Category: Religious paintings

The Resurrection by Piero della Francesca

The Resurrection by Piero della Francesca (c.1468)

For today’s blog I am staying with Italian Renaissance art and looking at a work by, some say, the greatest Early Renaissance painter, Piero della Francesca.  This is the second time I have featured this artist in one of my blogs.  The first being The Flagellation of Christ (My Daily Art Display, September 29th 2011).   Today I want to look at his beautiful fresco entitled The Resurrection which he completed around 1468.

Piero della Francesca or as he was known in his day, Piero di Benedetto de’ Franceschi, was born around 1415 in the Tuscan market town of Borgo San Sepolcro, which is now known as Sansepolcro,  a small town located on the plains of the Upper Tiber Valley in the southeast of Tuscany, bordering Umbria and The Marches.  His family were merchants dealing in leather and wool and his father, Benedetto di Franceschi, hoped that his son would follow in his footsteps.  With that in mind, Piero was sent to school to learn arithmetic and the ability to calculate weights and measures, assess the volumes of barrels and bales, and most importantly, learn how to keep accounts.  Piero was academically gifted and became well known as a mathematician and in fact after his death he was revered not so much as a painter but for his mathematical knowledge.

Piero’s initial artistic training came as an apprentice to Antonio di Giovanni, a local painter, who was based in Anghiari, a town across the Tiber Valley from Borgo San Sepolcro.  From being Antonio di Giovanni’s apprentice, he soon became his assistant and during the 1430’s the two of them worked jointly on commissions around Borgo San Sepolcro.  Piero went to Florence for the chance to gain more work and he worked on commissions as an assistant alongside another young artist, Domenico Veneziano.  It was during this time spent in Florence that Piero would have probably come into contact with the great Florentine artists of the time such as Fra Angelico, Mantegna and the architect, Brunelleschi.

In 1442, Piero returned to Sansepolcro and three years later, in 1445, Piero received a large commission from the Compagnia della Misericordia, a confraternity of Borgo San Sepolcro, for a polyptych, Polyptych of the Misericordia: Madonna of Mercy, as an altarpiece for the local church, Church of the Misericordia.  The confraternity had asked Piero to complete the work in three years, setting the anticipated completion date as 1445.   Piero however did not feel constrained by this suggested timeline and any way he had many other projects on the go at the time and in the end did not complete the altarpiece until 1462, some seventeen years late!

Piero moved around the country a good deal during his life, living in Ferrara and Rimini before arriving in Rome in 1455.  Here he painted frescoes in the Vatican for Nicholas V and continued to work in the Vatican Palace for Pius II. Sadly his works were destroyed to make room for paintings by Raphael.

Piero’s birthplace, the town of Borgo San Sepolcro which literally means “Town of the Holy Sepulchre” derives its name from the story of its founding back in the tenth century.   The story of its coming into being would have us believe that two saints, Saint Arcano and Saint Egidio were returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land bearing some wood shavings from the sepulchre in which Christ had been buried, when they were miraculously instructed to create a new settlement – Borgo San Sepolcro.   These sacred relics have been preserved in the local Benedictine abbey and so when the town hall of Borgo San Sepolcro was renovated and extended in the late 1450s, Piero was commissioned to paint the fresco on the appropriate subject of The Resurrection for the building’s state chamber. This room was set aside for the use of the Conservatori, the chief magistrates and governors.  Before holding their councils, these four appointed guardians of the town would solemnly kneel before Piero’s image, to pray for the grace of God to descend upon them during their deliberations. The room is now the civic museum.

My featured painting today is a fresco which exudes an air of peace and tranquillity.   In the painting, the risen Christ can be seen in the centre of the composition.  He is portrayed at the moment of his resurrection, as we see him with his left foot on the parapet as he climbs purposefully out of his marble tomb clutching the banner in his right hand, as if he is declaring his victory over death.   He looks formidable as he stands tall.   We don’t see the lid of the tomb but look to the bottom right of the painting and we can see Piero has depicted a large rock which probably harks back to the biblical tale which told of a rock being rolled away from the entrance of Christ’s tomb.   In most resurrection paintings we are used to seeing Christ dressed in white burial clothes and yet Piero has depicted him in red robes, which was probably done to infer royalty and signify that this resurrected person is Christ the King.  Piero has portrayed the pale body of the risen Christ as almost blemish-free with the exception of the wound to his side and the wound in the back of both his hands made by the crucifixion nails.   In his depiction of Christ he has not let us forget that this central figure is both man and God, for if you look closely at the stomach of Christ we notice that the artist has given it an almost human appearance.  It has a slightly wrinkled appearance caused by the folds of the skin happening as he raises his leg to exit the tomb.

The sleeping guards

The alertness of the risen Christ in the painting contrasts starkly with the four soldiers who instead of keeping guard on the tomb, lie asleep.  The Renaissance painter and biographer of artists, Vasari, would have us believe that Piero included his own self-portrait in this fresco.

Piero della Francesca

It is the face of the second soldier from the left, and Vasari postulates that Piero did this as a sign of his own hopes of awaking one day to redemption. It is also interesting to note the contrast in the way Piero has depicted the risen Christ and the four soldiers.  Christ is shown in a solid vertical stance looking straight out at us, whereas the sleeping soldiers are depicted in diagonal poses and viewed at various oblique angles.  The way the artist has portrayed Christ almost gives one the feeling that he is about to step out of the painting to join us, the viewer.  In some ways the expression on the face of Christ is disturbing.  It is a penetrating glance and one art critic commented that it was if he was looking into the soul of the viewer.

The landscape is bathed in the new cold and clear light of a Tuscan dawn.  Look carefully at the trees on the right of the painting and those on the left side.  Do you spot the difference?   The ones on the right are depicted as flourishing specimens adorned with leaves and healthy green shoots whereas the trees on the left of the painting are grey in colour and bare as if on the point of dying.   This contrast almost certainly alludes to the renewal of mankind through the Resurrection of Christ

It is likely that Piero painted his striking image of the risen Christ stepping resolutely, banner in hand, from the tomb, to represent not only the resurrection of Jesus but also the resurgence of the town of Sansepolcro.  After a few years under the rule of Florence from 1441, Sansepolcro regained its identity and dignity in 1456 when the Florentines returned the use of the Palazzo to the Conservatori. The church Council which the young Piero had witnessed in Florence had thus had unforeseen consequences for Sansepolcro. The Pope, his treasury depleted by his lavish Council, defrayed some of the costs by ceding Sansepolcro to Florence which was later returned by Florentine authorities to the citizens of Sansepolcro on February 1st 1459, as a sign of the restoration of some measure of autonomy to the Borgo.

One interesting end note to the tale of this painting comes from a BBC article which tells the story of how a British artillery officer, Tony Clarke, during World War II, defied orders and held back from using his troop’s guns to shell the town of Sansepolcro and his decision is believed to have saved this beautiful fresco.   To read the full story click on:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16306893

The Transfiguration by Raphael

The Transfiguration by Raphael (1520)

In my last blog I looked at The Raising of Lazarus by Sebastiano del Piombo and talked about how this and a painting by Raphael, entitled Transfiguration, had been commissioned in 1517 by Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici as a high end altarpiece for the French Cathedral of S. Giusto Narbonne.  Raphael was, at the time, busy on other commissions.  He had been summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II to paint frescoes on the rooms of his private Vatican apartment, the Stanza della Segnatura and the Stanza di Eliodor and at the same time he was busy working on portraits and altarpieces as well as working alongside Sebastiano del Piombo on frescoes for Agostino Chigi’s Villa Farnesina.   It is thought that Giulio de Medici was so concerned with the time it was taking Raphael to complete The Transfiguration altarpiece that he commissioned Sebastiano di Piombo to paint the Raising of Lazarus for the cathedral in an effort to stimulate Raphael to work faster on his commission.

Today I am featuring Raphael’s work, The Transfiguration, which was considered the last painting by the Italian High Renaissance master.  Giorgio Vasari, the sixteenth century Italian painter, writer, historian, and who is famous today for his biographies of Renaissance artists, called Raphael a mortal God and of today’s painting, he described it as:

“…the most famous, the most beautiful and most divine…”

Although Raphael Sanzio was only thirty-four years of age when he was given the commission, bad health prevented him from finishing it. It was left unfinished by Raphael, and is believed to have been completed by his pupils, Giulio Romano and Giovanni Francesco Penni, shortly after his death on Good Friday 1520.

If we look closely at this work of art we can see two things going on simultaneously both of which are described in successive episodes of the Gospel of Matthew.   In the upper part of the painting we have the Transfiguration, which is described in Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 17: 1-7):

“…After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.  There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.  Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.   Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”    While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”   When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified.  But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid…”

We see the transfigured Christ floating aloft, bathed in a blue/white aura of light and clouds.  To his left and right are the figures of the prophets, Moses and Elijah.  Below Christ we see the three disciples on the mountain top shielding their eyes from the radiance and maybe because of their own fear of what is happening above them.   The two figures kneeling to the left of the mountain top are said to be the martyrs Saint Felicissimus and Saint Agapitus of Palestrina.

 In the lower part of the painting we have a depiction by Raphael of the Apostles trying, with little success, to liberate the possessed boy from his demonic possession. The Apostles fail in their attempts to save the ailing child until the recently-transfigured Christ arrives and performs a miracle.  Matthew’s Gospel (Mathew 17:14-21) recounts the happening:

“…When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him.  “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water.  I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”    “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?  Bring the boy here to me.”   Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.   Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”   He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you…”

Observe this lower scene.  The young boy, with arms outstretched and distorted in a combination of fear and pain, is possessed by some sort of demonic spirit.   He is being led forward by his elders towards Christ who is about to descend from the mountain.   The boy is crying and rolling his eyes heavenwards.   His body is contorted as he is unable to control his movement.   The old man behind the boy struggles to control him.  The old man, with his wrinkled brow has his eyes wide open in fear as to what is happening to his young charge.  He looks directly at the Apostles, visually pleading with them to help the young boy.    See how Raphael has depicted the boy’s naked upper body.  We can see the pain the boy is enduring in the way the artist has portrayed the pale colour of his flesh, and his veins, as he makes those violent and fearsome gestures.   The raised arms of the people below pointing to Christ, who is descending, links the two stories within the painting.  A woman in the central foreground of the painting kneels before the Apostles.  She points to the boy in desperation, pleading with them to help alleviate his suffering.

Contrapposto

The contorted poses of some of the figures at the bottom of the painting along with the torsion of the woman in what Vasari calls a contrapposto pose were in some way precursors to the Mannerist style that would follow after Raphael’s death.   Vasari believed that this woman was the focal point of the painting.     She has her back to us.  She kneels in a twisted contrapposto pose. Her right knee is thrust forward whilst she thrusts her right shoulder back.   Her left knee is positioned slightly behind the right and her left shoulder forward.  Thus her arms are directed to the right whilst her face and gaze are turned to the left.  Raphael gives her skin and drapery much cooler tones than those he uses for the figures in heavy chiaroscuro in the lower scene and by doing so illuminates her pink garment.  The way he paints her garment puts emphasis on her pose.  She and her clothes are brilliantly illuminated so that they almost shine as bright as the robes of the transfigured Christ and the two Old Testament Prophets who accompany him.   There is an element about her depiction which seems to isolate from the others in the crowd at the lower part of the painting and this makes her stand out more.

The unfinished painting was hung over the couch in Raphael’s studio in the Borgo district of Rome for a couple of days while he was lying in state, and when his body was taken for its burial, the picture was carried by its side.   Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici kept the painting for himself, rather than send it to Narbonne and it was placed above Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon.   In 1523, three years after the death of Raphael, the cardinal donated the painting to the church of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome. In 1797, following the end of the war in which Napoleon’s Revolutionary French defeated the Papal States; a Treaty of Tolentino was signed.    By the terms of this treaty, a number of artistic treasures, including Raphael’s Transfiguration, were confiscated from the Vatican by the victorious French.   Over a hundred paintings and other works of art were moved to the Louvre in Paris.   The French commissioners reserved the right to enter any building, public, religious or private, to make their choice and assessment of what was to be taken back to France. This part of the treaty was extended to apply to all of Italy in 1798 by treaties with other Italian states.   It was not until 1815, after the fall of Napoleon, that the painting was returned to Rome. It then became part of the Pinacoteca Vaticana of Pius VII where it remains today.

The Raising of Lazarus by Sebastiano del Piombo

The Raising of Lazarus by Sebastiano del Piombo (1520)

My next two blogs feature paintings by two different artists, commissioned almost at the same time by the same person, one of which is often looked upon as the greatest painting ever.

My featured artist today is Sebastiano Luciani, who would be better known later as Sebastiano del Piombo for reasons I will explain later.   Sebastiano was born around 1485 and his birthplace is thought to have been Venice as he often signed his works Sebastianus Venetus.   His first thoughts, regarding what he should do with his life, were to join a religious order and he may well have started along the path towards the priesthood. His first love was not drawing and painting but music.  He had a great interest in music and was an accomplished singer and also played many musical instruments, including the lute, which was his favourite.  This musical talent of his made him very popular in Venetian society.   He did however eventually turn his attention to art when he was about eighteen years of age and his first artistic tuition came from Giovanni Bellini, who was a member of the great Bellini family of Venetian artists and brother-in-law of Andrea Mantegna.   Having learnt the basics of art from Bellini he left the studio and became a pupil of Giorgione da Castelfranco, whom he had first met through their joint love of music.  Sebastiano and Giorgione had a long association and the early works of the young aspiring painter were greatly influenced by the style and technique of his master, so much so, that some of his early paintings were confused with those of Giorgione.

Giorgione died in 1510 and the other great Venetian artist, Tiziano Vecelli (Titian) was away, working in Padua.   Sebastiano was now looked upon as the leading painter in Venice.   In early 1511, the Siennese banker, Agostino Chigi, who had become one of the richest men in Rome and a financial backer of the Popes,  visited Venice and persuaded Sebastiano to return with him to Rome.  Chigi believed that Sebastiano was the greatest living painter in Venice and he wanted him to carry out some work in his newly acquired villa.   Chigi was a great lover of the Arts and a wealthy patron of art and literature.  Chigi, at that time, owned a suburban villa on the shore of the River Tiber, known as Viridario, but later owners changed its name and it became known asVilla Farnesina.  Chigi wanted his residence to be one of the most opulent in the city befitting a man of his standing in society and wanted the best artists of the time to come and decorate the interior.  Besides summoning Sebastiano he invited other great painters to put their mark on the villa, such as Giovanni da Udine, Giulio Romano, Sodoma and Raphael Sanzio.  Sebastiano worked alongside Raphael on the frescoes for the villa which depicted scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

It was whilst working in Rome that Sebastiano became acquainted with, and became one of the rare and trusted friends of, Michelangelo Buonarroti.   According to Vasari, Michelangelo befriended Sebastiano and offered him pictorial designs for him to develop in paint.  This friendship however drew Sebastiano into the long running rivalry Michelangelo had with Raphael Sanzio but in a way it had a lot to do with today’s featured work.  It is believed that through the good auspices of Michelangelo, Sebastiano was, at the end of 1516, commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici to paint a large altarpiece, depicting the Raising of Lazarus.  Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici was appointed to the see of Narbonne, in south-west France, by his cousin Pope Leo X.  The painting, along with its proposed companion piece the Transfiguration, which the cardinal had commissioned, shortly before, from Raphael, were to be sent to the cathedral in the Cardinal’s own bishopric in Narbonne, which owned a relic relating to the story of Lazarus.  There seems nothing strange about the cardinal commissioning two paintings for the same cathedral but Vasari would have us believe that there was a little devilment with the cardinal’s request as, in a way, it was to pit the two artists against one another and of course the cardinal was well aware of the rivalry between Michelangelo and Raphael as we know Raphael’s “artistic enemy” was Michelangelo, who was therefore only too willing to lend Sebastiano a hand with the work by supplying him with sketches that could be incorporated into the Raising of Lazarus.

Michelangelo’s sketch of Lazarus

The featured painting today, the Raising of Lazarus by Sebastiano, is a great example of the highly colourful style of Venetian painting of the time.   Sebastiano completed the painting in January 1519 and it was immediately hailed as an artistic triumph.  Raphael was concerned that his painting of the Transfiguration was not compared with Sebastiano’s Raising of Lazarus but the two were seen together in April of the following year, a couple of days after Raphael’s death.  Raphael’s painting never went to Narbonne, remaining in Rome whereas Sebastiano’s Raising of Lazarus eventually went to the French city.

The biblical tale tells us about the request of the sisters Martha and Mary for Jesus to visit the grave of their brother Lazarus and raise him from the dead.  In his Gospel, St John divided the story of the miracle into three parts. Firstly, Jesus bids the people to take the stone from the tomb.  Next he tells his friend, Lazarus to rise, and finally Jesus tells Lazarus to unbind his shroud and it is this third command to Lazarus that we see in the painting.  The painting we see before us is a depiction of a biblical story from the Gospel of Saint John (John: 11).  Verses 40 to 44 recount the event:

“…Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.   “Take away the stone,” he said.  “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”    Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”   So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.    I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”  When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.  Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

In the background of the painting, we see a cloudy sky being penetrated by a shaft of light.  We can make out a distant town by a lake or river. The town is more a depiction of a high-walled fortified Roman town with its large and solidly built bridge, rather than a depiction of somewhere from Sebastiano’s birthplace, Venice.   It feels Roman more than Venetian. We see the figure of Christ standing in the foreground, slightly left of centre,   He is portrayed theatrically pointing towards the seated figure of Lazarus, who is still partly covered by his burial shroud.  It is almost as if Jesus is giving a speech.   Jesus needs all his powers of persuasion to bring back Lazarus. It is not so much a command Jesus is giving to Lazarus, more that he is appealing to the old man, his friend, to rise from the dead.

All around, and squeezed tightly into the composition, are men and women all of who pose in a most theatrical manner, due to their shock at seeing Lazarus coming back to life.   In the left mid-ground we see a group of Pharisees unimpressed by what they have seen and are still hell-bent on plotting the death of the so-called miracle maker.    The various figures in the painting are all clothed differently.  It is interesting to take time and study each figure.  There is an old man knelt on the lower left, hands clasped in a prayer-like manner as he looks up at Jesus.    Look how some of the men and women hold their hands up in horror and look away rather than cast a glimpse on the back-from-the-dead figure of Lazarus.  Dramatic poses have been given to Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus.   Mary is on her knees to the right of Jesus, her hand placed over her heart.   Martha, dressed in a blue robe with a red sash, stands to the right of Jesus, recoiling from what the Biblical passage termed “the bad odour”.

Martha recoiling at the sight and smell of Lazarus

Others talk together discussing what they see before them.   Take time and look at all the various expressions on the faces of the people.   All these figures are painted in bright colours.  The artificial and theatrical gestures we see before us seem almost as if time has come to a standstill.  It is like a freeze-frame shot from a film.   Lazarus is indeed a strong, mature man and Sebastiano used the red and black chalk drawings given to him by Michelangelo for a preliminary study of the figure of Lazarus and some of his attendants. Three of these drawings still exist and one can be seen at the British Museum in London.   The way the figures are portrayed by Sebastiano are depicted in a Michelangelo’s style. A prime example is the depiction of Lazarus.  Look at the way Sebastiano has shown him half turned which is often the way a sculptor would position his figure.  The arms and legs of Lazarus are so positioned to show off his musculature and sinews.  It is so like the work of Michelangelo.

Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici chose to keep Raphael’s Transfiguration for himself and it is now housed in the Vatican Gallery.  He sent Sebastiano’s painting to Narbonne.   The Raising of Lazarus in now housed in the National Gallery, London.    After Raphael’s death, Sebastiano became the leading painter in Rome and he was the first artist to return there after the 1527 Sack of Rome.  In 1531, the Pope rewarded his service by making him Keeper of the Papal Seal and it was from this position that Sebastaino became known as Sebastiano del Piombo, (piombo being the Italian word for lead which was used for sealing).

Tomorrow I will look at the companion piece or some would say the “competition” piece to Sebastiano’s Raising of Lazarus – Raphael Sanzio’s Transfiguration, a painting many art historians believe to be the greatest painting of all time.

The Melun Diptych by Jean Fouquet

The Melun Diptych by Jean Fouquet (c.1450)

In my last blog I looked at an altarpiece by Michael Pacher and discussed terms such as diptych, triptych and polyptych, which all referred to panel paintings which were hinged together.  Although we looked at a triptych altarpiece this form of art was not only used in the depiction of religious personages.   There were many commissions for the diptych when it came to secular portraiture.  Often it would be the portrait of the husband on one panel with the portrait of his wife on the other.  The diptych was quite a common format in the Early Netherlandish paintings of the 15th and 16th centuries. In my blog today I want to look at a fifteenth century diptych, known as the Melun Diptych, which was the work of the great French painter and manuscript illustrator, Jean Fouquet.  Although the attached photograph above shows the two paintings as a diptych, the two panels are now separated.  Up until 1775, the diptych remained in the church of Notre Dame in Melun. However the church fell on hard times and needed money to help pay for the building’s restoration.  The elders of the church decided to raise funds for the building work by selling the diptych.  The right wing with the Madonna and Child was sold to the mayor of Antwerp and it has remained in the Belgian city ever since.  It is now housed in Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (The Royal Museum of Fine Arts).    The left hand panel of Chevalier and St Stephen was purchased by Clemens Brentano, the German poet and novelist in 1896.  This panel is now housed in Staatliche Museen, Berlin.   Each of the wood panels measure 93cms x 85cms.

Jean Fouquet was born in Tours, a town in the Loire Valley, around 1420.  It is thought that Fouquet’s initial artistic training was at a studio in Paris, where he was educated in the ways of a manuscript illuminator and painting of miniatures.   It is also believed that he may have worked as an apprentice in the Bourges workshops of the Netherlandish painter, Jacob de Littemont, who was the court painter to Charles VII and later, Louis XI, a position that Fouquet himself would hold in 1475.    His first recorded painting dates back to 1440, and was entitled The Court Jester Gonella, who was the court jester of Nicholas III d’Este.  I featured that painting in My Daily Art Display of December 14th 2010.

Portrait of Charles VII by Jean Fouquet (c.1445)

In 1445 he completed one of his first very large panel portraits entitled Portrait of King Charles VII.  It was the portrait of the French ruler, Charles VII.  The king is painted between drawn curtains. The artist has painted the king in three-quarters profile and the inscription on the frame “le trés victorieux roy de France” reminded everybody that this was the ruler who brought the Hundred Years’ War to a triumphant end.   Ironically it was one of the few battlefield victories achieved by the ruler.

In 1446, Fouquet accompanied a French delegation, as court painter on a mission to Rome, as records of the trip where chronicled by the Italian artist Antonio Filarete.  The following year, Fouquet completed the commission to produce a portrait of Pope Eugenius IV with his two nephews, which was hung in the sacristy of the Dominican convent of Basilica of Saint Mary Above Minerva in Rome.  It was probably this connection with the Dominican convent that led him to be introduced to the great Italian Renaissance painter and Dominican friar, Fra Angelico, who was at that time working on the frescoes in the chapel of Saint Peter,

When Fouquet returned to France in 1448, he opened a workshop in Tours and married.   He worked for the French court and carried out commissions for King Charles VII, the king’s treasurer Etienne Chevalier, and the king’s chancellor Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins. A number of these commissions were miniatures, such as the Book of Hours of Étienne Chevalier.  In 1475, Jean Fouquet became the court painter to Louis XI.   Fouquet died in Tours in November 1481.

My Daily Art Display featured painting today is the Melun Diptych, so named as its original resting place was the cathedral at Melun, a town in the south-eastern suburbs of Paris.   This was a commission Fouquet received from Etienne Chevalier.  Estienne Chevalier came from Melun and worked for the government.  His initial posting was as French Ambassador to England in 1445.  Six years later he became Treasurer to Charles VII of France. Once Fouquet had completed the diptych, Chevalier presented it to his home town.  The diptych was made to be placed above the tomb of Chevalier’s wife, Catharine Bude, in the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame, in Melun.  As I said in my introduction the diptych doesn’t exist anymore as a hinged pair and sadly, another thing we cannot see is the original framing.  According to a description of the paintings by Denis Godefroy, a seventeenth century historian, the original frames were covered in blue velvet. Around each picture were strands of gold and silver thread, in which the donor’s initials were woven in pearls. There were also gilded medallions on which stories of the saints were represented.

The Left wing of the diptych
Etienne Chevalier and St Stephen

Let us first look at the left hand panel of the diptych.  On the left wing of the diptych, Etienne Chevalier had himself painted next to his patron saint, Stephen (“Etienne” when translated into the English language is “Stephen).  Chevalier kneels in a red robe with his hands clasped in prayer.  The red colour of the robe indicates the status of Chevalier as it was the most expensive coloured dye and was reserved for high-ranking magistrates.   Next to him we have Saint Stephen wearing the dark robes of a deacon with its gold trim.  Stephen’s right arm is draped around the shoulders of Etienne Chevalier in a protective manner.   In the left hand of the saint there is a book, on which a jagged stone is lying.  This symbolises his martyrdom (St Stephen was stoned to death).  The background consists of Italian Renaissance style architecture with pilasters, in between which are inlaid marble panels.  The floor is made of neutral coloured tiles, which allows a glaring contrast with the highly coloured clothing of then two figures.  On the wall, receding in perspective, the name of Estienne Chevalier (IER ESTIEN ) is inscribed.   The two men look to their left at the Madonna and Child, who is portrayed on the right wing of the diptych and in some way if we look at the two panel paintings of the diptych together, it appears that St Stephen is introducing Etienne Chevalier to the Madonna and Child.  The plunging perspective Fouquet has used in this painting has in some way moved the two characters closer to us and they dominate the work.

The Right wing of the diptych
Madonna and Child

Now let us look at the right hand wing of the diptych, which is entitled Madonna and Child.  The first thing that strikes the observer is the strange and vibrant colouring used in the painting.  The unnatural colours have been attributed to represent the heraldic colours of the French king, being red, white, and blue.   It is generally agreed by art historians that the features of the Madonna are those of Agnès Sorel.  She was a favourite mistress of Charles VII and bore him three daughters.  She was known by the nickname, Dame de beauté.  In 1450, Charles was away on a campaign at Jumièges.  Agnès Sorel was at her home in Chinon, which the king had provided for her, but she wanted to be with Charles to give him some moral support.    Despite being pregnant with their fourth child and it being a cold mid-winter day, she journeyed from her residence to join Charles at the village of Le Mesnil-sous-Jumièges.  It was here that she suddenly became ill and died at the age of 28.   While the cause of death was originally thought to be dysentery, in 2005 French forensic scientist Philippe Charlier examined her remains and determined that the cause of death was mercury poisoning, but offered no opinion about whether she was murdered.   Agnès Sorel held great influence over the king and many historians believe that this made her many enemies, including the king’s son, the future king, Louis XI, and it could well be that she had been deliberately poisoned by her enemies.  However this theory does not receive unanimous agreement as historians point out that, at that time, mercury was sometimes used in cosmetic preparations or to treat worms and that might have brought about her death.

However there is another theory about the identification of the lady in the painting.  Jan Schafer in his 1994 book, Jean Fouquet an der Schwelle zur Renaissance, stated that he believed that the woman in the painting could have been Etienne Chevalier’s wife, Catherine Bude, over whose tomb the diptych was hung in Notre Dame, Melun.

This right-hand panel depicts the Virgin and Child seated on a jewelled throne with its marble panels and adorned with large gold tassels.  The Virgin and Child are surrounded by red and blue coloured cherubs and seraphims, which greatly contrast with the pale skin of the Virgin and child. The Madonna wears a blue dress, white mantle and a jewel-encrusted crown.  Once again we have the colour combination of red, white and blue.  The bodice of the dress is unlaced, giving us a view of her perfectly spherical left breast, which she has offered to the Child on her knee.  She has the bulging shaved forehead which was fashionable at that time. Her facial and skin tone, as well as the body of the Infant Jesus, are of a pale grey-white colour, as if painted in grisaille (painted entirely in monochrome or near-monochrome).  The colour Fouquet has used to depict her skin and the grey-blue colour he has used to depict her robe gives the Madonna a look of lethargy and sleepiness. The child ignores the proffered breast and instead looks at and points towards Chevalier and St Stephen.

The prominent Dutch historian Johan Huizinga wrote about this panel in his 1919 book entitled Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen which was translated five years later as The Waning of the Middle Ages.  He condemned the work as “blasphemous libertarianism”.  In his book he wrote about how he considered this painting a fine example of decadence in the late Middle Ages, when religious feelings came close to erotic ones. He wrote:

“…No instance of this dangerous association of religious with amatory sentiments could be more striking than the Madonna ascribed to Foucquet…”

“…The bizarre inscrutable expression of the Madonna’s face, the red and blue cherubim surrounding her, all contribute to give this painting an air of decadent impiety in spite of the stalwart figure of the donor…”

“..There is a flavour of blasphemous boldness about the whole, unsurpassed by any artist of the Renaissance…”

And so the two halves of the diptych were split up and never re-united.  Well actually they were, for in 1904, France borrowed the panels from Berlin for an exhibition of French primitives.

There are many unanswered questions with regards to these paintings and the background to their composition:

Was the Madonna based on Agnès Sorel or Catharine Bude?

Did Agnès Sorel die of dysentery during the birth of her stillborn fourth child or was she murdered on the orders of Charles VII’s son, the future King Louis XI?

Was there a third panel and in fact what we are seeing is two parts of a triptych?  The third panel was rumoured to be depicting Etienne Chevalier’s wife Catharine.

Besides Agnès Sorel being King Charles VII’s mistress was she also the mistress of Etienne Chevalier?

I am sure you will agree that we have before us today two beautiful wood panel paintings and the story behind them is fascinating.

The Altarpiece of the Church Fathers by Michael Pacher

Altarpiece of the Church Fathers by Michael Pacher (1471-1475)

For My Daily Art Display today I am going to look at an altarpiece by the fifteenth century Austrian painter and sculptor Michael Pacher.  As far as I can remember, I have only presented one other altarpiece in my blog and that was way back on December 7th 2010 when I talked about the exquisite Isenheim Altarpiece crafted by Matthias Grünewald.   Before I go into details of Pacher’s altarpiece let me talk in general about altarpieces.

Altarpieces are normally carvings, sculptures or paintings or a combination of all three.  They can be split into two main categories.  One type is known as the reredos.  It is this type which is positioned behind the altar, rising from ground level and acting as a backdrop to the altar.  The other category is known as the retable, and these altarpieces stand either on the back of the altar itself or on a pedestal behind it.   In some churches, one can see both types of altarpieces.  The actual positioning of the altarpieces is often dictated by their size.

In the early days, before the use of canvas was the norm for painting, altarpieces were usually constructed of two or more separate wooden panels on which a set of religious depictions would be painted.  When the altarpiece comprised of just two panels, usually hinged together, it would be known as a diptych.  If the altarpiece construction was made of three hinged panels, a central panel and two side panels, then it was known as a triptych.  There were some altarpieces which consisted of many panels hinged together, side to side, but these side panels were also split horizontally giving small top and bottom independently hinged panels.  These were known as polyptychs.

Within the anatomy of altarpieces with their central and side panels,there are also such things as roundels, spandrels, predellas and pilasters and I won’t go into great detail about each of these but suggest you look at the website below which graphically explains the various “add-ons” that artists used to give to their altarpieces.  The website is:

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/anatomy-of-an-altarpiece

Today I want to concentrate on one particular altarpiece which Michael Pacher created for the Neustift Monastery high in the mountains close to Brixen, the south Tyrol town in northern Italy, known by the Italians as Bressanone.  The altarpiece which is part painting and part sculpture is entitled The Altarpiece of the Church Fathers and Pacher completed it in 1483.  Art historians have ranked this altarpiece as Pacher’s second most famous work, only being bested by the altarpiece he conjured up for the Church of St Wolfgang two years earlier.  My reason for choosing the one I have is that I liked the various stories attributed to each of the panels.  However before I look in detail at the altarpiece let me tell you a little bit about its creator.

Michael Pacher, an Austrian by birth, was born around 1435 in or around the town of Brixen, which presently lies on the southern slopes of the Italian Alps, close to the border with Austria.  Little is known about his upbringing or his early life except that he is thought to have trained under the Tyrolean artist, Hans Von Brubeck, who had a painting school in the area.  Records show that Michael Pacher set up his own workshop in the town of Bruneck (Italian: Brunico) in the southern Tyrol region about 35 kms from Brixen.    It was here that he fashioned his altarpieces.  In the days of Michael Pacher, the town of Bruneck, which lies in the Puster Valley, was on a well used trade route between Augsburg in Germany and Venice and the small town became a stopping off for both merchants and their goods and with that,  came affluence and fame for the small town.  The town of Bruneck is now often referred to as Michael-Pacher-Stadt.

Most of the work carried out by Michael Pacher was commissioned by the church and it was mainly his altarpieces which were in great demand.  Pacher was not just a skilled painter but a master wood carver and his altarpieces often consisted of a beautifully carved figurative centrepiece flanked by religious paintings on the side panels.  He spent most of his time in the area around Brixen and Bruneck although he did travel, on a couple of occasions, south to Mantua and Padua.  It was when he was in his late fifties that he moved to Salzburg where he took on the large commission for the high altar of theFranziskanerkirche, the Franciscan church, but he was never to finish the commission, dying in Salzburg in 1498.  Unfortunately what he did complete has not been preserved.   Fortunately though , the statue of the Madonna with Child, one of Michael Pacher’s masterpieces, was integrated in the high altar designed two centuries later by Fischer von Erlach and has been preserved for posterity.

And so to My Daily Art Display featured work, The Altarpiece of the Church Fathers.  The picture shows the internal panels of the Altarpiece, the ones seen when the altarpiece is fully opened.  It is a combination of carved shrines and wood panel paintings.  The altarpiece is divided into a centre panel which consist of two separate works and two hinged side panels, which have paintings on both sides.  Each panel depicts one of the four Great Doctors of the Western Church.  Each of the depictions serve to remind us of a legend attached to the depicted saint.  The Catholic Church bestowed the title Great Doctors of the Western Churchon saints whose writings the whole Church is held to have derived great advantage from and to whom “eminent learning” and “great sanctity” have been attributed by a proclamation of a pope or of an ecumenical council.  The four men we see on Michael Pacher’s altarpiece are Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome and Pope Gregory I all of whom were the original Doctors of the Church and were named as such in 1298. They were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops and are known collectively as the Great Doctors of the Western Church.

St Jerome

On the inner left side panel of the altarpiece we have Saint Jerome.   Jerome of Stridonium, who was born around 347AD, is best known for the legend in which he drew a thorn from a lion’s paw, and in Michael Pacher’s depiction of the saint, we see him draped in the red robes of a cardinal, stroking the lion.  Jerome was also a great scholar and was the translator of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin. Jerome’s edition of the Bible, the Vulgate, is still an important text of Catholicism.   Jerome was a noted Christian apologist, a term given to people who present a rational basis for the Christian faith, and who defend the faith against objections, and by doing so attempt to expose the errors of other world views.

St Augustine

If we move to the right of the St Jerome panel we come to the central part of the altarpiece which is formed by two separate panels.   The left hand side of this central panel depicts St Augustine.  Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo Regius (now the Algerian town of Annaba),  was born around 355AD.  He was a philosopher and theologian. Augustine is looked upon as one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. Augustine was greatly influenced by the writings of the great Classical Greek philosopher, Plato.   He framed the concepts of original sin and just wars as they are understood in the West. If you look closely at the panel painting you will see a small child sat at the feet of St Augustine.  The reason for the child’s inclusion harks back to the legend regarding St Augustine and his struggle to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity, which goes as follows:

 The scene is the seashore, where there is a small pool, a little boy with a seashell, and a sandy beach on which St. Augustine, clad in his Episcopal robes, is walking, pondering with difficulty the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.

 “Father, Son, Holy Spirit; three in one!” he muttered, shaking his head.

As he approached the little boy who was running back and forth between the sea and the pool with a seashell of water, Augustine craned his neck and asked him: “Son, what are you doing?”

“Can’t you see?” said the boy. “I’m emptying the sea into this pool!”

“Son, you can’t do that!” Augustine countered. “I will sooner empty the sea into this pool than you will manage to get the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity into your head!”

Upon saying that, the boy, who was an angel according to legend, quickly disappeared, leaving Augustine alone with the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.

St Gregory

The right hand side of the central panel depicts Pope Gregory I.  Saint Gregory, or Gregory the Great as he was known,  was born around 540AD and was made pope in 590AD and held that high office until his death in 604.  He was also known as Gregorius Dialogus (Gregory the Dialogist) because of his four-volume Dialogues, in which he wrote of the lives and miracles of the saints of Italy and of the afterlife.  In the panel painting we see him seated in conversation with a man wearing a crown and who appears to be standing in the middle of a fire.  So what is this all about?

The legend surrounding  Pope Gregory the Great, was that while he was walking through the Forum of Trajan, he thought of the justice of that emperor towards a poor widow deprived of her only son by a violent death.  On entering St. Peter’s he prayed that the soul of so virtuous an emperor might not be forever lost, and his prayers were answered.  The panel painting depicts Gregory rescuing the Roman Emperor Trajan from Purgatory by the power of prayer.

St Ambrose

The right hand side panel is of Aurelius Ambrosius, who would later be known as St. Ambrose of Milan,   Ambrose, who was born around 330AD,  was the  bishop of Milan and who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century .   In the side panel we see Ambrose sitting at writing desk but more interestingly at his feet is a baby in a cradle.  Once again there is a reason for the baby’s inclusion and, like the other wood panel depictions, it is all about a legend, which is attributed to the main character in the painting.  In this case it is a legend about Ambrose when he was a baby.  Legend has it that a swarm of bees settled on Ambrose’s his face while he lay in his cradle, leaving behind a drop of honey. His father considered this a sign of his future eloquence and “honeyed tongued”.  For this reason, bees and beehives often appear in depictions of St Ambrose.

In each of the paintings the four Church Fathers are depicted with a dove, which symbolised the presence of the Holy Spirit so as to represent their holiness.  All four are set inside beautifully decorated individual recesses, but appear to jut out from the picture plane into the viewer’s space.   One gets a feel of deep perspective as we look at the altarpiece and this is due to the way Pacher has foreshortened the floor tiles and by the way in which he has given the four overhead canopies a feeling of depth which make them appear as they are jutting out towards us.

On the reverse sides of the two wing panels there are two further paintings which can only be viewed when the altarpiece is closed.  One of these depicts St Augustine liberating a prisoner whilst the other depicts the Vision of St Sigisbert.

What Our Lord Saw from the Cross by James Tissot

What Our Lord Saw from the Cross by James Tissot

My blog today is the first of a two part look at the life and art work of Jacques-Joseph Tissot, later to be known as James Tissot.  In this first part I will look at his life and a religious painting with a difference, which was one of a series he completed  between 1886 and 1894.   In my next blog I will introduce you to the “love of his life”, who featured in a number of his later works.

Jacques-Joseph Tissot was born in 1836, in Nantes, a French seaport on the north-west coast of France.   Tissot was the second of four sons born to Marcel Théodore Tissot, an affluent linen merchant and successful businessman, who owned a country house, Château de Buillon, close to the town of Besançon and Marie Tissot, née Durand, a clothes and hat designer who helped in her husband’s business.  Tissot was brought up in a very religious household with both his parents being devout Roman Catholics.   At the age of twelve he was sent away to a Jesuit boarding school in Belgium, in the town of Brugelette, which in those days was one of the leading seats of learning for children of the Roman Catholic faith and attracted many pupils from different countries.  In her 1985 biography, Tissot by Krystyna Matyjaszkiewicz, she points out that it was at this college that Tissot first came into contact with English children.  She wrote:

“…Pupils at Brugelette included Catholics from England, and it may have been through friendships at Brugelette that Tissot became interested in all things English and began to style himself James, the name he was using by 1854. When new laws enabled the Jesuits in 1850 to open a college at Vannes in Brittany Tissot returned to France and attended school there, subsequently moving to another in Dôle (near Besançon), a bastion of Catholicism….”

His early family life would later have a bearing on some of his paintings such as his beautifully crafted depictions of ships which he would have seen in the local harbour of Nantes and his devout religious upbringing would have given him an interest in religious paintings.

By the time he was seventeen years of age, Tissot had decided to become an artist, much to the annoyance of his father, who had hoped his son would follow in his footsteps and run the family business.  His father eventually relented and in 1855, aged 19, Tissot went to Paris, lodging with an artist friend of his mother, Jules-Élie Delaunay.  He then worked in the studios of the French academic painters, Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin and Louis Lamothe who had learnt their trade as pupils of Ingres.  During his stay in Paris, he would, like many aspiring artists, spend a great deal of time at the Louvre copying the  works of the Old Masters and it was around this time that he met other contemporary artists such Degas, who also had once studied under Lamothe, the American artist, James McNeill Whistler and Édouard Manet.   Four years after arriving in Paris, Tissot exhibited five of his works at the 1859 Paris Salon.

Within a relatively short time he became an admired painter and received a number of commissions for wealthy patrons.  There was also a change in Tissot’s painting style from his medieval-styled works to everyday life seen through his portraiture.  He would depict modern Parisian women as they went about the city and its suburbs and he would spend time perfecting the way he depicted their style of dress, and such an interest in this aspect probably harked back to the days spent with his family clothing business and admiring his mother’s talents as a designer.  Much later in his life, in 1885, there was a major exhibition of his work at the Galerie Sedelmeyer, Paris, where he showed 15 large paintings in a series called La Femme à Paris.  These paintings represented different types and classes of women, shown in their professional and social contexts.

Because I want to save the middle part of Tissot’s life and his love affair with Kathleen Newton, until my next blog, I am going to skip to the year 1885 which is the year in which the artist experienced a re-conversion to Catholicism. It is said that one day, during a church service, he had a vision of Jesus tending to people in a ruined building. It was, Tissot believed, his Road to Damascus.   It was this return to his Roman Catholic beliefs which led him to spend the rest of his life illustrating the Bible. It is not unusual for us to hear of people being struck by this “born again Christian” phenomena but in the case of James Tissot many of his friends found his sudden return to Roman Catholicism, at a time when there had been a French Catholic revival and a coinciding surge in purchasing religious paintings, just too much of a fortuitous coincidence !!  Nevertheless, from then on Tissot devoted himself to painting religious subjects. He totally immersed himself in all things religious and painted works connected with bible.  His biographer, Krystyna Matyjaszkiewiczn wrote of Tissot’s religious fervour:

“…Tissot set off for Palestine on 15 October 1886, his fiftieth birthday.  He returned to Paris in March 1887 with sketchbooks full of drawings and a burning compulsion to illustrate the life of Christ. The idea developed into publishing images of events, places, people, and incidental detail, with extracts from the Gospels and biblical commentaries. Tissot made further visits to Jerusalem in 1888 and 1889. By April 1894 he had completed 270 watercolours, which were displayed at the Champ de Mars, Paris, to awe and amazement…”

Tissot travelled to the Holy Land and this marked the beginning of a 10-year campaign to illustrate the New Testament.  He would return to Palestine and back to Jerusalem and the surrounding area in 1888 and 1889 to make further studies of the landscape and the people.   The culmination of the project resulted in his The Life of Christ collection which was a compilation of 350 watercolours that depicted detailed scenes from the New Testament, from before the birth of Jesus through to the Resurrection, in a chronological narrative.  Two hundred and seventy of them were exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1894.     It is reported that these works of art caused a sensation. Men were described as reverently doffing their hats whilst women wept and knelt before the pictures.  Some women even crawled like penitents through the show.   The exhibition of his biblical works moved to London in 1896 and New York at the end of 1898 before the entire collection was purchased by the Brooklyn Museum in 1900.   In 1897 a French version of the profusely illustrated Tissot Bible was published and a year later an English version was available.   This further enhanced the artistic reputation of Tissot and made him very wealthy.   In the last few years of his life, Tissot worked on paintings depicting scenes from the Old Testament, eighty of which were exhibited in Paris.  He had, by this time, retired to Château de Buillon, the residence he inherited on the death of his father.   Tissot was never to complete the series of Old Testament works as he died at his chateau in Doubs, France in 1902, aged 66.

My featured painting today is one of the biblical scenes from the New Testament completed by James Tissot during the period 1886-1894.   It is an opaque watercolour over graphite on gray-green woven paper entitled What Our Lord Saw from the Cross.  It is regarded as one of the most memorable of the series of biblical images by the French painter.  It is totally different from the normal crucifixion scene paintings when, in almost all cases, we look up at the figure of Christ hanging from the cross.  In Tissot’s painting, we are the eyes of Christ and it us who looks down from the cross at the people below.  By doing this Tissot has allowed us to imagine ourselves in Christ’s place and by doing so we are able to empathise with him and maybe we can imagine what was going through his mind as he looked down upon friends, who had come to lend their support, and his enemies who have participated in his death and had come to gloat at his predicament.

From our viewpoint we look downwards at the crowd.   We see Mary Magdalene, in the immediate foreground, with her long red tresses swirling down her back, kneeling below the feet of Christ, which we can just see at the bottom centre of the painting. Further back we see the Virgin Mary clutching her breast, while John the Evangelist looks up with hands clasped. Some Roman soldiers are looking on, including a centurion who is clad in red. He has a downcast and remorseful expression on his face and Tissot has no doubt placed him at the scene reminding us of the passage in Luke’s Gospel 23:47 which stated:

“…Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man…”

The men on horseback in the right mid ground of the painting are Jewish scribes. They have a look of satisfaction on their faces for Christ was their rival.  These were the very men who had put pressure on Pilate to have Christ crucified.   Their plan had succeeded and their rival had been removed.  Look towards the centre of the background and one can see that Tissot has depicted the entrance to a tomb, the very place in which the body of Christ will be laid to rest after he has been brought down from the cross.

This is truly a remarkable work of art and I would love to go to the Brooklyn Museum to see the complete series.

In my next blog I will tell you about Tissot’s beloved Kathleen Newton, an Irish divorcee, and look at some of his portraits of this woman, who was the love of his life.

Jacob and Rachel by William Dyce

Jacob and Rachel by William Dyce (1853)

The first time I featured a painting by William Dyce was over twelve months ago (My Daily Art Display, May 14th 2011) when I looked at his painting Pegwell Bay, or to give it its full and bizarre title, Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858.   To find out why the painting had such a strange title you will have to check back on the earlier blog.

William Dyce was born in Aberdeen in 1806. His father was a fellow of the Royal Society and an eminent physician.  Dyce attended the Marischal College, which is now part of the University of Aberdeen.  He trained as a doctor before reading for the church. However the course of his life changed when aged nineteen he decided to become an artist and enrolled at the Royal Scottish Academy Schools in Edinburgh and later as a probationer at the Royal Academy of London.   At the age of nineteen he made his first trip to Rome and stayed there for nine months studying the works of the great Masters such as Titian, Rembrandt and Poussin.  He returned to Aberdeen but the following year he went back to Rome and this time stayed for eighteen months.   During this second visit to the Italian capital he met the German painter, Friedrich Overbeck, who was one of the leading artists of the Nazarene Movement.   The Nazarene Movement was made up of a group of early 19th century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive honesty and spirituality in Christian art. The name Nazarene came from a term of derision used against them for their affectation of a biblical manner of clothing and hair style.

By 1829 Dyce was back in Scotland and settled in Edinburgh for several years.  To survive financially he would carry out many portraiture commissions but his main love was his religious, history and narrative paintings.   In 1837, he was appointed Master of the School of Design of the Board of Manufactures in Edinburgh and produced a pamphlet on the management of schools like the one he was working at and this was well received, so much so, that he was transferred to London as superintendent and secretary of the recently established Government School of Design at Somerset House, which was later to become the Royal College of Art.   In 1844 he was appointed Professor of Fine Art in King’s College, London, and became an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy, and in 1848 elected to become a  Royal Academician.

In 1850 Dyce married Jane Brand who was twenty-five years younger than him.  They went on to have four children.   He died at Streatham, Surrey in 1864, aged 58.

Today I am looking at a completely different type of painting by the artist in comparison to his seaside painting, Pegwell Bay.  This is a religious painting entitled The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel.  There were about four versions of this work by Dyce,  each of different size and with minor alterations but this one, which was completed by him in 1853,  is now housed in the Kunsthalle in Hamburg.  This was the original work and the only one which had a vase resting on the edge of the well.  The painting proved so popular with the public that Dyce commissioned Holman Hunt to make copies of it.

The painting is based on a story from the Old Testament book of Genesis (29: 9-14):

9 While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherd. 10 When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of his uncle Laban, and Laban’s sheep, he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep. 11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep aloud. 12 He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of Rebekah. So she ran and told her father.  13 As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he hurried to meet him. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his home, and there Jacob told him all these things. 14 Then Laban said to him, “You are my own flesh and blood.”

This painting, Meeting of Jacob and Rachel, depicts the point in time just before Jacob kissed Rachel, and as the biblical text quotes the experience was so memorable, he lifted up his voice, and wept.  Jacob had fallen in love, at first sight, with this beautiful young woman, when he saw her standing at the well about to give water to her father’s flock of sheep.   Look at the way Dyce has portrayed Jacob.  The young man having just cast his eyes on his cousin is besotted with her.  He leans towards her almost balancing on one leg.  Look at his demeanour.  Look at the intensity of his expression as he looks into Rachel’s face. Look at his eagerness.   His emotions seem to be getting the better of him.  He clutches Rachel’s right hand and press it against his heart.  Maybe he wants her to feel how it is beating wildly.  His left hand rests on the nape of her neck.  He caresses her neck gently and at the same time his hand will guide her face towards his so that he may kiss her.  Now look at Rachel.  See how her expression differs from that of Jacob.  Her eyes are cast downwards in a gesture of modesty or is it coyness?  She cannot meet Jacob’s gaze.  The top half of her body leans away from Jacob and she steadies herself by placing her left hand on the well.

So does this meeting of man and woman result in a happy ending?  Well yes and no!   Rachel’s father, Laban was quite cunning and realised that Jacob was a young and strapping lad who could help out on the farm and so he offered him the hand of Rachel in the future, providing he would work for him.  Jacob agreed and worked for Laban for fourteen years without payment in the hope of getting the father’s blessing for his marriage to his daughter.  Then Laban made another condition for this marriage.  He wanted Jacob to first marry Rachel’s elder sister, Leah, after which he would be able to have Rachel as his wife.

So this is not just a story about young love but also a story of patient love and the way Jacob was willing to wait for Rachel.   This may have been uppermost in Dyce’s mind as it mirrored his relationship with his wife-to-be Jane Bickerton Brand who was born in 1831, for he was made to wait for her hand in matrimony as she was so young when they first met and the age difference of twenty-five years obviously further concerned her father.  William Dyce did wait and they did marry,  so all ended happily.

Virgin Annunciate by Antonello da Messina

Virgin Annunciate by Antonello da Messina (c.1476)

I think I have mentioned before how I choose an artist or a painting for future blogs.  It is usually following an art exhibition or a visit to a gallery or, as is the case today, the artist is mentioned in passing in a previous blog.   When I was putting together the biography of my last featured artist, Vittore Carpaccio, I mentioned that in his early days he was influenced by the Sicilian artist, Antonello da Messina.  I had never heard of this artist before and curiosity got the better of me and I began to research his life and look at some of his paintings.  His portraiture is some of the best I have ever come across so I thought I would share my “find” with you.

It is thought that Antonello di Giovanni degli Antonii, better known as, Antonello da Messina, was born in Messina, Sicily, around 1430 and is now considered as the most famous artist to have come from this island.  He was one of four children and his father was a local stonemason.  His early life is somewhat sketchy and often contradictory.  A little light can be shed on Antonello’s training from a letter, dated 1524,  in which Pietro Summonte, the Italian Renaissance humanist living in Naples, and who took great pains in collecting and preserving his correspondence on artistic matters with the Venetian nobleman, Marcantonio Michiel.  In it is mentioned that Antonello was the pupil of Niccolò Antonio Colantonio, an artist who had received instruction in the methods of Netherlandish painting whilst serving at the court of King René I of Naples.  This fact alone may go some way to explain the influence of Flemish paintings in Colantonio’s and later, Antonello’s work.  However not all art historian agree about the Flemish style, influence and technique of Colantonio’s works and that, in turn, Antonello was influenced by his Master, Colantonio.   The art historian J.Wright in his 1980 book, Antonello da Messina: The Origins of his Style and Technique, believes that the characteristic of Colantonio’s work is almost entirely French rather than Netherlandish.

So where did Antonello pick up this Netherlandish influence?  It appears debateable whether Antonello ever travelled to the Netherlands but it is known that René I’s time as ruler of Naples came to an abrupt end in late 1442 and the new ruler King Alphonse V of Aragon (King Alfonso I of Naples) came to power and his art collection contained works by the Netherlandish painters, Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, which as Colantonio’s assistant, Antonello could well have been familiar with these works whilst working on royal commissions.   Around this time, Antonello completed many religious works, one of which was his painting entitled St Jerome in his Study, and many believe that this work was influenced by Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of St Jerome (1442).  His later Annunciation of Syracuse  in 1474 is thought to have been influenced by the extraordinary Lomellini Triptych by Jan van Eyck.

A gonfalone

In 1457 at the age of twenty-seven whilst in Messina, Antonello married Joan Cumminella and it could well be that his first son, Jacobello, had already been born.  In that same year, it is known that Antonello moved to Reggio Calabria,   on mainland Italy.  It was whilst here that he received a commission to produce a gonfalone for the confraternity of S Michele dei Gerbini in Reggio Calabria.  Gonfalones were a type of heraldic flag or banner, often pointed, swallow-tailed, or with several streamers, and suspended from a crossbar.   In that same year Antonello married.  His wife was Giovanna Cumminella.  Soon after this,  he and his family as well as his brother and sister-in-law moved north and settled in Amantea, a town on the west Calabrian coast.  However three years later in 1460, he returns to Sicily after his father sends a brigantine to transport them all back from Amantea to Messina.  The following year he set up a workshop in Messina and took on his younger brother, Giordano di Giovanni as an apprentice.

In the period from 1465 and 1475, Antonello completed many portraits.  The surviving portraits are all of men.  His portraiture at this time was different in style to the Italian portraiture for he had a great grasp on the structure of a face, not just the bone structure, but the overlying facial muscles and sinews.  With this knowledge he could depict how the movement and portrayal of facial muscles around the eyes and mouth could alter facial expressions.  His portraits were nearly all in three-quarter views and bust length showing head and shoulders but not the arms.  The sitters faced the light which generally fell from left to right illuminating the edge of the right cheek and modelling the nearside (left side) of the face with chiaroscuro, the term for the technique of using light and shade in pictorial representation.  His sitters, like in many Netherlandish portraiture, are dressed unostentatiously in contemporary dress and wear no emblems or jewellery which would detract us from the simplicity of the portrait.  This drabness of clothing, often dark red or black, does not attract our attention and allows us to look directly and steadily into the eyes of the sitter.

Portrait of a Man (known as The Condottiere )

However, it was Antonello’s stay in Venice, from 1475 to 1476, which marked the definitive turning point in his artistic career and in fifteenth-century Italian art history. The encounter between Antonello’s art and the Venetian figurative environment, represented primarily by Giovanni Bellini, created the conditions necessary for his absolute masterpieces, such as Portrait of a Man known as The Condottiere and the Trivulzio Portrait of a Man.   In Venice, Antonello and his works of art were highly acclaimed and he received many commissions.  It is known that Antonello was still in Venice in the March of 1476 completing the S Cassiano Altarpiece commissioned by the church of San Cassiano in Venice.  From Venice there is speculation that he travelled to Milan to carry out a commission for Gian Sforza, Duke of Milan, but whether he did visit Milan it is known that by the end of 1476 he was back in his Sicilian home in Messina.  In his workshop he now had his son, Jacobello d’Antonio and his nephews Antonio and Pietro de Silba as his assistants.

In February 1479 Antonello made his will, and died shortly afterwards at the young age of forty-nine.  He had pre-deceased both of his parents as he made provision for them in the document.   Antonello was an extraordinary painter, one of the greatest of his time.  In his last years his son collaborated with him with Antonello planning the work and Jacobello executing the painting.  On one, Jacobello paid a fitting tribute to his father and signed the painting:

“…the son of Antonello, a painter of no human kind…”

For my featured painting today I give you Virgin Annunciate which Antonello completed whilst in Venice around 1476 and is now housed in the Galleria Regionale della Sicilia in Palermo.  It is probably his most famous work.  The painting is a hauntingly beautiful image of an adolescent Mary at the time the angel Gabriel came to her to tell her that she would bear God’s son.  Look closely at her beauty as depicted in this bust length portrait by Antonello.  She sits before us dressed in a simple blue mantle.  She clasps her blue mantle closed and holds it modestly in front of her chest.  The background is plain and does not distract us from staring at the young woman.   She sits at a reading desk.  Before her, on the desk, is a book of devotions which she has been reading.  We have disturbed her.  She looks up at us.   The angel Gabriel as is the case in most Annunciation scenes, is not present.  It is simply implied.  Her right hand is raised in a blessing gesture to Gabriel but as he is not in the painting, it is as if she is greeting us, the viewer.  It is just her and us.

The face of young beauty

Would you say this is a religious painting?  That seems a silly question to ask as we know the story of the Annunciation is a religious story but although the subject is religious in nature, Antonello has deliberately selected a young, beautiful and humble Sicilian girl for the model of the Blessed Virgin. So was it in Antonello’s mind to simply paint a portrait of a devout young girl.  I suppose the answer lies in who commissioned the work and what they asked the artist to depict.  Whether it is a simple portrait or a religious painting, I challenge you to find another work depicting such an exquisite looking young.

Susanna at her Bath by Francesco Hayez

Susanna at her Bath by Francesco Hayez (1850)

For an artist to have two favourite subjects for his paintings, biblical stories and female nudity, one would have thought combining the two would be somewhat difficult, if not risky.  However my featured artist today, the leading Romantic painter and portraitist of his time, Francesco Hayez, has, on a number of occasions, achieved that very thing.

Francesco Hayez was born in Venice in 1791.    He was the youngest of five sons.  His father was a French fisherman originally from Valenciennes and his mother, Chiara Torcella came from island of Murano, situated in the Venetian lagoon.  He was born into an impoverished household but fate took a hand in his life as Francesco was brought up in the household of his mother’s sister whose husband, Giovanni Binasco was a wealthy antiquarian and an avid art dealer and art collector.  It is more than likely that his uncle’s love for art transferred to his nephew, who in his childhood days developed a love of drawing.   Hayez’s uncle further developed Francesco’s love of art by gaining him a position as an apprentice in a studio of an art restorer.  His uncle then arranged for Francesco to study art under the tutelage of the Italian historical and allegorical painter, Francesco Maggiotto where he learnt about the Neo-Classical style of painting.  From the age of eleven to fifteen he studied the use of colour in classes run by the Bergamo painter, Lattanzio Querena, a skilful portraitist and copyist of 16th century Venetian paintings.

At the age of seventeen, Francesco Hayez was able to be enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia where he studied under the historical and portrait painter, Teodoro Matteini.  It was whilst at the Academia that he won a painting competition, the prize being the chance to study for one year at one of the leading art establishments, Academia di San Luca in Rome.  Although his prize was for a one-year study period, Francesco Hayez, remained in the Italian capital for almost five years and spent much time studying the works of Raphael in the four Stanze di Raffaello (“Raphael’s rooms”) in the Vatican Palace.   He then moved on to Naples in order to fulfill a commission he had received from Joachim-Napoléon Murat, who at the time was the King of Naples, and brother-in-law to Napoleon Bonaparte.

Hayez moved to Milan in 1823 when he was thirty two years of age.   He was appointed Professor of Painting at the Accademia di Brera and soon became part of the academic and aristocratic life of the city.  It was around this time that he concentrated his art work on history paintings and portraiture and regularly exhibited his works at the annual Brera exhibitions.  In the mid 1830s he attended the famous Salon, which became known as the Salotto Maffei, as it was hosted by Clara Maffei, a leading Milan society hostess of the time.  Salon was the name given to gatherings of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation.  Clara’s salon was always well attended by well-known writers, artists, scholars, musical composers such as Verdi and people who were pro-Risorgimento (the political and social movement that wanted all the different states of the Italian peninsular united into one single state of Italy).  Hayez received many commissions from the men in the forefront of the fight for Italian independence and unification, one of these was his good friend Teodoro Arese, who in Hayez’s 1828 painting, Count Francesco Teodoro Arese in Prison, he depicted Arese in chains as a reminder of Arese’s imprisonment in 1821, as a result of his struggle against the government.

The paintings of Hayez were often dominated by biblical themes but Hayez had also developed an interest in the history of his country and began to incorporate contemporary political and social figures in historical backgrounds.  The sense of patriotism which he depicted in his portraiture was always well received by his patrons.   In 1850 he was appointed the director of the Academy of Brera and it is the Pinacoteca di Brera (“Brera Art Gallery”) which now houses one of the most famous of Hayez paintings, The Kiss (see My Daily Art Display Jan 6th 2011).

As I stated at the start of this blog, besides his love of historical and  biblical paintings, one of his other favourite themes was that of the semi-clothed, or the naked female. He often incorporated these within oriental themes or scenes from harems, such as his 1867 painting, Odalisque. By doing this he and other artists were able, in some way, to counter any possible negative comments by people offended by naked flesh.

Penitent Mary Magdalene by Francesco Hayez (1825)

What was more controversial was his 1825 portrayal of a naked repenting, Mary Magdalene, entitled Penitent Mary Magdalene, which surprisingly depicted such a well-known religious figure in a full-frontal nude pose.  Hayez’s reasoning behind such a depiction, which was not the normal portrayal of Mary Magdalene recanting her sins, was that it was to remind us of Mary Magdalene’s somewhat erotic and dubious past.

My featured Hayez painting today has also religious connotations but is unlike many similar depictions.  The work, which he completed in 1850, is entitled Susanna at her Bath and is housed in the National Gallery, London.  It has allowed the artist to combine his love of biblical stories and the portrayal of a well-endowed female nude.  The story of Susanna and the Elders comes from Chapter 13 of the Old Testament Book of Daniel

The story revolves around a Hebrew wife named Susanna who was falsely accused by two lecherous voyeurs.  Whilst bathing one day in her garden and having dispensed of the services of her attendants, two lustful elders secretly observe her.  On making her way back to her house, they accost her, threatening to claim that she was meeting a young man in the garden unless she agrees to have sex with them.  She is horrified at their suggestion and refuses to be blackmailed.  The two lechers carry out their threat and inform the authorities about her affair with an illicit lover.  She is arrested and about to be put to death by stoning for promiscuity when a young man named Daniel interrupts the proceedings, shouting that the two elders should be questioned to prevent the death of an innocent. The two men are questioned separately and their stories do not agree. The court then realises that the two elders have made false accusations against Susanna.   The false accusers are put to death and virtue triumphs.

The Susanna in Hayez’s painting is the same Susanna but unlike other depictions of the event we do not see the two elders and accordingly Hayez has not included the words “the Elders” in the title of his work.  Hayez has preferred to concentrate all his artistic ability in his depiction of the nubile and beautiful young woman.  Although the two men are not seen by us we notice the accusatory expression on Susanna’s face as she looks over her shoulder and catches a glimpse of her voyeurs.  It is a truly beautiful painting and Hayez’s portrayal of the voluptuous Susanna with her pale skin and pursed lips is remarkable.  Look into her eyes.  It is as if she is looking straight through us.  We ourselves feel accused of staring at her naked flesh.  We can just imagine her unwavering stare as she browbeats the two old lechers.  The background to the right is dark and contrasts with the pale white skin of her leg and this chiaroscuro effect adds to the painting.

Susanna and the Elders by Artemisia Gentileschi (1610)

This painting depicting the biblical scene portrays Susanna’s character as being quite hard, determined and dare I say slightly brazen.  If you want to see a slightly different depiction of Susanna, in which she is shown as being vulnerable, frightened and devastated by the overtures of the two lechers then you must look at the painting Susanna and the Elders by my favourite female artist, Artemisia Gentilesschi.  She completed the work in 1610 and rather than showing Susanna as a coy or flirtatious person as often depicted by male artists, including Hayez, Artemisia looks on the event from the female perspective and deftly portrays the vulnerability of Susanna, showing her as being both scared and repulsed by the demands of the two men who menacingly loom over her.  It is one of the few Susanna paintings showing the sexual assault by the two Elders as a traumatic event. Artemisia Gentileschi at the time of her painting was having a torrid time with her boyfriend who two years later would rape her and Artemisia had then to endure the trauma and mortification of the rape trial.

Ruth in Boaz’s Field by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld.

Ruth in Boaz’s Field by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1828)

Today I am returning to a biblical work of art and one which I saw at the National Gallery in London a fortnight ago, and like a number of paintings I have recently reviewed, it was hanging in Room 41.  There are a number of biblical events which seem to be favourites with the artistic fraternity, such as the Crucifixion, the Deposition, Susanna and the Elders, Lot and his daughters,  just to mention a few.  Today’s depiction of these two biblical characters is no different, as one or both have been seen in paintings by Michelangelo, Chagall, William Blake, William Morris, Fabritius, Nicolas Poussin and Rembrandt just to mention a few.  The biblical characters in question are Ruth and Boaz and the painting I am featuring today is entitled Ruth in Boaz’s Field by the German painter, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld.

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld was born in Leipzig in 1794.  His father, Johann Veit Schnorr was an engraver and painter and he gave his son his initial artistic training.  When Julius was seventeen years of age he attended the Vienna Academy where he studied for four years under the German portrait and historical painter, Heinrich Füger.  It was at this establishment that he made friends with fellow students, the German painter, Ferdinand Olivier and the Austrian painter Joseph Anton Koch.   A couple of years prior to enrolling at the Vienna Academy,  six of the students had formed an artistic cooperative in Vienna and  called it the Brotherhood of St. Luke or Lukasbund, a name, which followed the tradition for medieval guilds of painters.  In 1810 four of them, Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Franz Pforr, Ludwig Vogel and Johann Konrad Hottinger moved to Rome, where they occupied the abandoned monastery of San Isidro.   Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld followed this group to Rome when he had completed his four-year course in 1815.

This grouping of German and Austrian Romantic painters was known as the Nazarenes and their formation was a reaction against Neoclassicism and the repetitive art education of the academy system. By setting up this group they hoped to return to art, which personified spiritual values, and this group sought stimulation from the works of artists of the late Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance periods.  The goal of the Nazarenes was to add to their works of art a purity of form and spiritual values which they saw in Renaissance art.  The group lived a semi-monastic existence, and they were given the name Nazarenes, by their detractors, as a term of derision, used against them for the quirky way they dressed, which imitated a biblical manner of clothing and hair style. They remained undeterred for the Nazarenes believed this was a way of re-creating the nature of the medieval artist’s workshop.  Most of their works were centered around religious subjects.

Julius returned to Germany in 1825 and went to live in Munich where he was employed by  King Ludwig I,  who that year had succeeded his late father, King Maximillian I, and had become King of Bavaria.  Julius and his staff then set about decorating the King’s palaces.  Julius was a follower of Lutherism and his later artistic phase featured biblical works.   His biblical works were often crowded scenes and were frequently criticised for their lack of harmony, unlike his featured painting today.  His biblical drawings and the cartoons he made for frescoes formed a natural lead up to his designs for church windows. His designs would then be made up into stained glass windows at the royal factory in Munich.  His fame as an artist soon spread and besides his commissions from German patrons he received many more from abroad, including ones for windows in both Glasgow and St Paul’s cathedrals.

Julius Schnorr died in Munich in 1872 aged 78.

Today’s oil on canvas painting entitled Ruth in Boaz’s Field Boaz is a biblical tale narrating the story of the first meeting between Ruth and Boaz and was painted by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld in 1828.   This picture was painted in Munich and based on drawings he had made a few years earlier whilst in Italy.

The subject is taken from the Old Testament Book of Ruth. Here we see the Moabite woman, Ruth, meeting with Boaz and she is gleaning (gathering up corn left after the harvest) to support her widowed mother-in-law. The landowner Boaz who talks to her has come to show his admiration for her hard work in supporting herself and her mother-in-law, Naomi.

Ruth was a daughter-in-law of Naomi, a woman from Bethlehem, who had left the city in order to escape the famine.  She, along with her husband Elimelech and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, travelled to the land of Moab which lay east of the Dead Sea.  However Naomi’s husband dies.  Later Naomi’s sons marry Moabite women but ten years later both of the sons die leaving Naomi with her two daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth.  Naomi feeling there was no reason to remain in Moab any longer decides to return alone to Bethlehem telling her daughter-in-laws to stay in Moab and return to their parent’s homes. Orpah goes back to her family but Ruth refuses to leave her mother-in-law, Naomi saying:

“…Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me…”

Naomi and Ruth then travel back to Bethlehem.  It is harvest time and in order to support her mother-in-law and herself, Ruth goes to the fields to glean (to gather up corn left after the harvest).  The story (Book of Ruth: 2) continues with the story:

“…And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour. “Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.”   So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz who was from the clan of Elimelech.  Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!”.  “The Lord bless you!” they called back.

Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, “Who is that young woman”    The foreman replied, “She is the Moabitess who came back from Moab with Naomi”.   She asks Boaz, “Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.”  She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.’

So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the girls.”

When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over.  As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don’t embarrass her. Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”

So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered, Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.

Her mother- in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the person who took notice of you!” Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The name of the person I worked with today is Boaz,” she said….”

The romantic story of Ruth and Boaz has a “happy ending” and for those of you who want to know what happened after that first meeting in the cornfield on the outskirts of Bethlehem you will have to read the Old Testament Book of Ruth (1-4).

Of all the biblical depictions of the couple I have seen in works of art I believe this to be the best.  The colours and tones used by the artist are superb.