05 Paintings, RELIGIOUS ART - Interpretations of the Bible! by The Old Masters, With Footnotes # 69

Claude Vignon, TOURS 1593 - 1670 PARIS

JOSEPH INTERPRETING DREAMS IN PRISON

Oil on canvas

53 7/8  by 74 in.; 136 by 188 cm.

Private collection

Claude Vignon (19 May 1593 – 10 May 1670) was a leading French painter and engraver working in the Baroque manner. He was born at Tours and received early training in Paris. About 1610 he travelled to Rome where his mature style was formed in the circle of French painters there that included Simon Vouet and Valentin de Boulogne, a prominent member of the Caravaggisti working, like Bartolomeo Manfredi, in the manner established by Caravaggio.

He returned from Italy, after a tour in Spain, in 1623. His paintings are represented in most of the major museums. More on Claude Vignon

John Henry Amshewitz, R.B.A., 1882 - 1942

DEATH'S ARREST

oil on canvas

75 by 55 in., 190.5 by 139.7 cm

Private collection

The subject of this large and theatrical canvas shows a young troubadour pursued by the figure of Death. Accompanying him and oblivious to the singer’s plight are a court jester, Cupid, and a beautiful maiden in fantastic costume who appears to glide mysteriously along the bottom of the canvas. The setting is the garden of an imaginary coastal villa. 

John Henry Amshewitz, R.B.A., 1882 - 1942

DEATH'S ARREST

Detail

John Henry Amshewitz, R.B.A., 1882 - 1942 was a precocious talent and in 1902 won a scholarship to the Royal Academy schools, where he studied under John Singer Sargent, Sir George Clausen and Solomon J. Solomon (see lot 14). Like his contemporaries, John Byam Shaw and Frank Cadogan Cowper, Amshewitz won a number of important civic commissions, including four fresco murals for the Centenary Memorial at the Liverpool City Hall in 1907, and a large mural for the Royal Exchange, London in 1910. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy.

John Henry Amshewitz, R.B.A., 1882 - 1942

DEATH'S ARREST

Detail

In 1917, he was elected a member of the South African Society of Artists. He was also a founding member of the Johannesburg Sketch Club, subsequently becoming its President, and served as a mentor and critic to other Johannesburg artists. Although Amshewitz only lived in South Africa from 1916 to 1922), he is perhaps best known as a South African artist, where his works can be found in numerous public collections. More on John Henry Amshewitz

Solomon Joseph Solomon, R.A., P.R.B.A., 1860-1927

EVE

Oil on canvas

122 by 56 in., 310 by 142.2 cm

Private collection

Solomon Joseph Solomon’s Eve was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1908, when the artist was at the height of his powers. His subject, the first woman, was a popular source of inspiration for Victorian artists, and gallery walls had displayed countless interpretations of her creation. Yet, when encountering Solomon’s monumental composition with its life-size Eve held aloft by great-winged angels against a sky of swirling clouds, exhibition-goers and critics alike were little prepared for its dynamic impact. More on Eve

Solomon Joseph Solomon, R.A., P.R.B.A., 1860-1927

EVE

Detail

Solomon Joseph Solomon RA (16 September 1860 – 27 July 1927) was a British painter, a founding member of the New English Art Club and member of the Royal Academy. He made an important contribution to the development of camouflage in the First World War, working in particular on tree observation posts and arguing tirelessly for camouflage netting.

Born in London in 1860, Solomon studied at various art schools, sequentially, Heatherley School of Fine Art, the Royal Academy Schools, the Munich Academy, and École des Beaux-Arts (under Alexandre Cabanel). Solomon also studied separately under Rev. S. Singer. He exhibited his first works as early as 1881, and showed at the Royal Academy, the New Gallery, and the Society of British Artists. In 1886, he became one of the founding members of the New English Art Club. In 1896, he became an associate of the Royal Academy, with full membership following in 1906. He joined, and became president of, the Royal Society of British Artists in 1919. More Solomon Joseph Solomon

Alfred Dehodencq, 1822 - 1882

RUTH AND NAOMI

Oil on canvas

65 1/2 by 86 in., 166.4 by 218.4 cm

Private collection

The Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings  of the Hebrew Bible; in most Christian canons it is treated as a history book and placed between Judges and 1 Samuel, although the Syriac Christian tradition places it later, between Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. It is named after its central figure, Ruth the Moabitess, the great-grandmother of David.

Elimelech, his wife Naomi and their two sons moved to a place called Moab. as there was more food there than where they used to live.  After a while Elimelech died but Naomi wasn't alone she still had two sons.

Her sons got married but after about ten years they died too.  At least Naomi still had her sons wives to keep her company, their names were Orpah and Ruth.

Naomi called Orpah and Ruth and told them, "I am going to go back to where I used to live and I would like you also to go back to your family where you used to live.  May God show you kindness as you have showed me." 

Orpah didn't want to leave Naomi but Naomi told her not to worry, she would be fine.  So Orpah left to go back to her family.  But no matter what Naomi said to Ruth, Ruth would not leave.  "Don't ask me to leave.  Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.  Your friends will be my friends and your God will be my God."

So Ruth and Naomi returned to Bethlehem together.  It was a good thing Ruth went with Naomi because Bethlehem was very far away and Naomi couldn't have traveled all that way by herself. More on Ruth and Naomi

Alfred Dehodencq (23 April 1822 – 2 January 1882) was a mid-19th-century French Orientalist painter born in Paris. He was known for his vivid oil paintings, especially of Andalusian and North African scenes. Dehodencq was born in Paris. During his early years, he studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. During the French Revolution of 1848 he was wounded in the arm and was sent to convalesce in the Pyrenees before moving to Madrid. He spent five years in Spain where he became acquainted with the works of Spanish painters Diego Velázquez and Francisco Goya which had a strong influence on his approach to painting.

In 1853 he travelled to Morocco, where for the following ten years he produced many of his most famous paintings depicting scenes of the world he encountered. Dehodencq was the first foreign artist known to have lived in Morocco for an extended number of years.

Dehodencq married Maria Amelia Calderon in 1857 in Cadiz, Spain, and they had three children. Dehodencq returned to Paris in 1863 with his wife, and was decorated with the Legion of Honour in 1870. He committed suicide on 2 January 1882 having been sick for a long time and is buried in the Montmartre Cemetery. More Alfred Dehodencq

Abraham Janssens the Elder, ANTWERP 1567 - 1632

SAINT JEROME

oil on canvas

74 5/8  by 58 5/8  in.; 189.5 by 149 cm.

Private collection

Jerome (c.  347 – 30 September 420) was a priest, confessor, theologian and historian. He was the son of Eusebius, born at Stridon, a village near Emona on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia, then part of northeastern Italy. He is best known for his translation of most of the Bible into Latin (the translation that became known as the Vulgate), and his commentaries on the Gospels. His list of writings is extensive.

The protégé of Pope Damasus I, who died in December of 384, Jerome was known for his teachings on Christian moral life, especially to those living in cosmopolitan centers such as Rome. In many cases, he focused his attention to the lives of women and identified how a woman devoted to Jesus should live her life. This focus stemmed from his close patron relationships with several prominent female ascetics who were members of affluent senatorial families.

He is recognised as a Saint and Doctor of the Church by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Anglican Communion.[6] His feast day is 30 September. More on Jerome

Abraham Janssens I, Abraham Janssen I or Abraham Janssens van Nuyssen (1575–1632) was a Flemish painter, who is known principally for his large religious and mythological works, which show the influence of Caravaggio. He was the leading history painter in Flanders prior to the return of Rubens from Italy.

Abraham Janssens was born in Antwerp as the son of Jan Janssens and Roelofken van Huysen or Nuyssen.[2] There is some uncertainty regarding his year of birth. He was previously thought to have been born in the year 1567, but it is now more generally assumed that his date of birth was 1575.

Janssens studied under Jan Snellinck and was registered as a pupil in the local Guild of Saint Luke in 1585. He travelled to Italy where he resided mainly in Rome between 1597 and 1602. After returning to his home country he became a master in the Antwerp Guild in the guild year 1601-1602.

In 1607 he became the dean of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke. This is also the time when he received his first major commissions, which initiated the most important period of his career. Until the return of Rubens to Antwerp in 1608, Janssens was considered perhaps the best history painter of his time. After Rubens became the dominant force for large altarpieces in the Antwerp market, Janssens had to find commissions for large monumental works from provincial patrons.

Janssens joined in 1610 the Confrerie of Romanists, a society of Antwerp humanists and artists who had travelled to Rome. The diversity and high positions held by the Confrerie's membership offered him a good opportunity to meet with potential patrons. More on Abraham Janssens the Elder

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others

We do not sell art, art prints, framed posters or reproductions. Ads are shown only to compensate the hosting expenses.

If you enjoyed this post, please share with friends and family.

05 Paintings, Olympian deities, by the Old Masters, with footnotes # 12

Follower of Michelangelo Merisi called Caravaggio

DAEDALUS AND ICARUS

oil on canvas

29 7/8  by 39 5/8  in.; 75.5 by 100.5 cm.

Private collection

This is a depiction of the craftsman and father adhering ink black shining feathered wings the back of his adolescent son; wings that would ultimately result in the boy's demise.

The theme, as told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses (VIII:183–235), was a rare one in Caravaggesque painting the seventeenth century.

Icarus. In Greek mythology, Icarus is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the creator of the Labyrinth. Often depicted in art, Icarus and his father attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Icarus' father warns him first of complacency and then of hubris, asking that he fly neither too low nor too high, so the sea's dampness would not clog his wings or the sun's heat melt them. Icarus ignored his father's instructions not to fly too close to the sun; when the wax in his wings melted he tumbled out of the sky and fell into the sea where he drowned. More on Icarus

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (29 September 1571 in Caravaggio – 18 July 1610) was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1592 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on Baroque painting.

Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan under Simone Peterzano who had himself trained under Titian. In his twenties Caravaggio moved to Rome where there was a demand for paintings to fill the many huge new churches and palazzos being built at the time. It was also a period when the Church was searching for a stylistic alternative to Mannerism in religious. Caravaggio's innovation was a radical naturalism that combined close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro which came to be known as tenebrism (the shift from light to dark with little intermediate value).

He gained attention in the art scene of Rome in 1600 with the success of his first public commissions, the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew. Thereafter he never lacked commissions or patrons, yet he handled his success poorly. He was jailed on several occasions, vandalized his own apartment, and ultimately had a death sentence pronounced against him by the Pope after killing a young man, possibly unintentionally, on May 29, 1606. He fled from Rome with a price on his head. He was involved in a brawl in Malta in 1608, and another in Naples in 1609. This encounter left him severely injured. A year later, at the age of 38, he died under mysterious circumstances in Porto Ercole in Tuscany, reportedly from a fever while on his way to Rome to receive a pardon.

Famous while he lived, Caravaggio was forgotten almost immediately after his death, and it was only in the 20th century that his importance to the development of Western art was rediscovered. More on Caravaggio

Gustave Moreau, 1826 - 1898, FRENCH

HÉLÈNE

Gouache and watercolor on paper

52 by 25cm., 20½ by 9¾in.

Private collection

Helen was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and considered in Greek myth to be the most beautiful woman in the world. She was married to Menelaus, King of Sparta. When the Trojan prince Paris abducted Helen and carried her off to the city of Troy, the Greeks responded by mounting an attack on the city, thus beginning the Trojan War. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and the brother of Menelaus, led an expedition of Greek troops to Troy and besieged the city for ten years because of Paris's insult. After the deaths of many heroes, including the Greeks Achilles and Ajax, and the Trojans Hector and Paris, the city fell to the ruse of the Trojan Horse. The Greeks slaughtered the Trojans and desecrated the temples More on Helen

Gustave Moreau, 1826 - 1898, FRENCH

HÉLÈNE

Detail at bottom

Gustave Moreau (6 April 1826 – 18 April 1898) was a French Symbolist painter whose main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. Moreau was born in Paris. His father, Louis Jean Marie Moreau, was an architect, who recognized his talent. His first painting was a Pietà which is now located in the cathedral at Angoulême. He showed A Scene from the Song of Songs and The Death of Darius in the Salon of 1853. In 1853 he contributed Athenians with the Minotaur and Moses Putting Off his Sandals within Sight of the Promised Land to the Great Exhibition.

Moreau became a professor at Paris' École des Beaux-Arts in 1891 and among his many students were fauvist painters Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault. Jules Flandrin, Theodor Pallady and Léon Printemps also studied with Moreau.

During his lifetime, Moreau produced more than 8,000 paintings, watercolors and drawings, many of which are on display in Paris' Musée national Gustave Moreau at 14 rue de la Rochefoucauld (9th arrondissement). The museum is in his former workshop, and began operation in 1903. André Breton famously used to "haunt" the museum and regarded Moreau as a precursor of Surrealism. More on Gustave Moreau

Agnolo di Cosimo, 1503 - 1572

Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time (Allegory of the Triumph of Venus), c. 1540s

Oil on panel

57 1/2 × 45 7/10 in, 146 × 116 cm

National Gallery, London

Bronzino made a picture of singular beauty, which was sent to King Francis in France; in which was a nude Venus with Cupid kissing her, and on one side Pleasure and Play with other Loves; and on the other, Fraud, Jealousy, and other passions of love. Venus and Cupid are identifiable by their attributes, as is the old man with wings and an hourglass who must be Time. The identity of the other figures, and the meaning of the picture remain uncertain.


The howling figure on the left has been variously interpreted as Jealousy, Despair and the effects of syphilis; the boy scattering roses and stepping on a thorn as Jest, Folly and Pleasure; the hybrid creature with the face of a girl, as Pleasure and Fraud; and the figure in the top left corner as Fraud and Oblivion. The erotic yet erudite subject matter of the painting was well suited to the tastes of King Francis I of France. It was probably sent to him as a gift from Cosimo I de' Medici, ruler of Florence, by whom Bronzino was employed as court painter. Bronzino was also an accomplished poet. The picture reflects his interest in conventional Petrarchan love lyrics as well as more bawdy poetic genres.  National Gallery, London

Agnolo di Cosimo (November 17, 1503 – November 23, 1572), usually known as Bronzino was a Florentine Mannerist painter. 

He lived all his life in Florence, and from his late 30s was kept busy as the court painter of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. He was mainly a portraitist but also painted many religious subjects, and a few allegorical subjects, which include what is probably his best known work, Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time, c. 1544–45, now in London (Above). Many portraits of the Medicis exist in several versions with varying degrees of participation by Bronzino himself, as Cosimo was a pioneer of the copied portrait sent as a diplomatic gift.


He trained with Pontormo, the leading Florentine painter of the first generation of Mannerism, and his style was greatly influenced by him, but his elegant and somewhat elongated figures always appear calm and somewhat reserved, lacking the agitation and emotion of those by his teacher. They have often been found cold and artificial, and his reputation suffered from the general critical disfavour attached to Mannerism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Recent decades have been more appreciative of his art. More on Agnolo di Cosimo 

Louise d’Aussy-Pintaud, 1900-1990 

"CHANSON D'AMOUR", c. 1944

OIL ON CANVAS
38 X 51.5 INCHES

Private collection

Louise d’Aussy-Pintaud, 1900-1990 was a painter and sculptor. She was born in Bordeaux, France in 1900. Her primary areas of focus were nudes, landscapes, and busts. She exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris from 1934.

D’Aussy-Pintaud began painting under the influence of her grandfather, an avid - albeit amateur - painter. She becam a student of sculptor M. A. Seysse, also in Bordeaux. Later, she would study under painter and mentor Biloul while attending the Gustave Moreau School in Paris.

Her earlier work is her best known, for her ability to observe the naked form in a refined and what has been described as an even chaste manner. D’Aussy-Pintaud’s painting of figures is classic and purist, while the very expressive backgrounds and landscapes are handled with expressionistic vigor.

Her work was exhibited in the Salon des Artistes Français between 1934 and 1942. In 1944, D’Aussy-Pintaud would ultimatlely settle with her husband in the city of Ciboure (Lapurdi) until the time of her death in 1990. More on Louise d’Aussy-Pintaud

Hans Rottenhammer the Elder, MUNICH 1564 - 1625 AUGSBURG

FEAST OF THE GODS

Oil on canvas

57 1/2  by 81 3/8  in.; 146.1 by 206.7.

Private collection

Johann Rottenhammer, or Hans Rottenhammer (1564 – 14 August 1625), was a German painter. He specialized in highly finished paintings on a small scale.

He was born in Munich, where he studied until 1588 under Hans Donauer the Elder. In 1593-4 he was in Rome, and he then settled in Venice from 1595-6 to 1606, before returning to Germany and settling in Augsburg, working also in Munich. He died in Augsburg, apparently in some poverty, and according to some sources an alcoholic. More on Johann Rottenhammer

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others

We do not sell art, art prints, framed posters or reproductions. Ads are shown only to compensate the hosting expenses.

If you enjoyed this post, please share with friends and family.

Orienti cristiani Art of the Christian East from the 4th century to the 15th century

Orienti cristiani

Art of the Christian East from the 4th century to the 15th century

TANIA VELMANS, E. FOGLIADINI. Orienti cristiani ,  Jaca Book , 2017, 247 p. 
ISBN: 978-8816605121

The art of the Christian Orient has flourished, from the 4th century, on an area encompassing Georgia, Armenia, Cappadocia, Syria, Lebanon, Israel (former Palestine), Coptic Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia.

These territories, in which Christianity develops, have benefited from a network of churches and monasteries (from the fifth to the fifteenth century) extraordinarily dense and precocious, of which nine tenths, if not more, have disappeared.

These buildings were decorated with frescoes and sculptures, enriched with icons and liturgical objects, and preserved exceptional illuminated manuscripts. The research carried out has allowed us to define the originality of these oriental iconographers, their coherence, their relationship with the doctrines and religious beliefs of the interested peoples.

The study shows how these regions, which were part of the Byzantine area of ​​influence, constituted a separate entity in terms of art and iconography, mainly conditioned by the Egypt of the Pharaohs and Persia. This capital work is also necessary to understand the consequences of current destructions. It deals with the disappearance, after the West and Byzantium, of the third artistic tradition of the Christian world.