GHERARDUCCI, Don Silvestro dei (b. 1339, Firenze, d. 1399, Firenze)

According to Vasari, in the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence there were twenty choir books written by a certain Don Jacopo and illustrated by Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci. He also points out that several other choir books by the same masters were in the library in the monastery of San Michele of the same order in Murano. Single illuminated pages representing a number of scenes from a large gradual by Don Silvestro have survived in various museums. Together with several other stylistically consistent historiated pages and with a considerable number of cut initials scattered in various museums, they formed the major portion of the illuminated decoration of two large graduals for San Michele a Murano. Fifty-one full pages and initials have been discovered so far that can now be firmly associated with the two San Michele a Murano graduals, Gradual 1 (The First Sunday of Advent to Passion Week) and Gradual 2 (Easter to the Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost).

The scene in the initial D represents the Nativity of Christ. The depiction is clearly rooted in the Sienese tradition and echoes the invention by the Lorenzetti that must have enjoyed great popularity in Siena. The text of this page is the introit to the Midnight Mass for Christmas.

Gradual 1 for San Michele a Murano (Folio 32)
c. 1395
Tempera and gold on parchment, 580 x 400 mm
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Fra Angelico en el Refectorio de San Domenico

c. 1879
Oleo en lienzo, 55 x 69 cm
Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florencia

Lorenzo Gelati fue inspirado por la descripción de un fraile devoto de Vasari. Con paleta en mano y la cabeza baja en oración, el piadoso Angelico se muestra arrodillado frente a su fresco de Cristo Crucificado en el convento de San Domenico en Fisole, dónde él era fraile.

***

Lorenzo Gelati was inspired by Vasari's description of the devout friar. With palette in hand and head lowered in prayer, the pious Angelico is shown kneeling before his fresco of the crucified Christ in the convent of San Domenico in Fiesole, where he was a friar.

Crucifixión con Santo Domingo

1440-45

Fresco, 435 x 260 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris

Cristo y la Adultera - por Pieter AERTSEN

Cristo y la Adultera - Christ and the Adulteress

1557-58
Oleo en madera, 122 x 178 cm
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

The fruit and vegetables presented in Aertsen's paintings are peasant foods, but they are a feast for the eyes. His market scenes are not slices of everyday life, but plausible inventions. Many of the fruit and vegetables depicted in his work have sexual connotations and some of them were eaten as aphrodisiacs.

In the present painting, the artist juxtaposes the biblical narrative with a market scene, encouraging beholders to ponder the relationship between love and lust, between sexual attraction and visual seduction. The foreground of the painting is filled with sexual innuendoes. On the left side, a man shows a woman his strings of onions. Although this may look innocent and mundane, onions were commonly used as aphrodisiacs. Furthermore, according to proverbial folklore, peeling an onion was like peeling off clothes, for it could easily result in tears. On the right, a man grasps a black rooster, a phallic allusion, in one hand, and an egg basket, a vaginal allusion, in the other.

Adoración de los Pastores, Adoration of the Shepherds - BRONZINO, Agnolo

Adoración de los Pastores

1539-40

Oleo en madera, 65 x 47 cm

Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest

According to Vasari, this small devotional painting was commissioned by Filippo di Averardo Salviati (1513-1572). It was most likely destined for a private chapel in the Salviati villa.

This jewel-like painting displays the extreme refinement of execution and luxury of materials characteristic of Florentine Mannerism, with 'disegno' (drawing), sculptural modelling of forms, and enamel-like finish apparent in every detail. The entire upper half of the composition is a deep landscape of lakes and hills, above which stretches a vast blue sky that Bronzino painted in expensive lapis lazuli. To the right, an angel announcing the birth of Christ to a single shepherd hovers in the sky, and in the foreground five putti fly in celebration directly over the Nativity scene.

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Según Vasari, esta pequeña pintura devocional fue comisionada por Fiippo di Averardo Salviati (1513 - 1572).  Fue más probablemente destinada a una capilla privada en villa Salviati.

Esta pintura parecida a una joya despliega el extremo refinamiento de ejecución y lujo de los materiales característico del Manerismo Florentino, con "disegno" (dibujo), escultural modelado de las formas, y acabado como esmaltado visible en cada detalle.  Toda la mitad superior de la composición es un profundo paisaje de lagos y colinas, por encima de las cuales se extiende un vasto cielo azul que Bronzino pintó en costoso lapislázuli.  A la derecha, se cierne en el cielo un ángel anunciando el nacimiento de Cristo a un único pastor , y en primer plano cinco "putti" voladores en celebración directamente sobre la escena de la Natividad.

El Triunfo de la Muerte - The Triumph of Death - BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder (b. ca. 1525, Brogel, d. 1569, Bruxelles)

The Triumph of Death
(El Triunfo de la Muerte)c. 1562
Óleo sobre tabla, 117 x 162 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

An apocalyptic vision, the skeletons of death mowing down the living with scythes, en masse or individually: resistance is useless. Trees and grass are withered; the fires of Hell blaze behind the hills, and the Christian promise of resurrection and redemption is absent.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder returned to the pure tradition of the Netherlands. He observed the popular aspects of his own environment, with their animation and colour, and drew from them satirical and moralistic conclusions.

Una visión apocalíptica, los esqueletos de la muerte segando la vida con guadañas, en masa o individualmente: la resistencia es inútil.  Los árboles y las hierbas marchitos, el fuego del infierno arde detrás de las colinas, y la promesa cristiana de la resurrección y la redención está ausente.

Pieter Bruegel el Anciano volvió a la más pura tradición de los Países Bajos. Observó el aspecto popular de su propio entorno, con su animación y color, y extrajo de ellas conclusiones satíricas y moralista.

Lamentation over Christ - Lamentación sobre Cristo 1436-41, Fra Angélico

Lamentation over Christ (Lamentación sobre Cristo) 1436-41
Tempera and gold on panel (Tempera y oro sobre tabla), 109 x 166 cm
Museo di San Marco, Florence (Museo de San Marco, Florencia)

The Lamentation was made for the Dominican confraternity's oratory, the façade of which was painted with scenes from the Passion of Christ. It portrayed the loving compassion of the Virgin, Mary Magdalene, and other saints as they mourned the death of Jesus and prepared him for the grave.

The bottom of the painting is damaged.


La Lamentación fue hecha para el oratorio de la confraternidad Dominica, cuya fachada fue fue pintada con escenas de la Pasión de Cristo.  Retrata la compasión amorosa de la Virgen, María Magdalena, y otros santos mientras lloraban la muerte de Jesús y lo preparaban para la tumba.


La parte inferior de la pintura está dañada.

Asunción de La Virgen, por Johann KOERBECKE

Assumption of the Virgin (Asunción de La Virgen)

before 1457
Oil on panel, 93 x 64 cm
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

A notable feature of the painting is its division, both physical and stylistic, into two distinct parts: the lower sphere representing the earth and the upper sphere of the heavenly kingdom. In the lower part, the artist has represented the Apostles grouped around the Virgin's empty tomb. The impulse towards realism is evident in the way in which the artist has attempted to individualize the expressions and poses of each figure, as they show their surprise and awe at the miracle. He also organizes the group around the tomb into a more or less coherent spatial arrangement. The tomb, with its plain classical decoration, and in particular the lid which has fallen into the foreground space, give the scene a sensation of depth and realism, which contains otherwise little to indicate its setting: only a patch of green in the background represents what might be the side of a mountain.

Una característica notable de esta pintura es su división, tanto física como de estilo, en dos partes bien diferenciadas:  la esfera inferior representa la tierra y la esfera superior el reino celestial.  En la parte baja, el artista ha representado a los Apóstoles agrupados alrededor la tumba vacía de La Virgen.  El impulso hacia el realismo es evidente en la medida en que el artista intenta individualizar la expresión y pose de cada figura, ya que muestran su sorpresa ante el milagro.  Él también organiza el grupo alrededor de la tumba en un arreglo espacial más o menos coherente.  La tumba, con su  decoración clásica simple, y en particular la tapa que ha caído en el plano del piso, dan a la escena la sensación de profundidad y realismo, que de otra manera contiene pocos indicios de su ubicación: solo un parche verde en el fondo representa lo que podría ser la ladera de una montaña.

Agnus Dei - Por Francisco de Zurbarán

ZURBARÁN, Francisco de
Agnus Dei
-
Oil on canvas, 38 x 62 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Adorable paradoja: Mansedumbre, humildad, inocencia y fragilidad encarnadas rigen el Universo...

Resurrección de Cristo y las mujeres en la Tumba (celda 8) - Fra Angelico

Resurrection of Christ and Women at the Tomb (Cell 8)

1440-42
Fresco, 181 x 151 cm
Convento di San Marco, Florence

This is the fresco on the wall of Cell 8 of the Convento di San Marco in Florence.

On the left, St Dominic in meditation. The three women on the right were painted by Benozzo Gozzoli who that time was an apprentice in the workshop of Fra Angelico. He collaborated in the pictorial decoration of the Dominican convent of San Marco.

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Este es el fresco en la pared de la celda 8 del Convento de San Marco en Florencia.

A la izquierda, Santo Domingo en meditación.  Las tres mujeres a la derecha fueron pintadas por Benozzo Gozzoli quien en ese tiempo era un aprendiz en el taller de Fra Angelico.  Él colaboró en la decoración pictórica del Convento Dominico de San Marco.

The Resurrection, La Resurrección - By: MASTER of the Osservanza (active 1430-1450 in Siena)

c. 1445
Tempera and gold on wood, 37 x 46 cm
Institute of Arts, Detroit

This painting is one of five Passion panels from the predella of an unidentified altarpiece.            In the Resurrection scene, similarly to the Descent to Limbo scene, a use of deepest flat black recurs, the silhouetted hill rising to a dark tower. Behind, the dawn sky - a vermilion-streaked arc with rags of cloud hovering in stillness - is a feat of imaginative observation without precedent or heir      La pintura es uno de cinco paneles de La Pasión de la predela de un retablo no identificado.            En la escena de la Resurrección, de forma similar a la escena del Descendimiento al Limbo, se repite el uso del más profundo negro mate, la silueta de la colina elevándose a una torre oscura.  Detrás, el atardecer - un arco rayado de bermellón con hilachas de nubes flotando en la quietud - es una hazaña de observación imaginativa sin precedente o heredero.

Monje junto al man - Der Mönch am Meer - FRIEDRICH, Caspar David

Monje junto al mar / Der Mönch am Meer
1809
Oil on canvas, 110 x 172 cm
Nationalgalerie, Berlin

The Cross in the Mountains (The Tetschen Altar) brought Friedrich to the attention of a wider public. Probably at no other point in his life did Friedrich enjoy more profound appreciation and greater admiration than in the years around 1810. Two landscapes in particular were responsible for thrusting Friedrich into the limelight. In 1810 they were exhibited as pendants at the Academy exhibition in Berlin, where they were purchased by the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick William. These two paintings were The Monk by the Sea and the Abbey in the Oakwood.

The Monk by the Sea is undoubtedly a masterpiece in Friedrich's oeuvre and the boldest picture within German Romanticism as a whole. The theme: the tiny figure of a man set against a natural landscape divided into three horizontal zones of colour. Its composition breaks with all traditions. There is no longer any perspective depth whatsoever. At the bottom of the picture, the whitish sand dunes making up the narrow strip of shoreline rise at an obtuse angle towards the left. At their apex, the tiny figure of a man robed in black is visible from behind - the only vertical in the picture. There is no other staffage; even the two sailing boats which Friedrich had originally envisaged on either side of the man he subsequently painted over. The oppressively dark zone of the sea meets an extremely low horizon. Some five-sixths of the canvas is given over to the diffuse structure of the cloudy sky. Because all lines lead out of the picture, infinity becomes the true subject of the painting. In the awareness of his smallness, the man, in whose place the viewer is meant to imagine himself, reflects upon the power of the universe.

The official recognition, indicated by the royal purchase, came as a surprise, for the canvas had initially been met with bemusement, even from Marie von Kügelgen who had earlier admired his work. When she saw it in 1809, Marie described it to her friend Friederike Volkmann:

"A vast endless expanse of sky ... still, no wind, no moon, no storm - indeed a storm would have been some consolation for then one would at least see life and movement somewhere. On the unending sea there is no boat, no ship, not even a sea monster, and in the sand not even a blade of grass, only a few gulls float in the air and make the loneliness even more desolate and horrible."

La Sepultura (The Entombment), por CARAVAGGIO

De todas las pinturas de Caravaggio, La Sepultura es probablemente la más monumental.  Un grupo estrictamente simétrico es construido desde la losa de piedra que sobresale diagonalmente fuera del fondo.  La pintura es del altar de la Chiesa Nuova en Roma, que está dedicada a La Pietà.  El embalsamamiento del cadáver y la sepultura en realidad son secundarias al luto de María, que es el punto focal de la lamentación.  Nada distingue más fuertemente las pinturas históricas de Caravaggio del arte renacentista que su negativa a retratar al individuo humano como sublime, hermoso y heroico.  Sus figuras están inclinadas, dobladas, acobardadas o jorobadas.  Lo gallardo y lo escultural ha sido reemplazado por la humildad y la abyección.

The Entombment (La Sepultura) (detalle)
1602-1603
Óleo sobre lienzo, ancho de detalle: 118 cm
Pinacoteca del Vaticano

La losa de piedra hace su aparición en el cuadro con un poder aterrador.  Según la actitud de cada cual, uno puede detectar en esta pintura ambos: irreverencia o profunda perplejidad religiosa en el rostro de la muerte de Cristo; porque presenta el significado del acontecimiento sagrado que permanece en el corazón del Ritual de la Iglesia -por vez única- en una forma visual tangible.


Fuente:  http://www.wga.hu

Aparición de La Virgen a San Bernardo de Claraval - Filippino Lippi

Apparition of The Virgin to St Bernard 1486

(Aparición de La Virgen a San Bernardo 1486)

Oil on panel, 210 x 195 cm

Church of Badia, Florence

(Iglesia de Badia, Florencia)

The high point of the early phase of Lippi's development is the Vision of St Bernard, one of the finest lyric pictures of the entire Renaissance. St Bernard of Clairvaux, seated at a desk with his pen poised, experiences a vision of the Virgin, who regularly had been the subject of his writings. The confrontation takes place out-of-doors (rather than in his study or in a church), enframed ingeniously by an outcropping of rock that creates a natural bench and bookshelves for the scholar. Behind Bernard, in the dark reaches of the rock, are two chained demons, while in the zone above, Cistercian monks converse or look heavenward in front of their fine Renaissance abbey. Still higher in the composition, a sick old man is being carried down toward the building. On the other side, a sweet landscape sweeps the eye into the distance.The format of the main figural group is echoed by the stony backdrop which, roughly speaking, forms a pyramid. Also included are the donor, Francesco del Pugliese, matched pictorially on the other side by the blond angel, leaning inward, hands clasped in prayer. The colours are confident, bright, and direct, adding to the exceptional visual excitement of the painting. Mary hovers above the ground facing Bernard. Her elegant form and finely silhouetted head are not dependent upon vigorous light-to-dark juxtapositions or even, as with Botticelli, a felicitously found, heavily accented line, but rather on the operation of fragile edges. The same is true for the figure of the saint, where light, colour, and lustrous paint, presumably oil, combine to produce the desired effect. The landscape is rather flat, despite all the implications of deep space. The painting, although not dated, may have been finished by 1485, the approximate completion date for another project of considerable importance, the Brancacci Chapel frescoes.

El Bautismo de Cristo - Iluminación sobre pergamino

Baptism of Christ 1160s

(El Bautismo de Cristo)

Illumination on parchment,

249 x 156 mm

Staatliche Museen, Berlin

This leave, together with others now dispersed between various collections, was probably part of a twelfth-century pattern book which functioned as an iconographic guide for goldsmiths and illuminators in the Mosan region.

Esta, junto con otras ahora dispersas entre varias colecciones, fue probablemente parte de un libro de patrones del siglo XII, que funcionaba como una guía iconográfica de orfebres e iluminadores en la región del Mosa.

La Trinidad, La Virgen y Dos Santos - Luca Signorelli - Galería degli Uffizi, Florencia

The Trinity, the Virgin and Two Saints (La Trinidad, La Virgen y Dos Santos) 1510 Tempera on wood, 272 x 180 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

The painting was commissioned to Luca Signorelli by the Confraternità della Trinità dei Pellegrini of Cortona and shows a compact, tightly constructed composition. The Virgin and Child represent the central axis around which the Archangels Michael and Gabriel and Sts Augustine and Athanasius are grouped. More rhetorical and at the same time archaising is the glory of cherubim surrounding the symbolic apparition of the crucified Christ and God the Almighty. La pintura fue encargada a Luca Signorelli por la Confraternita della Trinità dei Pellegrini de Cortona y muestra una compacta y bien construida composición. La Virgen y el Niño representan el eje central alrededor de la cual los Arcángeles Miguel y Gabriel y Santos Agustín y Atanasio se agrupan. Más retórico y arcaizante al mismo tiempo es la gloria de querubines que rodean la aparición simbólica de Cristo crucificado y Dios Todopoderoso.

Diciembre 28 - Santo Tomás Becket - Reliquary of Thomas Becket, Relicario de Santo Tomás Becket

Reliquary of Thomas Becket 1180s Champlevé enamel, 28 x 39 x 12 cm British Museum, London

In 1170 four knights, acting on behalf of King Henry II, assassinated Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in Canterbury cathedral. The action was universally condemned and Henry was forced to do penance. Within a short period miraculous events had came to be associated with Becket's grave, and he was made a saint three years later, after which his relics were distributed throughout Europe. At least thirty-two caskets were made in precious Limoges enamel to house them. The picture shows one of the earliest caskets depicting Becket's murder while celebrating mass, his burial, and the ascent of his soul into heaven.

Nacimiento de Jesús

Birth of Jesus 1424

Panel, 99 x 89 cm

Kunsthalle, Hamburg

The picture shows a detail of the St Thomas Altarpiece.

Master Francke was a German painter. His major surviving work is the altarpiece for the guild of merchants trading with England, showing Passion scenes and incidents from the life of St Thomas Becket. The surviving panels of the St Thomas Becket Altar are characterized above all by the graphic vividness with which the soldiers are depicted, the barrenness of the rocky landscape, and the powerful overlapping with which Francke lends his narratives a whole new sense of drama. The red ground studded with gold stars is already familiar to us from the Master of Trebon.

As appropriate to its theme, the Nativity is the most lyrical and tender panel of the altar. Despite its gracefulness and its predominantly pale skin tone, typical of the day, Mary's head is relatively broad and heavy. Contributing in no small way to the popularity of the altar was the extraordinarily rich and gentle, almost park-like landscape present in the surviving panels; the fore- ground, however, is here sandy, bare and unwelcoming.

Otterlo Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, VANITAS

Vanitas Still-Life

Oil on wood, 61x51cm
Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo

This still-life painting is on the back of the portrait of Jane-Loyse Tissier.

vanitas (Lat. "emptiness")

A painting (or element in painting) that acts as a reminder of the inevitabiliry of death, and the pointlessness of earthly ambitions and achievements. Common vanitas-symbols include skulls, guttering candles, hour-glasses and clocks, overturned vessels, and even flowers (which will soon fade). The vanitas theme became popular during the Baroque, with the vanitas still life flourishing in Dutch art.

http://www.wga.hu : The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture from 11th to mid-19th centuries.

Mocking of Christ, ANGELICO, Fra (b. ca. 1400, Vicchio nell Mugello, d. 1455, Roma)

This is the fresco on the wall of Cell 7 of the Convento di San Marco in Florence.

The contemplative restraint of the San Marco frescoes is nowhere better illustrated than in The Mocking of Christ. Rather than paint Christ's humiliations in their full violence in a complex narrative work, they are reduced to a series of iconographic symbols. In doing this Angelico was drawing on established trecento precedents.

In a plain-walled room Christ sits on a dais in a luminous white robe and tunic. The great slab of white marble beneath Him adds to the air of radiant whiteness surrounding Him. He is blindfolded, with a crown of thorns about his head. Behind Him hanging from a plain frieze is a screen on which are painted the emblems of his indignities: the head of the spitting soldier, the hands of the buffeters, the hand and stick forcing the thorns down on his head. On a low step at the front of the picture sit the Virgin and St Dominic. Neither regard Christ but sit with their backs turned towards him in poses of intense meditation - the depth of meditation that the frescoes were designed to assist each friar to attain.

Fra Angelico was assisted by Benozzo Gozzoli in the execution of this fresco.