dr richard stemp

Day 9 – The Fighting Temeraire

Day 9 – Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, 1839, National Gallery, London.

Originally posted on 27 March 2020

Isn’t this a wonderful painting? Evocative, atmospheric, rich in colour, packed with meaning – all in all, it is beautifully painted. Indeed, a few years back it was voted ‘the Nation’s favourite painting’, and has even found its way onto the £20 note. An even greater sign of its prestige: it was featured in a James Bond film – a rather clever choice, in context, as it happens. It’s also the perfect painting in times of transition, so I’m very happy to think about it today, at the request of my sister, Jane.

‘The Fighting Temeraire’ was, unlike many of Turner’s later works, well received when first exhibited. Despite many offers, he never sold it, holding onto it until his death, when it was left to the Nation as part of the Turner Bequest in 1856. It’s been ours ever since. It is, in purely painterly terms, one of his most beautiful and successful paintings, I think. The rich colours of the setting sun reflected in the calm water create a warming glow, which add to the cool greys of the Temeraire – the sailing ship on the left hand side of the painting – to create a pervasive atmosphere of melancholy. The paint is thickly applied on the right, building up a notable ‘impasto’ (a thick application of paint), creating the effect that the clouds surrounding the surprisingly-thinly painted disk of the sun are made of solid colour, or dying sunlight. But there is little detail here – all is suggested. Turner is showing, but not telling. There is far more detail on the left, where the ship and the tugboat are drawn with something close to precision, the latter being bold, and ‘present’, the former, with its cobweb of masts and rigging, almost fading away, veiled by the mists, as if it were a ghost ship.

In Stoppard’s play, ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’, we know where the play is going. He uses a quotation from Hamlet to tell us that these more-than-alive pair will inevitably pass away. The same is true here: ‘The Fighting Temeraire tugged to its final berth to be broken up, 1838’. Artists didn’t really give their paintings titles much before the 19^th Century. The names we know are merely descriptions of what we see, or nicknames from the 19^th or 20^th century which stuck, even though, very often, they make no sense. ‘The Laughing Cavalier’ is not laughing, nor is he a cavalier, for example. Turner seems to make up for the previous lack of titles with names of notable length – this is not his longest by any means. And it is interesting because it marks changes in the English language. The ship, the second of the line at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 (the first was, of course, Nelson’s ‘Victory’), was called the ‘Temeraire’. By calling it ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ Turner acknowledged its vital role in the British Victory – it captured two enemy ships! However, on its return to England there was a devastating storm, the Temeraire was severely damaged, and it never fought again. It was moored towards the mouth of the River Thames, at Sheerness (probably the second best thing connected with Sheerness that I know), where it served as a guard ship (it kept its cannon, and could have fired at any invading vessel) and a supply ship (it stored food and resources for other ships in the fleet). But by 1838 the Navy was no longer building sailing ships, and the Temeraire was, in any case, obsolete. It was sold for scrap and towed into London, one tug boat pulling from the front, another tug boat assisting with steerage from behind. On arrival, it was broken up. Notice the terminology: it was towed by a tugboat. By saying ‘tugged to its final birth’ he is following a trend in the change of the use of the word ‘tug’ to mean ‘towed by a tugboat’. Some have even said he instituted this change.

Sorry, I got distracted. Back to the painting. The title is important because we know what is going to happen – the ship is coming to an end, in the same way that the day is coming to an end. The sunset may look real, but this isn’t realism, it is symbolism. But it isn’t just this ship which is coming to an end, it is an entire era: this is the end of the Age of Sail. The Industrial Revolution is in full swing, and we are well into the Age of Steam. Look at that tugboat, determined, powerful, triumphing over the sailing ship’s impotence in the face of a calm sea, black and ominous, belching its smoke and steam over the damaged dowager’s fragile forms. Now look at the Temeraire, majestic, skeletal, doomed. Things were so much better in the good old days!

But wait. The sun isn’t the only thing in the sky. At the top left, you can see the moon. Even as a sliver its silvery light traces echoes through the clouds and over the surface of the water, it is unmistakable but often goes unnoticed. In English we use the word ‘crescent’, which comes from the Latin ‘crescere’ – ‘to grow’, even though crescent moons aren’t always growing. Of course, we do have the words ‘waxing’ and ‘waning’, but nowadays we don’t really use them very much. The Italians, on the other hand, have the terms ‘crescente’ and ‘calante’, ‘growing’ and ‘falling’ (or, in this context, diminishing). As they have the two words, they know how to apply them – and they would know that this crescent moon is waxing, not waning. This is the beginning of the lunar cycle, and if the sun is being used symbolically, so, surely, is the moon. It may be the end of the Age of Sail, but it is also the beginning of the Age of Steam – and Turner loved steam power: just think of his painting, ‘Rain, Steam and Speed’, a celebration of the possibilities of the Industrial Revolution. He wasn’t at all worried about smoke and steam, as it happens, and loved bringing them into play to enhance the evocative nature of his paintings.

Some things end, yes, but others things begin. This is a painting about development, about transition, melancholy perhaps, but not without optimism, which is why it is a perfect painting for today.

I could stop here, but I have to go back to my outburst from yesterday (#POTD 8). Because, basically, Turner GOT IT WRONG.

Think about it. Look at a map. Look at the painting. Going from Sheerness to London you are going West. The sun sets in the West. It’s in the wrong place. So either the ship is lost, the sun is lost, or this is sunrise not sunset. But we know it is sunset – even without any movement, Turner gives us the sense of ‘setting’. And that’s not all. The ship is being towed, because its sails are furled, and, in any case, there is no wind. Look at the mirror-like surface to the water. And yet there is a ship in full sail in the background to the right of the tug – where did that wind come from? And where is the second tugboat? Has he tucked away behind the larger vessel?

There are also a couple of technical shipbuilding details. First, the masts. It was very hard to erect the masts of a ship like this, and the only people who really had the equipment to do it were the Navy. Before the ship was sold, the masts were taken out. How do we know? Well, look at the second illustration, an etching by John and William Beatson from September 1838, which shows the Temeraire laid up at Beatson’s Yard in Rotherhithe. No masts. The second point relates to the construction of steam boats: the engine needs to be in the middle to keep the boat balanced, so the funnel must be in the middle with the mast at the front. Turner has swapped them round. This was such a terrible mistake that, when the painting was engraved in 1845, the artist responsible, James Tibbetts Willmore, swapped them round so make the image more accurate.

Camera: DCS660C Serial #: K660C-01366 Width: 3040 Height: 2008 Date: 17/2/03 Time: 10:07:43 DCS6XX Image FW Ver: 3.2.3 TIFF Image Look: Product Sharpening Requested:Yes (Preferences) Counter: [10901] Shutter: 1/125 Aperture: f– ISO Speed: 200 Max Aperture: f– Min Aperture: f– Focal Length: ?? Exposure Mode: Manual (M) Meter Mode: Center Weighted Drive Mode: Continuous Low (CL) Focus Mode: Manual (AF-M) Focus Point: Center Flash Mode: Normal Sync Compensation: +0.0 Flash Compensation: +0.0 Self Timer Time: 10s White balance: Auto Time: 10:07:43.528

This illustration really shows why Turner made the change – after all, he did know his boats and ships, and would have known it was wrong. Adding the sails back onto the Temeraire gives it that sense of majesty, and of dignity – it helps us to feel more sympathy with this loyal vessel. And by switching the mast and the funnel, he creates a smoother line, rather than the clunky, jumping series of verticals in the print, and enhances the diagonal which goes from the ship in full sail in the background, and the crescent moon at the lop left. Maybe this diagonal is a symbolic timeline, in which the background represents the past, with the Temeraire as it was, leading through the present – the tugboat – to the future – the inevitable growth of the moon.Ah yes, the moon. The best time to tow a ship up a river would be when the tide is highest, and that occurs when there is a full moon. And yes, art historians have checked the shipping charts (we don’t all sit around all day going ‘Isn’t this a wonderful painting?’), and lo-and-behold on 8 and 9 September, 1838, when the Temeraire was towed upstream, there was indeed a full moon. And yes, Turner got it wrong. But this isn’t a piece of documentary evidence, it is a work of art. It is, like Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ yesterday, more beautiful than true. And yes! This is a wonderful painting!

Day 8 – The Birth of Venus

Day 8 – Alessandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, c. 1485, The Uffizi, Florence.

Originally posted on 26 March 2020

The request I’m following up today is ‘wonky people in early paintings’, and although 1485 is not terribly early from my point of view, a discussion ensued about Botticelli – and as I mentioned Venus yesterday, and talked about the idea of ‘tradition’, this seemed the perfect choice, because there simply was no precedent. When asked to paint ‘The Birth of Venus’ Botticelli had absolutely nothing to go on, as no one had painted it before. In the terms of yesterday’s #POTD, no words, no melody, and especially, no ‘backing track’. How did he decide what to do?

The first choice, I suppose, would be to read the original sources, although all artists, in a situation like this, would also have received a huge amount of advice. Whoever commissioned the painting would know what they wanted, in the same way that, if you commissioned an architect to design you a house, you would tell them how many bedrooms and bathrooms there should be, and possibly even how you would like them to be arranged. Very often, the patron would also be getting advice. In this case, the patron was a member of the Medici family: the painting is first mentioned in the middle of the 16^th Century, when it was in one of the Medici villas just outside Florence. This leads to the assumption that the idea for the subject matter was suggested by Agnolo Poliziano, a leading thinker of the day, and the man appointed by Lorenzo de’ Medici to be tutor to his children. Poliziano certainly wrote poetry that includes a description of the birth of Venus, including how she was ‘wafted to shore by playful zephyrs’, her hand ‘covering… her sweet mound of flesh’ while ‘the Hours’ are ‘treading the beach in white garments, the breeze curling their loosened and flowing hair.’ You can read more about that connection here:

http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Arth213/botticelli_poliziano_birth_venus.htm

Botticelli’s painting is not an illustration of Poliziano’s description though – there are too many differences. Even from the extracts above you will realise that there is only one of the ‘Hours’ present (the Hours, or Horae, were goddesses of the seasons, and so of periods of time). Poliziano also mentions Venus ‘pressing her hair with her right hand’ which Botticelli doesn’t show. Titian does, as it happens, although his Venus isn’t worried about ‘covering… her sweet mound’. What this suggests is that Poliziano, who may well have advised the Medici on what paintings they should have to decorate their villa, and may well have gone on to advise Botticelli how to paint it, provided only one of the sources for this particular image.

Another source – for both Poliziano and Botticelli as it happens – was almost certainly a classical sculpture known as the ‘Venus Pudica’ – the bashful, or modest, Venus. The one I’m showing you is called the ‘Medici Venus’, because it was in their collection, although it is not know when it was discovered. Either this, or an equivalent sculpture, must have been around quite early, because Giovanni Pisano used it somewhere between 1302 and 1310 for his figure of Prudence on the pulpit he carved in Pisa cathedral. You can see her in the photograph here alongside ‘Fortitude’, who is shown in full ‘trophy hunter’ mode.

In neither the classical original nor Botticelli’s painting is Venus either bashful or modest. She may be pretending to cover herself up, but fails completely. What she is actually doing is pointing and saying ‘Look at this, boys!’ Or girls, for that matter. Let’s not be too heteronormative about it. Whatever she is doing, though, the ‘Venus Pudica’ was undoubtedly another one of Botticelli’s sources, even if the sculpture doesn’t have the strands of hair blowing in the breeze that we can see in the painting.

For these, we must turn to one of the most important renaissance texts on painting, called, conveniently, ‘On Painting’. It was written in Latin in 1435 by Leon Battista Alberti for Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. Alberti describes not only how to go about being a painter (although he doesn’t discuss practical technique), but also why you should be a painter, and how you can make yourself look better. It must have occurred almost immediately that artists themselves would appreciate this advice, and the following year (1436) Alberti translated the book into Italian as ‘Della Pittura.’ Many artists read it, and in some cases they transcribed what they had read in the book – often Alberti’s observations on what he had seen and liked – directly onto their paintings.

Take, for example, his thoughts on movement: “I am delighted to see some movement in hair… where part of it turns in spirals as if wishing to knot itself, waves in the air like flames, twines around itself like a serpent’. Surely that is exactly what Venus’s hair is doing in Botticelli’s painting? Fortunately, one of the few books I have brought with me in my Social Distancing is ‘On Painting’ – the translation by John R. Spencer published by Yale, which it seems I bought in January 1985. Always have a copy with you.

Alberti does find a problem in showing this movement, though, which he explains while talking about fabrics: ‘However, where we should wish to find movement in the draperies, cloth is by nature heavy and falls to the earth’. The solution? It is one of his most bizarre ideas, and goes against the logic, the rationality and the clarity of the rest of the book. No artist in their right mind would dream of doing it: ‘For this reason it would be well to place in the picture the face of the wind Zephyrus or Austrus who blows from the clouds making the draperies flow in the wind’. And again, that is exactly what Botticelli does. Here it is not madness, but an essential part of the original story, although at least one other artist, Paolo Uccello, included both Zephyrus and Austrus in one of his paintings. Admittedly, Vasari did think he was a bit bonkers.

So, there we have it – at least four sources: the original myth, Poliziano’s interpretation of it, the ‘Venus pudica’ and Alberti’s ‘On Painting’. But although that might explain what he’s painted, it does not explain how it’s arranged. There was no precedent. What model could he possibly use? Someone naked in the water, someone on shore leaning over, a couple of people flying around? Surely no one had ever painted anything like this before? Again (see #POTD 4) the credit goes to Ernst Gombrich, who pointed out that the model was actually the ‘Baptism of Christ’, with Jesus wearing nothing but a loin cloth in the river Jordan, John the Baptist on the shore leaning over to baptise him, and two angels, with wings, who attend on the other side. I’ve chosen the one illustrated here because is in a room in the Uffizi not so very far from the Botticelli, even if the angels don’t have wings. It was painted by Verrocchio and Leonardo, among others.

At this point the Renaissance has truly arrived: no longer is Christian art and architecture drawing on the classical past for inspiration, but a classical subject is drawing on Christian influence. In other words, a Christian subject is wearing classical clothes, rather than the other way around.

The more astute among you will have noticed that I’ve got this far without even mentioning ‘wonky people’, but we’ve been looking at them all the time. Botticelli is a wonderful artist, his figures are elegant, his paintings inspired. But he was rubbish at anatomy. If he was trying to paint an anatomically correct painting, then he ‘got it wrong’. At this point I would like it to be known in no uncertain terms that that is my least favourite phrase spoken about art: ‘He got that wrong’. What does it mean? In order to know if someone ‘got that wrong’ you have to know what they were trying to achieve. In this instance, anatomical accuracy would have been inimical to Botticelli’s purpose. But, you say, look at Venus’s right ankle – she has dislocated her foot! However, it does create a wonderful, extended, elegant, line, continuing the almost balletic pose of the right leg. Feet and ankles are rarely elegant (although, as so often, I do have a nomination for ‘Best Foot’), and were her foot at the usual angle to the shin, it would jut out abruptly, poking towards us and disrupting the stylised distancing of this deity which Botticelli creates to keep us slightly in awe of her. We don’t need to stop at her ankle. She has no shoulders, and, like almost every figure by Botticelli, one eye is higher than the other. Picasso could do it, so why shouldn’t Botticelli? It is these peculiarities, these awkwardnesses, these quirks, which make the painting so strange and elegiac – it is poetry, not prose, and like poetry the syntax is stretched, the meaning is moved. It is more beautiful than true, perhaps. Or, to put it another way, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’, in the words of the poet. That’s all you need to know.

Day 7 – The Annunciation

Day 7 – Piero della Francesca, The Annunciation, c. 1455, San Francesco, Arezzo.

Originally posted on 25 March 2020

Something to look forward to: it’s only NINE MONTHS to Christmas! And while we’re at it, I’d like to wish all you mothers out there a Belated Happy Mothers’ Day! The two are not unconnected. Admittedly, anyone reading this outside the UK will be going, ‘But it’s nowhere near Mothers’ Day’, because elsewhere it is celebrated in May… the month of Venus. Not that they are pagans. But then, the UK is officially a Protestant country, and yet we choose to celebrate Mothers’ Day as close as possible to Lady Day, or the Feast of the Annunciation, which, put like that, sounds rather Catholic. Thanks to endless Nativity Plays, and the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, we associate the Annunciation with Christmas. But it is when the Archangel Gabriel announces to the Virgin Mary that she will become the mother of Jesus, so it must be nine months before Christmas. It’s today!

So to celebrate, I have chosen an Annunciation by that most Renaissance of artists, Piero della Francesca. I’ve had a request for Piero from a rather fantastic author, who also happens to be a mother. This particular story also works well, as we have just looked at two other Archangels (see #POTD 5 & 6 – and keep the requests coming in!)

What makes Piero so ‘Renaissance’? Well, long story short, it is the way in which he grounds this most mystical of events in a rational, human world, imbuing it with order, clarity, and a due sense of proportion. That’s not to say that everything is ‘to scale’. Mary has a great sense of majesty and dignity by dint of her monumental appearance – she is far larger than Gabriel. Of course the bible does not give the heights of either of them. You would think that their appearance is a matter of artistic interpretation, but it is usually determined by tradition.

The aim of the painting is to tell the story, and for this story you need the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary. After that, anything else is optional. So how do artists know what to choose? Well, that’s where tradition is important. I’ve always thought of images like this a bit like cover versions of a song – the lyrics and melody remain the same, but the rhythms and the backing track are different. And very often, you like the one you knew first the best.

Piero’s ‘backing track’ is a deceptively simple piece of architecture, highly decorated in specific places. Mary stands under a loggia supported by columns. She is in a ‘reserved’ area, her own sacred space, almost as if she is standing in a shrine. The angel steps forward, bowing slightly out of respect, the gesture of his right hand somewhere between greeting and blessing. In his left hand he holds a leaf – which might surprise you. You might have been expecting a lily, the symbol of Mary’s purity and virginity, part of the usual ‘backing track’. However in this instance he is holding what is probably meant to be a palm leaf, usualy held by martyrs to symbolise their victory over death. This might in itself be surprising, given that the Roman Catholic Church believes that Mary is without original sin, and as a result, she never died. So it must refer to the victory over death promised by the incarnation – God becoming man – which the angel is announcing now, as Christ would die to save mankind from its sins, and so triumph over death. This is relevant in this particular painting, as it is part of a cycle, a series telling a rather long and wonderful story, ‘The Legend of the True Cross’ (i.e. the very cross on which Jesus died).

Gabriel stands in front of a door, which has the most intricate and complex decorations – the paler ones include a circle containing three swirling leaf shapes, which, given that Gabriel is announcing the conception of the Son of God, probably refer to the Holy Trinity. The brilliance of the decoration also serves emphasize to the supernatural nature of his of greeting. Mary also stands in front of a highly decorated panel, which is, in all probability, another door. Doors are very common in Annunciations, one of the regular elements of the ‘backing track’. They are usually shut, and refer to the ‘hortus conclusus’, or closed garden mentioned in the Old Testament in the Song of Solomon. Early Christians interpreted this reference as foretelling Mary’s virginity: the garden is fertile, but it has not been entered – the door is shut.

In the top left of the painting we see God the Father, dressed in a traditional blue and red, with long white hair and beard. He is looking down at Mary from the clouds and holding his hands out towards her, as if he has just released the dove which represents the Holy Spirit. But you’ll be hard pressed to find the dove… It is just about visible, but easily mistaken for a small cloud (which would probably have been Piero’s intention). However, it is far less visible than it would have been.

There is more than one way to paint on a wall. All wall paintings are murals, but not all murals are frescoes. A fresco is painted onto fresh – i.e. wet – plaster, and the paint bonds with the plaster as it dries, effectively becoming part of the wall. This is known as ‘buon fresco’, or ‘true fresco’. However, you could also paint once the plaster has dried – a technique called ‘a secco’ (i.e. on the dry plaster). The trouble with this is that the paint doesn’t bond with the plaster – and so is far more liker to wear off. A lot of the Holy Spirit seems to have been painted ‘a secco’. Either that, or he’s flown away.

Piero uses the architecture to structure the painting, but also to give it meaning. Each of the characters has its own space – God the Father up in the sky, Gabriel approaching in front of the wall, and Mary in her dedicated space. Various art historians have probably attributed ‘meaning’ to the window and wall at the top right, but I would be dubious about taking any complex suggestions too seriously. It does include features common to 15^th century Italian houses, though, and ensures we know that the event is taking place on Earth, and somewhere that we recognise – this is our world. The wooden pole in front of the shuttered window would be used to hang out laundry, or to air rugs, for example. It also allows Piero to show off his ability with perspective, light, and shade, all of which are used to create three-dimensional form and space. The light is especially relevant here, as this is the point of the Christian story at which the Light of the World (Jesus) comes into the world. However, in this painting, God is not the major source of light: notice how the column is lit from the right. This helps to make the column look more realistic for the any viewer in front of the fresco itself, as the main window in the chapel is just to the right of this painting (in the second image you can see the window, admittedly at night, behind the Crucifix which hangs above the High Altar of the church). Lighting the column from the right therefore makes it look as if the light on the column is coming from the window in the chapel – so the column appears to be real, and in the same space as us.

It is not just a column, though, it is a metaphor for Mary: it has the same proportions, for one thing. A column has three sections – a base, a shaft and a capital. A capital is the ‘head’, in this case scrolled and leafy, at the top of the column. The size of the capital compared to the full height of the column is exactly the same as the size of Mary’s head compared to her full height. Piero maps this out for us. The column is supporting a beam-like structure called an entablature, which is in two sections, going left to right above Mary’s head, and diagonally backwards towards the second column. This diagonal section of the entablature is in line with God the Father – and especially with his hands. It would appear to mark the direction of travel of the Holy Spirit as it heads towards the Virgin, like a landing strip. It also connects the column to Mary, showing us the similarity of their proportions. But what makes it a metaphor? In the same way that the column supports the building, Mary supports the Church – in its broadest sense – and for that matter the whole of God’s mission, through her acceptance of the responsibilities, joys and sufferings inherent in becoming the Mother of God.

For most other artists this would have been more than enough, but Piero’s brilliance means that there is even more to it. I think the architecture holds yet one more meaning. ‘The Annunciation’ stands out in this fresco cycle as the only story that is not part of ‘The Legend of the True Cross’. However, another part of the narrative is missing: the Crucifixion itself. I honestly can’t remember who came up with this idea, and it might even have been me (but probably not!): the Crucifixion is not in the chapel itself. In the church as it is arranged today it seems to be represented by the far earlier painting hanging above the High Altar, a placement that surely, in some way, reflects the situation when Piero was working. In the narrative ‘The Annunciation’ leads up to this, of course (admittedly from the other end of Christ’s story), but it also performs another function. The bible tells us that Jesus was crucified alongside two thieves, and often all three are shown in a row, with Jesus in the centre. Not so here, you might think. But look at the second illustration again. To the right of the Crucifixion, the fresco shows the ‘Dream of Constantine’. The Emperor himself lies in a cylindrical tent with a conical roof, supported by a vertical pole. The pole takes an equivalent position to the column in the Annunciation. In the same way, the base of the roof of the tent, and the overlapping entablatures in the other fresco are also equivalent, and are placed at the same height in both frescoes – about 3/5 of the way up the painting. Seen this way, the compositions of both frescoes are based on the cross. ‘The Annunciation’ and ‘The Dream of Constantine’ sketch out the positions of the two thieves on either side of Christ. It may be nine months to Christmas, but we’re a lot closer to Easter.

Day 6 – Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber

Day 6 – Juan Sánchez Cotán, Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber, ca. 1602, San Diego Museum of Art, California.

Originally posted on 24 March 2020

If I were to give these musings a title each day, today’s would be ‘The Vengeance of the Vegetables, or, In Search of Celeriac’, and it is a response to the various suggestions I have received for ‘Best Cabbage in Art’, or for that matter, the strangest manifestations of cabbages, together with a request for some beautiful celeriac. As a result, today we have #PicturesOfTheDay’, to do the subject justice, and fto draw a line under it. So don’t worry if you have never liked cabbage, this will be the last purely vegetable based choice for the foreseeable future. Thoughts, suggestions, and questions on vegetable matters are always welcome, of course, as are requests for non-vegetable inspired art.

The search for a celeriac has opened my mind to the way my mind works. My first thought was, ‘Ah yes, Cotán, that wonderful, if slightly obscure Spanish Still Life painter’ – and the painting I thought of was today’s main image, ‘Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber’. And yes, you’re right, there is no celeriac. It was, however, suggested by more than one person as a nomination for ‘Best Cabbage’, and it is certainly very high on my list. But why did I think it might have a celeriac? First of all, to anyone who knows Cotán’s work, this must be the first painting that comes to mind. Once seen, how could you not remember it? It is so weirdly beautiful, oddly sparse, and mesmerically modern for a work that was painted about 420 years ago. And I suspect that that is what makes it so memorable – the apparent simplicity of it all, combined with the unusual intellectual complexity. Just imagine going to your larder (does anyone still have a larder?), opening the cupboard door, and seeing a quince and a cabbage hanging there, swinging slightly – you would be hypnotised, wouldn’t you? Not only that, but the melon has had some slices cut out of it, some have been eaten, but one has been placed in the cupboard, projecting slightly, in conversation with a cucumber. The latter projects further out, casting a shadow below the shelf, and pushing into our space, as if it wants to be grabbed and eaten. Reading from left to right, and from top to bottom, the alternation of fruit-vegetable-fruit-vegetable is also mesmeric, and traces out a parabola, almost as if Cotán has tracked the fall of an object in time. And although the quince’s leaf is in front of the cabbage’s string, the forms also seem to emerge gradually from the cupboard.

What is it that makes a work iconic? I know, a much-overused word these days, but I mean it in terms of – well, you know what I mean. What connects the Mona Lisa, the Sunflowers, Whistler’s Mother and American Gothic? They all fit in that category of rather surprisingly famous paintings. It’s not always the beauty. I think it’s the initial impact of the image, which is bold and easy enough to understand at first glance, and so burns itself onto your retina. At second glance you already have the affirmation of recognition, and you congratulate yourself as you know you’ve seen it before, because the simplicity of its presentation is already in your memory. Already you start to notice the slightly quirky nature of the image, and by the third glance you are wondering ‘Why is she smiling? Or is she? Where is that vase? Why is she in profile, parallel to the wall, when we’re out her? What is the pitchfork for, and why are they standing guard outside their house?’ If you’ve seen those images you should know what I mean. Being parallel to the picture plane seems to have a lot to do with it.

Why does Cotán have a quince and a cucumber hanging in his cupboard? And why are they socially isolated? The objects in his paintings rarely touch. There’s no real mystery here, as foodstuffs were suspended in cupboards to help prevent them from rotting, and that’s also why they are kept apart. A useful lesson to be learnt from this, I suspect, but please don’t try it with the string. It is this measured suspension in space, combined with the detailed, naturalistic depiction of the forms, that makes it almost unreal (which is why I would use the term ‘naturalistic’ rather than ‘realistic’ – the same applies to much of the work of, say, Jan van Eyck).

It’s a great painting, but no celeriac. A quick survey made me realise I had been thinking about the second painting, ‘Still Life with Game, Vegetables and Fruit’, also from 1602, which is in the Prado in Madrid.

Yes, I know, it’s not a celeriac, and it’s not even celery, but the possibility in my memory that it might be must have been why I thought about it. As Jacqueline Cockburn pointed out (and she really knows about Spanish art – look her up on http://www.artandcultureandalucia.com), it’s a cardoon, and is still used in Spanish cooking. What is a cardoon, you ask? Well, it’s an artichoke thistle, or ‘Cynara cardunculus’ (that should be in italics, but FB doesn’t do italics), a member of the family Asteraceae (it’s at times like this I’m glad I’m socially distancing with a plant ecologist). It’s another glorious painting, and just as magical as the last.

It has been suggested that the sparseness of Cotán’s paintings relates to his life as a Carthusian monk: unlike some Spanish Still Life paintings, there is no excess. (I must tell you about the Carthusians some time – they would be doing very well right now, as their entire life consisted of social distancing within a community. But that’s another story).

It’s also a great painting, but still no celeriac. One of the things I realised was that I didn’t actually know what celeriac is. Now I do. It’s ‘Apium graveolens var. rapaceum’, or, in other words, a variety of celery in which the stem between the lowest leaves and roots is swollen and edible. Again, thanks to the Plant Ecologist. So I now know what it is, but I can’t find one in Old Master Painting. However, I have a have found a beautiful example by a New Master Painter (female). As Grizelda Pollock pointed out many years ago, ‘Old Mistress’ has connotations which are unhelpful. So follow this link:

Celery Root

Sally Jacobs is a rather wonderful botanical illustrator whose work has an intense, hyper-realistic and slightly surreal feel to it. Her site doesn’t want me to download the images without permission (fair enough) so I’m just going to send you her way, and if you really like the celeriac you can but a print of it (no, this is not product placement – I’ve never spoken to her!)

So much for celeriac. There remain two images of cabbages that I cannot let go.

Thanks are due to Judith Aldersey-Williams for mentioning the Miraculous Cabbages of Ascoli Piceno – despite at least six visits to this most beautiful and least visited of Italian towns, I had never heard of them. And thanks, also, to Natasha Broke who found the story for me. The fourth image is ‘The Miracle of the Garden’, painted by Augusto Mussini, who, after he got into a fight with another artist about over a third artist (female), ran away. He ended up seeking hospitality in a Capuchin Monastery, only to end up as a friar himself. It is part of a series of works from the early 20th Century depicting the life of San Serafino of Montegranaro, which is in the Church of the Capuchins in Ascoli Piceno. I’m sorry to say I’ve never been in. Or rather, I’m happy to say I’ve never been in, as it’s a good excuse to go back. This is how Natasha explained what is going on:

‘The story goes that when San Serafino was working as a porter at a monastery he gave away all the vegetables growing in the garden to the poor and got into terrible trouble with the Abbot. The next day the garden was again full of vegetables, although in the picture we mostly see cabbages. They are not as beautifully rendered as those in your earlier post, but we hold them, San Serafino and Ascoli in great affection which transcends the talent or otherwise of the artist’.

There is a lot I like about this painting, and I’d love to see it in the flesh to see how it works. I’m especially intrigued by the way in which the wing of the angelic gardener in the bottom right projects over the frame and into our space – a baroque game played by the likes of Bernini. It appears to be a carved gilt-wood frame, and I can’t work out from this photograph how Mussini did it, but I love how it connects us to the world of the miracle.

And finally, possibly the maddest picture I’ve ever seen, posted by Ruth French: thank you again!

Apparently there are several versions of this painting, ‘The Legend of the Baker of Eeklo’, variously attributed to Cornelis van Dalem, or Jan van Wechelen, or both, or their circle. This image comes from the Christie’s website – they sold it in 2014 for £30,000 – and Ruth found the following explanation on Bonham’s:

‘According to legend, when townfolk of Eeklo in Flanders had trouble with their heads, they went to the village bakery. There they would be diagnosed by a doctor, whose assistant would lop off their heads and place cabbages on their necks to stem the bleeding. The heads would then be kneaded and rolled, rubbed with a curative cream, baked in the oven and ultimately replaced.’

I have absolutely nothing to say about that. Well, not true – it makes me think of St Eligius (but that’s another story). It also reminds me of the fantastic Irish close harmony trio The Nualas, and their song ‘Curly Kay,’ aka ‘Girl with a Cabbage for a Head’ – google ‘Nualas Curly Kay’ and you’ll find it! I’d post a link, but for some reason YouTube won’t load on my laptop.So – that’s it for the vegetables. I hope I leave you well nourished. Don’t lose you’re your heads, and enjoy the rest of the day. And remember: Cotán’s vegetables are socially distancing. Be more Cotán.

Day 5 – St Michael Triumphs over the Devil

Day 5 – Bartolomé Bermejo, St Michael Triumphs over the Devil, 1468, National Gallery, London

Originally posted on 23 March 2020

Thank you all for all your thoughts, suggestions and queries. I’m building up quite a backlog of material, whether its the vengeance of the vegetables, or the continued presence of deceased dogs in art… but today I’m going to reply to a question arising from yesterday’s painting, which was ‘Why such feminine attributes on archangel Raphael? The ballet feet, long hair tied back, beautiful soft face?’ It reminded me of today’s painting, Bermejo’s ‘St Michael Triumphs over the Devil’, which I also thought about yesterday because of its connection with Superman.

The connection might at first sight seem obvious – a Superhero has come to the rescue, after all, but that’s not what I was thinking about. Nevertheless, it bears consideration. The Superhero in this case is the Archangel Michael, whose various responsibilities include weighing the souls at the Last Judgement, and defeating the Devil: he is in command of God’s army in the Book of Revelation, making sure all the rebellious angels are vanquished. Rather than the ‘S’ of Superman, Michael has the Heavenly Jerusalem reflected in his golden breastplate. Even if gold would not in any way be effective as armour, it is pure and unchanging (it doesn’t tarnish) – just like God, so it is a symbol of his divine authority. It also reflects beautifully, allowing Bermejo to show off his brilliance as a painter – just look at the way the red of the lining of the cloak is reflected in his calves!

Unlike Superman (or St Michael’s close equivalent, St George) there is no damsel in distress (not that St George’s damsel was especially distressed – but that’s another story). In this case it is a man, whose kneeling position in this instance tells us he is a normal, everyday human, adopting a position of humility. This is the position adopted by most donors – i.e. the people who gave money for the painting – in religious paintings. Also know as the patrons, these are the people who commissioned the works of art. The donor of this work was Antonio Juan, Lord of Tous, not so terribly far from Valencia in Spain. He kneels down leafing through his book of psalms, and has carefully held it open at two pages, Psalms 51 and 130. The first of these starts ‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness’ – so he’s clearly worried that he might have done something wrong – while the second says ‘Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord’. It must have been this ‘cry’ that Michael has responded to.

What does he need saving from? Well, the Devil, naturally, which is fashioned here out of everything most unpleasant. It always reminds me of one of the monsters made by Sid Philips, the psychopath neighbour in Toy Story. It has at least four eyes – two in its face and two on its nipples. They are red, and with the black pupils they echo the poppies, which are symbols of death. It also has two mouths. The one in its stomach has a snake for a tongue. Lizard mouths form the elbow joints, and the rest is a combination of bat wings, claws, spikes and scales, everything generally unpleasant. And yet, to my eyes, it remains faintly absurd, even comical. There is no doubt to me that he will be defeated. Michael holds his rock crystal shield in his left hand, and raises his right over his head ready to strike, and, I suspect, once his arm has swung round, the head will be sliced straight off.

Michael has certainly not wasted any time: he’s only just landed. Look at his cloak (this is the real connection with Superman) – it’s still floating up in the air, and at any moment, it will come swishing down by his side, in the same way that Superman’s cloak flows out behind him in flight, and then, as he lands, falls down heavily and wraps around him. Or maybe I’m just imagining that.

But what of the femininity? Compare the details of the faces. Antonio Juan has wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, is dark and swarthy (he was a Spaniard, after all), has hollow cheeks, a slightly hooked nose and more than a hint of five-o’clock shadow – he hasn’t shaved for a day or two.

Michael on the other hand is blond and blemish free, with a perfect complexion, a high forehead, arched eyebrows, a long, straight nose, red, almost cupid’s-bow lips and a rounded, dimpled chin. In fact, he has all the marks of perfect female beauty as described by François Villon (1431-63?) in Le Testament:

…that smooth forehead,
that fair hair,
those arched eyebrows, 
those well-spaced eyes,
that fine straight nose, 
neither large nor small,
those dainty little ears,
that dimpled chin,
the curve of those bright cheeks,
and those beautiful red lips.

(This quotation is from the Penguin Book of French Verse, I, and is quoted in Lorne Campbell’s superb entry on ‘The Arnolfini Portrait’ in his catalogue of Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings in the National Gallery)

But why should these ideal feminine features apply to a bloke called Michael? Are we talking Renaissance gender fluidity here? Not necessarily. After all, he’s not a bloke, he’s an angel, and unlike us, he hasn’t fallen – he’s in a state of Grace, without Original Sin. It’s only the sinful who, at a certain point, would continue to grow old, get ill and die… Antonio Juan needs help because he is sinful, the marks of that being the swarthiness, the stubble and the wrinkles. And yet – you still might be asking – does Michael have to look so girly? Just think about Shakespeare. Quite apart from the fact that all the girls were played by boys, more than one character talks about young men as if they were girls, with no beard and high voices, and before they have a beard they are clearly not enough of a man to be a lover. This is also Flute’s complaint in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’: ‘Let me not play a woman. I have a beard coming’.Curiously perhaps (and yet, in another way, it is obvious) these features are shared, so often, with those of the Virgin Mary. Like the Archangel Michael she is free from Original Sin, and, as a result, in Roman Catholic belief, she never died. She watches over us, a mother to us all. The fact that Michael has these features (as do other angels – we saw Raphael yesterday) shows us that, with him, we are in safe hands. I’m assuming that those hands are very clean.

Day 4 – Tobias and the Angel

Day 4 – Workshop of Verrocchio, Tobias and the Angel, about 1470-5, National Gallery, London.

Originally posted on 22 March 2020

Day 4 and I’m building up a number of ideas, thanks to your queries, requests and enthusiasms. Thanks for the various nominations for ‘Best Cabbage in Art’ – I’ll get back to those, I suspect, keep them coming, and I’m still looking out for a celeriac and some gratuitously naked men (though not in the same painting). I’m always happy to do ‘requests’, so do keep them coming! Today, however, rather than gratuitously naked men (to balance up all those objectified women), I’m going to think about men’s legs, or at least, red tights, partly because of the enthusiasm voiced previously for the fish in today’s painting, ‘Tobias and the Angel’ by the Workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (which means, it looks like Verrocchio, but somehow it’s not quite in his style – although that is notoriously difficult to pin down as he had so many brilliant assistants: more of that later).

So why the red tights? The fact is, red tights were THE must-have fashion item for men in the late 15^th and early 16^th Century in Europe, which gives us a sense of the status of the young man on the right of the painting: he’s pretty well off, and would be recognised as such by any viewer in 15^th century Florence, who would have presumed he was the son of a successful businessman. He’s off on a walk with a man wearing a rather fine, and large, pair of wings. I put it that way, just to point out that when we look at paintings, we make assumptions without realising it. You’ve read the title of the painting after all, so you know it’s an angel – and even if you hadn’t read the title you would have assumed it was an angel, because men don’t usually wander around wearing wings. The title also tells us the young man is Tobias – but you could only know that from the painting if you know the story that this is illustrating. So, don’t read the label: you should always look at a painting first, and only read the label later. Let’s look at the details, and work out the assumptions we are making.

I have assumed they are both male, but most people nowadays would probably say they were very feminine. However angels, in the Catholic Church at least, are only ever male, as they effectively part of the upper echelons of the priesthood (he is wearing something akin to ecclesiastical robes). And only men wore tights, and showed off that much leg. I’ve assumed they are walking – because we can see clearly that they are. Verrocchio (who probably designed the image, even if he didn’t paint it all) has gone so far as to show us how to walk – the angel puts his left leg in front of his right, and Tobias puts his right leg in front of his left, it’s that simple. The little dog is doing the same. If you hadn’t noticed the dog, that’s because, like the couple in the background of Bacon’s ‘Cookmaid’ yesterday (#POTD 3), the dog was painted over the background, and has faded – it is now slightly see-through.

This is not a ghost dog (although this is one of two suggestions I’d have for the theme of ‘Ghost Dogs in Art’). The angel is leading the way: they are walking from right to left, and the angel is in the lead, while Tobias holds onto his arm. Each of them is holding something – the angel has a small, circular container in his right hand, while Tobias holds two things. Tightly curled in his left hand is a scroll, which, if you look at the detail, has the word ‘Ricordo’ written on it. And looped round his forefinger is a string, both ends of which are tied to a fish.

At least, I assume it’s a fish: it could of course be a curiously fish-shaped handbag, in the same way that the man on the left might be wearing a backpack in the shape of wings. But as that seems anachronistic for the 15^th century, it is safe to assume that one is an angel, and the other is a fish. Even though it has been slit along the bottom, and is dripping blood, it seems very much alive and wriggling, its scales glistening with moisture and the string pulling on its flesh. It’s so well painted, in fact, with such close and almost scientific attention to the fall of light on the scales, that some art historians have suggested it might have been painted by Verrocchio’s most famous assistant: Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not sure that I agree, but it is a great fish.

There are many other things we could observe – the way Tobias’s cloak echoes the angel’s wings, for example, or the way the cloak flies out, suggesting that they are walking at great speed (or, more likely, into a wind). But these must wait. What do these observations tell us? Or rather, how are they explained? The painting illustrates the Book of Tobit, which is either in the Bible or in the Apocrypha, depending on which denomination of Christianity you listen to. It tells of Tobit, a good Jewish man who – long story short – became blind. He could not support his family, so sends his son Tobias to collect a debt from distant family members in a far off land. The only problem is that Tobias has never made such a journey before, and so Tobit suggests that he find someone to go with him. On heading out into the town he meets a man called Azarias, who claims to be a distant family member, and says that he’d be happy to accompany him. Dad agrees with this arrangement (even though he’s never heard of a family member called Azarias), and gives them the IOU from the debtor to take with them – that is, he gives them the record, or ‘Ricordo’, of the debt that is owed – Tobias has it rolled up in his left hand. They set off, accompanied by the pet dog, and walk for miles, get thirsty, get hot, and get sweaty, so they head down to a river to drink and bathe. At this point Tobias is attacked by an enormous fish, so huge it threatens to eat him whole. Somehow, at Azarias’s suggestion, they manage to kill it, whereupon they roast it and eat it, taking care to preserve some of its vital organs ‘for later’. I’m assuming that’s what is in the small, circular container, which looks a little bit like a pillbox.

Eventually they arrive at their destination, and the relatives are overjoyed to meet them, partly because they are feeling guilty about the outstanding debt, but also because they have a daughter of a marriageable age who would be just right for Tobias. The fact that she has been married six times before, and each time has murdered her husband on her wedding night doesn’t strike them as problematic. Azarias is especially unconcerned. He suggests they sacrifice one of the vital organs, which has the required effect, and the demon that is possessing the bride is driven out and imprisoned in Egypt. The couple then go to bed and sleep. No, honestly, that’s what it says. They sleep. But they do wake up the following morning overjoyed that they are both still alive. Nevertheless, Tobias cuts short the wedding celebrations so he can get back to Dad. He, and Azarias, and the little dog, head off home. Tobit is happy to see them, and even happier when, at Azarias’s suggestion, Tobias makes the remaining vital organ into a fish paste and applies it to Dad’s eyes. On washing them clean his sight is restored – a miracle! It’s almost, Tobit says while thanking Azarias, as if God has been with them all along the way. At which point, Azarias tells him he’s right, God has indeed been with them all a long the way. He then reveals himself to be none other than the Archangel Raphael, before flying off to heaven, leaving Tobit, Tobias – and, in a wonderful painting by Rembrandt, the little dog – cowering in amazement.

So, everything in the painting is explained by the story. Or rather, everything helps us to know which story is being illustrated, because, as you’ve probably noticed, the artist has made at least two ‘deliberate mistakes’. First of all, if someone walked up to you with an enormous pair of wings and claimed to be a member of your family, wouldn’t you notice? We don’t stop and say ‘a man with wings’ – we skip that stage and go straight to ‘angel’ – so why didn’t Tobias? Well, it’s like Superman (and no, I’m not referring to Tobias’s flying cloak…). Why does NO ONE in Gotham City know that Clark Kent is Superman? He’s only removed his glasses and whipped off his trousers, after all. In the story, though, we need to know they are the same – Clark Kent is Superman in the same way that Azarias is the Archangel Gabriel. We need to know he’s an angel, or we wouldn’t know which story is being represented – and we must assume that Tobias simply cannot see the wings. Next problem: the fish! It’s a lovely fish, but it’s tiny – there’s no way it could eat Tobias alive. But then, if it were big enough to eat him, there would be no space for anything else in the painting. It’s a symbolic fish, and it tells us that this is Tobias. Why do we need to know? Well, without Tobias, this is just an angel. With any other boy, he would be a guardian angel, but with Tobias, this is Raphael. Ernst Gombrich pointed out years ago that these symbols are like Russian dolls, nested inside each other. We know this is Raphael because that is Tobias, and we know that is Tobias, because he has a fish. And a dog. Why the dog? Because it’s in the story – and it’s only mentioned twice: once as they set out and once when they return. It’s a wonderful piece of storytelling, and if you haven’t read the original, you should. Here’s a link to the Revised Standard Version:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Tobit+1u0026amp;version=RSV

But why is Raphael important? The question itself is relevant, because the label on the painting says ‘Tobias and the Angel’ – but, as so often, this is deceptive, because really this is a painting of Raphael, Tobias is only there to identify him. In the same light we wouldn’t say ‘The Lily and the Angel’, or ‘The Scales and the Angel’, we’d say ‘Gabriel’ or ‘Michael’. Raphael claims at the end of the book to be one of the seven named archangels who sit around the throne of God without, annoyingly, naming the other six. We only regularly see two in Western European art – Gabriel and Michael – and Raphael is the third most commonly represented (the others can be seen from time to time, but that’s another story). Because he cured Tobit’s blindness, he was associated with healing, and because he accompanied Tobias on his journey he also was invoked by businessmen whose sons and heirs were making their first business trip – and by the lads themselves. It is for precisely this reason that Tobias is dressed as a young and fashionable Florentine youth. Check out those red tights! One particular painting underlines this connection with the following verse painted at the bottom:

Raphael medicinalis
Mecum sis perpetualis
Et sicut fuisti cum Tobia
Semper mecum sis in via

‘Raphael the healer, be with me always, and as you travelled with Tobias, be with me always on my journey’

We could all do with him now, really.

Day 3 – Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit

Day 3 – Sir Nathaniel Bacon, Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit, probably 1620s, Tate Britain, London.

Originally posted on 21 March 2020

So what, I hear you ask, is the best cabbage in art (see #POTD 1)? Well, one of you asked, so thank you Sarah! I have two nominations, but I’m going to cut to the chase and give the award to Sir Nathaniel Bacon, for his ‘Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit’ @Tate #Britain, probably painted in the first half of the 1620s. I admire these plants for their sheer size, and for the loving attention to detail with which Bacon has painted them, for their subtle variations of colour and tone, with a soft sheen on the inner, lighter, suppler leaves, and the clarity of the ribs giving architectural support to the darker, firmer – if a little frayed – outer ones. They may well have been grown by Sir Nathaniel himself: he came from a family of gardening aristocrats, the most famous of whom was his uncle, statesman and philosopher Sir Francis Bacon, whose essay ‘Of Gardens’, written in 1625, was one of the first on the subject.

There are three of these behemoth brassicas, each of which seems to have a life and character of its own. The one on the left seems to be eyeing up the Cookmaid, almost licking its leaves, puckering up like Audrey II in ‘The Little Shop of Horrors’, preparing to devour her. Indeed, one of its leaves, framed by a fence in the background, reaches past the end of the wall like the extended hand of Michelangelo’s God the Father on the Sistine Ceiling, about to give life to the Cookmaid’s melon. And yes, she is inordinately proud of her melons. Despite his name, Bacon has painted an entirely vegetarian image, but even so there is a lot of flesh on display. This is a painting of burgeoning fecundity, richness and plenty, with rampant root vegetables, tumescent squash, and bulging pumpkins.

In the background we can just pick out the kitchen garden, growing an entire army of enormous cabbages. There is also a couple in conversation – it could even be towards them that the stray leaf is pointing. Bacon painted them after the background, and they have worn a little thin, so it’s hard to see what is going on. I really can’t work out what the woman is holding, but the man has a basket on his back containing the most enormous carrots. I suspect he has approached her because he wants to give her one.

Looked at in this way you could divide the whole painting into male and female. There is nothing scientific about this division, it should be said, but that’s how the objects appear, how they are grouped in the painting. On the left, the richly-coloured and feminine flowers and fruits, with the Cookmaid as ‘Best in Show’, face up to the man-spreading, muscular vegetables on the right, with each side displayed to perfection against the background of a wall. The space between them opens up to the garden, and keeps the two sides frustratingly apart, a leaf nestling cherries and plums on a basket of beans being the only point of communication.

It is a display vegetable abundance, yes, but also of artistic skill. Bacon is showing off his ability to depict different colours, shapes and textures – just look at those beans, bursting with vitality and goodness, not to mention the bloom of the plums, and the intricacy of the basket itself. He was a remarkable, but unusual, artist, a self-taught aristocrat, as we learn from the inscription on his funeral monument in Suffolk:

“Look Traveller, this is the monument of Nathaniel Bacon, A Knight of the Bath, whom, when experience and observation had made him most knowledgeable in the history of plants, astonishingly Nature alone taught him through his experiments with the brush to conquer Nature by Art. You have seen enough. Farewell.”

And the moral is…? I hate to think. But you’ll be hard pressed to find a display like this in your local supermarket now. Perhaps we should all get gardening in case it goes on longer than we think.

p.s. If you haven’t ‘seen enough’, you should read this fascinating blog post from The Gardens’ Trust about Sir Nathaniel, his family, his plants and his paintings:

Sir Nathaniel Bacon, his kitchen garden and his cookmaid

Day 2 – Pan and Syrinx

Day 2 – Boucher, Pan and Syrinx, 1759, National Gallery, London.

Originally posted on 20 March 2020

Day 2, and my thoughts turned to pandemics – don’t ask me why. The term comes from the Greek words ‘pan’ and ‘demos’, meaning ‘all’ and ‘people’. This, in turn, made me think of Pan, the Greek god of nature, fields, hills and groves, of shepherds and the flocks, of growth, and fertility and therefore not unconnected to sex and sexuality. He’s half man and half goat, and let’s face it, who doesn’t occasionally want someone who’s a bit of an animal? The origin of his name, is, as so often, lost in the mists of time, but oddly it’s not entirely unconnected with the English word ‘pasture’. However, almost certainly it has nothing to do with the notion of ‘all’ – although some folk etymologies, even in ancient times, suggested that it did.

Today’s picture, like yesterday’s (#POTD 1) was inspired by Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’. This time it is Pan who has fallen in love with a nymph. Syrinx, like Callisto (painted by Titian in one of the Poesie), was a follower of the chaste goddess Diana. Terrified of Pan, she fled, and sought shelter with the river nymphs, who obligingly turned her into a clump of reeds. Pan’s frustrated sighs caused these reeds to vibrate, and the sound was surprisingly beautiful – so he cut them down and made the first set of panpipes.

Boucher’s painting is an image of typical Rococo naughtiness, with ample dimpled and flushing flesh willingly displayed. One cupid flies up to the right with an arrow and a flaming torch (in the words of the poet, ‘Come on baby, light my fire…’), while a second seems to grab Pan to pull him on – or hold him back. Pan is already clutching at the reeds, although Syrinx is anything but transformed – he seems frustrated, because he can’t get what he wants. Maybe that’s because Syrinx simply isn’t available, seeing how she seeks solace in the arms of a river Nymph. The latter is identified by the waterweeds in her hair, and by the jug of eternally flowing water on which she leans – the source of her own personal stream. The story really doesn’t call for two naked women, and there’s no real reason why they should be so closely clinging, apart from Syrinx’s need for protection.

This is the point at which I’d like to know more, but as yet I have not found an expert on ‘Lesbianism in the Art of François Boucher’. This reads like the title of an academic paper, and, if all else fails, I am going to have to write it myself. However, I do know that 1759, the date the image was painted, falls at an interesting time in the history of lesbianism. The year before, the Marquis de Croismire had involved himself in the affair of Marguerite Delamarre, an unwilling nun. The Marquis tried to use his position in society to liberate her from the convent. Shortly after this, Denis Diderot came up with a ruse to try and trick the Marquis to act once more, and started writing letters from a fictional nun, Suzanne, who, like the real-life Marguerite, was desperate to get out of the convent in which she had effectively been imprisoned. These letters developed ian epistolary novel La Religieuse, initially and private and personal affair which was eventually published posthumously in 1792. It covers many subjects, not least of which was corruption among religious institutions – and notably, the perverse sexual practices (i.e. lesbianism) that the other nuns were forcing upon the unwilling Suzanne, who needed someone – perhaps the Marquis de Croismire? – to rescue her. The assumption, of course, was that the nuns had only turned to each other as they had no men to hand – oh, the arrogance of straight men!

Meanwhile in Vienna in 1760, the year after Boucher’s painting, the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa, the soon to be Emperor Joseph II, was married to the beautiful, young Isabella of Parma, who promptly fell in love with Joseph’s sister Maria Christina. A passionate correspondence ensued, but the young girls were separated and, after her death, Maria Christina’s letters were destroyed, so only half of the correspondence survives. That half is delightful, touching, and, ultimately, moving.

Is there any connection between Diderot’s novel, the affair of Isabella and Maria Christina and Boucher’s painting? Was there something in the water around 1760? Apart, that is, from Syrinx… I’d love to know! Perhaps more importantly, how relevant are paintings like this today? It might be worthwhile pointing out that the name ‘Syrinx’ is the origin of our word ‘syringe’: do remember that when they manage to develop a vaccine. And Pan? As god of the wide-open spaces, he spent much of his time relaxing with the sheep, wandering through the fields calmly playing his pipes. But if he awoke suddenly from his midday nap he would shout out, causing the sheep to run away with a sudden fear that he had inspired. The Greeks called it ‘panikos’. His name is the origin of our word ‘panic’. Remember him when you can’t find any toilet paper.

Day 1 – The Rape of Europa

Day 1 – Titian, The Rape of Europa, 1562, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

Originally posted on 19 March, 2020

In these extraordinary times, I’m going to attempt to write about a painting every day – but where to start? Having made a pilgrimage on foot to the National Gallery on Tuesday to catch the wonderful Titian exhibition just after it opened and immediately before it closed again, I am choosing the Rape of Europa from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

The painting is one of six Poesie which Titian made for the man who would become King Phillip II of Spain. They must rank among Titian’s greatest achievements. Not only do they show his phenomenal technique, his astonishing ability to manipulate paint and to form worlds out of colour, but they also demonstrate his brilliance as a storyteller. Drawing on classical mythology, and mainly the Metamorphoses of Ovid, he enters into a common Renaissance debate about the arts: which is better, poetry or painting? Although drawing much of his imagery from Ovid’s text, these are not illustrations. He adapts the stories, reworks them, finding the perfect way to spin his yarn on canvas. He retells the tales with brushstrokes rather than words.

Why this one, of the six? Well, although I have been to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum at least three times, I can’t in all honesty say I stopped to look at this painting – there are so many other wonders there, and at the time I was either in my early stages of studying art history, and knew nothing, or was obsessed with the Ferrarese paintings in the collection. I’ve come to know it better through talking about the Poesie – particularly when the National Gallery acquired, with the National Galleries of Scotland, the two Diana paintings – and while teaching courses on the art of the 16^th Century. I also love the fact that Velazquez knew it in the Royal Collection in Spain, and quoted it in the background of one of his own works. However, before Tuesday, I couldn’t swear that I had seen the original before, so in that respect, it is new to me.

In this work we see how, in his endless and unquenchable lust, in order to get his hands on the beautiful nymph Europa, Jupiter has transformed himself into a bull. He persuaded Mercury to drive a herd of cows down to the beach, and frolicked among them, flirting with Europa, who happened to be there with her companions. She was gradually entranced by his winning ways, and, as she clambered upon his back, he sidled from shore to sea, going from the shallows through the waves, without her realising what deep water he was getting her into. Her companions – and the unwitting herd – can be seen in the distance, helpless on the shoreline.

It’s a problematic story – it is after all a story of rape. Is she entirely unwilling? In this instance it isn’t all that clear, although in other encounters Ovid is explicit about the dread and terror Jupiter’s victims experience. Like Jupiter, Titian seduces us. His means: rich colours and lushly applied brushstrokes, underplaying the horror with a touch of the absurd. I’d never noticed before how cupid rides his fish in much the same bizarre and awkward way that Europa rides the bull, one arm clinging on, waving (not drowning), a leg flying free.

The other fish was a revelation, a new favourite, and I’d like to nominate it as the Best Fish in Art, a category of which I was previously unaware (although I do have two suggestions for the Best Cabbage). Its scales are evoked with flicks of white and blue paint, making it glimmer at the bottom of the painting, as if is merging with the sea, appearing and disappearing, painted with similar brushstrokes and tones to the sea itself, part of the watery world over which Europa is now conveyed.

Eventually she will get her feet back on dry land – on the continent of Europe, which took her name. And eventually we will be able to see these paintings again, brought together for the first time, to be seen as Titian himself never did, all in one room. I am a least glad that these paintings, long separated, must be enjoying some quiet time together, but I am looking forward to seeing them all again when we have got to the other side.