Day 20 – Diego Velázquez, An Old Woman Cooking Eggs, 1618, Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh.

Originally posted on 7 April 2020

Too early for Easter eggs, you might say, and were the examples in this painting made of chocolate I wouldn’t for a moment dream of talking about them before Sunday – but I suspect that by then I will have other things to talk about. And this painting has been waiting in the wings ever since someone suggested that, having talked about Great Cabbages, eggs would also be something to seek out. This one instantly sprang to mind, because the eggs in question are frankly miraculous… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I don’t know how the home schooling was going up until the end of term, but now there is another challenge. No longer do the parents of co-habiting children and teenagers have to help them focus on their study, but now, instead, they must keep them entertained – and inside – while the weather is good. Of course, right now would be the best time to encourage their creative sides and take out the paint pots that may well have been abandoned as soon as they left primary school. If any of them end up producing anything like today’s picture, please let me know. After all, Velázquez was only 18 or 19 when he painted it. Unfortunately, if the paint pots were put away when your children were 10, I fear it might just be too late, as that was the age at which young Diego became an apprentice. He studied with a man called Francisco Pacheco, who was rather important in Seville, where Diego grew up. Not only would he later write a treatise on art, ‘Arte de la Pintura’, which has become an invaluable source for the understanding of Spanish painting in the 17^th Century, but he was also involved with the Spanish Inquisition. I bet you weren’t expecting that. His job was to make sure that the religious images were not heretical. It’s hard to know what he taught Velázquez, beyond the technical aspects of painting, because, as an artist, he wasn’t especially original. One thing is for sure – as an author, and the man responsible for religious orthodoxy among artists, his greatest contribution was as a scholar, and this would prove invaluable to Velázquez when he reached the court of King Philip IV not long after today’s image was painted.

At this stage, however, it seems that we do not see the mind of the artist who would paint one of the most beautiful expositions on the nature of art, ‘Las Meninas’, but the hand and eye of a young man who is determined to show you absolutely everything he can do.

He can, quite simply, paint every material imaginable, catch form, colour and texture in what we would now see as an intense and precise photographic manner. And he does this with subject matter that earlier generations might have considered pointless. It is what, in the wider scheme of things, would be called a genre painting – normal people doing normal things – depicting, as the title tells us, ‘An Old Woman cooking Eggs’. In Spanish art genre scenes like this are called ‘bodegones’, from ‘bodegón’, meaning ‘tavern’ – although it could also mean ‘pantry’ or ‘wine-cellar’. Sometimes bodegones are set in taverns, but also in kitchens, and the term is also used to describe still life paintings, a genre which was on the rise at the time. It could also be described as a ‘low-life painting’, a genre we would usual associate with the Netherlands, although one of the most remarkable early examples is ‘The Bean Eater’, by the Italian Annibale Carracci, painted in the 1580s. Around the same time Carracci also painted ‘A Boy Drinking’, which has, sadly, recently been stolen from the Christ Church Gallery in Oxford. These paintings, produced when Carracci was in Bologna, predate Caravaggio’s early works, also low-life and genre scenes. However, it is the latter artist who influenced Velázquez. It’s worthwhile remembering that from the 15^th Century Naples was under Spanish rule, and that in his short life Caravaggio lived their twice – when running away from Rome and on his ill-fated journey back – and he left paintings there both times. He influenced Spanish artists in Naples, and they took his style back to Spain. Prints would also have circulated, and it is possible that Velázquez saw these. They might have inspired the wonderful contrast between light and dark – the ‘chiaroscuro’ – and the intricate detail, but the colour must have been entirely his Velázquez’ own.

In addition to the Old Woman there is a somewhat sulky boy – it is a hallmark of Velázquez’ bodegones that the young should sulk, while the old show determination and a sense of duty. He has brought a melon and a flask of wine. The former is tied with some rough string to create a convenient handle, although, however convenient, he does not use it, preferring to tuck the melon under his arm as he holds the flask towards the Old Womn. The flask itself looks like a cross between a decanter and the sort of conical flask used for chemistry. It is mainly empty, allowing the young master to depict the brilliant light reflecting off the front of the flask and the slightly bubbly meniscus of the wine on both sides – all of these elements going towards a definition of the flask’s form. It also allows us to see the rich red wine, contrasting with the transparent glass, through which we see the boy’s white sleeve. We can also compare the sleeve when seen through glass, and compare it with the whiteness when it is seen directly: it is turned back around the cuff of the jacket, and unbuttoned. The button appears to be a pearl – this is no ordinary kitchen boy, but a servant in a wealthy household.

Lined up in front of the Old Woman are: an empty dish with a knife resting on it; some chilli; a brass pestle and mortar; a red onion; and two ceramic jugs with different coloured glazes and patterns. All have a place in the kitchen, but they are really there to show the artist’s skill at depicting the different shapes, colours, and textures – all of them difficult in their own way, and all of which he seems to have achieved effortlessly – even if they look like they are posing for the picture, rather than being used. Unusually I have done a huge amount of cooking and baking over the last couple of weeks, and, trust me, things in the kitchen never line themselves up like this. Had he just painted the table, and the objects on it, it would have been seen as one of the great early Spanish Still Life paintings. As it is though, this is just one element of a painting that transcends the humility of its genre.

It is probably not a coincidence that the boy appears to have arrived just as the eggs are cooking. Almost as if this is an instruction manual, Velázquez shows an uncooked, unbroken egg in the Old Woman’s left hand, perfectly defining the shape and texture of eggshell. He also shows what happens next. She has been stirring two eggs in the pan, but has lifted the wooden spoon with a delicate gesture, allowing Velázquez to show the perfect articulation of all five fingers, not to mention the tendons in her wrist. All of this contrasts with the boy’s smoother, firmer hands. She looks at him patiently, maybe waiting for him to pour some of the liquid into the cazuela, or casserole. I assume that’s what it is. It’s made of a glazed ceramic that has been chipped on the side closest to us, and underneath it you can just see the glow of hot coals.

And here is the miracle: Velázquez has caught the eggs just at the moment they cook – static as the image is, you can see them turning white.

A couple of Velázquez’ bodegones contain religious images in the background – Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, for example – and this has led people to question whether there is any religious significance to his other early paintings. In this case, what would be the significance of cooking eggs?  Eggs generally are seen as symbols of new life, which is hardly surprising, as they are the source of new life for birds – although there is a sense that an egg is like a stone, dead and lifeless, only to have new life break forth – so, the Resurrection. As a symbol it does seem to have entered the Christian tradition early on, although you see it rarely in Christian art. However, in terms of cooking eggs? This is the moment at which the transparent white becomes visible, so maybe it is a symbol of the incarnation, when spirit became flesh. At the Nativity, God himself became visible to human eyes for the first time in the person of Jesus. You could interpret in that way if you wanted to. You really could.

But you really don’t need to. Another miracle is happening here. After all, there are no eggs here, no melon, no rough string, no Old Woman even: this is just paint. Velázquez has mixed dirt, ground up stones and vegetable dyes with oil and turned them into everything we see. It is alchemy: the transformation of base substances into – well, if not gold, then at least brass. That is the miracle of art, and even as a teenager some four decades before he painted ‘Las Meninas’, Diego Velázquez already knew that.

Day 19 – El Greco, Christ driving the Traders from the Temple, about 1600, National Gallery, London.

Originally posted on 6 April 2020

The Social Media are curious beasts – you know that people are out there, but you don’t always know where they are, or how present they are. So it’s been a great joy to see  ‘comments’ and ‘likes’ from people I haven’t seen in person or heard from for quite a while – thank you! One of them recently reminded me of a time we looked at El Greco together, so I’m going to do the same today. And as, in terms of Holy Week, Christ has just entered into Jerusalem, this painting would seem the obvious choice: one of the first things he does is to drive the Traders from the Temple. Like the Entry into Jerusalem (#POTD 20) it is an event that occurs in all four gospels.  According to Matthew 18:12-13:

‘Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves’.

As so often, the text explains so much of what El Greco has painted, but not how he has painted it. He produced at least four versions of the subject, which are like a series of variations on a theme, with the basic elements in place, and different characters and props popping in and out – some have the doves, some, like this, an overthrown table lying in the foreground so it cannot be missed. But in all, Jesus is central, his right arm wrapped around his chest ready to unleash the most almighty blow to the recalcitrant traders, some of whom cling on, while others can’t get out fast enough. Within this melee, and despite the extremity of his gesture, Christ maintains an otherworldly calm – undoubtedly because, let’s face it, he is supposed to be otherworldly. However, his appearance here could only have been painted by this particular artist, with his own particular history. 

I’ve always been intrigued by his name. He was born Doménikos Theotokópoulos, and trained as an Orthodox icon painter. At the age of 26, in 1567, he moved to Venice, where it seems that the Italians couldn’t say Doménikos Theotokópoulos, so they called him ‘The Greek’ to distinguish him from the other artists whose names they couldn’t pronounce, or who didn’t have more than one name, like Paul from Verona (more about him another day). The Greek moved on to Rome three years later, and then, in 1577, headed to Spain where he passed the rest of his life. So what intrigues me about his name? If ‘El Greco’ means ‘The Greek’, what language is that? ‘Greco’ is Italian, whereas ‘El’ is Spanish – so he picked things up along the way. Or that’s what I always used to think. I’ve just found an English-Venetian translator on the internet, and lo and behold, as I had begun to suspect, ‘El’ is also ‘The’ in the Venetian dialect – which is still widely spoken today. Having said that, he wasn’t even Greek – he grew up on Crete, which at the time was part of the Venetian Republic. However, it was common parlance to call any member of the Orthodox church ‘Greek’.

Nevertheless, his history explains his style. His work is entirely idiosyncratic, and influenced very few of his peers – it didn’t really hit home until the 20th Century, Picasso’s blue period being just one of the modernist embodiments of his etiolated forms.  He combines the detached otherworldliness of Orthodox painting with the dramatic stylisation and rich colouration of the Venetian painting he saw on his arrival there. He was especially influenced by the work of Tintoretto, who uses similar contrasts of light and shade, expressive manipulation of human proportions, and exaggerated perspectives. For El Greco, it is so obvious that Christ is not truly of this world that his feet barely seem to touch the ground. 

El Greco’s Venetian sojourn still clings on in the background. If you look out of the archway in the second picture, the buildings you can see could so easily be palaces on the Grand Canal. What you can also see in this detail is the relief sculpture with which the artist has decorated the Temple – completely against the descriptions in the Old Testament, and in contravention of the Second Commandment. It is very sketchily painted, but just clear enough to enable you to see an old man with his arm raised, a boy kneeling in prayer, and an angel flying above. It is the story of Abraham and Isaac. Having been given a son he had long longed for, some years later Abraham is asked for a sacrifice to prove his love of God. He promises anything, only to be told he should sacrifice his dearly beloved son. Reasoning that God had given him, and now should have him back, Abraham reluctantly agrees. He heads off with everything needed for the ceremony, to the accompaniment of his young son asking what beast they would actually kill. On arrival at the place appointed, he has raised his hand to strike the fatal blow, only for an angel to stop him, and point to a ram caught in a thicket. This would be a more suitable sacrifice now that Abraham’s love for God was proved. For Christians this story from the Jewish Scriptures had undoubted significance, as it tells of a Father prepared to sacrifice his Son, in the same way that God the Father was prepared to sacrifice his only begotten Son – the very essence of the Easter story. So it’s inclusion here is undoubtedly relevant. Indeed, it is doubly relevant. Muslims believe that the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem marks the site where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac. And the Dome of the Rock is built on the site of the Temple of Solomon – so it was here that the sacrifice was of Isaac was supposed to happen.

It’s not the only sculpture El Greco includes. The third picture shows the relief on the other side of the arch, and although it is again painted remarkably freely, it is still clear enough to identify. Like the other, it includes an angel. In this case it is the Archangel Michael (#POTD 5), and he is expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Again a reference to Jewish Scripture sheds light on the Gospel. For early Christians it was essential to prove that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, so they combed through the Old Testament to find every conceivable reference to events in the New, coming up with some that would be unexpected. It was clear to them that the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden was directly equivalent to the expulsion of the traders from the Temple – malefactors have no place in the House of God. El Greco makes this parallel explicit by arranging the figures themselves in parallel: the angle that Adam and Eve lean as they are beaten out of Eden is exactly the same as the sway of some of the traders as they shy away from Jesus’s blows. The implication is that the Temple is a manifestation of Heaven on Earth, and as such it has the same ethos as many churches: they are (or can be) a representation of Paradise. 

These two relief sculptures were invented by El Greco to add meaning to the story, but he makes reference to another sculpture, a real one, hidden away as one of the actors in the drama. Behind the man wrapped around with yellow fabric just to our left of Jesus, a figure has fallen to the ground, possibly female, with a blue skirt and white blouse. She is inappropriately dressed for the temple, and seems to lounge on her basket, her left hand wrapped around her head, as if she is shielding herself from Jesus. This pose is taken from a Classical sculpture of Ariadne in the Vatican museums: you can see it in the fourth picture. Not many people get to see it nowadays, as it is in a room just off the flow of the tourist tide, and roped off. I was once lucky enough to catch a glimpse when I was taking a group on what was called a ‘semi-private tour’, being led into rooms by the security guard accompanying us and not knowing exactly what would be in them. It was a pleasant surprise, as it used to be one of the most famous sculptures in Rome, near the top of the list of Things You Must See for the aristocratic 18th Century Grand Tourists and their middle class successors in the 19th Century. Dorothea sees it in George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’, although she was clearly unimpressed. When two observers find her, ‘She was not looking at the sculpture, probably not thinking of it: her large eyes were fixed dreamily on a streak of sunlight which fell across the floor’. Eliot’s point was presumably that Dorothea was not interested in art, and in the way that women have been objectified, but, as a more ‘natural’ creature herself, not to mention a modest Protestant, was more interested in the realities of the natural world. 

I do find myself increasingly looking out of the window at the gradually burgeoning trees, the emboldened birds – and the streaks of sunlight. But for El Greco, the choice of the Ariadne (once thought to be Cleopatra) as a model for this figure is a reminder that he had been to Rome, an indication that he was an artist and knew the art of others, and a subtle hint that this was a non-Christian tradition that was not worthy to remain in the temple. It’s odd to think that the churches – and museums – will all be empty this Easter, but it is far better to stay at home enjoying the streaks of sunlight. We are lucky that we can also enjoy great works of art online as well.

Day 13 – Cosimo Fanzago, Chiostro Grande, c. 1623, Certosa di San Martino, Naples.

Originally posted on 31 March 2020

Well that’s a surprise! It’s not a painting. I think I did say, almost two weeks ago, that I would be talking about a painting every day, but quickly realised there’s more to life than flat things – and I love painting, sculpture and architecture equally, so today’s #pictureoftheday is a picture of a sculpture in Naples. To be honest, I really want to talk about the space it’s in, the ‘Chiostro Grande’, or large cloister of the Certosa di San Martino – or Charterhouse of St Martin – in Naples but I suspect this image will better at grabbing you attention! 

It’s not entirely clear who designed he cloister, to be honest, although it is traditionally attributed to architect and sculptor Cosimo Fanzago. Born near Bergamo in the North of Italy, he made his name in Naples. He was certainly working in the Chiostro Grande around 1623, but might have added the decoration to a slightly earlier structure. At the very least he was responsible for the architectural frameworks of the doors in the corners of the cloister, and the sculptures which inhabit them: they are all fantastic, but this is probably the best.

It represents the Blessed Niccolò Albergati, a Carthusian monk who became a Bishop in 1417, and then a Cardinal in 1426. Five years later, working as a diplomat in Antwerp, he met Jan van Eyck who painted his portrait –which looks nothing like this sculpture. I’d trust van Eyck, though, as Fanzago is clearly creating a dramatic showcase with which to display his ability to make marble move. Albergati wasn’t beatified (the first step towards being recognised as a Saint) until 1744, but his inclusion in the Chiostro Grande in the 1620s shows that he’d been revered by the Carthusians for a long time. 

The sculpture shows Fanzago at his very best, but to appreciate it fully you’d have to go and visit, as you need to move around it and see it from more than one point of view. You would see it frontally like this while walking along one of the arcades in the cloister (imagine it in the far distance in the second picture). Framed by the cool, grey marble, the brilliant white figure stands out, both in terms of colour and sculptural form. It’s like he’s standing behind an oval window, his bible resting on the windowsill, with his habit flowing out into our space. His left wrist rests on the book allowing his hand to fall forward towards us, and he props his right elbow on the other side of the book, his wrist bent back so that his long, curving fingers rest on his face. The sculpture are deeply cut – especially behind the book, creating a dark shadow – and every joint is beautifully articulated, with each finger extended differently, and a large space opening up between his chest and right arm – which you can only really appreciate from the left-hand side.  In this photograph he appears to be turning away from us, but imagine approaching along the arm of the cloister which joins from the left. Not only would you see the looping form of the arm and hand, but you would also see him looking down towards you, assessing you, fully aware of your actions, perhaps: curious, if not judgemental. This is a sculpture which is perfectly suited to its location.

Wherever you go in the world, the best way to understand it is to find a place where you can see as much of it as possible in one go – go to the top of a tower, if you can. Or go up a hill, which is where the Certosa is, overlooking the bay of Naples, as that’s where the Carthusian monks decided to establish their monastery. From the terrace outside you can get a very good sense of the extent of the city, of its limits in Greek and Roman times, and of its expansion in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries (although the latter is rather distressing). It’s the perfect place to go.

I’ve been wanting to write about the Carthusians for a while – ever since #POTD 6 as it happens, as the artist of that mesmerising Still Life, Juan Sánchez Cotán, entered the order in his forties, in the middle of a career as a successful artist. The Carthusian Order is intriguing, and the monks would be doing very well right now. Founded by St Bruno of Cologne in 1084, the order is a combination of two different types of monastic lifestyle: eremitic and coenobitic. The former is the life of a hermit, withdrawn from the world, and solitary. The second implies belonging to a community. The Carthusians manage to do both by being hermits within a community.

There were – and are – two types of Carthusian: cloistered monks, who live a life of prayer and contemplation, who are destined to become Fathers, and the lay brothers. The choirmonks all live in the cloister, and each one has their own split-level cell, built to a uniform design. On the lower level is a room in which to store wood for a stove, and a workshop for manual labour. The rest of this level is given over to a walled garden, used by the monks for prayer and contemplation, and to grow food for themselves and the rest of the community. On the upper level there is a small area for prayer, which adjoins a larger space, a combined bedroom, dining room and study. Each monk eats lunch and supper alone, the food being delivered via a turntable next to the door of the cell by one of the lay brothers, who are responsible for the practical running of the monastery, but who also lead a life of silent prayer and contemplation. You can see these ‘turns’, as they are called, on the far side of the cloister in the second picture, and all around the cloister in the third. Of the seven daily services, the cloistered monks say four on their own, leaving their cells three times a day for communal worship. I’ve read that they go for a walk in the countryside once a week, and only then can they speak. However, another source said this outing would take place once a year, and yet another, never. On Sundays and special feast days there are communal meals, but these are eaten in silence.

Basically they are all self isolating and socially distancing while at the same time receiving home deliveries and remaining part of a wider community – we could all be doing it now. The first time I visited San Martino I wanted to move right in. Having passed through the church, which is richly decorated in brightly coloured marbles – quite overwhelming – I stepped out into the Chiostro Grande, with its pure white architecture, and it took my breath away. The weather was pretty much like it is in these photographs, too – clear blue skies, and pleasantly warm. Not only that, but I quickly realised that almost all of the cells have sea views – check out the third illustration. It was an especially good place to be in times of plague: the monks went out very rarely, so they were unlikely to catch anything. In any case, they lived high above the city, well outside the city walls, so disease would not reach them. Monks also had an age-old tradition of washing their hands before meals, so they were even less likely to get ill. As a result it became abundantly clear to the people of Naples that God was watching over the Carthusians, especially when, in 1656, the plague killed around half of the 300,000 inhabitants of the city, and the monks didn’t even get sick. What a brilliant place to live. Mind you, the only way out was up – to Heaven – leaving their earthly remains in the Cemetery that is visible in the second image. You can see it on the right, surrounded by a balustrade, which Fanzago topped with rather cheery skulls. I suppose it’s not how we’d choose to live today. Apart from the fact that in 1907 a twenty-year-old architectural student from Switzerland visited the Certosa di Galuzzo, just outside Florence, and made a number of drawings – the fourth picture comes from one of his sketchbooks.

The idea of living separately as part of a community made sense to him. Everyone has some open space of their own and room to work, sleep and eat, while being part of a community, with all the infrastructure necessary for good living easily to hand in the same building. Initially the young Charles-Édouard Jeanneret arranged these units horizontally. But then, he piled them up into the sky, so people would living like crows – an idea related to the name by which we know him today: Le Corbusier – ‘the crow-like one’. Sadly a lot of bad architecture was influenced by his ideas, but I can’t help thinking that the ideas themselves were necessarily wrong: it was when the need for individual open space started to get cut out as ‘inefficient’ that it became less desirable. Perhaps I’ll move into San Martino after all.

Day 12 – Jan Steen, The Effects of Intemperance, about 1663-5, National Gallery, London.

Originally posted on 30 March 2020

I thought about this painting the other day, as I was taking my daily exercise. I saw someone walking directly towards me right down the middle of the pavement who clearly wasn’t going to shift out of the way, so I stepped out into the middle of the road and cut along the dotted line as if I were saving a voucher for my own well-being. And I thought, whatever happened to ringing bells and shouting ‘unclean, unclean’, even if we are all healthy? After all, we can’t know that we are.

So naturally I thought about this painting, ‘The Effects of Intemperance’, by Jan Steen. You’re probably already worrying about social distancing, but they are a family unit, just a somewhat dysfunctional one. Mum has fallen asleep, pipe in hand, while her eldest daughter is giving the parrot a drink of wine. Two of the kids are feeding the cat a rather impressive pie, another throws roses at a pig, while the last, on the far left, has got his hand in his mother’s purse. It’s appalling behaviour, why are they doing this? Any of you who are home schooling probably understand the situation far better than I do, but notice the flagon resting on the ground by the eldest girl’s hand – it has toppled over and the lid is open, but nothing is coming out. Mum’s drunk the lot – with the exception of the glass being held by her daughter. The temptation to hit the bottle at the present time must be enormous. Mum’s clearly had a bit too much and has fallen asleep. So the kids are running riot. 

So far it all makes sense, but who would dream of giving wine to a parrot? Well, what do parrots do? They talk, for one thing – or rather, they copy what other people do. They parrot. Now look at the parrot, and look at the mother – the posture, the curve of the back, the position of the head, and the angle of the head to the body, not to mention the colours – greys, reds, and whites. They are the same. In image as well as in behaviour, the bird is parroting the mother – she has been drinking, and so the parrot has too. Before long, they will both fall off their perches. The mother is setting a bad example. To quote a Dutch proverb commonly illustrated by Steen, ‘As the old sing, so the young pipe’.

The daughter will be the next to fall off her perch. We know this, because she is holding a pretzel. Nothing wrong with a harmless, salty snack, you might think, unless we look at a genre of literature that was popular in the Netherlands in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries, the Emblem Book. Each emblem has a title and a picture, together with some text explaining the connection between the two. One of these emblems features a pretzel, being held on either side by the little fingers of two different hands. It seems that the Dutch used to play a game with pretzels, very similar to the game I used to play after Sunday lunch roughly once a month, when we’d had roast chicken: pulling the wish bone. Each person grabs hold of one end of the Y-shaped bone and pulls until it breaks, and the person who gets the larger part of the bone wins. The same rules apply for the pretzel. But who, in the emblem, is playing this game? The text explains that, from the moment they are born, children are a prize fought over by God and the Devil: who would get the larger part? If this young lady doesn’t mend her ways – and follows the example of her mother – she will go to the Devil. 

What about the children feeding the cat? It’s clearly a waste of good food, and their lives could be similarly wasted. The image of the boy throwing roses to a pig comes from another emblem, which is ultimately derived from the teachings of Jesus, in the gospel of Matthew: ‘Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you’. If I had any pearls, I’d certainly hold on to them. As for roses and pigs, ‘they don’t go well together’, to quote the title of emblem, so again, life, and its beautiful possibilities, are being wasted. And finally, the boy stealing? Well, that’s just criminal, and it’s where Steen’s light-hearted touch gets a little bit heavy.

Whose fault is all this dreadful behaviour? Well, of course, it’s the mother’s fault. She hasn’t been doing her duty. But, you might ask, what about the father? I remember asking that question to a group of children once (taking care not to assume that everyone lives with two parents), only to receive the answer from one of the seven-year-old lads, in loud and ringing tones worthy of Barbara Windsor in Eastenders, ‘Ee’s messin er abaaaaaht!’ And how right he was.

You can see Dad at the far right of painting, in the background, a young woman on his lap, and he’s got a whole pie to himself. Why is he behaving like that? Again, it’s the mother’s fault, of course. If she had been a good wife, he wouldn’t have run off with someone else. Of course he’s in the right – he is on the side of the church, which is shown directly above him. Now you might be thinking, ‘But surely, she’s hit the bottle because he’s run off with a younger model’. But that’s because you’re not living in the Dutch Republic in the 17^th Century. Or 1950s England, for that matter, when, I’m led to believe, mothers were still saying to their daughters, ‘If you don’t give him what he wants he’ll only go and look for it somewhere else’.

What’s going to happen to the mother next? Or to put that question another way, what can you see hanging over her? I love it when paintings can be so directly translated into words. Well, in this case, she has a basket hanging over her head. In it you can see some sticks and a crutch, as well as a rattle dangling down the left-hand side. Dutch society said that, if a wife proved to be a disappointment, she could be sent back home without her dowry. She could end up homeless. She would be beaten for her wrong-doing (the sticks), and might get ill (the crutch). And if she got really ill, she would have to warn people by shaking the rattle: ‘Unclean! Unclean!’

All this is dreadful. It is unbelievably harsh. And yet the painting is – well – fun. It is, after all, one of the very few paintings in the National Gallery where someone is actually smiling. So what is the artist saying? Steen is, of course, a product of his time, and the Dutch Republic had the first real art market. As a result, it also had the first real art collectors. Rather than most paintings being commissioned, or ‘made to measure’, a lot of the work was ‘off the peg’ – so if you wanted a particular genre of painting you would go to a particular artist. If you wanted a fun, satirical painting, you would go to Jan Steen, for example. A consequence of this was that artists’ incomes were not guaranteed, and many of them had a second job. Jan Vermeer was an art dealer, for example. Jan Steen ran a pub. Yes! He sold the very alcohol which could so easily prove to be the mother’s ruin. He would have seen drunkenness and its results every day.

I once asked a group of children – possibly the same ones – what the ‘moral’ of this painting is. ‘Don’t drink or smoke’ came back the answer. I could foresee enormous problems for some of them if this got back home – and in any case, that’s not the message. Even if it were, Jan Steen softens his lesson with humour. He would never put anything quite so bluntly – nor was he so entirely proscriptive. ‘Just look at this’, he says, ‘and now, make up your own minds’. We now call the painting ‘The Effects of Intemperance’ – or basically, ‘Don’t Drink and Smoke Too Much’. In other words, as the ads say, ‘Please Drink Responsibly’. And while you’re at it, wash your hands and stay at home. 

Day 11 – Lucas Cranach the Elder, Cupid complaining to Venus, 1526-7, National Gallery, London.

Originally posted on 29 March 2020

I’ve had a request to talk about Cranach, partly to make up for the fact that the exhibition at Compton Verney, which opened on 14 March, can no longer be seen. I’m delighted to do so, although at this point, I must put my cards on the table. He is not my favourite artist. Not every artist can be (though most of them are…). Every artist’s career develops in a different way, but there are certain set patterns. Some just get better and better (Rembrandt), some get better and level off – at a consistently high level (Caravaggio) or an average one (no names – or maybe Sickert, who often painted in a colour I would describe as mediochre), some go up and down (Hockney) while some get better, get good, level out, then tail off. I’m afraid I’d put both Canaletto and Cranach in this last category, as in both the endless repetitions, whether of motifs or formulae – or entire images – make their late work seem automatic and ultimately uninteresting.

That said, Canaletto is one of my favourite artists (his not-so-good was better than many artists’ best), and Cranach is not only an important artist, both as portraitist, and PR guru for Martin Luther, but also created paintings that both delight and charm, which contain passages of extreme beauty. Today’s painting is one of these – his ‘Cupid complaining to Venus’.

Unlike Botticelli’s ‘Birth’ (#POTD 8) there is no mock modesty here – Cranach’s Venus is brazen. It’s not often you wander around in the woods with no clothes, but accessorising your birthday suit with a chunky gold chain and a red plush hat trimmed with fur can only look louche. Particularly given the shape of the hat, its colour and the fact that it is trimmed with fur – I’ll leave it to your own imaginations to decide what it was that Cranach was really thinking about. Also, she is clearly standing astride a branch, rubbing her foot along it, her left arm holding another branch above her head so we see her apparently smoothly shaved armpit. When I was at drama school I was told that, in medieval dance, ladies never lifted their arms above their shoulders, it’s just not ladylike. I would suggest that the same should apply here, and that Venus is being deliberately provocative. But you’d probably realised. Not only that, but she’s looking at you. Yes, you! And it’s an apple tree. It brings to mind other paintings of naked women under apple trees – I’m just showing you the second illustration as an example that I have chosen at random. Apart from the fact that it’s anything but random, of course, as it’s also by Cranach and it was painted at about the same time. There is even some suggestion that the two might have been painted to be seen together. Its long-term home is the Courtauld, just down the road from the National Gallery.

This is ‘Adam and Eve’, of course, and we’ve got to the point in the story where Eve is handing Adam an apple, and he’s clearly not sure what to do with it. It’s not obvious whether Eve has taken a bite yet (in some paintings it is – you can see the bite marks), but he certainly has not. It is purely by chance that they are standing behind low-lying branches, thus fortuitously preserving their modesty. Mind you, if I were Adam I’d definitely be wary of those antlers. 

In this painting, Eve is looking at Adam, holding out an apple, her left hand clasping a branch, provocatively showing him her armpit and tempting him to take what she has on offer. And that’s exactly what Venus is doing in today’s painting: looking at you, tempting you to take what she has on offer. But in a thoroughly Christian society, which Cranach’s was (a Protestant one, as it happens) the pagan subject matter is justified by its moral – Christian – tone. That is an apple tree, this is temptation, and you would be wrong to fall for it. It’s a tease. 

And Cupid? What’s going on there? Well, look at the third image: he is holding a curiously shaped and patterned object, there are insects on his chest, arm and forehead, and he reaches up to his head, looking to his mother in some distress. The ‘object’ is a honeycomb, and the insects are bees – he has been stung. And what do you do, as a small child (albeit a minor deity with wings) when you’ve been stung by a bee? You go and tell mummy. And what does mummy do? Ignores him completely. Not only that, but her right hand is held down towards him, as if to say ‘Sshh! Darling! Not now! I’m flirting with the viewer’. 

Cranach included an inscription at the top right of the painting, so we do know what is going on, even if it is written in Latin. Artists weren’t as ‘uneducated’ as we sometimes think. It’s a reference to ‘Idyll 19’ by the Ancient Greek poet Theocritus, writing in the first half of the 3^rd Century BC. The verse is also called ‘The Honeycomb Stealer’, which I prefer, as ‘Idyll-19’ sounds like a highly infectious strain of poetry. What has happened is that Cupid has reached into the hive to take the honeycomb, and the bees have flown out and stung him. The moral here is not ‘do not steal honey’. After all, look at the shape of the hole in which the bees built their hive, while at the same time remembering (a) this is an apple tree, seen as the tree of temptation, (b) the act of reaching in, and (c) the shape of Venus’s hat. I’ll leave the rest to you.

So, how does Venus respond, when he’s finally got her attention? In the words of Theocritus,

‘”What?” cries she, “art not a match for a bee, and thou so little and yet able to make wounds so great?”’

(This is clearly an old translation, which I gleaned from this site: https://www.theoi.com/Text/TheocritusIdylls4.html)

Basically, he has stolen the honey, and the bees have stung him. In the same way, he shoots his arrows to make people fall in love. Sometimes, love is sweet like honey – but sometimes it really hurts.

The atmosphere of love is woven through the painting. In the background, on the left, a pair of deer, stag and doe, is successfully self-isolating in the depths of the wood. But elsewhere, we see the sting. In the far distance, on the lake, towards the right-hand side of the painting, in one of those moments of sublime beauty that Cranach can conjure up, we see a cottage reflected in the limpid waters of the lake, the leaves and branches of the distant trees sketched out with poetic delicacy. Just above the reflection of the cottage, there is a pair of swans, and they look like they are about to start fighting. Ay me… The course of true love never did run smooth. I trust things are going better for you, wherever you are socially distanced.