some of the awkwardness, ugliness and crudity – and that is precisely what I have come to love about it. It’s not what I expect of the Northern European Renaissance, and that is exactly why I think it is such a good acquisition: it opens up our idea of what the artists could do. Maybe, at first glance, you realised what an entirely traditional painting it is: a Madonna and Child Enthroned with two angels (one on either side) and two saints (one on either side). Within an open loggia, with a row of square columns on either side, a richly embroidered cloth of gold is hung to create a canopy which defines Mary’s seat as a throne, and therefore confirms her status as Queen of Heaven. Although seated, she is higher than the other characters, and steps lead up to the throne. However, the steps are mere wood, and there is what is probably the most grotesque monster I have ever seen lurking front and centre.

However, at the top of the painting everything appears calm, even placid. Mary sits formally, facing front, a flower between left thumb and forefinger, and the Christ Child sat naked on her right knee, supported by her right hand. He looks towards our left, either at the angel doing something strange with its mouth, or the royal figure who looks across the pictorial field, almost as if he is unaware of being in the presence of God. On the right a woman has her hands joined in prayer, holding a cross, with a dove sat calmly on her shoulder, for all the world like the holy antithesis of Long John Silver and his parrot. Behind her an angel holds a book. The colonnades stretch back into the space, with the capitals – or are they mini-entablatures? – carved in high relief, and forming diagonals which lead our eyes towards the Virgin’s face.

That face has the most perfect complexion, pale, as it was believed befitted someone pure, and without blemish: immaculate, like the Virgin herself. I know, the proportions are slight odd, but a high forehead was considered beautiful – so this must be the most beautiful – as was a long, slim nose with a petite rounded end, and a narrow, cupid’s bow mouth. The light falls from above and from the right, although Mary’s right jaw (on our left) is also illuminated by reflected light. It can only have come from her son. Her eyes are lowered, solemn, as she is aware of what will pass after another three decades or so: his crucifixion, references to which abound in the painting. The cloth of honour is one of the most delicately embroidered I have seen, with stylised flowers, leaves and stems, and a pair of double-headed eagles in roundels, one on either side. They bring to mind the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire. A pole spans the gap between two of the columns, and the cloth of honour has been hung over it. There must be another pole further forward from which the fringed end of the fabric hangs, thus making a canopy appropriate for the royal presence. We can’t quite see where it is hanging though, which might suggest that the painting has been cut down – but apparently not: underneath the frame there is unpainted wood on all four sides of the image: this is the full extent of the painting. The result is that the canopy is pushed forward towards us, thus bringing us closer to the holy figures. The detailing is so precise that we can see folds in the fabric – a horizontal at the level of Mary’s eyes, and a vertical on either side of her head, going down to her shoulders. They make a cross on both sides – which reminds me of the two thieves crucified on either side of Jesus. The horizontal fold also connects two of the relief carvings: people in prayer, looking up to God, on our left, and the back of a naked boy looking down on our right.

I have suggested that these might be capitals, but the more I look the more I realise that they are not high enough up the columns to be capitals. Each column is treated as a pier (a supportive mass of masonry) with its own entablature, which suggests that the reliefs are remarkably short friezes below the cornice. Each is intriguing, and some can be easily interpreted. Naked boys are playing on the far left – one is blindfold, two others hug or fight. On the next column the friezes focus on grapes. On the side facing us is the Drunkeness of Noah. The one good man survived the deluge (with his family), grew vines, made wine, got drunk and revealed his nakedness: one of his sons lifts his elbow above his father’s head and covers his eyes to avoid seeing the paternal shame. The implication of this story is that even the one good man was still in need of redemption. The side which faces into the space shows two men carrying a pole from which is hung the most enormous bunch of grapes. These are the Grapes of Canaan – a story from Numbers 13:21-24 in which Moses sent spies into Canaan. It truly was a fertile place, and the grapes were just some of the evidence that this, a land that ‘floweth with milk and honey’, really was the promised land.

On the other side, Adam and Eve stand under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, with the serpent snaking up between them: The Fall. Further forward, a man lifts something while another cowers beneath: Adam and Eve’s sons, Cain and Abel, and the former killing the latter. And if these two scenes didn’t persuade you that mankind was in need of redemption, the last will: a group of naked boys are playing around in a barren tree, with one of them bending over and peering between his knees to show you his bottom. Two of his friends are pointing at it. This is not what I meant by ‘crudity’, when I used the word before, but it is remarkably rude. It reminds me of some of the grotesque and low-comedy carvings you get on misericords, the underside of fold-up chairs that monks and priests could perch on in many European churches and cathedrals during the long religious services. I think that it is there as light relief after the murder of Abel – something we can snigger at, perhaps, but learning through laughter. It belittles those who misbehave, whilst our enjoyment of it might also bring us up short in the presence of God, guilty about our own enjoyment of the bawdiness. Before we move on, just look at the stonework above these friezes, with the careful, insistent diagonals showing us how the masons finished the blocks at the top of the columns, rougher than the more smoothly dressed surfaces below – but don’t forget that we are in need of redemption.

After all, redemption is what the painting is about. The Christ Child may be distracted by the curious behaviour of the angel on the left, but that wouldn’t seem to excuse his cruel treatment of the bird he is holding. However, you have probably seen this bird in other paintings: it is a goldfinch. The red patch on its head is supposed to have come from Jesus’s blood, when one of the birds either ate a thorn from the Crown of Thorns – or, in another version of the story, pulled one of the thorns from Jesus’s forehead. It is a symbol of Christ’s passion, and in this painting Jesus manages to show that, far from fearing his own death, he has it in hand – quite literally. He can take our sin upon himself and can even turn his own death on its head. Notice how the bird casts a dark shadow on his thigh, with another shadow – that of Jesus’s own right arm – forming a diagonal which leads to the goldfinch’s head. Another reminder that this painting is about redemption is the flower which the Virgin holds. The Ecologist has let me know that it could be Honesty or a single Stock (i.e. not the horticultural ‘double’ variety), but whatever it is, the flower is white – a symbol of purity – and cruciform. This means, basically, that it has four petals in a cross formation. There are no prizes for guessing the symbolism.

The angel on the right holds an open book – a music book – and although the music looks accurate – with the correct symbols and staves for music of the time – it is not a transcription of anything known. However, the words are. This is a medieval hymn, Ave Regina Caelorum, Mater regis angelorum (‘Hail, Queen of Heaven, Mother of the King of Angels’). The music is, of course, a clue as to what the other angel is doing.

He’s playing a musical instrument, a mouth harp, or jaw harp (you might know it as a Jew’s harp, although the term has fallen out of favour because there doesn’t seem to be any connection with either the religion or the people – the instrument originated in China). To quote one website I have found, “To play, position it between your slightly parted teeth and lips, ensuring the tongue [of the instrument!] is free to vibrate. Pluck it gently with your finger while shaping your mouth cavity to control pitch and tone. Your mouth acts as a resonator, so subtle breath control and movements of the tongue, cheeks, and throat help create varied sounds.” It is remarkably rare to see one in the world of art, although it is played by an angelic musician on the mid-14th century minstrels’ gallery in Exeter Cathedral, and by one of Dirck van Baburen’s ‘young men‘, in a painting from 1621 in Utrecht.

Jesus appears to have been distracted by the curious twanging sounds it makes, and this has stopped him torturing the goldfinch, or paying attention to the two visitors to his court – or us, for that matter. He sits on a white cloth, which is undoubtedly a reference to the shroud: notice how the shadows of Christ’s legs fall over the extended folds of the cloth. It is also reminiscent of the white cloth spread over the altar during mass, or for that matter, the corporal, another white cloth, which is also placed on the altar, as a fitting place for the chalice (containing the wine, the blood of Christ) and the paten (with the host, the body of Christ). In this painting Christ’s body and blood are also set on a white cloth – in the person of Christ himself…

On the left, the specific details of the man’s face suggest that this could be a portrait – but if it is, the subject appears in disguise as a saint. Although there are no haloes – and the angels have no wings – we need not doubt that they are all holy. Why else would they be there? He is a king – a fact emphasised not only by his crown and sceptre, but also by the ermine cape around his shoulders. His deep blue robes are embroidered with gold thread to form a pattern of large fleur-de-lis. The robes have the colours and emblem of France. This is St Louis – but not the Franciscan St Louis of Toulouse, who would only have dressed like this had he not abdicated the throne of Naples to become a Franciscan (in which case he may well not have become a saint): there is no evidence of the Franciscan order here. This is St Louis of France, King Louis IX (1214-1270), collector of relics such as the Crown of Thorns, which he housed in the Sainte Chappelle in Paris, built specifically for this purpose. More relevant is the fact that he granted the Premonstratensian order the right to use his fleur-de-lis in their coat of arms: it is no coincidence that this altarpiece was first recorded in the Premonstratensian Abbey in Ghent in 1602. We don’t know that it was painted for this Abbey, but it seems highly likely. Apart from anything else, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was born in Ghent in 1500. At the time his grandfather, Maximilian I, was Emperor, and Maximilian was the one who really cemented the use of the double-headed eagle as a symbol of the empire – which could explain its presence on the cloth of honour. The painting was probably painted around 1510: there are very specific features which help to restrict the image to what is admittedly quite a broad range of dates.

St Louis is wearing the French Order of St Michael. The badge hanging from it shows St Michael himself defeating the devil. The Book of Revelation 12:7 says that ‘Michael and his angels fought against the dragon’ – who is then identified in 12:9, as ‘that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world’. The chain, which has double knots on it, was altered by Francis I in 1516 – suggesting a date before this for the painting. In addition, dendrochronology tells us that the panels on which it was painted date, at the earliest, from 1483. It’s a 33-year timespan, which isn’t very specific, but stylistically 1510 makes sense. However, we have no clue as to who might have painted it. Some of the stylistic features are French, whereas the panels are made of Baltic oak, used by Netherlandish artists (the French used locally sourced oak) – and this does seem to have come from Ghent – so ‘Netherlandish’ seems more likely.

While the depiction of the chain and medal – the ‘collar’ of the order – is highly accurate, the sceptre which St Louis is holding appears to be entirely original. There are lots of figures squirming around, and the best suggestion so far is that it represents a detail from the Last Judgement. This would make sense next to St Michael defeating ‘the dragon’, as St Michael is supposed to weigh the souls of the dead at this time. Again, it brings us back to the need for redemption. Without it, we would be one of these squirming figures being dragged down to hell. The collar and sceptre are entirely fitting for St Louis, King of France, but as yet there are few clues as to the identity of the woman on the other side of the painting. She holds a cross, yes, but then all female saints could. And she has a dove on her shoulder – which I’ve never seen before – but then so many of the saints were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The real clue is at the bottom of the painting.

This is undoubtedly the most hideous monster I have ever seen in any painting. Most devils end up looking cute and endearing (check out Bermejo’s, in Picture of the Day 5, or Andrea Bonaiuti’s in POTD 24), whereas this one is truly scary. It’s the teeth, I think, with three fangs coming down from the top and four from below, interlocking like some destructive machine. The teeth themselves are black and brown with dirt and decay, and emerge from raw, red gums. Even if it’s not clear on this detail, they are also strung across with streaks of saliva, which in the flesh (if not on a screen) are truly repulsive. And then there are the bloodshot eyes, the weirdly shaped ears and the pointy head. Even the neckless way the head joins the torso is unpleasant, with a scaly carapace and spotted wings adding to the effect. It creates such a contrast with the beautiful, and beautifully depicted, brocade of the woman’s cloak which falls across its wing, and even seems to emerge, just below her bent knee, from the monster’s back. But this is the clue! This is St Margaret of Antioch, a Christian martyr who was thrown into prison, and subjected to many hideous tortures. According to the Golden Legend, which I’m quoting here in William Caxton’s version from 1483,

And whilst she was in prison, she prayed our Lord that the fiend that had fought with her, he would visibly show him unto her. And then appeared a horrible dragon and assailed her, and would have devoured her, but she made the sign of the cross, and anon he vanished away. And in another place it is said that he swallowed her into his belly, she making the sign of the cross. And the belly brake asunder, and so she issued out all whole and sound. This swallowing and breaking of the belly of the dragon is said that it is apocryphal.

It may well be ‘said that it is apocryphal’, and yet artists loved to paint it! She very often holds a cross, as if she has cut her way out with it, and she certainly holds one here. But what about the dove? Well, that’s there in the Golden Legend too, though this is the only time I’ve seen it. After the dragon, Margaret was subjected to even forms of torture,

And after that, they put her in a great vessel full of water, fast bounden, that by changing of the torments, the sorrow and feeling of the pain should be the more. But suddenly the earth trembled, and the air was hideous, and the blessed virgin without any hurt issued out of the water, saying to our Lord: “I beseech thee, my Lord, that this water may be to me the font of baptism to everlasting life.” And anon there was heard great thunder, and a dove descended from heaven, and set a golden crown on her head.

The dove has remained, but the ‘golden crown’ is not what you might have thought – at least, not in the painting.

Margaret’s hair has been plaited together with threads strung with gold sequins, and the plaits piled on and around her head. There is also a garland of flowers, including daisies, placed delicately round her coiffeur. In French, daisies are marguerites – no doubt a pun on her name. Above the dove’s head, to the right of Margaret’s piled up hair, the column is decorated with a red panel with white relief sculptures – what is known as a candelabrum. At the very top are two swans with their necks intertwined. Given that the main feature of the Ghent abbey’s coat of arms was a swan, this would seem to confirm that the painting originated there. At the left of this detail you can also see the beautifully embroidered (for which read ‘painted’) double-headed eagle.

So the dove confirms that this is St Margaret, although the dragon would have been enough. I wanted to return to this detail, though, to think about the steps of the throne: another ‘I have never’. In this case, I have never seen steps to Mary’s throne made from ‘raw’ planks of wood. Sometimes the steps might have been wooden, I suppose, but painted to look like marble, but in this case, as a royal throne, the steps are remarkable crude in their construction. Unpainted, undressed (there is no rich fabric laid over them), and with simple nails driven into them, there is no attempt to disguise the simplicity of the making. Three nails are visible on the lower step, and two (one partially hidden) on the upper. This basic construction might be a symbol of humility, but there is an unmistakable reference to the crucifixion too. In the open, well-lit space beneath Jesus, the reference is not only to the making of the cross, but also to the three nails driven through his hands (one nail for each) and feet (one nail for both). The contrast with the ermine and royal blue of Louis’ cloak couldn’t be more striking. Again, we are right there, so close to the image, given that the bottom of the cloak, of the central step, and of the dragon are cut off by the frame. Again, like the canopy at the top, this is the original extent of the painting. We are pushed close to these holy figures – and to the most unholy – so that there is no possibility of escape. The threat of damnation, and the possibility of redemption, are opened up to us as the unknown artist of this remarkable painting expands our expectations of what the art of Northern Europe can be.

251 – Heaven brought down to earth

Cimabue, The Virgin and Child with Two Angels, about 1280-85. The National Gallery, London.

I confess that I have always been slightly dubious about the status of ‘Cimabue’ in the History of Art. After all, only one of his works is documented, and that is a mosaic: how can you establish an artist’s oeuvre on that basis? As a result I am especially glad to be Revisiting Cimabue this Monday, 23 June at 6pm, having seen the superb exhibition at the Louvre with a very similar title. The exhibition started – as my talk will – with an exploration of the very mythology which surrounds this supposedly foundational artist, the mythology of which I have always been wary. It then looked at his work in the context of his predecessors and contemporaries, before examining his impact on and significance for both contemporaries and successors – an exemplary display which I’m sorry I couldn’t get to earlier.

The week after I will start my exploration of the new hang of the National Gallery’s collection – or at least, of the Sainsbury Wing – with Three Sainsbury Stories, on Mondays 30 June, 7 and 14 July. Click on either of those links if you want to book for all three talks at a slightly reduced rate. Alternatively, you can book the talks individually on the following links – the titles being Opening up the North (30 June), At home in the Church (7 July) and In Church and at Home (14 July). A description of each can be found on the relevant link. At that point I was going to stop for the summer, but have realised I am free on the evening of 4 August – which gives me a chance to repeat this week’s National Gallery lunchtime lecture, Seeing the Light: the art of looking in and around Duccio’s ‘Maestà’, as I realise not all of you would have been able to get to London. It also gives me the chance to talk about some of the ideas in greater depth. It was great to see so many of you there – and especially the visitors from Edinburgh, Italy and even America! Thank you so much for coming. Meanwhile, I’m going to look back before Duccio’s career had started to explore the National Gallery’s small painting by Cimabue.

At first glance this might appear to be an entirely traditional image, if not rather ‘old fashioned’. As a genre, The Virgin and Child is rich and varied, and, even if it doesn’t represent a specific biblical narrative, it expresses so much about these two characters, their relationship, and their importance for the Church – the ‘Church’ in question being Catholic (the term ‘Roman Catholic’ didn’t come into being until about 300 years after Cimabue was painting). It could almost equally have come from the Eastern Orthodox Church – but not quite, and that is what makes this particular image so important. Mary sits on a blue cushion against a red cloth of honour, both of which are set on an elaborate throne. Her right leg is lowered, with her foot on the second of three steps, and Jesus sits on her raised left knee. They are flanked by two angels. Nothing unusual about this, you might think, but it is worthwhile comparing it with an earlier version of the same subject which is also in the National Gallery’s collection, from Margarito d’Arezzo’s The Virgin and Child Enthroned with narrative scenes from about 1263-64.

Margarito’s version is far closer to Byzantine art, or the art of the Orthodox Church. Neither Mary nor Jesus seem as ‘human’ as Cimabue paints them. Rather than a baby, Jesus is like a little emperor. Both figures sit upright, with their shoulders flat against the flat gold background. There is no sense that they are moving in the space which we inhabit, and as a result they are slightly abstracted from reality. But then, Orthodox icons are meant to show us a sanctity which is not seen in the down-to-earth world in which we live and breathe. Icons represent something which is more perfect – and as a result, something we can only imagine, unlike what we are actually familiar with. Nevertheless, there are similarities. For example, in both examples the Virgin wears a red robe with a blue cloak, and sits on a cushion. Notice also that in both images Mary’s right foot is on the central axis, directly under her head: it is with the feet that we will start.

Most obvious are the feet of the angels. On the left we see both feet, balletic, but not turned out enough for second position, almost as if the angel is on tip toe – the usual description for Byzantine imagery after it had evolved away from the naturalism of late Roman art. On the right we can only see one foot: the other must be behind the throne, or behind the steps leading up to it. This in itself helps to create a sense of space, and of three dimensions: the holy beings are in the same space as us, thus making the image appear more ‘real’. Both angels wear red stockings and delicate black shoes, or slippers. It could be that Mary is wearing the same, although we can only see the toes peeping out beneath the hem of her red skirt. Her right foot (on our left) is on the second step up, and her left is one step higher. The centrality of the lower foot, and its ‘proximity’ on the lower step, might encourage us to lean forward and kiss it, a sign of our humility.

A semi-transparent veil hangs over the seat of the throne and behind Mary’s legs. It falls over the upper step, and her left foot is resting on it. The steps themselves appear to be at an angle, as does the throne: this suggests that it is a three-dimensional structure, again implying the real presence of Mary and Jesus in our space. To me, the steps look as if they could be removed, with the throne only accessible when they are there: they would only be put in place for the right person, of course. To the far left and right of the detail above are the ends of the angels’ wings. Their purple cloaks hang down, and the points almost coincide with a row of fine dots tooled into the gold leaf background which, as we shall see, frame the entire image.

Moving up, we can see these tooled dots disappear behind the left angel’s robes only to reappear at waist level. This angel holds the back corner of the throne, while his companion on our right holds the cushion, which curves up on either side, giving us a sense of Mary’s weight – another subtle naturalistic observation, reminding us that Mary has a real physical presence. The semi-transparent veil falls over the cushion: it has been suggested that it is not unlike an altar cloth, spread over the altar to receive the consecrated host – which, in Catholic belief is the actual body of Christ – during the Mass. Indeed, the body of Christ is there, seated on Mary’s raised left knee. He is barefoot, with the left foot hanging down and the right raised. Given his angled position, the right foot falls roughly above Mary’s. This reminds me – at an admittedly distant remove – of Caravaggio’s Palafrenieri Madonna, in which Jesus’s foot rests on Mary’s, helping her to trample the serpent underfoot – as ‘prophesied’ in Genesis 3:15.

Mary and the angel to our left both seem to look straight into our eyes – and thus into our soul. The delicate tilt of their heads implies sympathy and a willingness to listen. Even as divine, or semi-divine beings, they are both sympathetic and approachable. The angel on our right looks over to the left, while Jesus’s gaze is turned further away – but in a naturalistic way. I don’t think there is a theological meaning to his apparent distraction. He is definitely a child, unlike Margarito’s little emperor, and his tiny hands hold onto his Mother’s. Her right hand gestures towards him, much as it would in an Orthodox Hodegetria – in which Mary shows us ‘the way’ – and, almost as if a demonstration of his humanity, Jesus has taken this opportunity to grab a finger and wrist, the comparison between the sizes of the hands giving us a sense of his fragility. Once again, heaven has been brought down to earth. Both angels lean in towards the throne, their innermost hands resting on its back (the fingertips of the left-hand angel are only just visible) – which in itself beautifully frames Mary’s shoulders. All four figures have haloes demarcated with more tiny tooled dots. Mary’s has a double ring, and Jesus’s shows a hint of the cross with which it is usually marked.

Stepping back we can see the continuation of the tooled dots which frame the image leading up from the angels’ wings and across the top of the flat gold field. And we can also see the golden space – the divine light of heaven – against which the heads of the three upper figures stand out. This space at the top of the painting contrasts with the bottom of the image, where the steps of the throne are almost touching the frame – or rather, what we might assume would have been the frame. It’s at this point that I should let you know that I was extremely frustrated by the digital file the National Gallery has posted on their website – the one I used at the top of this post. It doesn’t show you the whole picture – which would tell you more about the painting. I popped into the Sainsbury Wing after lunch today to take the following photo, and have used details from it for the details above.

It’s pretty much the same, you might think, if a bit brighter (the NG’s file is oddly dark, but that’s not the problem). If compare the left and right edges you will see that they are different, as are the top and bottom – but you might have noticed that from the details already. Both the left and top edges are framed by a thin strip of wood, and the gilded, or painted surface of the pictorial field curves up slightly towards the edge – a lip, or bur, which denotes that the image was painted on a wooden panel with an engaged frame. This means that the frame had already been attached before either the painting or gilding took place. As part of the process of painting, the right-angled join between the frame and the flat panel would then have been filled in slightly with gesso and then paint, or gold leaf. This ‘infill’ has survived even after the removal of the original frame. The right and bottom edges, on the other hand, have a painted red border. There is no sense that there was an engaged frame on these two sides – which implies that this little image was originally part of a larger panel. It was probably not unlike this painting by Barnaba da Modena, painted in 1374, which also belongs to the National Gallery.

This still has its engaged frame. A similar, three-dimensional element also divides the separate images on the panel – whereas the Cimabue panel used the red borders to divide the different images. The photographic file for the Barnaba da Modena gives the painting a better idea of its structure as a solid object, and even has a thin white border, although you can’t see that against the white background. However, the file for the Cimabue (at the very top of the post) has been trimmed to make a nice tidy picture without any asymmetry or rough edges, implying that the Virgin and Child was painted as an image in and of itself, which it was not: it was part of something else. With the top and left edges being framed, it must have been at the top left corner of a panel – in the equivalent position to Barnaba’s Coronation of the Virgin at the top left of his panel. As it happens, two other sections of Cimabue’s panel have survived and one of them was recently acquisition by the Louvre. This was one of the reasons why they staged their exhibition this year: it was the first time it had been exhibited publicly. However, if you’d like to know more about the other two paintings, and how they fit together, you will have to join me on Monday!

Take two: remarkable women

Artemisia Gentileschi, Madonna and Child, c. 1613-14. Galleria Spada, Rome.

Artemisia Gentileschi truly was a remarkable woman, and a great artist. When I first posted this blog (in the Autumn of 2020) I had already written about her twice (Picture Of The Day 17 and POTD 69), but she is always worth coming back to. And, given her current fame, curators like to do just that. There is still time to catch the exhibition Artemisia, Heroine of Art at the Musée Jacquemart-André, which I will be talking about this Monday 16 June, for example. Her strength of character is well known, and frequently discussed. The fortitude and determination of the women she paints is also rightly celebrated, notably in a number of images of Judith and Holofernes. But amidst the focus on her personal life and misfortunes, on her strength and on the strength of her subjects, and on her genuine understanding of the plight of women which was born of personal experience (something which no male artist could possibly have had), I can’t help thinking that today’s painting has not received the attention it deserves. Apart from anything else, I think it is a wonderfully beautiful image, its delicacy, and the affection it depicts, matched by a beautifully conceived composition.

On Tuesday 17 June at 1pm (the day after my talk about Artemisia) I will be giving a FREE lunchtime talk at the newly refurbished lecture theatre in the newly refurbished Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery: Seeing the Light: the Art of Looking in and around Duccio’s ‘Maestà’ – please do come if you can! Apologies for those of you who can’t get to London – but as it won’t be streamed or recorded, I have realised that I will be able to repeat it online on a Monday I wasn’t expecting to be free – Monday 4 August at 6pm. Before then, though, I will be talking about the major influence on Duccio: on 23 June, I will be Revisiting Cimabue, looking back to an exhibition which was at the Louvre, but sadly has already closed.

After over four years of giving these Zoom talks the time has finally come for me to put up my prices: from now on each talk will be £12 (bearing in mind that some organisations were charging more even back in 2020). However, I’m holding them at £10 each if you book for all three of my Three Sainsbury Stories together – which you can do on that link. Alternatively, you can book them individually. More information is on the following links: Opening up the North (30 June), At home in the Church (7 July) and Across Italy… (14 July). Enough plans for now – but keep an eye on the diary in case there are any more!

There really aren’t any good photos of this painting… but I have replaced the one I used years back here and at the end as it gives a better sense of the colours as I remember seeing them – most recently in the exhibition in Paris. The Madonna fills the full space of the painting, bringing her closer to us, and making the subjects more immediate, more ‘present’. The Christ Child sits on her lap in a position more sophisticated than we would expect for a toddler – but then, this is the Son of God.

She sits on a low chair, and in order to prevent her son from slipping off her lap, her feet are tucked to one side, so her right thigh remains horizontal. Her left knee is not so strongly bent, allowing the child to lean on her left thigh, which is slightly higher. The overlapping zig-zags of her legs – one in dark shadow, and another in brilliant light (the chiaroscuro developed by the recently-deceased Caravaggio being used to full advantage) is then echoed by the ‘v’ of her blue cloak, lying over the seat of the chair, swept back by her leg, and curving out and around, a fuller expression of the folds seen in the pink robe. She is seated on this cloak, and we see it again tucked around her left arm, framing the leg in the dark shadows, and enclosing the form of the child. Her left arm supports him, but doesn’t hold him – almost as if she is wary of the touch – and the gap between her thumb and forefinger opens up to reveal a deeply shadowed hollow, allowing the brilliant white fabric loosely held around Jesus – a hint of the shroud to come, perhaps? – to shine out.

There is another deep void between them, a dark shadow that makes them look entirely sculptural, and seems to represent the gap in their respective experience – she would have been little more than a girl, whereas he is the Son of God. And it is he who bridges the divide, his left arm reaching up to touch her neck with delicacy and with concern, as he looks into her eyes with ineffable love. There is a sense of divine understanding in this look, and in this gesture, which, like the elegant way in which he reclines, is far beyond his human years. Mary looks down with humility, as she offers her breast between her middle- and forefingers. The thin, white hem of her chemise, seen again at her wrist, create another link to her son, as this hint of whiteness echoes the white fabric which enfolds him.

The dark space between them forms a diagonal which reaches to the top right corner of the painting. Their torsos and her legs are roughly parallel to this line, while his arm, and the gaze between the two, follow an opposing diagonal. That this was a hard-won composition can be seen from the numerous pentimenti – or changes – which are now visible: a phantom elbow and some transparent drapery curving out from her waist can be seen against the back of the simple chair, and the dark background around their heads appears to be filled with other ghostly presences, almost as if adding to their sanctity, which is defined by their haloes, hers almost solid, his, an undefinable glow.

Artemisia Gentileschi, Madonna and Child, c.1613-14. Galleria Spada, Rome.
School of Marcantonio Raimondi, Holy Family, c.1515-34. Royal Collection Trust.

Hard-won, yes, but not entirely original, as it happens. Ultimately it is derived from a print attributed to the School of Marcantonio Raimondi, the first engraver to base his works on other people’s paintings (and usually, on Raphael’s). It shouldn’t surprise us that Artemisia was inspired by a print. The painting is dated ‘About 1613-14’ in the catalogue of the National Gallery’s 2020 exhibition, and 1612 in the catalogue from the Jacquemart-André. However, some authorities date it earlier – around 1609 – when Artemisia would have been 16. I don’t doubt the NG’s later date. Apparently, X-rays of this painting suggest that, as well as the Raimondi engraving, a later painting which she would have seen in Florence was probably another source for this image, and she didn’t get to Florence until late 1612 or early 1613. But something that is worth bearing in mind is that, as a woman, she would not have been able to move freely through the city, and certainly, as a girl, she would not have been allowed out on her own. So her first knowledge of art would have come directly from her father, Orazio, who trained her, and from small, portable works of art – such as prints – which could have been owned, or borrowed, by the family. But she has not simply copied the print. Apart from the obvious omission of Joseph, she extends the reach of the child to touch his mother’s neck, tucks his right elbow within her enfolding arm, and ensures that they look at each other. Artemisia alone is responsible for the intimacy, and for the love between mother and son, that are such important features of the composition.

Why these changes? Should we read something about Artemisia’s own life from them, as people tend to with so many of her paintings? Probably not. Dating from her early years in Florence, shortly after she married and moved away from Rome, her experience as a mother at this stage was short-lived and harsh. She had five children, but only two of them survived infancy, and only one reached adulthood. The first, Giovanni Battista, was born in September 1613, but lived little more than a week. The second, Agnola, arrived in December of the following year, but died before she could be baptised. This means that by the time the Madonna was painted, Artemisia would have had next to no personal knowledge of breastfeeding. Of love, and of loss, on the other hand, she was only too aware.

The subject itself is more common than you might realise: the Madonna Lactans – the Madonna breastfeeding, or about to feed. It was popular in medieval times, and survived into the 16th Century for a number of reasons. One, which seems oddly contemporary, is that some were aware of the benefits of maternal breastfeeding, and were concerned that aristocratic women were all too willing to hand their babies over to wet nurses. But that is probably irrelevant here. The genre is one of the ways in which Mary could be shown as a good role model for all women: a good mother, not only pure, but also willing to stay at home and look after her baby. However, feeding the infant Christ can also be seen as the source of some of her influence. I’ve always been fascinated by a rather unusual painting attributed to Lorenzo Monaco (I have no doubts about the attribution – I can’t imagine who else could have painted it) which is currently in the Cloisters in New York, but which was originally painted for Florence Cathedral.

Attributed to Lorenzo Monaco, The Intercession of Christ and the Virgin, before 1402. The Cloisters, New York.

The painting shows the Holy Trinity, with God the Father at top centre, gesturing towards God the Son at bottom left, the Holy Spirit flying between, as if released from the Father’s right hand. Christ gestures to the wound in his chest, while indicating his mother, who holds something in her left hand, and gestures to a group of diminutive individuals kneeling in prayer before Jesus. The gestures tell us they are interceding with the Father, asking him to be merciful to us mere mortals. Jesus asks him something, referring to the wound, and to his mother, in support of his request, while Mary’s concern is for the people. The text, written onto the background, makes everything clear.

“My Father, let those be saved for whom you wished me to suffer the Passion,” says Jesus, as Mary addresses him: “Dearest son, because of the milk that I gave you, have mercy on them.” Even from the detail above it might not be entirely obvious that Mary is displaying her right breast. For one thing, accuracy when depicting human anatomy was never Lorenzo’s concern, and for another, it is not something you would expect to see in a church. But what the painting really makes clear is that Mary’s physical nourishment of Jesus with the milk from her breast was seen as equivalent to the way in which Jesus nourishes us spiritually with the blood and water that flowed mingled down from the wound in his chest. She shares his role in our redemption, and as such, was given a wonderful title, Co-Redemptrix, which went out of fashion in the 16th Century. I’m not at all sure that Artemisia would have been aware of any of this as she painted her Madonna, though. For her, and for her audience, the intimacy between mother and son, and the devotional nature of the image, would have been its chief charms. More abstruse elements of theology are all very well and good in a church, but wouldn’t make art sellable to the great and the good of 17th Century Florence, Artemisia’s target audience. Nevertheless, the theology of the Madonna Lactans hovers somewhere in the background of this beautiful image, which, I can safely say, is one of my favourites. To find out the others – which are not necessarily so endearing – why not join me on Monday?

250 – What’s in a name?

Victor Hugo, The Cheerful Castle, c. 1847. Maisons de Victor Hugo Paris/Guernsey.

This week – Monday 2 June at 6pm, to be precise – I am looking forward to talking about the truly astonishing drawings by Victor Hugo in the Royal Academy’s aptly named exhibition Astonishing Things. If I’m honest, I went to see it because I had to (well, I had been asked to take a private group round), but came out wishing I’d got there earlier. I also realised that I should encourage you all to go as well: it’s fantastic! Some of the exhibits are simply good observational drawings – and well worth seeing as a result. Others are so totally original that they look 60 or even 100 years ahead of their time. The techniques employed are both fascinating and original, and while the complex mind of the master novelist can be traced in the story-like elements of some, others are so remarkable and so baffling that even the curators of the exhibition can’t fully explain them – so do please join me if you can, and we can marvel together! Today, as an introduction, I’m going to concentrate on three of the simpler examples.

A prior booking has stopped me talking the following Monday, but then, on 16 June, I will introduce the Artemisia Gentileschi  exhibition which is at the Jacquemart-André in Paris until 3 August. The day after that, 17 June at 1pm, I am giving a FREE lunchtime talk at the newly refurbished lecture theatre in the newly refurbished Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery: Seeing the Light: the Art of Looking in and around Duccio’s ‘Maestà’ – please do come if you can! Then, on 23 June, we will be Revisiting Cimabue, looking back to an exhibition which was at the Louvre, but sadly has already closed.

After over four years of giving these Zoom talks the time has finally come for me to put up my prices: from now on each talk will be £12 (bearing in mind that some organisations were charging more even back in 2020!). However, I’m holding them at £10 each if you book for all three of my Three Sainsbury Stories together – which you can do on that link. Alternately, you can book them individually. More information is on the following links: Opening up the North (30 June), At home in the Church (7 July) and Across Italy… (14 July). Enough plans for now – but keep an eye on the diary in case there are any more!

I would always encourage you, when in a museum, art gallery or exhibition, to look at the art rather than read the label. We seem to be a profoundly verbal culture, and people always spend more time reading the labels than looking at the art: they could have stayed home and read a book! But in this case, although I was instantly attracted to this drawing by its delicacy and refinement, the atmosphere it captures, and the bravura technique, it was the title that really grabbed my attention: The Cheerful Castle. What a delightful idea! Who imagined that a Castle could be Cheerful? Well, a fantastic storyteller, for one. But how would you go about showing that ‘cheer’ in a drawing?

The eponymous edifice is situated upon an uneven, rocky ridge, which slopes slowly down from right to left, before plummeting into a ravine. The background is light and airy, but undefined. White clouds, totally unthreatening, are hovering in the sky. Behind them blocky forms and vague diagonals suggest that maybe we are only someway up a mountain range: there may still be peaks high above our point of view. The castle itself has many turrets and towers, with a wide assortment of differently shaped rooves, finials and oriels, battlements and crenelations. There is no sense that we are looking at a real building, something that Victor Hugo saw in real life: this is an invention, an elaborate dream summoned from his imagination.

If we were to approach the castle from the bottom of the hill on the left, we would first have to cross a bridge which passes over a valley – or maybe moat. A guard house rises to the right of it, with a pitched roof and two chimneys. It could be a barbican: to the right there is a sloping line of crenelations leading to the main body of the building. The drawing here is at its darkest, a sense of threat and foreboding, perhaps, which might help to keep intruders at bay. The forms are smudged in part – Hugo liked to experiment with technique, and here he has wet the drawing to create an atmospheric mist around the edges of the darkest walls. Just visible is a flight of steps coming down towards us on this side of the building, to the left of a large, light, open niche, which is defined by dark shadows, suggesting that it is very deep. Above it the ink is at its blackest, marking ivy, or other vegetation, which is growing over these rocks, or lower walls. In contrast to all this darkness, the castle rises, as in a fantasy, all lightness and specific detail above the dark imprecision of its foundations. This lightness – and the detail – are the first things which convey cheerfulness.

Most of the structure is light, and delicately drawn. With the exception of a massive square tower built on a steep slope, sunlight seems to capture every varied surface. The darker forms serve as a foil, a dark repoussoir encouraging our eyes to look towards the light, and so further into the space of the drawing. Another bridge leads over two arches to a more elaborate guard house on the far right, a pale tower with a tall, spire-like roof, topped with an onion dome and a weathervane. Windows project from the spire, the gradually shifting slope of its sides mapped out by the most delicately delineated rows of tiles. Elsewhere the tiny touches of the pen pick out lines of bricks, small apertures, more crenelations, machicolations, cantilevered projections and a wide variety of flat and curved walls; rough and smooth surfaces; conical or flat, sloping rooves; belfries, flags and chimneys. What we see is plentiful and varied, light and delightful against the barely darker background – a miraculous, fairy-tale vision. This visual playfulness and jokey profusion is surely the essence of Cheerful. The role this delicacy plays becomes clearer if we compare our first castle to a second, from another drawing.

Compared to the wealth of detail and the precision with which The Cheerful Castle is articulated, this second fortress is far more moody, a looming presence emerging from the clouds, big, bold and blocky, more ruinous, crumbling even, and scarcely habitable. It has a far more aged air, and the weather is foreboding. Diagonal lines going from top right to bottom left suggest that rain could be lashing down, although the strong contrast of light and shade on the walls implies that the sun is breaking through gaps in the turbulent clouds. Like a flash of lightening, this creates a sense of revelation, as if we can finally see the true state of affairs: this is what the castle has come to. However, we should remember that in each case we are only looking at part of the image. Here is a second detail of the drawing from which this gloomy fortress is taken.

You can just see the castle looming on the left – but bottom right the atmosphere is altogether different. In both drawings Hugo has used black and brown ink and wash – which means that he has covered some the paper with a thin layer of colour (i.e. ink) using a brush, but without leaving any brushstrokes. In this second drawing there are also watercolours, which pick out the delicate leaves and petals of plants and flowers. They wind their way around a block of stone on which is carved an angel in high relief. Its wings are wrapped around its feet and shoulders, but folded high above its head. It looks down, arms crossed and resting on… a cross? Or the hilt of a sword? It could be either… or both. Is this a fragment of decoration from the ruined castle, or something else? Seeing the drawing as a whole might help.

The plant – a sort of imaginary vine or ivy with unexpected flowers – borders the drawing at the bottom and on the right, and thus frames the vision of the distant castle. The angel, in sharper focus – perhaps because it is closer, and not wrapped around with clouds – does not share the colours of the plants. It uses the same palette as the castle, implying that it belongs to the same world: a fragment then – of the castle’s story, if not of its structure. This is The Castle with the Angel of about 1863, and although I described the first drawing as showing a fairy-tale castle, this drawing is itself more like a fairy tale, I think. The colourful flowers around a desolate castle are reminiscent – to my mind at least – of the impenetrable screen of roses which grew around Sleeping Beauty. The angel is melancholy: could this be a memorial sculpture? Or does it give us a clue about what has happened to the castle? Could it even be some kind of guardian spirit who has been turned into stone? However verbose he might have been, Victor Hugo didn’t always explain what he was about, and some of the drawings remain especially obscure. Nevertheless, the author of Les Misérables and Notre Dame de Paris (which Anglophones know better as The Hunchback of Notre Dame – a title the author detested) clearly knew how to tell a story, and he could do it with images as well as words.

If I wanted to be especially fanciful, I could see these two drawings as being part of the same fable. The Cheerful Castle could be a nostalgic look back to the good old days, with The Castle with the Angel showing the lamentable state we are in now, waiting for the heroine or hero to rescue us. Or it could be the other way round: once the foe has been vanquished, and the gloom banished, The Cheerful Castle could be the Happy Ever After. However, given that the two drawings were created about 16 years apart, I think it is safe to say that neither was Hugo’s intention. I do want to compare The Cheerful Castle to a third drawing, though.

It has a completely different feel to it, I think. Even in this detail you get a sense that you know where you are: on a broad river, or lake, in a deep valley cut through the hills. It doesn’t show a ‘castle’ as such, although there is a ruined tower on an island, its form, features and the fall of light perfectly reflected in the mirror-like surface of the water. Another structure – which could be the ruins of a castle – stands on the slope rising up to the right. The two buildings are defined differently. The tower has sharp edges, clearly defined detail, and shading mapping out the three-dimensional structure. The castle, on the other hand, is only defined as an area of dark grey, its form defined by ‘colour’ rather than line. It is further away, and in the shadows – effectively just a silhouette. The light, coming from the top right, and some way behind us, brilliantly illuminates the escarpment on the other side of the water. Between the tower and the right bank, a sailboat sits becalmed, its sail slack, curving down towards the deck. Dark streaks come down from the top of the detail.

In context we can see that these streaks are a sign that the weather is taking a turn for the worse – they are dark clouds and distant downpours. It is an extensive landscape, much of which is actually water. The top of the brightly-lit escarpment is especially dark and cloudy. This is another example of Hugo’s technical brilliance. Having wet the paper, the ink spreads freely, and yet he only allows that to happen at the top of the distant slopes – not too much is left to chance. A different technique creates the streaking clouds: he has dragged dark ink down the page with a piece of fabric, creating this remarkable, atmospheric effect. The drawing, dating to 1847, is called La Tour des Rats. It’s a real place, and one which Hugo had seen: a tower on the Rhine which inspired poems by Robert Southey and, as ‘The Mouse Tower’, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is a place of myth and fable, involving a bishop being eaten by rats (or mice) which have swum over the river to get him. And yet, of the three drawings, it has a greater sense of ‘fact’ about it – quite simply because Hugo had actually been there. It is a highly romanticised view, admittedly, but it is real.

The three drawings could be seen as representatives of three different modes of drawing – or three different moods. The Cheerful Castle shows many of the features of ‘The Picturesque’. According to 18th Century theory, this term was used to describe landscapes which appear naturalistic, and include irregular forms, variety in texture and detail, and which often featured ruins – they delight the eye, and are pleasurable in their diversity. ‘The Picturesque’ was differentiated from ‘The Sublime,’ which shows grandeur and provokes awe, reminding us how small we are compared to the enormity of the natural world: there is often a real sense of danger. In some ways, La Tour des Rats is closer to the Sublime, given the size and scale of the valley, the dark threatening quality of the weather and the ominous presence of the ruins. For the 18th Century, ‘The Beautiful’ would be a third category – with calmer, smoother, rounded surfaces, relaxing and welcoming. None of these three drawings really match that, though. However, I would suggest that The Castle with the Angel is ‘fabulous’ – in its original sense, that is, meaning that it is related to fables. The curling, coloured foliage and flowers are more alive than the monochrome castle and angel – as if the stones are asleep in the past. It is a highly ‘illustrative’ drawing – although it is left up to us to decide which narrative is being illustrated. This freedom of interpretation just makes the imagery richer, though.

All three drawings show castles, of a sort, and yet all three are different. ‘What’s in a name?’, as Juliet asks. ‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. And while this may be true, after centuries of horticulture, roses may small as sweet, but they don’t all smell the same. It seems that something similar is true for castles. It will be interesting to see how many other genres of drawing – and castles – Victor Hugo’s work can encompass when we discover it on Monday.

249 – Rushing to the wrong conclusion (or, How to Look at Sculpture)

Ernst Barlach, The Avenger, 1922. Ernst Barlach Haus, Hamburg.

I can’t remember when I fell in love with the work of Ernst Barlach, about whom I will be talking on Monday 26 May. It could have been soon after the opening of Tate Modern, 25 years ago, when I included a version of today’s work in my schools’ workshops, but I’m sure he was familiar even then. On Monday, as well as Barlach, I want to sneak in the drawings currently on show at The Courtauld in the small exhibition With Graphic Intent (which is open until 22 June) as these will give us different ideas about German Expressionism. Given that we tend to look at, and talk about, paintings far more than sculptures, as well as writing about one of Barlach’s most famous works today, I also want to give you some hints about how to look at sculpture in general. But we’ll get to that shortly.

Monday’s talk will conclude my May series about German art, which I will follow with three talks related to Paris in different ways. On 2 June I will explore the remarkable mind of Victor Hugo, whose drawings are currently exhibited in the Royal Academy. As the title of the exhibition suggests, they truly are Astonishing Things – I haven’t seen anything quite like them, and many are 60 years, or even 100 years before their time. And yes, this week I have actually included the right link for the talk! Having discussed someone from Paris, I will move on to an exhibition which is currently in Paris, a wonderful and rich exploration of the works of Artemisia Gentileschi, whom the Jacquemart-André Museum describes as the Heroïne de l’art. That will be on 16 June. The day after, for the first time in seven or eight years, I will give a free lunchtime talk at the National Gallery, Seeing the Light: the Art of Looking in and around Duccio’s ‘Maestà’. It would be great if you could all be there (apologies to all those of you who are not in London). However, the following week (23 June) I will be Revisiting Cimabue – looking back before Duccio, and to an exhibition at the Louvre which has sadly already closed. Thereafter my last three talks this summer will explore the new hang of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury wing – but keep your eye on the diary for more information about them.

When looking at paintings we tend to think about colour and composition, tone (light and dark), mood and meaning. Or rather, unless it is an abstract painting, we start by identifying what is depicted – the people, places and things. Looking at sculpture is no different. In this case, a man is running, and running at speed. This sense of movement is created in a number of ways. His right leg is bent, with the foot resting on the ground. As far as we can tell, the left leg is straight, and held out directly behind: either he is running, or has a remarkable sense of balance. Admittedly the human body is usually more upright when running, maybe leaning forward a little, but not on a complete horizontal like this. Clearly, however recognisable the forms, this is not an entirely naturalistic depiction. It is stylised, with the stylisation used to express a mood or sensation. This figure is so entirely intent on moving forwards that this very intent, ‘to move forward,’ has effectively become personified. Not only is the left leg trailing, but the left elbow projects forward, pointing the way. The chin and the nose also jut forward. The left hand is held behind the head (from our point of view), and the fingers of the right hand can just be seen clasping the handle of a long, curving knife, or sword – a sabre, or scimitar, maybe. This trails behind the head, as if it has been left behind in the impetus to move forward. The figure is wearing a long robe which also flies out behind him, as if blown backwards by the slipstream caused by the rapid movement. Two long, continuous folds develop from the arm and continue, almost parallel, to end above the heel of the raised left foot. Another emerges from below the arm and trails back to a kink in the hem of the robe. Other, shorter folds flow back from the hip and the knee, the latter fold joining the hem which then continues back before curving up towards the foot. The ground is represented by a sloping wedge, which itself adds to the impetus of the figure’s movement. A block of material fills the space between the ground and the robe, but this is purely practical: it would be difficult to support the balanced mass of this figure on the slim ankle of the right foot. The sword, and the urgency of the forward movement, imply that the figure is on the attack, a violence enhanced by the angular forms and folds, and by the jutting anatomical details. This reading of what we have seen is confirmed by comparison with the title of the piece, The Avenger (or, in the original German, Der Rächer). But what is he avenging? The date of the piece might help us to understand the artist’s meaning – but 1922 doesn’t mean anything significant to me. So how much more can we say?

Well, a fair amount. After all, this is a sculpture: we have hardly begun to look (and, in truth, we haven’t looked at it at all: we are looking at a photograph). With a painting you can stand closer, or further away – and both are useful. Close up, you can see the details, understand the structure of the paint, and pick out the different brush strokes. Further away it is easier to understand the composition, how the image is balanced (or not), and how the colours are distributed. But, in a museum (with obvious exceptions), you only get to see one side of a painting. This is a sculpture, so another thing to consider is the format: what type of sculpture is it? Is it a relief? In which case is it high or low relief? What would the best viewpoint be? Would it look better placed high up, or low down, for example, or on the left or right side of a wall? Or is it a sculpture carved fully in the round? In which case, is it equally interesting from all points of view? Or does it have a predominant, primary viewpoint? To work that out, you’re going to have to walk round it. Ay, there’s the rub. With most sculptures, in a book or on a website, you will only get one photograph. And that’s why we don’t look at sculptures nearly as much as paintings: we are never given the right tools in reproduction, so we don’t know how to look at them in the flesh. Having said that, I am incredibly grateful to the Barlach Haus Museum in Hamburg who have published numerous photos of this work. Let’s take a stroll around it.

If we take just a step to our right, it really becomes obvious how much the left elbow is projecting – how much of the forward movement this conveys – and also how strongly the arm wraps around the head. It is also clear to me that the left foot stands out against the apparently darker background, a smooth, curving space which is an abstraction of the ‘underneath’ or ‘inside’ of the flowing robe. This gives us a couple more ideas of what to look for in a sculpture. How is it carved to receive the light? Are areas designed to create shadows, for example, as they are across the Virgin’s lap in Michelangelo’s Pietà? Or are they there to catch the light (like this foot)? Is the artist more interested in surface or volume? Are we looking at the mass of the material, or the space that is occupied? This sculpture is a solid volume, defined by the surface of the sculpture, with its energy expressed through line. The only place where the solid is perforated is underneath the sword, reminding us that this weapon is not part of the whole, and that the ultimate aim of the figure’s movement is to swing the sword away from the body with all the energy wound up in the spring of the arms, which will be added to the forward momentum of the charging body.

This is the only photograph of this point of view that I could find on the internet – and I wasn’t sure, initially, if I could believe it. Why are there no others? Well, let’s face it, it isn’t very interesting: just the stylised closure of the bottom of the robe, with a naturalistic foot projecting from it. It seems evident to me that Barlach never imagined anyone looking from this point of view – we are encouraged to keep walking round, so let’s keep moving.

A few more steps, and the figure begins to emerge again. What we can now see is how extremely the right arm is bent, folded back at the elbow like a hairpin.

Yet more steps and we find ourselves on the opposite side of the sculpture from our starting point. Of interest here are the long lines flowing back from the profile of the figure, which again speak of speed and energy. We also become aware of the power of the hands clenched around the handle of the sword, and their proximity to one another, implying that a focussed, driving force will be unleashed when the slashing blow is finally struck. But we cannot see the head of the protagonist, let alone the face, so we are not entirely involved with the figure. I don’t think this view of the figure is by any means as captivating as our starting point.

However, another step or two around and new features start to emerge. Both the elbows are pointing forward, and their joint silhouettes create a counterpoint with the jutting chin, the pointed nose, the angled forehead and the pursed lips.

Further round still, and we become the focus of The Avenger’s intent – or maybe he is focussed on something just over our right shoulders. We see more than before how tightly the left arm is wrapped around the chin, and notice that the forms of the chin and elbow echo one another. We can also see how close the sword is held to the head. Fabric flares out from the projecting knee, and there is almost a sense of weightlessness: there is no evidence – from this viewpoint, at least – of the left leg.

If we step closer now – and yes, like paintings, sculptures benefit from being seen close to, or further away – we get more detail. Apart from anything else, we can see stippling in the surface – not brushstrokes, but small chisel marks, which were used to refine the detail while also retaining a hand-made feel: it has not been polished smooth – the sculpture is not meant to be that ‘slick’. However, given the stylisation seen overall, the accuracy in the depiction of the tendons and the articulation of the wrist and knuckles might be surprising. The bulge formed by the pressure of the palm of the hand against the end of the handle is especially well observed. The brows slant down from the top of the nose, as do the wrinkles from the nostrils to either side of the mouth. The pursed lips are almost pouting. Is this conviction or concern? Is The Avenger really that confident? In a way, that’s up to you to decide, but Barlach really does focus on this expression. The sabre wraps round over the head, the arm wraps round underneath it, and a fold curves up from the figure’s left shoulder (on our right) to form a peak somewhere along its length, that peak echoed by the termination of the fold further away at the hem. The way in which the head is surrounded by these elements was entirely deliberate – the face is something that Barlach wanted us to see.

Having wandered around the sculpture, we are now back to the starting point. Is this a sculpture ‘fully in the round’? Yes. Is it equally interesting from all points of view? Well, my personal opinion is ‘no’. But you might think differently. However, if you google ‘Ernst Barlach The Avenger’ – or ‘Der Rächer’ – the most common photograph you will find is this one. It is undoubtedly the primary or principal viewpoint, and it was where Barlach started. I have only been able to find one example of preparatory material for the sculpture, and it is a charcoal drawing dated 1914 on the website of the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe.

Der Rächer: 1914, Kohlezeichnung von Ernst Barlach

I think the photograph has been cropped – most of the drawings on the LWL website seem to have suffered in the same way – but maybe this is all of the drawing that survives. The basic ideas are there, though, with the forward movement to our left, the thrusting elbow, the trailing leg, the scimitar wrapped around the head and held over the back. The long, linear folds of the robe are also there, although not in the same orientations. The ground is not sloping, although the long, continuous horizontal lines do imply rapid movement. And the date is informative: 1914. This was the start of the First World War, the ‘war to end all wars’, ‘The Great War’. Like so many people, Ernst Barlach was initially enthusiastic, and this sculpture was designed to express that conviction. He described The Avenger as ‘the crystalized essence of war’, the unstoppable force of the German army, charging forward to cleanse the world in order to leave space for a new and better future. Inevitably, his opinions changed. Having created the initial version of this work from clay and plaster in 1914, this sculpture was carved in wood in 1922. In the process the facial expression changed – from outright conviction to something more ambiguous. By this stage he saw The Avenger as ‘a hammer-wielding butcher’, charging with fury, but without thought, mindlessly swinging out to uphold discredited ideas – as happens all too often after many forms of conflict. It is important to remember, if you ever ask ‘but what does it mean’, that a work of art can change its meaning. Context is so important. Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes is a perfect example of this: what was originally intended as a celebration of the liberty of the people of Florence became a warning to potential despots.

The drawing may show the principal viewpoint, but, as we have seen, it isn’t the only one. Once the initial idea was translated into three dimensions there are many more. And while the Barlach Haus Museum provides a wonderful array of images, they all have one thing in common: they are all taken from the same level, looking horizontally towards the sculpture. But humanity is not that consistent. We are all different heights, and so we all see sculpture differently: from below, from above, from somewhere in between. I have not found a single image of the top of this sculpture. A very few on the internet look down onto it at a slight angle – but none show us The Avenger’s back… The next time I come across the sculpture I’m going to try and see what that looks like. Certain sculptures were undoubtedly intended to be seen from every conceivable point of view, including from above. I’d suggest that Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s Hercules and Antaeus was one of them, but I’ll leave you to look it up. However, the Barlach Haus Museum does have one more image I can show you.

Clearly Barlach never intended the sculpture to be seen from this point of view. It certainly isn’t aesthetically pleasing, even if it is a good, technical photograph. It is useful for research, but maybe not much more. Nevertheless, it is revealing: the base, and so maybe the sculpture as a whole, appears to have been made from more than one piece of wood. That might explain the surface treatment. On the museum’s website it is described as ‘Holz (Linde) mit getöntem Überzug’ – i.e. ‘Wood (lime) with tinted coating’ – and this coating might be there to hide any damage and mending that occurred during the making.

There is always more to say – and we still haven’t finished looking at the sculpture as a whole. If you do google The Avenger, what you see won’t always look the same. We should think about colour and tone again, just like in painting. Not to mention the materials from which the sculpture is made. Compare these three images, for example.

The first image is the 1922 version, carved in wood. However, it is also painted with a ‘tinted coating’, as mentioned above. The second image is from the Harvard Art Museums. It is far darker, and catches the light in different ways: it shines, reflecting light. According to the Museums’ website, ‘an edition of ten numbered bronzes were produced, eight of which were completed before 1934’. They date their version ‘1914 (cast before 1934)’. The third image above, from the Detroit Institute of Arts, is dated ‘1914, cast in 1930’ on the DIA website. It is also bronze – but it looks greener, rather than ‘bronze coloured’. In the same way that, in painting, paints can be treated differently – or can have different media (oil, tempera, or water for example) – sculptures can be treated in many different ways. Wood can be painted, bronze can be polished (in which case it would look ‘gold’ and shiny) – but it is more often given a patina. This is a way of treating the surface to make the bronze respond in different ways, oxidising the surface, for example. It can help to cover faults in the bronze casting process, or it can create an entirely different appearance. The green colour here relates to the copper in the bronze: the patina has encouraged the development of verdigris, which, chemically speaking, is copper ethanoate (or copper acetate as it is still often known). Why would you do this? It’s a matter of personal taste. However, most versions of this sculpture I’ve seen (and there are more than ten) have the more usual dark brown ‘bronze’ look.

The above three examples all use the the ‘principal viewpoint’ – although the Harvard Museum version does have alternative views on its website. However, none of the photographs we have seen is my favourite. That accolade goes to the photographer of the version in the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, who has, I think, a really good eye.

A bronze cast ‘after World War II’ – so not authorised by the artist, who died in 1938. However, it would have been authorised by the estate – altogether I think there are about 21 examples. It is a good cast, I’m sure, but I especially like the photograph: it is lit brilliantly, which always helps, and from a superb angle. The arm, the elbows, the drapery around the forward leg and the face all catch the light. The folds flow along from the left arm, and seem to spiral out from the heart of the sculpture, the doubtful, yet determined face framed by the blockish forms of the sword and the bent left arm. As far as I am concerned it is the photograph which best expresses what the sculpture, for me, is about: a headlong rush to reach the wrong conclusion.

248 – More value than many sparrows

Max Liebermann, Free Time in the Amsterdam Orphanage, 1881-82. Städel Museum, Frankfurt.

German Impressionism – the subject of my talk on Monday, 19 May – was not a direct rejection of the pristine surfaces and clear, crisp colours of the Nazarenes, who I talked about earlier this week, but it so easily could have been. With Max Liebermann’s paintings, one of which I will be writing about today, we are instantly into the world of rich colour and spontaneous brushstrokes, with all the evidence of capturing the moment and self-conscious making of art that French Impressionism entails. However, we are in a rather different world. During the talk we will look at the way that Liebermann and his contemporaries used the lessons of French Impressionism to take their work in a different direction, and to create paintings which had fundamentally different ideas. The following week (26 May) we will look at the wonderfully emotive sculptures of Ernst Barlach, and use them to think about the nature of Expressionism. I’ve then changed my plans – but fortunately before I’d put anything else online. I was so bowled away earlier this week by the remarkable, inventive, intricate and even surreal drawings by novelist and poet Victor Hugo that I want to have a good look at them while there is still time for you to get to the exhibition at the Royal Academy – it closes on 29 June) – so I will introduce that on 2 June. Many of the drawings belong to the Maison Victor Hugo in Paris, where another private residence, now the Musée Jacquemart-André, is hosting an Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition which runs until 3 August – so there’s a while for you to plan a little jaunt to Paris should it take your fancy! I will talk about that on 16 June, and then on 23 June I will look back to Cimabue – and this is ‘looking back’ in more ways than one. First, I’m afraid that the exhibition at the Louvre (which I saw last week) has already closed – but the talk will give us a chance to reconsider what was there. Second, it looks back before Duccio. Had I managed to time things better, the Louvre’s exhibition would have been a perfect introduction to Siena: The Rise of Painting – which you can still see at the National Gallery. Following on from Cimabue (or even, starting with him) I will end my ‘summer season’ with three talks about the new hang of the Sainsbury Wing in the National Gallery. Keep an eye on the diary for more information!

A large number of girls are gathered in a courtyard, wearing a uniform that is almost identical throughout: a long dress with short sleeves, red on the left and black on the right; a white headdress; and, for most, a white apron. The building is formal, with bold, brick pilasters framing large windows. A sweeping perspective pulls the eye towards the far wall of the yard, and a doorway framed in the same colour as the windows. On the left, the composition is closed by a line of trees, under which some of the girls chat. The leaves are light green, and sunlight passes through them to creates mottled pools of light on the floor and on the wall.

In the foreground on the right a group of eight girls are busy sewing. They are so focussed on their work that we could imagine there is total silence here. Some seem to be sat on the base of the architecture, and one is partially hidden by the strongly projecting pilaster in the foreground. With her left hand she lifts some white fabric, which is indistinguishable from her apron, if she is wearing one, while her right hand pulls back a needle, the thread just visible. Next to her another girl – who clearly is wearing an apron – reaches down to pick up some of the white material, with a third girl sitting on the ground in front of her looking down at her own work. Another girl sits sewing behind the one who is bending over, with a fifth peering down to see what she is doing. Two more sit in the next bay, between two of the pilasters, one of whom is more involved in sewing, while the other seems slightly distracted. However, she is still more involved in her work than the girl who is standing, framed by the pilaster which is second in from the front. She stands upright, her white cloth held with both hands in front of her waist, looking down over her right shoulder as if considering something on the floor – maybe the dappled pools of light. Further back the light falling through the trees hits the wall, and seems to take on the red of the girls’ uniforms. It also falls on the apron of the only girl I can see who is wearing an apron, or smock, hanging full-length from her shoulders, who is precariously perched on the base of one of the pilasters. Behind her another girl, half hidden, reaches up.

This girl is actually reaching up to pump water, the spout projecting horizontally to the left just above her waist. The jet of water that results is disguised, as it follows the outline of her skirt, but it must be there as you can see splashes of water above the broad, low basin on the ground: they are caught in the sunlight. Further back more girls sit and sew, while others stand and chat to them. Elsewhere there is more activity, with one girl running from right to left, the foot of another, curved up in a similar way, just visible: they are chasing one another. There also seems to be more conversation taking place in front of the doorway in the distance. Maybe some sound will reach us from the far side of the courtyard: a buzz of conversation, the footfall of the running girls, maybe the occasionally shout, the splash of water. Nearer to us, on the left, two girls walk arm in arm, and others turn to each other in conversation. High up on the right, attached to one of the pilasters, is the curved bracket of a lamp, the sunlight glinting from the glass of the lantern. The top left of the painting is filled with the trunks, branches and bright green leaves of the trees, their light colour enhanced by the sunlight, yes, but also suggesting that we are probably some way into spring, but by no means at the full height of summer, by which time they would be darker. This precision of detail, the spontaneity of the movement, and the accuracy of the interactions and of the intense focus on the needlework suggests that the artist, Max Liebermann, was there, capturing the essence of the scene as he saw it – but this is all artistry. It might come as quite a surprise to learn that the trees were not there.

This is a sketch of the courtyard – and of the girls – which Liebermann made when he was in Amsterdam in 1876. This was the year of the second Impressionist exhibition in Paris – the first had been in 1874. Like one of his French contemporaries, he was painting ‘en plein air’ in front of the ‘motif’. Or, to put it another way, he was outside painting what he saw, capturing the moment. Born in Berlin in 1847 (he was seven years younger than Monet, so of the same generation), he went to art school in Weimar at the age of 22, and travelled widely, often to the Netherlands. In 1873 he moved to Paris, and spent the summer of 1874 in Barbizon, which could be considered the ‘capital’ of of plein air painting… He was in the right place at the right time, you would think. However, his art continued to align itself more with Realism – effectively painting the things that concern real people, rather than saints or deities, miracles or myths. He made return visits to the Netherlands in 1875 (when he spent a long time inspired by the broad brushstrokes of Frans Hals) and 1876 (when he visited the orphanage in Amsterdam), and settled in Munich in 1878 after meeting a group of German artists in Venice. However, it wasn’t really until 1880 that his style shifted towards Impressionism. In Amsterdam once more, he visited the Oudemannenhuis (the ‘Old Man’s House’), where the men, dressed in black, were sitting in the garden, and light was filtering through the trees. The effects of this light were a revelation, and Liebermann later said that it felt “…as if someone were walking on a level path and suddenly stepped on a spiral spring that sprang up.” It was this that inspired him to paint what became known as “Liebermann’s sunspots” – like the ones we can see in today’s painting. The difference in style is clear, especially when compared to the sketch.

The finished work has tall trees on the left of the path, with bright sunshine filtering through to create sunspots on the floor, on the walls and on the girls’ dresses and aprons. The sketch, from the Kunsthalle, Bremen, does not have these sunspots – but then, there are no trees in the sketch for the light to filter through, just a couple of bushes. It doesn’t even look like a sunny day. Quite the opposite, in fact – it could be grey and overcast. The sketch is signed, and clearly dated 1881 – but Liebermann must have painted it in 1876, when he was there. By 1881, when the finished painting was started (in his studio in Munich) his style had changed substantially – but for whatever reason, that was the date he gave to the sketch. Over the years he based a number of works on the sketches he had made in 1876. In many ways, therefore, he wasn’t an Impressionist at all, trying to capture the ‘sensation’ he first had on witnessing this scene. He may have painted preparatory sketches en plein air, but he developed them later, back in the studio, adding trees, changing the weather, inventing the dappled sunlight… Having said that, the French Impressionists weren’t always as spontaneous as you may have thought – just think of Monet, completing his Thames views during the three or four years after he had visited London. Is has been said, with some degree of justification, that some of the artists (Degas, for example), rarely, if ever painted outside anyway. This is art, though – does it really matter? And even if he invented the trees, and the sunlight, Liebermann’s depiction of the building itself was entirely accurate. We can tell that because it’s still there: here it is with a detail of Liebermann’s painting.

The Amsterdam orphanage – the Burgerwaisenhaus – had its origins in 1520, and moved to this location sixty years later. The ‘Burger’ is important here. It wasn’t an orphanage for the poor, nor were there any foundlings. These were the children of citizens who had been orphaned – effectively the children of the middle-classes – and there were boys as well as girls: we just happen to be in the girls’ courtyard. Plagues and epidemics in 1602, 1617 and 1622-28 had substantially increased the number of orphans, and 1634 the orphanage – which was originally housed in a medieval monastery – was enlarged. This building was probably designed by Jacob van Campen, who was also responsible for Amsterdam Town Hall (now the Royal Palace), and the Mauritshuis in The Hague, among other notable buildings. When Liebermann visited in 1876 the children still wore these uniforms in black and red – the colours of the Amsterdam coat of arms – and would continue to do so until 1919. The orphanage itself staid put until 1960, at which point it was transferred to a new building, which is said to be a modernist design classic. Since 1975 the 17th century building has been the home of the Amsterdam Museum, with the adjoining boys’ courtyard now used as an open-air café.

I’d like to finish by returning to one of the details of the painting: the one distracted girl in the right foreground.

It wouldn’t be true to say that any of the girls here look happy, but they do at least look engaged. All of them, that is, apart from the one standing up. She holds her fabric to her stomach and looks down over her shoulder. To my eye she looks unequivocally Dutch, but I’m probably relying on broad-brushstroke stereotypes. However, she does look melancholy: what is prompting this reflection? What is she looking at?

The direction of her gaze isn’t entirely clear, to be honest, and it could be that she isn’t looking at anything at all, just lost in her thoughts. But if she is looking at the floor, then maybe she is mesmerised by the sunspots, created in the painting with thickly impasto-ed strokes of white and cream-coloured paint. Or maybe she is fascinated by the sparrows, pecking away at whatever they can find, gleaning a meagre existence from anything that has fallen from the trees, or has been dropped by the children. There is no evidence of them in Liebermann’s sketch: were they really there? Or is he trying to say something allegorical about the situation of the orphans, gleaning a meagre existence from the charity of others? Being who I am, my mind instantly turns to two passages from the Gospel according to St Matthew. Chapter 6, verse 26 says, “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” Meanwhile, in Chapter 10, verses 29-31, we read, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”

It’s possible that these verses are relevant, although it is worth noting that Liebermann was Jewish. Given the increase in secularism over the 19th Century, the gospels were probably not standard reading for many artists at the time, and it would have been even less likely for Liebermann. However, he had painted two versions of The Twelve-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple just a couple of years before: such situations are never as straightforward as you might think. Changes in the Prussian law regarding Jews benefitted him as a child, but as an old man he suffered professionally – as so many did – with the rise to power of the National Socialists. However, his death in 1935 – at the age of 88, and from natural causes – meant that, although a broken man, he was not a victim of their worst atrocities. Inevitably we will touch on this on Monday, although the majority of the time will be spent looking at his paintings, and those of his fellow German Impressionists, as we discover what the implications of that term really were.

247 – In the midst of the doctors?

Marie Ellenrieder, Christ in the Temple, 1849. Royal Collection Trust.

My next stop on the journey through early modern German art will be The Nazarenes, this Monday, 12 May at 6pm. If you’ve never heard of them, don’t worry, but they are rather wonderful and should be known! Nevertheless, a striking feature of the History of Art is its ability to forget artists who were, in their day, remarkably successful. And the Nazarenes really were successful – especially in Britain. It’s just that very few paintings have made their way into public collections anywhere outside Germany. Not only that, but tastes changed very quickly after their initial success. John Ruskin’s Modern Painters would turn out to be an enormously important and influential book: amongst other things it includes an early defence of the paintings of Turner. However, when the first volume was initially sent to the publishers – the prestigious John Murray – it was turned down: apparently Murray said that they might have been more interested if it had been written about the Nazarenes. As Ruskin was concerned with nature, God and society, he would surely have been interested in their work, as they ticked at least two of these three boxes – God and society.  They would also turn out to be an important influence on British art, as we shall see on Monday. Apart from anything else, their clear, crisp colours and strong simple outlines are a balm for troubled eyes – and trust me, I should know. I must apologise for this post being rather late. I got back from Paris on Thursday, and meant to finish writing it yesterday. However, I went out for an hour or so to have an eye test and order some new glasses, but only got home some 10 hours, four nurses and three doctors later after minor laser eye surgery. I’m fine, it was a precautionary measure, but I lost a day’s work unexpectedly.

Today I want to write about Marie Ellenrieder. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t one of the Nazarenes, who, like the Pre-Raphaelites, were effectively a ‘Brotherhood’. However, she knew them, and her work is strongly influenced by theirs. I’ll go into more detail on Monday, of course. The following week (19 May) I will move onto German Impressionism, and then, to conclude this series, on 26 May I’m looking forward to enjoying the sculptures of Ernst Barlach – whose work will be the main Aspect of Expressionism I will be discussing. In Paris I saw two superb exhibitions dedicated to Cimabue and Artemisia Gentileschi, and I’ll be talking about them in June: do keep your eye on the diary for more details.

In light, crisp, clear colours Marie Ellenrieder is depicting a story whose consequences I discussed just a month or so ago, looking at Simone Martini’s Christ discovered in the Temple. As I said in that post, I think Martini was painting what happened next – after Mary and Joseph had found Jesus. When he was 12, according to the Gospel of St Luke, the family went to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. On the way home Mary and Joseph realised that Jesus was not with the rest of the group – so they returned to the city, and eventually, after three days, they found him in the temple, ‘sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers’ (Luke 2:46-47). Ellenrieder has a very particular take on the story, and one that differs from the medieval and renaissance versions. Unlike ‘traditional’ images she does not show the moment of discovery, with Mary and Joseph to the side, or in the background, nor does she show a large group of doctors – there are usually at least four, or how could Jesus appear ‘in the midst’ of them? In Ellenrieder’s version he isn’t even in between the two who are present, one of whom isn’t paying him any attention anyway. In a similar way to Simone Martini, I think she is extending the range of the narrative, but whereas he takes the story beyond the moment of ‘discovery’, Ellenrieder has arrived to witness a scene beforehand. Jesus is only really communicating with one of the doctors, which makes me wonder if he has only recently entered the Temple. Let’s see if that makes sense!

The interaction between the old man and the 12-year-old boy is very direct, and very personal. It could be a scene of one-on-one tuition, although one in which the tables are turning. The man, with his long, white beard, is assumed to be both old and wise. On his lap rests a hefty tome with his right hand lying on top, the forefinger tucked into one of the pages to keep his place (there is also a bookmark ribbon marking another page). He looks towards Jesus, his left hand raised to emphasize a point in his argument. Jesus looks up towards him, holding an unrolled scroll, pointing towards the text with his right forefinger. His sanctity is evident – a simple gold ring circles his head as a halo – and his Christianity is subtly alluded to. Whereas the older man has his head covered by a russet-red hood, Jesus’s centrally parted and neatly combed hair is there for all to see. I don’t know when the tradition started – but long before Ellenrieder was alive – but Jewish boys would often start to wear a yarmulka (or kippah, or skull cap) at the age of three. Jesus is twelve – admittedly not yet thirteen, when he would be obligated to follow the commandments of the Torah, but the point is clearly made. In medieval and renaissance iconography, scrolls are usually used by characters from the Old Testament – i.e. Jews – whereas codices (books with pages that turn, rather than unroll) were not developed until the 2nd or 3rd century, and so are associated with Christianity. With Jesus pointing to a scroll, Ellenrieder could be implying that he has a profound understanding of the Old Order from an original text, rather than a ‘modern’ commentary. The glance that passes between the two suggests that this is the case. The old man’s head is tilted, and, to me at least, his gaze seems to imply a sense of doubt, with an idea coming into his head that had not been there before. The tentative positioning of his left hand is similarly not decisive – it is not the bold statement of an unequivocal truth, or the secure gesture of a well-practiced argument. The Doctor’s face is pale, his cheeks hollowed, and there are a few dignified wrinkles (the Nazarenes were not too worried about excessive lifelike veracity, but were more interested in communicating an idea as simply and directly as possible). Jesus has a perfect, porcelain complexion, unmarked but glowing with health – and youth. He looks up into the old man’s eyes with just a hint of a smile, showing conviction, understanding, and even love. His hand casts a shadow on the scroll: it is illuminated from above, as if by his Father in heaven. However, the words on the scroll are not legible. They are neither Latin nor Hebrew characters, but I suspect Ellenrieder is painting something ‘other’ to suggest the latter. Jesus wears a simple red robe, as was traditional, although it is not yet covered with a blue cloak. Perhaps that is because he has not yet formally begun his teaching – and wouldn’t, until after the Baptism. The old man, on the other hand, wears a subtle range of colours – russet, yellow, pale blue, orange and green.

Sometimes I find details in a painting a marvel in and of themselves – and this is one such detail. Above all, I love the poise of the man’s hand directly in front of his beard so that its insecurity is framed by his age and experience. The subtle articulation of the fingers, each one different – with the index finger opening out and the ring finger curling in – surely creates the sense of hesitation. And then there are the colours – the pale lemon yellow of the tabard, which is buttoned on both sides along the shoulders, and the way that this colour is picked up in the patterning of the Wedgwood-blue sleeves. There is a similar pattern on the tabard in a more muted, neutral colour. Above all, though, it is the expression, as if asking ‘how is this possible, from someone so young?’ But then, as it says in Psalm 8, verse 2, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast though ordained strength…’ Maybe that’s the verse that Jesus is pointing at. He would certainly know this text later – in Matthew 21:16 he says ‘have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?’ He could even be asking that now.

The bottom of the painting has some further, subtle pointers to Jesus’s status – and more delicate detailing. Notice how he wears no shoes, whereas the Doctor has delicate yellow pumps, the same colour as the tabard and with similar decoration. The blue/yellow colour chord is there, as it the contrast between the green cloak and its deep amber lining. Jesus being unshod is presumably a reference to Luke 10:4, in which he instructs his followers ‘Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes’. I quoted an equivalent text (Matthew 10:10) when talking about Martini’s painting, in which the 12-year-old wears sandals (‘nor shoes’ does not necessarily proscribe other footwear…). In the same painting, Simone’s Joseph, like Ellenrieder’s old man, also happens to wear yellow(ish) shoes.

Being younger than the Doctor, Jesus’s legs are shorter, and rest on a higher step. The Doctor’s feet are split between two lower levels. Oddly, perhaps, the old man is on a slightly higher level of the bench or parapet on which both are seated: it does not appear to be continuous. I don’t think there’s a meaning to this, though, and I’m also not entirely sure that it was a deliberate choice on the part of the artist. What was intentional, though, is the lighting. Not only does it shine from above, brilliantly illuminating the scroll and Jesus’s pointing right hand, but it also leads our eyes into the painting, going from the lit floor at the bottom right and up the steps which lead toward Jesus himself, as does the diagonal arrangement of the feet.

But what of the man in the background? He is also Jewish – his head is covered – and although he is not, seemingly, an ‘elder’, as his beard is relatively short and dark, he is clearly a mature man who is focussed on scripture. His right hand is raised ready to point to an unclear word, or to keep his place in case he is distracted. Has he turned away, or has he not yet become interested in the prodigy? It would be impossible to say, without the artist’s explicit statement, and I’m not sure to what extent Ellenrieder explained her own work. He is clearly significant, though, and is neatly framed by the architectonic elements – which give him prominence, whilst also asking their own questions.

Where, exactly, are we? The biblical text suggests we are in the ‘temple’ – but this looks for all the world like a gothic church with pointed arches and ribbed vaulting. It is, admittedly, an unusual form of architecture, as the columns have no capitals, but that’s not unknown, and anyway, maybe Ellenrieder was using her imagination, and seeking something simple. We are looking from the right of centre of one particular arch – columns frame the painting at the left and right. A lantern hangs in between them, to the left of the point of a blind arch on the back wall. The lantern – exquisitely formed – is presumably hanging from the centre of the vaulting in this particular bay. However, medieval paintings – notably medieval Flemish paintings – tended to show the temple with romanesque architecture, acknowledging some form of time frame: Romanesque was ‘old’ (so implied the Old Order), Gothic was ‘new’ (and was used for the New). So why did Ellenrieder choose Gothic? Is it simply, as in other choices here, that she wasn’t too bothered about medieval tradition? This would go against the Nazarene’s ideas: they were interested in the supposed purity and faith of medieval artists, as we shall see on Monday. Maybe she had something else in mind – and of course, I suspect that she did. I’ve talked about this painting more than once in a number of series about women artists, and it’s always reminded me of something, but until recently I couldn’t remember what that was. The cool grey stone and the lighter grey walls are reminiscent of the architecture of Brunelleschi in Florence, but translated into Gothic (curiously, Brunelleschi’s ‘Renaissance’ was doing was neo-Romanesque, rather than neo-Roman, but let’s not go into that right now). But I have seen this architecture somewhere before.

I first came across Marie Ellenrieder in Konstanz, in South-West Germany, which, for four years, was the location of my ‘country house’. She was born there in 1791. At the age of 22 she started her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich – and was, as it happens, the first woman to be admitted to any German academy. Nine years later she went to Rome, a study trip which lasted more or less two years, until 1824. It was there that she met the Nazarenes, becoming especially influenced by the founder of the group, Johann Friedrich Overbeck. After other travels she returned to Konstanz in the 1840s, where she continued to paint, and teach, until her death in 1863. This particular painting dates to 1849, and so must have been painted in Konstanz. It was bought that year by Prince Albert, and Queen Victoria bought another of her paintings at the same time: both can be seen in Osborne House, the royal residence on the Isle of Wight. Albert’s interest was not explicitly because she was German – he had come across her on one of his visits to Rome – but he presumably got to know her work through the German artists there in whom he was interested and who were, after all, his contemporaries. If it was painted in Konstanz, I’m not sure how it got to Rome – but that is by the by… Konstanz is the clue.

Medieval Konstanz was a very important diocese, and the only place in Germany which has ever hosted a Papal Conclave – back in 1417. The diocese included most of present-day Switzerland – stretching as far as St Gottard in the South, but also going as far North in Germany as Stuttgart. It also stretched from Bern in the West to Ulm in the East… Its Cathedral – now a Minster – was (and remains) magnificent, even though Konstanz ceased to be a Bishopric in 1821. Somewhere along the line the cloister lost two of its wings. The remaining two flank the church and chapter house in an L-shape, and frame one corner of the town’s main square. Here is a photo of the interior, together with a slightly truncated version of Ellenrieder’s Christ in the Temple:

Notice the gothic arches, and the bench running along the back, at the base of a blind arcade. Notice also the way in which the ribs of the vault overlap, the spaces they create, and their cool, grey colouring. But more than anything else, look at the columns: it’s clear to me that there are no capitals. This is a section of the cloister which is deeper than others, hence the free-standing column on the right of the photo – elsewhere it is only one bay deep – not unlike the painting. I can’t help thinking that Jesus and the Doctor are in this cloister, seated in one of the arches that lead into the open space in the middle, and imagined as seated on a similar bench to the one which runs along the back wall. This is Ellenrieder’s ‘mother church’, still a cathedral while she was growing up. What better place to imagine as the Temple than the oldest and most majestic building in the city of her birth? Admittedly she has slightly changed the profile of the arch, and includes a different transition from column to ribs – but I think these are small details. Her imagination has taken her to Jesus’s arrival in the Temple, having left his earthly step-father to ‘be about [his] Father’s business’. This could be the first interaction with one of the people there. The old man might then alert the younger man, and they could then summon others, who will be ‘astonished at his understanding and answers’. Eventually, when Mary and Joseph arrive, they will find Jesus ‘sitting in the midst of the doctors’. At least, that’s what I think is happening.

246 – Lonely as a Cloud?

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, about 1817. Kunsthalle, Hamburg.

Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog is one of the archetypal images of German Romanticism – so what better painting to look at as an introduction to my eponymous talk this Monday, 5 May at 6pm? To be honest, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen it in real life, as the last time I was in Hamburg (December 2023) they had moved it into an exhibition looking forward to the 250th anniversary of the artist’s birth (1774), which unfortunately didn’t open until the week after we’d left… Since then, different embodiments of the show have been seen in Dresden and Berlin, and it is currently at the Met in New York, marking over a year of celebrations. The American incarnation closes on 11 May, in case you are stateside and on the East Coast: the first half of Monday’s talk will effectively walk us through it. However, I’m hoping that the Wanderer will be back on the walls of the Kunsthalle in Hamburg by the time I get there on 29 May – who knows if I’ll be lucky? As well as Friedrich, Monday’s talk will also look at the intriguing and idiosyncratic paintings of Otto Philipp Runge, an acquaintance and colleague of Friedrich, and another of the leading Romantic artists. I shall try and include others when appropriate. In the weeks that follow I will gradually work my way through German art history, looking at The Nazarenes (12 May), German Impressionism (19 May), and Ernst Barlach (26 May). All of these talks are now on sale, and you can either click on these links or look in the diary for more information. In the midst of it all I am heading to Paris for two days to catch the exhibitions Revoir Cimabue (‘A New Look at Cimabue’) at the Louvre and Artemisia: Héroïne de l’art at the Musée Jacquemart André. I am hoping to give lectures on both in June. Meanwhile… Germany.

This is undoubtedly one of Western Art’s ‘iconic’ paintings – the sort that is widely recognised, and often quoted. Maybe it’s not as familiar as the Mona Lisa, Munch’s The Scream, or ‘Whistler’s Mother’, but it is up there somewhere. Like all of them, there is a single figure forming a bold silhouette, so that the composition makes a strong, initial impact. This is easily remembered, and so can be instantly recognised: the boldness creates a sense of familiarity. This painting has the added bonus of mystery: who is this man? We would not recognise him even if we met, as he stands with his back it to us. We cannot see what he is thinking, or guess how he feels. He stands atop a rock formation looking out over the title’s ‘sea of fog’ (‘das Nebelmeer’ in the original German), and over the mountaintops which project from it. He wears a dark green, well-tailored coat, knee-length and gathered at the waist, with matching trousers. The rocks on which he stands are as dark, although brown, while the fog ranges from white to bluish-grey, with hints of lavender and pink, colours which are echoed in the sky.

These colours, and the shapes they form, help us interpret the painting, I think. I don’t know how much time you spend looking at the sky, or thinking about what you see, or even where it is, but if you look directly upwards, you are looking at the part of the sky that is closest to you. The sky above the horizon, or just touching it, is furthest way. I know this is obvious, but it’s worth considering, and I suspect it is not something we often register explicitly. When painted, the sky acts as a sort of external ‘ceiling’, directly above an equivalent, perspectival floor, so that, at the top of the painting, the sky is in the foreground, and the lower down the painting it goes, the further away that section of the sky is: where it meets the horizon the sky is in the background. This is still really obvious, I know, but it’s worth clarifying. In this detail, which shows all of the sky above the distant mountains, the clouds at the top are turbulent, with puffs of strongly contrasted light and dark, whereas those below are calmer, with stable, horizontal streaks of similar, close-hued, light tones. This implies that the weather nearby is rougher than that in the distance. If we are travelling in that direction – as the gaze of the ‘Wanderer’ suggests – things are going to get better: we are looking towards the calm on the horizon, both visually and metaphorically.

However, it is not entirely clear where the Wanderer is standing: on top of some rocks, yes, but not quite at the very top. And we don’t really know where these rocks are. Placed against a backdrop of fog, and with other rocky peaks which seem to be lower, we inevitably assume that he is at the top of a mountain. However, as we see these rocks out of context, we have no way of telling how broad, or high, this mountain is, nor how close he is to any vegetation… or for that matter, civilisation. He seems to be alone in the world, and potentially on the edge of a precipice. Nevertheless, these rocks do create that archetypal artistic construction – a pyramid – and he is placed on top of it, the focus of the composition. His left foot is higher and placed at an angle. His right foot points directly into the painting, stable at the end of a straight, supporting leg. The left leg is bent. I have no doubt that he is poised, stationary, to contemplate the view – he has a walking stick which projects to the right, helping to create visual, as well as physical, stability. Nevertheless, there is still the possibility that he could straighten that bent left leg and take a step forward with his right, either onto the higher stone, or even over the brow of this particular peak. Is he content to reach this summit, or will he head on to the mountains in the distance?

To the left, the rocky peaks are broad, and rounded, and, like the foreground where he is standing, they are devoid of vegetation. To the right, a larger mass of stone is topped with trees, but trees which, thanks to their distance, appear quite tiny: each would easily fit, pictorially, into the gap formed by crook of his arm. But has Friedrich got the perspective ‘right’? The trees seem too small, making that distant outcrop seem even further away than the shapes made by the fog would suggest. Of course, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ about it: the artist is using our understanding of perspective to show us the size and scale of the world around us: the world is enormous, and we are tiny in comparison. The painting is an example of the ‘Sublime’ which, in philosophical terms, represents a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement, or imitation. It can be exciting, or terrifying, or even both. For observers of a painting it works particularly well, though, because we know that, how ever large and potentially dangerous the world is, we, at this moment, are safe in the comfort of our own home.

Having said that, this man does not appear to be ‘tiny’ in comparison to the world. By making the rocks on which he stands equivalent to those in the distance, and by showing him as so much larger than the trees, this man is made truly monumental – heroic, even. Indeed, he is the very essence of the Romantic hero. His head is of the same order of size – on the picture surface – as the rock formation to the right. This is actually a fairly accurate depiction of the Zirkelstein, a table mountain which overlooks the River Elbe about 50km South East of Dresden, where Friedrich lived and worked. I can’t help thinking that the mountain has a head and shoulders not unlike the ‘Wanderer’. He is part of nature, and yet separate from it – another essential Romantic idea. Nature seems to converge on him. Notice how, just below the Zirkelstein, the top of a long, gently-sloping hill emerges from the clouds, and leads down in a shallow diagonal from the right edge of the painting to the Wanderer’s right arm. Another hilltop leads down in a similar shallow diagonal from the left to his left arm. There are mountains visible on either side of the flared skirts of his coat, and, as we saw above, he stands on top of a pyramid of rocks – which could in themselves be the tip of a far larger mountain.

Our eye level should be where we see the horizon, which suggests that the distant mountain is higher than his current position: it looms above his head. The slopes are apparently less rocky, and we might assume that it would be relatively easy to climb – an uphill walk, maybe, arduous, given the scale, but not a scramble. Some people think this is either the Rosenberg, or the Kaltenberg, but I’m not sure that either has exactly the right profile – but again, that is immaterial. Friedrich went out into the countryside, made sketches, and later rearranged them and altered them according to what would work in the painting – ‘pictorial necessity’. Here it is notable that the right slope of this mountain leads down behind the man’s face: he is looking at this very slope, and the hills beyond.

However bold the composition as a whole, the details are remarkably delicate. Notice how the light catches his shirt collar on the left, and to a lesser extent, also on the right. If you look closely enough, you can also see that it glances over the outline of his left ear. His ginger hair blows in tufts in the breeze. Caspar David Friedrich had red hair, by the way. This could be him.

But what does it all add up to? Everything focusses on the Wanderer: the rocks in the foreground support him, the apex of a pyramid, and mountains frame him to the left and right. The tops of the hills slope down towards him on either side – as if pointing towards him – and a distant mountain even resembles him. He is also exactly in the middle of the painting, his body lined up with the central vertical axis. We are looking directly at him, and yet we cannot see his face. However, by painting him from behind – what the Germans would call a Rückenfigur (literally, ‘back-figure’) – we are invited to look at what he is seeing, the ultimate repoussoir. We are looking at the act of looking, and the implication is that we consider not only what we can see, but also, how that would make us feel. This is the very essence of Romanticism: a personal response to the world around us. The movement grew as a reaction against the Enlightenment, during which the world was explored, measured, evaluated and rationalised. Romanticism invites a more emotional response. Friedrich is not documenting a precise geographical location, telling us physically where he stands, but is provoking us into a metaphorical consideration: how do we feel about our place in the universe? However, he doesn’t tell us how to feel. As a result, the interpretations of this painting are many and varied. It has been suggested that Friedrich’s concerns were political – relating to German Nationalism, as a response to the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, just two years before the painting was begun. Ironically, by occupying many of the small independent states that made up the fragmented political landscape of Germany, Napoleon’s actions provoked a greater sense of what it meant to be German. He therefore helped to promote unification (the same was true in Italy). Alternatively, the painting could be a religious statement, expressing awe at the majesty of God’s creation, with the rocks as a symbol of a secure Faith, standing strong and reaching to the firmament. Friedrich profoundly believed in God’s presence in nature, as we shall see on Monday. Or it could be a meditation on his own journey through life. Every peak of achievement can turn out to be the brink of a precipice. And even if that’s not the case, how can we ever know if we have reached the ‘top’? How many more mountains must we climb – metaphorically – before we can find the peace promised by the calmer skies and gentler slopes on the horizon? As far as Friedrich’s own life is concerned, is it a coincidence that not long after he began this painting he would get married?

However we see the painting, the formalised composition implies that there should be a metaphorical interpretation. The sense of life’s journey, and the Romantic notion of an individual’s response to the situation in which they find themselves, is expressed explicitly through the notion of the Wanderer himself, and the very idea of Wandering. You only have to remember what William Wordsworth was doing in the opening line of what is surely most famous poem by one of Britain’s most famous Romantic poets: ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud…’. Wandering – and the discoveries which result – is essentially Romantic. However, for Caspar David Friedrich – judging by this painting, if nothing else – clouds were anything but lonely.

Flora: a second bloom

Evelyn De Morgan, Flora, 1894. De Morgan Collection.

As I said when I originally posted this essay, ‘There have been a plethora of exhibitions of the work of Evelyn De Morgan in the past few years, but I am only now in a position to dedicate an entire talk to her’ – that was in August 2023, thanks to the exhibition The Gold Drawings at Leighton House. It was focussed on a very specific aspect of her work – and an especially refined, and elegant one at that. Now, with the exhibition Evelyn de Morgan: The Modern Artist in Victorian London at the Guildhall Art Gallery, I will give a more general introduction to her work (Monday, 28 April at 6:00pm). I saw the exhibition yesterday – and it’s a perfect opportunity to get to know a wonderful artist and remarkable woman. Not only that, but it’s free – so don’t miss it! I first encountered one of her paintings at the exhibition Botticelli Reimagined at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2016 – it was today’s work which was exhibited – and then she resurfaced in the National Portrait Gallery’s Pre-Raphaelite Sisters in 2019: the catalogue of that exhibition includes what is probably the best writing about her that I know. One of the stars of that show, as far as I was concerned, was Night and Sleep, about which I wrote on Day 41 back in April 2020. This talk will conclude what has been a short series about exhibitions currently in London. After this, May will be devoted to German art, starting with German Romanticism on 5 May, and then, on 12 May, The Nazarenes. More will follow – but check out the diary for information about them, including dates, and on-sale dates.

Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, vegetation and fertility – and so effectively, also, of Spring – is shown full-length in a suitably floral dress, scattering blooms and standing on a lawn growing and strewn with yet more flowers. Behind her is a fruit-laden tree, dark against the clear blue sky, with just a hint of dusk on the horizon. She stands in classical contrapposto, with her weight on her left leg and her right lifting off the ground as if she were walking, or even, possibly, dancing. Over her shoulder is a blood-red shawl, and her hair flies freely in the breeze.

The tree is a loquat (Eriobotrya japonica), presumably chosen as it has the rare distinction of flowering in autumn or winter, so that it bears fruit as early as spring – an ideal demonstration of Flora’s fecundity (for this and all subsequent botanical identification I am, as ever, deeply indebted to the Ecologist, now Professor of Ecology at the University of Liverpool: congratulations, and thank you!). The loquat has its origins in China, but was known to Europeans as early as the 16th century. It may even have arrived in Portugal back then. The silveriness on the underside of the leaves is diagnostic, apparently, and is one of the many features that De Morgan captures accurately. The full moon hovers in the dusk sky, and below it a goldfinch flaps its wings. Not only is the bird colouristically related to Flora – the red on its face matches that on her shawl – but its association with the Passion of Christ, and therefore Easter, also makes it appropriate for a spring painting, a natural resurrection following the death of winter.

Further down, a second goldfinch looks up towards its mate from the right of the painting, not far from the head of a siskin, whose pair can be seen on the left, just below Flora’s elbow. A third type of bird is shown on her red shawl: picked out in gold, there are stylised swallows. Even if ‘one swallow doesn’t make a spring’ the number represented suggest that the season is well advanced. Admittedly this particular saying is also applied to summer, but I should be able to explain this confusion later on. The red colour of the shawl itself is related to the rich red roses which Flora is clasping, along with the others she is scattering – a metaphor for the way in which the arriving spring brings with it flowers. I particularly like the flick of the beaded red shawl just above Flora’s right elbow which echoes not only the curls of her hair, but also the shapes of some of the leaves and the curve of the siskin’s back and tail.

De Morgan captures the fall of the scattered roses rather brilliantly. It is as if they are frozen in time. The swirls of drapery, on the other hand, seem to have a life of their own, clinging to her bent right knee and curling behind, almost as if they are growing. All over the dress – which is modulated from cream in the light to a buttery yellow in the shadow – we see pansies, apparently growing with their leaves, which are either embroidered or printed onto the fabric. The name ‘pansy’ is derived from the French pensée, or ‘thought’, although that probably has little relevance here. They are included, like so much else, as indicators of spring, even if developments in horticulture mean that there are now varieties which will bloom all the year round. They don’t withstand the heat of summer, which could be relevant: as we shall see, De Morgan was painting in Florence, where the heat can be unbearable.

By the time we hit the ground (a final pink rose can be seen falling from the top of this detail) there is an explosion of flora. In between the left border of the painting and the figure’s right toes is a cyclamen, and to the right of the same foot are two primroses (Primula vulgaris), one the more common yellow form, the other a pink variant. There are also pinkish daisies (Bellis perennis) mid-way between the feet and below Flora’s left heel, and below the latter daisies are the flowers of another cyclamen. The rest of the flowers – whether deep blue, light blue or pink – are florist’s cineraria (Pericalis x hybrida), with the exception of some tiny forget-me-nots (Myosotis) to the left of Flora’s right foot (above the cyclamen), and a periwinkle (Vinca) to the left of the second set of cyclamen flowers.

The bottom left of the painting shows the same species, although the deep pink flower at the very bottom left corner might be ‘new’. The periwinkles can be seen more clearly (to the left of the full cyclamen plant and above a yellow primrose), and there are more forget-me-nots in the bottom right corner of the detail.

The bottom right of the painting also has the same selection, with more scattered roses, but there are also what appear to be double flowering ranunculus blooms, with tightly-packed petals in either yellowy-orange or red. The ‘new’ flower in the previous detail might also be a ranunculus. In addition, there is a cartellino – a small piece of paper, or label – inscribed with a verse and, on the underside, curled round on the right, the signature: ‘E De M. Maggio 1894’ – Evelyn De Morgan, May 1894. May is the month of spring, even if nowadays we associate its arrival with March. The Romans celebrated Floralia – the festival in honour of Flora – from 28 April – 3 May, and in Britain these rites survived with the celebration of a May Queen well into the twentieth century (there was a maypole in our playground at school, although I don’t remember anyone ever dancing around it). This ‘traditional’ celebration of spring is followed close on its heels by the arrival of summer in June (optimistically speaking – it was still raining in August when I originally wrote this), with ‘Midsummer’ being 21 June. This might explain the confusion over which season is ‘made’ by the arrival of an appropriate number of swallows. From 1890 until 1914 Evelyn and her husband William De Morgan (renowned potter, some of whose work I will include in Monday’s talk) spent the winter months of every year in Florence – and in this particular case at least, that could continue through to May. It was in Florence that Flora was painted. As far as I can read it, I think this is a correct transcription of the verse, for the benefit of those of you who have some Italian:

   Io vengo da Fiorenza e sono Flora
Quella città dai fior prende nomanza
   Tra Fiori son nata ed or cambio dimora
   Fra I monti della Scozia avrò mia stanza
Accoglietemi ben e vi sia caro
   Nelle nordiche nebbie il mio tesoro.

It uses antiquated Italian – even for the late 19th Century – including the medieval form of the city’s name, Fiorenza, as opposed to the ‘modern’ version, Firenze. The medieval form (like the English) is closer to the Roman name ‘Florentia’ – the flourishing city – and so to Flora herself, but also ties in with the ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ ethos of the painting, influenced as it is by an artist born many years before Raphael. As a sophisticated group of cognoscenti you will have seen the parallels already, and I hinted as much when I said that I’d first seen the painting in the exhibition Botticelli Reimagined. Before we get to that, though, here is my translation of the verse (you will understand why I never became a poet). It is rough, I know, but I wanted to try and replicate the rhyme scheme, and allude to quaint archaic forms (or rather, in this case, Scots dialect – apologies to my Scottish readers).

   I come from Florence, and I am Flora –
That city from the flowers takes its name.
   Born among flowers I’m now an explorer:
   The hills of Scotland soon will be ‘ma hame’.
Welcome me well so that my treasure
   Amid the northern mists will give you pleasure.

The implication is that Evelyn De Morgan painted Flora for a Scottish patron, although precisely who that was remains unknown: the first recorded owner had no known connections north of the border. As for its visual origins, De Morgan’s love – and understanding – of the work of Botticelli must be clear. For one thing, Flora owes a great deal to her namesake in the Primavera, which De Morgan could easily have seen in the Uffizi (in Florence) during her regular winter sojourns.

Dressed as a Florentine bride, with jewelled belt and necklace turned into garlands of flowers, Botticelli’s Flora has a similar dress to that of De Morgan’s, with the draperies folding and flowing in equivalent ways, covered (whether embroidered or printed) with flowers growing complete with their leaves. Both figures also scatter roses. Botticelli associates her with the nymph Chloris, seen emerging from the right edge of the detail. According to Ovid, Chloris was captured and raped by Zephyr, the west wind. To atone for his misdeeds, Ovid tells us, Zephyr transformed Chloris into Flora – hence the flowers coming from Chloris’s mouth as she looks back up at Zephyr whose head is just visible in this detail. This myth explains the origin of spring, as the barren land is made fertile, so it was believed, by the arrival of the west wind. Flora’s dress is also exceedingly like the figure reaching over to clothe the newly born goddess in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, which is also in the Uffizi.

De Morgan’s Flora has hair more reminiscent of Venus herself, though. The colour may be similar to that of the attendant – reddish to fair – but the long curling locks blowing in the wind are closer to those of the goddess. I’ve cut Venus out from this detail for technical, WordPress related reasons, but you don’t need to take my word for it. We know that Evelyn de Morgan knew Botticelli’s painting: she copied a detail from The Birth of Venus, and her study has survived. Like today’s painting is owned by the De Morgan Collection.

In this small sketch De Morgan conveys the gilding which Botticelli used freely across his paintings with strokes of cream-coloured paint, but elsewhere – including in her painting of Flora – she picks out details in gold – real gold – just like her Florentine inspiration. She became especially interested in the use of this particular material, a metal, and an element in its own right, to the extent that she executed a considerable number of drawings using gold, and gold alone. It is a highly unconventional technique and one that was practiced by very few artists. As far as I know, she was the major exponent. There are a few examples of this remarkable refined technique in the current exhibition, and I will include them in the talk on Monday. I will also be able to discuss the development of her career as a whole, thanks to the superb collection of paintings and drawings currently on display at the Guidlhall Art Gallery.

Asking again: painted by a madman?

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1895. Private Collection.

If you think I’m being rude – or insensitive – I should point out that the title of today’s post is simply a quotation, in English, from the words that Edvard Munch himself wrote on the first (or second) version of The Scream. An infrared photo of the offending text is at the very bottom of the post, if you want to check it for yourself… There are several versions of today’s painting – two in paint, two in pastel, and a lithograph which survives in a number of different versions, some coloured, some not. I am reposting this entry today as an introduction to the talk I will be giving on Monday 21 April, Edvard Munch Portraits, introducing the eponymous exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Sadly the exhibition doesn’t include today’s work, even if you could argue (at a stretch) that it is a form of psychological portrait… but that’s not the point of the exhibition. The talk will be the second of three looking at exhibitions currently on show in London. The third will be Evelyn de Morgan: The Modern Painter in Victorian London (which has just opened at the Guidlhall Art Gallery) on 28 April. After this, I am devoting May to German art from the 19th and early 20th centuries, starting with German Romanticism (5 May), and then The Nazarenes (12 May). I will also cover German Impressionism (19 May) and the series will conclude with a talk focussing on the sculptor Ernst Barlach (details still to be defined) – but all that will find its way to the diary before too long.

The Scream is one of those images which needs no introduction, so familiar are we with it, and with all the versions, mainly satirical, that it has spawned. Let’s face it, it’s the only painting I can think of that has inspired an emoji 😱, and the film franchise, Scream, uses the protagonist’s face for the mask worn by the killer. Like the many pastiches of Munch’s masterpiece, this franchise is a ‘comedy’ hommage (French pronunciation) to the slasher genre it apes. I’m sure the irreverent approach is just a means to undermine the darker implications of the painting. It is so familiar, perhaps, that we no longer look at it properly. We think that we know what is there, and we just stop looking: familiarity breeds disregard. So let’s look again. I’m going to focus on Munch’s third version of the subject, the pastel painted in 1895, but will consider the development of the series (briefly) below.

When you look at this image (and try to look at it as if you’ve never seen it before), what is the first thing that you notice? My first response, when I started thinking about this post, was surprise at the brilliance of the colour. The colour is why I’ve chosen this particular version to focus on – the others have faded, or were, in any case, duller. The sky is an intense vermillion, the bold, wavy lines interspersed with buttercup yellow and a couple of bands of pale blue. It takes up just under a third of the height of the painting, with a clear horizontal line in a darker blue marking, as the adjective suggests, the horizon. The lowest band of the sky appears to be made up of undulations of this darker blue – although reference to other versions imply that these ‘undulations’ are based on distant hills, blue as a result of atmospheric perspective. The majority of the land and sea is formed from a mid-toned blue, although small amounts of the reds and yellows creep in, in the same way that there is some blue in the sky. Overall, therefore, we have warm colours in the sky and cold down on earth. This lower section is almost square in shape, cut across diagonally by a straight path, with a fence or railing running alongside it. The path is formed of a series of straight lines, individual strokes of the crayon, and the railing consists of three parallel bars. The lines of the path and the bars of the railing conform to a strict, if exaggerated, perspective, converging at a vanishing point on the horizon at the far left of the image. The depiction of the land and sea is all curves, contrasting with the rigid, linear depiction of the path – we are looking at geometric forms and abstract values, particularly contrasts: warm and cool colours, straight and curved lines, squares and triangles, horizontals and diagonals. These abstract values are given meaning by what is represented. The path is presumably a jetty, and we see the sea with a curving coastline forming a bay, and, judging by the greens interspersed on the right, some vegetation. There is an androgynous figure, just to the right of centre, cut off by the bottom of the image. Its mouth and eyes are wide open and its hands are clasped on either side of its face. Further away on the jetty two more figures – men, as they wear top hats and this is 1895 – are sketched out full length. There is a boat on the sea, and buildings on the land, just visible on the horizon.

Looking closer at the figure at the bottom we can see its alarm more clearly, although the precise nature of the expression of this skull-like face is not easy to define. What is the wraith-like figure actually doing? The body seems almost immaterial: it is wavy, rather than solidly vertical, and is made of strokes more like the sky than the earth, all of which gives it a sense of insecurity. Is this person screaming, or does the open mouth speak of surprise, shock or horror? And do the hands express surprise as well, or are they clasped over the ears to shut out sound? There seems to be an unbearable pressure here, either coming from within, or closing in from the outside. As suggested above, the perspective of the jetty is distorted. It seems to recede too quickly, or, rather than receding, it could be seen as rushing towards us, giving the impression that we are zooming in, focussing on a close-up of the protagonist in a moment of high drama. Even the vegetation pushes in, the curved lines echoing the bend of the inflected wrist, pressing claustrophobically on the fragile figure.

Compared to the heightened drama of the protagonist, the two characters in the background seem relaxed, nonchalant even. One walks away, another stops to lean on the railing. If there is an audible sound – a scream – they do not seem to hear it: they certainly do not appear to be reacting to it. The boat just off the shore is a common feature in Munch’s work, and may imply the possibility of escape – but this is a possibility that is all too distant.

The sky is searing, with rich and brilliant colours, although oddly only the yellows are reflected in the water. The railing along the jetty, and even some of the planks of the path do take on some of the reds, but the intense colour is really the preserve of the sky, and is its defining feature. However, the nonchalance of the two figures could suggest that there is nothing unusual about it. Or maybe it is simply that they do not see it – or, that they do not see it like this. But then, the character in the foreground is not looking at the sky: he (is it ‘he’?) may have turned away.

I think that everything I have said so far is visible in the painting, although I can’t help wondering that so much of what I ‘see’ is coloured (deliberate choice of word) by what I have always known. It seems like ‘always’, anyway. I can’t remember when I first became aware of Edvard Munch, let alone The Scream. However, although there are unanswered questions in the interpretation of the image, we do know what Munch himself thought about the painting, as he wrote about it on more than one occasion. His first account was written a year before he made the first image. In a diary entry dated 22 January 1891, he said,

I was walking along the road with two friends – the sun went down – I felt a gust of melancholy – suddenly the sky turned a bloody red. I stopped, leaned against the railing, tired to death – as the flaming skies hung like blood and sword over the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends went on – I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I felt a vast infinite scream through nature.

This makes considerable sense of the image: it is Munch and two friends. They have moved on, but he remains, ‘trembling with anxiety’. Maybe this explains the wavy forms of the torso, even if he is not now leaning against the railing. The sky is ‘bloody red’ and we get a sense of the ‘blue-black fjord and city’ even if the colour chosen is not quite as dark as that might imply. What is key here is the last phrase, ‘I felt a vast infinite scream through nature’. He is not screaming (it is ‘he’), but there is a scream, a scream that maybe he is trying to block out with his hands. However, this is problematic, as he doesn’t hear the scream, so he can’t silence it – he feels it. What is truly ground-breaking about this image is that it isn’t a picture of something seen, but of something felt. We are at the very beginnings of Expressionism.

The year after Munch had this experience he tried to capture it visually twice, once in pastel – which may have been the first version, it’s not entirely clear – and once in paint, using both oil and tempera, with pastels as well. These two are both in Oslo, and are owned by the Munch Museum and the National Gallery respectively. The reason for thinking that the pastel is the earlier of the two is that, although the basic ideas are sketched out, the details are absent – no boats, and no buildings – features which do appear in what is, presumably, the later version.

There were two more versions in 1895 – the pastel which I have discussed (the only one in which one of the ‘friends’ leans on the railing), and a lithograph. We don’t know how many prints were drawn from the original stone, but about 30 survive, some of which were hand coloured by Munch himself. They were published in Berlin, and bear the title Geshrei, i.e. ‘The Scream’ in German, although the literal translation of this would be ‘Screaming’ or ‘Shouting’, apparently (‘The Scream’ would be Der Shrei in German, or, in Norwegian, Skrik). There is also a phrase at the bottom right, ‘Ich fühlte das grosse Geschrei durch die Natur‘ (‘I felt the great screaming through nature’). Often the image has been trimmed down, effectively cutting it out of the original ‘page’, meaning that the words do not appear – even if they were clearly important to Munch. This particular version, in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, was signed by the artist in 1896.

A final version was painted in tempera in 1910. This, too, is in the Munch Museum in Oslo, and, like the others (with the exception of the lithographs), is on cardboard. The first version in paint (1893) is the one which bears an inscription. It says (in translation): ‘Could only have been painted by a madman!’ It is written in pencil on top of the paint, and recent analysis has confirmed that it is in Munch’s handwriting. It was probably his reaction – presumably ironic – to the public response to the painting when it was first exhibited in Norway in 1895. Typical of this was the comment of critic Henrik Grosch, who wrote that the painting was proof that you could not “consider Munch a serious man with a normal brain.”  The implications of this statement would have been more profound for the artist than Grosch would have realised – probably. I don’t know how aware he was of Munch’s family background. Born in 1863, Edvard was the second of five children. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was five, as did his elder sister when he was fourteen. He was a sickly child, and was often kept out of school, which created an enduring sense of isolation. One of his younger sisters was diagnosed with a mental health disorder at an early age, and by the time The Scream was exhibited, she was cared for in a local institution. For the rest of his life the artist was haunted by the possibility that he had inherited the same condition.

Somehow, through all of this, he seems to have captured the essence of what could be described as one of the defining features of the 20th and 21st Centuries: angst. A quick internet search defines this as ‘a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general’. The painting would have been perfectly at home in Vienna at the time of Sigmund Freud, but it also appears to visualise the Existentialists’ post-war fear of ‘the Void’: if there is no God, what is the point? For that matter, it could be an expression of man’s inhumanity to man, as seen in the holocaust, or even the cold war fear of nuclear annihilation. It speaks of the inner horror of so many of Francis Bacon’s subjects – even if it isn’t one of the usually acknowledged sources – and, oddly perhaps, it seems to demand to be owned. Both paintings have been stolen – the 1893 version in 1994, and the later one ten years later. And in 2012 the 1895 pastel – the one we have looked at – was sold for $119,922,600 to a private buyer. That’s very nearly 120 million dollars, which at the time was the most ever paid for a single painting.

‘Could only have been painted by a madman!’? It was as much the fear of the implications of this phrase – even before he had written it – that must have inspired his initial experience, and the images that flowed from it. This total honesty is what people have found hard to face, and yet, at the same time, it is so totally compelling. What else can have made it an early modernist Mona Lisa, ubiquitous and instantly understood? It undoubtedly touches a nerve, triggering an understanding of the human psyche. And, as we shall see on Monday, it was Munch’s psychological perception that helped to make him such a great portraitist.