DOCSLIB.ORG

There's a UFO in My Painting!

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
There's a UFO in My Painting! NOTES ON A STRANGE WORIP MASSIMO POLIDORO There's a UFO in My Painting! Gospels have it, a radiant cloud. ^ * "T" "TTOs are not a recent Another example of this kind is in I invention, they were the Nativity of Lorenzo Monaco." ^^*S seen by our ances- The litde man on die right of tors as well!" This is one of the typ- the painting that shields his eyes ical claims [hat can be found in looking at the sky is another typi- books by Erich Von Daniken, Peter cal element of such paintings. Kolosimo, and similar authors. The However, that man does not proof for it? A variety of strange appear to look at the radiant cloud, objects depicted in paintings by but at the Nativity Star and three some of rhe world's greatest artists. other small stars (or flames) to the far left, a symbol of the "trifold vir- ginity" of the Madonna (before, during, and after the virgin birth). Crivelli's UFOs In Carlo Crivelli's Annunciazione (Annunciation), a i486 painting now on display at the National Gallery in London, some believe The Madonna's Spaceship diat a UFO is in the sky and diat A typical example is the Madonna from it a ray of light comes down to con Bambino e San Giovannino touch the head of die Virgin Mary. (Madonna and Child with the Carlo Crivelli's Annunciazione (Annunciation). All mystery mongering prints of diis Infant Saint John) attributed to painting show poor-quality repro- Sebastiano Mainardi or Jacopo del In order to understand what this and ductions of the details. However, it would Sellaio. The painting is from die end of other ancient paintings really portrayed, be enough to visit die gallery or look at a the fifteendi century and is now on dis- however, it is essential to learn how better print of die painting to see that it is play in the Sala d'Ercole in Palazzo ancient artists really worked. "Not one not a UFO at all. "It's a vortex of angels in Vecchio, Florence. Examining it, we see of those that see UFOs in paintings," die clouds," says Cuoghi, "a very com- in the upper background, behind die says Italian art expert Diego Cuoghi, mon artistic device used to represent die Madonna, a strange oval shape sus- "ever tries to understand the real sym- presence of God, and it can be seen in pended in the sky. Some UFOlogists bolical meanings of those strange things many Medieval and Renaissance religious describe it as "an airborne object, leaden in die art of that period, and so they paintings, like in Correggio's fresco at die in color, inclined to port, sporting a take them as realistic depictions of Dome of Parma or in Gustave Dore's 'dome' or 'turret,' apparently identifiable unidentified flying objects seen live." engraving of Canto XXI from Dante's as an oval-shaped moving flying device." The object in Mainardi's painting is a Paradiso from his The Divine Comedy, but "radiant cloud." "In diose times," says above all in most Anunciations and Massimo Polidoro is an investigator of the Cuoghi, "the subjects for paintings were Baptisms of the Christ." paranormal, author, lecturer, and co- almost exclusively of a religious nature Another Crivelli painting, the founder and head of CICAP, the Italian and, in the case of the 'adorations,' like Madonna con Bambino (Madonna with skeptics group. His Web site is www. Mainardi's, there often appeared in the Child) at die Pinacoteca of Ancona, is massimopolidoro. com. sky an angel or, as some apocryphal believed by some to show "objects very 2 2 Volume 29. Issue 3 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER similar to modern nuclear missiles ready Monastery in Kosovo, Yugoslavia. Some the same way in other paintings of to launch"! did interpret the Sun and the Moon as the time. Those making such claims, however, "spaceships with a crew." "Only those The other UFOlogical painting is never take die time to research the life of that are unfamiliar with artistic symbol- the Miracolo delta neve (Miracle of the die artist, his work, or die place where die ogy of the time," says Cuoghi, "can claim Snow) by Masolino Da Panicale, painting was originally displayed. It that these are mysterious elements." painted in 1428 and on display at the would be enough to compare this with Museo Nazionale di Capodimontc, odier paintings by die same artist, in fact, The Flying Hat Naples. Here the mystery mongers to establish that die "missiles" are actually In Paolo Uccello's Tebaide (also known as claim to see "a UFO invasion" in die towers and bell towers, like those that Scene di Vita Ermetica, or Scenes of clouds above the scene. But those appear in almost all of Crivellis paintings. Monastic Life), now at the Gallerie lenticular clouds are not infrequent subjects in the artworks of the fif- Anodier example is die famous Mayan dell'Accademia, in Florence, some claim teenth century. "It is a nonrealistic way bas-relief that Von Daniken and others to see "a saucer object, suspended in the to represent clouds," says Cuoghi, believed represented an astronaut, but was air and surmounted by a red domed top. "such non-realism was seen in the actually a depiction of Pakal, die Maya Red in color, the object comes out over sacred art of the first half of the fif- . One cannot simply give a modern the dark background by contrast. The teenth century." As for the event dynamic movement of the flying object interpretation to events and depictions depicted in the painting, a snowfall in outside of dicir original context. is rendered by means of light brush August, it can certainly be seen as an strokes, again red in color, which provide God's Sputnik extraordinary event, but not an impos- the effect of a sudden turn." sible one. Exceptional atmospheric The Santissima Trinita {Holy Trimly) by One can't help but smile at such a events of this kind are sometimes Bonaventura Salimbeni (1595), now a St. description. When viewing die whole paint- recorded in Italy. Unseasonal snow, for Peter's Basilica at Montalcino, is one of die ing (not just a close up of the red object) it example, took place on the seaside of most famous "UFOs" in a painting. The is quite clear that the object is located inside Calabria on May 12, 1755; in mysterious "spherical object with anten- a cave, on die ground beneath the crucifix- Lunigiana on July 1, 1756, in Bologna nae" that appears between Christ and God ion, and diat it represents a large red hat on June 1, 1481; and recently in Prato has frequently been referred to as belonging to St. Jerome, who is seen praying on August 5, 2000. The memory of "Montakino's Sputnik," due to his similar- before die crucified Christ. such an extraordinary events might ity in appearance to the old Soviet satellites. The first one to write about St. easily be handed down through the In truth, the globe represents Jerome was Giovanni di Andrea of centuries, gaining details and particu- Creation, with the Sun on top and the Bologna, and in his writings legend lars and being transformed into the Moon below left (some interpreted it as overruled historical truth. The same "miracle of the snow." the periscope of the satellite!). The autlior gave precise details on how artists "antennae" are actually two sceptres held had to depict the Saint: "Cum capello, Aliens Everywhere! by Christ and God. quo nun cardinales utuntur, deposito, et The same kind of astronomical illus- leone mansueto "("With hat, of the kind "The method used by so-called UFO tration on the Globe of Creation can be still in vogue for cardinals, placed on the hunters," concludes Cuoghi, "requires found in a painting by Pieter Coecke, ground, and with meek lion.") The hat no knowledge whatsoever on the history depicting the Trinity and now on dis- in question is present in various of an. What you need is just to pick up play at Prado's Musem in Madrid. Here representations of the Saint. a book with reproduction of paintings, as well it is possible to see the Sun, the better if painted before the seventeenth Earth, with the cone of shade, and the UFO Invasion century, and try to find any little object Moon, smaller, down below. There are two other famous paint- that may have a lenticular shape. This "The representations of Sun and ings where flying saucers are said to way, you will find no difficulty at all in Moon" continues Diego Cuoghi "have fre- be represented. One is the Baptism locating elements that may appear quendy misled some UFOlogists who have of Christ by Aert DeGelder, now at bizarre and out of place. Now, you only completely misunderstood meir meaning. the Fitzwilliam Museum in need to claim that these objects are The majority of the crucifixion paintings Cambridge. In this painting, a UFO inconsistent to the time, place, or con- and mosaics done in the Byzantine style, seems to light from above the scene text of the artwork, and so you can cer- for example, show die same odd 'objects' of Christ's baptism. Actually, the tainly term them as 'alien' or 'unidenti- on eidier side of die cross, die Sun and die "thing" in the sky is not a flying fied.' And so, you can now call yourself Moon, and they are often represented with saucer but a circle of light with a an 'ancient UFOs' expert!" a human face or figure." dove inside, a typical representation Reference An example of this is the sixteenth- for the Holy Spirit.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Painting and the Pale of History: the Passing of the Pure
    ■ ■ ■ ■ ■CHAPTER SIX Painting and the Pale of History: The Passing of the Pure THERE ARE few better exercises for those who seek to think philosophically about history-who seek, as I am attempt­ ing to do, for objective narrative structures in the way human events unfold- - than to attempt to see the way the past saw the future, and hence the way those who saw the future as they did had to see their present as they did. Construing the future in terms of possible chains of events which would intimately depend upon the actions they took or failed to take, the agents sought to organize their present so as to gener­ ate chain of events favorable to their perceived interests. And of course it does sometimes happen that the future really; so far as we can tell, happens the way it happens because of what we do or fail to do in the present, and those who successfully give shape to the course of events can congratulate themselves with what philosophers call contrary-to-fact conditionals. They can say, "Had we not done such and such, then so and so would never have happened." But we actually act in the light of condi­ tionals we believe true, and it is probably a presupposition of rational action that our actions have reasonably predictable outcomes and that within limits we are able to guide our actions in the light of those antici­ pated outcomes. On the other hand, there is a great deal to which we are blind, and one value of seeing the past's way of seeing the future is that, knowing how their future looks from our own vantage point in history, we can see how it differs from how the agents of the past construed it.
    [Show full text]
  • Rete Museale Della Provincia Difermo
    RETE MUSEALE DELLA PROVINCIA DI FERMO RETE MUSEALE DELLA PROVINCIA DI FERMO WWW.MUSEICOMUNI.IT Costo da tel. fisso Telecom Italia 10 cent. al min. IVA incl. senza scatti alla risposta tutti i giorni 24/24 h. Altro operatore contattare servizio clienti. attivo dal lunedì al venerdì from monday to friday 09.00 -15.00 (escluso i festivi / week days only) [email protected] Ente promotore in collaborazione con Provincia di Fermo Anita Pagani Assessorato alla Cultura Funzionario del Servizio Cultura e Pubblica Istruzione della Provincia di Fermo Comune capofila Giampiera Mentili Comune di Fermo Funzionario del Servizio Cultura e Pubblica Assessorato alla Cultura Istruzione della Provincia di Fermo Progetto grafico Direzione Monica Simoni Giovanni Della Casa Visual designer socio TPP Dirigente del Servizio Cultura e Pubblica Istruzione Referenze fotografiche della Provincia di Fermo Archivi fotografici degli enti aderenti Manilio Grandoni Giancarlo Postacchini (Palazzo dei Priori) Dirigente Settore Beni Roberto Dell’Orso e Attività Culturali (Pinacoteca Civica di Fermo) Sport e Turismo Daniele Maiani del Comune di Fermo (Sala del Mappamondo e Mostra Archeologica permanente di Fermo) Coordinamento Domenico Oddi e redazione (Museo Diocesano di Fermo) Servizio Musei Mirco Moretti del Comune di Fermo (Museo dei Fossili di Sant’Elpidio a Mare) Alessandro Tossici Società Cooperativa (Musei dei Fossili di Smerillo) Sistema Museo La Provincia e il Comune di Fermo sono Contenuti a disposizione degli aventi diritto per le A cura del gruppo di lavoro fonti iconografiche non identificate. composto da: Giuseppe Buondonno Si ringraziano tutti i proprietari e gestori Assessore alla Cultura dei musei per la gentile collaborazione. Provincia di Fermo I dati pubblicati sono stati forniti dai Francesco Trasatti singoli enti aderenti.
    [Show full text]
  • Slika Bogorodice S Djetetom U the Courtauld Institute of Art U Londonu – Prijedlog Za Petra Jordanića
    Ars Adriatica 4/2014. (213-234) Emil Hilje: Slika Bogorodice s Djetetom u The Courtauld Institute... Emil Hilje Slika Bogorodice s Djetetom u The Courtauld Institute of Art u Londonu – prijedlog za Petra Jordanića Emil Hilje Izvorni znanstveni rad Odjel za povijest umjetnosti Original scientific paper Sveučilište u Zadru Primljen / Received: 25. 1. 2014. Obala kralja Petra Krešimira IV. 2 Prihvaćen / Accepted: 6. 5. 2014. HR - 23 000 Zadar UDK: 75.033(497.5 Zadar)”14” 75 Jordanić, Petar A painting of the Virgin and Child, signed as “OPVUS P. PETRI”, from the former Fareham Collection (today at the Courtauld Institute of Art), has been known in the scholarly literature for a long time. However, old attributions to Pietro Calzetta or Pietro Alemanno, based primarily on the signature recording the painter’s name, have not been questioned or thoroughly explained, which has resulted in the painting being mentioned only in passing in recent scholarship. Starting with the signature itself and a possible interpretation of the abbreviation “P.” as “presbiteri”, but also with the already noted and very obvious connections with the work of Carlo Crivelli, the aforementioned painting is being brought into connection with the Zadar priest and painter Petar Jordanić. It has been established for some time that he was trained in the circle of the Crivelli brothers and his preserved works demonstrate particular points of contact with the London painting. The more accomplished quality of the painting from the Courtauld Institute of Art is explained by the fact it is highly likely that it was a literal copy of a now lost painting, which Carlo Crivelli painted during his sojourn in Zadar.
    [Show full text]
  • Msc Thesis 2010
    An Historical and Critical Examination of the Notion of Human-Divine Paradox as Typified in Two Images from Late Quattrocento Italy By John G. Pickles MSc by Research The University of Edinburgh 2010 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the research degree of Masters of Science in Theology and History 1 Table of Contents Introduction ………………….…………………………………………………….5 Aim – Method – Purpose – Outline – Part 1 – Part 2 – Conclusion – Appendix 1 – Appendix 2 General History and Terms ……………………………………….……………....12 Historical Context – The Trinity – The Human-Divine Paradox – Suffering and Signification Part 1 – Carlo Crivelli – Coronation with Pietá (1493) §I - History and Context ………………………………………..............................20 Biography – Style – Commission of the Piece – Description – Description: Pietá – Description: Coronation - History: Pietá – History: Coronation §II – Suffering ………………………………………..…….………………………32 Father - Introduction –Anthropomorphism –Absence from the Pietá – Jesus Introduction – Pietá: Body –Pietá: Injury and Age – Coronation: Age – Coronation: Position – Coronation: Gaze – Coronation: Relationships – Holy Spirit – significance – Others – Mary – Saints – Environment 2 §III – Signification ……………………………………..……………………….…42 Father – Introduction and Anthropomorphism – Christ – Pietá: Halo – Coronation: Physicality – Coronation: Gaze – Coronation: Crowning – Comparison – Holy Spirit – Size and Aureole – Non Anatomical – Crowning – Others – Pietá: Mary, John and Magdalene – Coronation: Mary – Angels – Coronation:
    [Show full text]
  • Bernard Berenson and the Robert Lehman Collection
    BERNARD BERENSON AND THE ROBERT LEHMAN COLLECTION by HILLARY BARRON A thesis submitted to the Department of Ait History in confomiity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Queen's University Kingston, Ontario, Canada June 2000 Copyright Q Hillary Barron. June 2000 National Library Bibliothèque nationale If1 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wdlington OnawaON K1A ON1 Ottawa ON K1A üN4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microforni, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts Grom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. In this thesis, I intend to argue that the connoisseurship of Bernard Berenson significantly irnpacted the art collecting strategies of New York financiers Philip and Robeit Lehman. In the late nineteenth century, Berenson and the Lehmans were equally influenced by America's growing fascination with European culture. specifically that of the Italian Renaissance.
    [Show full text]
  • Carlo Crivelli
    MVSEI VATICANI Carlo Crivelli Biography Born around 1435 in Venice, son of Jacopo and elder brother of Vittore, both painters, Carlo Crivelli gained his initial training through contact with the late Gothic manner of Jacobello del Fiore, Jacopo Bellini, Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d’Alemagna, whose works he was able to study in depth before encountering the innovations imported to Padua and Venice by the Tuscans Donatello, Filippo Lippi, Andrea del Castagno and Paolo Uccello. Andrea Mantegna turned out to be no less important for him, and he was struck by the brilliant palette and sculptural figures of the San Zeno Altarpiece in Verona (1457-1459). Already designated as pictor in a document of 7 March 1457, Crivelli brought his youthful training to fruition in works such as the Madonna and Child in the San Diego Museum of Art and the so-called Madonna of the Passion in the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, both dating from about 1460. In 1468, and after living in Zara, Dalmatia from 1463 to 1465, perhaps following his colleague Giorgio Schiavone, he signed and dated the polyptych of the Church of Saints Lorenzo, Silvestro and Rufino in Massa Fermana, his first documented work in Le Marche, the region in which he would work until his death in either 1494 or 1495. The many works painted during his time in Le Marche are characterized by a highly refined decorative splendour and figures who look as if they were sculpted. We need only cite the dismantled polyptych of Porto San Giorgio from 1470 and that of 1473 in Ascoli Cathedral, the city
    [Show full text]
  • The Trompe-L'oeil Fly in the Renaissance
    Painted Paradoxes: The Trompe-L’Oeil Fly in the Renaissance Kandice Rawlings The fourteenth-century Florentine Giotto has long been ian paintings from the period of about 1450 to the 1510s, regarded as the genius who revived naturalism in European apparently meant to trick their audiences, just as Giotto had painting, liberating the art, as later commentators like Vasari deceived his teacher. would have it, from its medieval rut. Apparently Giotto was Although earlier scholars have cited Filarete’s story and also something of a practical jokester. Filarete, in his treatise its precedents in ancient literature as possible sources for on architecture written in the 1460s, recounts one of Giotto’s paintings depicting flies, no one has evaluated their connec- jokes in a discussion of the illusionistic merits of painting tion with two satirical essays, one classical and one from the versus sculpture: fifteenth century, that give exaggerated praise to the lowly We also read that Giotto, while young, creature.4 These essays, like the paintings, are self-referential painted flies that fooled his master Ci- and paradoxical: both demonstrate the creator’s great intel- mabue. He thought they were alive and lect and skill in praising a lowly, common insect, while at tried to shoo them off with a cloth. These the same time exposing the rhetorician’s and the painter’s marvelous things, derived from the knowl- ability to deceive by truthful representation—their tricks of edge of the force of color and how to locate the trade, so to speak. In painting the trompe-l’oeil fly, the it, are not seen in sculpture.1 artist showed off his wit and his manual skill and created Filarete’s wording allows us to assume that the Giotto modern, self-aware images.
    [Show full text]
  • Baptism of Christ St. Francis and ___St. Dominic
    THE FOLLOWING IS A PARTIAL LIST OF THE PAINTINGS REPRESENTED III THE KRESS COLLECTION: SCHOOL OF RIMINI li|TH CENTURY Giovanni Baronzio: Baptism of Christ FLORENTINE SCHOOL lijTH CENTURY Giotto; Madonna and Child Bernardo Daddi; A Holy Martyr Agnolo Gaddi; Annunciation with Donor Nardo di Clone: Madonna and Child with Sts. Peter and Evangelist Jacopo di Cione; Madonna, Child and Saints FLORENTINE SCHOOL 15TH CENTURY Masolino da Panicale; Annunciation (Angel) n Annunciation (Madonna) Fra Angelico da St. Francis and ______Fiesole; St. Dominic " The Entombment Fra Filippo Lippi; Nativity a"11 Madonna and Child " Head of Madonna Pesellino; Madonna and Child ——————France3co n——————— Crucifixion and Two Saints Domenico Veneziano; Stigmatization of St. Francis " Madonna and Child Alesso Baldovinetti: Madonna and Child Benozzo Gozzoli: St. Ursula and Donatrice with Angels St. Michael Domenico Ghirlandajo;"—————— stf Dominic Cosimo Rosselll: Madonna and Child with Saints Sebastiano Mainardi; Madonna with the Child, St, John and Three Angels Giovanni Battista Utili (Biaizio di Antonio): Portrait of a Boy Nativity with Saints and Donors FLORENTINE SCHOOL X5TH CENTURY Jacopo del Sellaio: St. John In the Wilderness Filippino Llppi; Tobias and the Angel Piero di Cosimo: Allegory The Visitation FLORENTINE SCHOOL 16TH CENTURY Fra Bartolommeo; Creation of Eve Andrea del Sarto: Madonna, Child and Infant St. John Pontonno (Jacopo Carrucci) Holy Family 11 Portrait of a Young Man Giulio Bugiardini; Portrait of a Young Girl Bronzino (Alessandro Allori):Portrait of a Boy " Portrait of a Youth SIENESE SCHOOL lljTH CENTURY Duccio di Buoninsegna;Calling of Peter and Andrew Simone Martini; St. John n Announcing Angel Lippo Memmi; Madonna and Child Andrea Vanni; Adoration of the Magi "Sta.
    [Show full text]
  • Crivelli's Divine Materials 59 60 Stephen J
    56 Stephen J. Campbell Crivelli’s Divine Materials alison wright even the most nuanced scholarship on Carlo Crivelli is apt to use words like “still” and “late” when addressing his paintings from the 1470s onward because of the ways they seem to resist dominant pictorial ideals articulated in the treatise On Painting written by the Florentine Leon Battista Alberti.1 Rather than tar the painter himself with the epithet retardataire, the tendency is to displace it on to his Marchigian patrons who, in their favoring of splendid gold-ground polyptychs, rich in gilded ornament, are discussed in terms of the supposed provincialism of their taste.2 But concepts of taste refuse to be neatly disentangled from those of ideology and function. In the Marches of Italy, where the relative authority of the papacy, the cities, local lordships, and the monastic orders were constantly, often violently, contested, Crivelli’s demanding and varied clientele saw honor and ornament as inseparable.3 Just who was to be honored, in what terms, and in contradistinction to whom could look like a matter of life and death. Was it Christ as Universal King, as the inquisitor Fra Giovanni da Capestrano would have it, or the Virgin Immaculate, as the Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV insisted? And who was their chief obstacle? Was it the “heresy” in their midst of the fraticelli, who had named their own pope, or the Jews, or the Infidel just across the Adriatic?4 Equally, was expenditure on precious materials, like gold leaf, to be viewed as symptomatic of enthrallment to luxury or as a tribute gratifying to the saints to whom lavish altarpieces were dedicated? With this sense of the urgency of honor always present, I want to begin with the role of gold in representation, using one painting by Crivelli to undermine the polarized terms of a “modern” naturalistic approach versus gold-ground painting and to recast the issue in the hierarchical, didactic, and, indeed, dialectical ones that are likely to have counted for Crivelli and his Marchigian viewers.
    [Show full text]
  • Crivelli Shines at the Gardner BRYN SCHOCKMEL
    SEQUITUR 2, 1 (2015) 1 of 3 Crivelli Shines at the Gardner BRYN SCHOCKMEL One of the galleries at Ornament and Illusion: Carlo Crivelli of Venice. Ornament and Illusion: Carlo Crivelli of Venice Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston October 22, 2015 – January 25, 2016 The Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum of Boston, on the heels of last year’s outstanding show of sculptors’ drawings, has mounted another brilliant Renaissance exhibition: “Ornament and Illusion: Carlo Crivelli of Venice.” This monographic presentation, the first in the United States on the fifteenth-century painter, introduces audiences to an artist who may be unfamiliar, but quickly captivates. “Ornament and Illusion” proves to be an apt title for the show. One is immediately struck by the almost excessive amount of gold found in Crivelli’s work, which shimmers in contrast to the galleries’ deep teal walls. The Gardner’s recently conserved Saint George Slaying the Dragon is the focal point of the first portion of the two-room show, which brings together four of the six surviving panels from Crivelli’s Porto San Giorgio altarpiece. Saint George, easily the most enthralling of the four paintings, glistens, an effect heightened by the elaborate frame in which it is presented. On the opposite wall are two painted fragments from the altarpiece with the large Virgin and Child Enthroned at the far end of the room. For reasons that remain unclear, the altarpiece panels are not displayed side-by-side and the placement of the Virgin and Child is uncomfortably distant from its companions. While this configuration has some benefits, and does serve to emphasize the museum’s Saint George, many viewers would have appreciated the opportunity to enjoy the paintings in closer proximity to one another.
    [Show full text]
  • Set in Stone Signing Carlo Crivelli of Venice
    Venezia Arti [online] ISSN 2385-2720 Vol. 26 – Dicembre 2017 [print] ISSN 0394-4298 Set in Stone Signing Carlo Crivelli of Venice Amanda Hilliam (The National Gallery, London; Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK) Abstract This article explores how and why the fifteenth-century Venetian painter, Carlo Crivelli (1430/5-c. 1494), signed his pictures. Until recently, Crivelli’s work has received comparatively little critical attention; this is ironic given that he was acutely aware of his reputation and artistic legacy, an awareness that is expressed through his signatures. Whether carved into fractured stone, or emblazoned in gold on an affixed label, Crivelli’s signatures contemplate his role as a creator of religious images that would outlive him. While the carved inscription signifies permanence and durability, labels, sometimes crumpled and appearing as if about to fall away, suggest transience and ephemerality. Summary 1 Introduction. – 2 Early characteristics. – 3 Stone. – 4 Memorial. – 5 Labels. – 6 Intellect. – 7 Conclusions. Keywords Parapet. Devotion. Illusion. Memorial. Permanence. 1 Introduction placement” (1998, 624). But, as art historians The frequency with which Carlo Crivelli signed are beginning to deepen their understanding his paintings warrants special attention. Of his of Crivelli’s images, through close looking and surviving works, over 80% are signed, a proportion thinking, so too do his signatures have a story to that is greater than that of other contemporary tell. As well as commenting upon the nature of Venetian painters.1 Yet the recent surge of interest painted representation, Crivelli’s signatures can in Crivelli’s work has largely neglected his signing inform us of how he perceived his own role, both in practice.2 Often repetitive and faithful to tradition, the making and afterlife of his work.
    [Show full text]
  • Andrea Mantegna Great Hasters in Painting and Sculpture
    QREflT MASTERS IN POINTING & SCULPTURE The Great Masters in Painting and Sculpture Edited by Q. C. Williamson ANDREA MANTEGNA GREAT HASTERS IN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE The following volumes have been issued. 55. net each. BERNARDINO LUINI. By GEORGE C. WILLIAMSON, Litt. D. VELAZQUEZ. By R. A. M. STEVENSON. ANDREA DEL SARTO. By H. GUINNESS. LUCA SIGNORELLI. By MAUD CRUTTWELL, RAPHAEL. By H. STRACHEY. CARLO CRIVELLI. By G. McNEiL RUSHFORTH, M.A. CORREGGIO. By SELWYN BRINTON, M.A. DONATELLO. By HOPE REA. PERUGINO. By G. C. WILLIAMSON, Litt. D. SODOMA. By the CONTESSA LORENZO PRIULI-BON. LUCA DELLA ROBBIA. By the MARCHESA BURLAMACCHI. GIORGIONE. By HERBERT COOK, M.A. MEMLINC. By W H. JAMES WEALE. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. By W. G. WATERS, M.A. PINTORICCHIO. By E. MARCH PHILLIPPS. FRANCIA. By GEORGE C. WILLIAMSON, Litt. D. BRUNELLESCHI. By LEADER SCOTT. MANTEGNA. By MAUD CRUTTWELL. REMBRANDT. By MALCOLM BELL. In Preparation. GIOTTO. By F. MASON PERKINS. EL B. Litt. D. Ph. D. GRECO. By MANUEL Cossio, , WILKIE. By LORD RONALD SUTHERLAND-GOWER, M.A., F.S.A., GERARD DOU. By W. MARTIN, Ph. D. DURER. By HANS W. SINGER, M.A., Ph.D. TINTORETTO. By J. B. STOUGHTON HOLBORN, M.A. PAOLO VERONESE. By ROGER E. FRY. GAUDENZIO FERRARI. By ETHEL HALSEY. Others to follow. LONDON : GEORGE BELL & SONS rt- ( (in/i/mf C>//Y//V////'/. ANDREA MANTEGNA BY MAUD CRUTTWELL " Author of LUCA SIGNORELLI," Etc. LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS 1901 PREFACE is with much diffidence that I have undertaken a ITwork which deals with a Genius so great as Mantegna, a work which I am fully conscious should be attempted only by one far better equipped than myself to comprehend the grandeur of the movement of which he was representative.
    [Show full text]