Caravaggio - Bad Boy of Baroque

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610) was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of his life he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death. His paintings combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting. 

 "The Calling of St. Matthew."  Notice there is no classical balance, no stable triangular form in the center, no even light, no primary colors.  Jesus is on the far right,only one side of his face partially lighted by a strong beam of light from the window.  The men are real men.

"Conversion on the Way to Damascus."  St. Paul isn't even named.

He lies on the ground; we can't even see his face.  The horse is the most

important figure in the work.  Notice the dramatic light on the horse

and top of St. Paul.  Note variety of sensual textures: horse flesh,

human muscles, metallic weapons, cloak.  The horse's hoof is the

center of the composition, not the head of Paul.

"Crucifixion of St. Peter."  No circles,  squares, or triangles define this composition,but slashing diagonals in every direction, including into the background.  The brightest object in the work is the workman's read end.  By tradition, St. Peter was crucified upside down.

The great Michelangelo died in 1564, and by that time people had tired of heroic, idealized, perfect human beings.  No one had ever seen one or met one.  He was followed by the Mannerists who reacted by distorting everything they painted - elongated figures, bizarre colors, expressionless faces.  No one had ever seen such figures either.  Then came Caravaggio, who used real people he found on the streets of Rome as his models, set in realistic situations.

"David and Head of Goliath."  The boy is a street urchin

Caravaggio has hired.; the head of Goliath is Caravaggio's self-portrait.

A spotlight illuminates David's torso, and the background is in deep shadow.

"The Deposition."  The action takes place on a stage and our eye level is just at the foot.  The entire composition is based on a diagonal line, leading from the lower left corner and the tip of the shroud, up through the arms, the heads, and finally the raised hands.  A spotlight rakes the scene.  The

background is all black and dark.

"St. Matthew and the Angel"

The saint is pushed to the side of the composition, kneeling

precariously on a stool which is teetering over the edge of the stage; 

the angel swoops in a great circle we can see and feel.

Darkness fills the background.

Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He made the technique a dominant stylistic element, darkening shadows and transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death. He worked rapidly, with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas. 

"Judith Beheading Holofernes."  No other painter depicted the scene

with such realism and violence.   The model for "Judith" is a sex worker 

well known in Rome, as is the young man below.

"Young Bacchus with Grapes."

This is not an ideal cherub as Raphael would have painted,

 but a street urchin willing to pose for a small fee.

His influence on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism was profound. It can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Rembrandt, and artists in the following generation heavily under his influence were called the "Caravaggisti" or "Caravagesques", as well as tenebrists or tenebrosi ("shadowists"). 

"St. John the Baptist."

St. John was a favorite subject, and Caravaggio did many versions,

perhaps revealing another aspect of his life.

"Young John the Baptist with a Ram."

 A tavern brawl led to a death sentence for murder and forced him to flee to Naples, where he died, probably murdered, at the age of 38.  The 20th-century art historian André Berne-Joffroy stated, "What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting.

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Belated Birthday Exhibit

 

I first became acquainted with the work of Alma Thomas when I was visiting

the National Museum of Women in Art in Washington, D.C.  I came around a

corner, and there, standing 7 feet high, was this glorious picture in brilliant

color, looking like my backyard on a bright sunny day in April.

It is entitled "Iris, Tulips, Jonquils, and Crocus."

Alma Thomas lived from 1891-1978 and died at 86.

"Breeze Rustling the Leaves in Autumn"

Ms Thomas was born in Georgia on Sept. 22, 1891, but spent most of her life in 

Washington, D.C.  She first graduated from a teaching training school and taught 

kindergarten, then went to Howard University and got a degree in art.  She began

 teaching art in the middle school.  She received a master's degree

 from Columbia University.

"Deep Red Roses Chant."

After teaching middle school for 36 years, she retired in 1960.  She decided to devote

herself full-time to creating art and became one of the leading Color Field Painters of

Washington and was friends with the other leading artists, like Morris Louis and

Kenneth Noland.

"Flowers, Jefferson Memorial"

Thomas developed a unique style influenced by the color and simplified forms

 of Henri Matisse,  the pointillism of Seurat, and the tesserae of Byzantine mosaics. 

 It was her own special vision.  Most of her paintings are large, 5 to 7 feet high,

 like the large paintings being created by Jackson Pollock and the Abstract

Expressionists in New York.  

"Grassy Melodic Chant."  1976

Instead of slashing and dripping paint, as some of her contemporaries did,

Thomas used small rectangles of color to create her abstract forms.

She created "painted mosaics."  She used both oils and acrylics.

"Hydrangea Spring Song."  1976

Thomas liked to go to the arboretum in Washington, D.C. to enjoy 

the flowers and color.  Or she would drive out  into the countryside 

beyond the city to absorb the colors of nature.

"Air View of a Spring Nursery."

She frequently visited plant nurseries where the colors of flowers were

particularly strong and bright.  

"Pink Crepe Myrtle"

Washington is particularly and justly famous for its myriad blossoming trees in the

spring.  The crepe myrtles are especially numerous and colorful.

"Red Scarlet Sage"

A friend introduced her to a gallery owner from New York City,

and she began to show her works in New York.  The Whitney Museum

of American Art gave her her first one-woman show, the first time

an African American woman had ever had a solo show at the Whitney.

"Arboretum White Dogwood."

The Washington area is filled with dogwood trees which bloom

prolifically in spring.  White dogwoods create clouds all over the city.

"Aquatic Garden"

There were also ponds with water lilies and aquatic plants.

"Wind Dancing with Spring Flowers"

Her work became very popular and the Smithsonian and the Museum of Modern Art

came looking for works.  The National Museum of American Art in

Washington showed her work.

"Wind and Crepe Myrtle"

Crepe Myrtle trees come in white, pink, and magenta.

"White Daisies Rhapsody."

A garden full of white daisies on their very slender stems bend and sway with the wind.

"Wind, Sunshine, and Flowers"

"Pink Dogwood and Azaleas"

The Washington Arboretum is world famous for its collection of azaleas,

and when they bloom in the spring, every color in the rainbow seems to be

brilliantly represented.

"Lake Reflecting Advent of Spring"

"Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Wind"

Thomas became very interested in American space exploration and the photos taken

from outer space.  She made a number of paintings based on this theme.

"Splashdown of Apollo 12"

"Splashdown of Apollo 13."

"Astronauts see Dawn Arising"

"A Glimpse of Mars"

"The Eclipse"

"Elysian Fields."  This painting is about 7 feet wide/

Alma Thomas

"Rainbow" was painted in 1978, the year she died.

"Resurrection" is owned by the Hirshhorn Museum,  but was on loan and hung prominently

 in the White House under Barack and Michele Obama.

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Chihuly in Atlanta

 

Recently there was a large exhibition of the glass art of Dale Chihuly at the Atlanta Botanic Garden.  The Garden is part of Piedmont Park, the Central Park of Atlanta, and only a fifteen minute walk from my hotel.  The Garden is very different from Chicago and Longwood Gardens in Philadelphia.  There is much more emphasis on the natural landscape and less on formal beds of flowers.  The Atlanta Garden is also very hilly, with valleys and glens and mature trees.  These are a few of the photos I took.

The first piece you encounter as you enter the Garden is the "Indigo Blue Icicle Tower," standing about nine feet tall.  Each of the icicles started out as a bubble of molten glass which was gradually expanded by blowing, and then pulled out into an "icicle" with an iron tongs pinching and pulling on the molten glass.  The Tower is made of hundreds of "icicles" which are attached to a steel armature with many brackets in the center.

Close-up of "Indigo Blue Icicle Tower."   Chihuly works in a large studio in Seattle, WA.  Glass blowing by its nature is a group endeavor, since one person cannot do all the activities alone.  For this piece there was a glass blower, an assistant to hold the end of the blowpipe as the glass piece got larger and heavier, an artist to pull out the glass into an icicle, someone with a blowtorch to keep the glass hot as it was being worked, someone to break it off the blowpipe and carry it to the annealing oven so it could be brought down to room temperature slowly - otherwise you end up with crackled glass, etc.  Many people are involved in the making of each piece.

I didn't know what kind of flowers to expect in Atlanta.  It turned out that the two most popular plants were crepe myrtles, which were blooming all over town in white, pink, and hot raspberry colors, and hydrangeas.  Hydrangeas must be the state flower; they were growing everyplace in more colors than I have ever seen before, and in many varieties.  They seem to be an ideal flower for a very warm climate.  Here are mixed bushes of pale blue, medium blue, lavender, and white hydrangeas.

Hydrangea flower heads of many shades.  They will bloom all summer.

Beautiful Delft Blue Hydrangeas

"Fern Dell Paint Brushes"

This is an example of how Chihuly worked to fit his sculptures into the natural environment.  This is the "Fern Dell," part of the "Southeastern Garden" part of the gardens.  The fountain was already there, and Chihuly now added his "Paint Brushes" of yellow with red tips.  It was a marvelous sight to suddenly appear in the dell, blazing with color in the sunlight.

"Fern Dell Paintbrushes"
In this case, the "rods" were made of yellow glass and pulled out and then allowed to drop from a high platform by gravity and lastly, after heating the glass rod so it would be the same temperature, the molten red glass for the tips was added and shaped.

I took this photo from high above the ground and then later walked down and saw it
 at ground level.  There is a deep valley in the gardens. and they have constructed 
a "Canopy Path" supported by steel cables above the tree tops down in the valley.  
So you have wonderful panoramic and aerial views of some of the installations and also
 of the forest and paths.  This installation is entitled "Green Hornets and Waterdrops
 with Neodymium Reeds."

"Green Hornets and Waterdrops with Neodymium Reeds"
Chihuly likes to find old iron  die-forms in abandoned factories.  They were once used for other purposes, but Chihuly now uses them as molds for blown glass.  The "hornets" were made by blowing a glass bubble into an old iron form, which gives them their unique shape. 
 The "waterdrops" are incredibly difficult pieces to blow with the enlarged tip. 
 "Neodymium" is a rare earth mineral which colors glass purple.  The reeds form
 a backdrop here to  hornets and waterdrops and fit into the forest environment.

When I followed the winding path, I eventually came to the forest floor, and there
 I could look at the "Hornets and Waterdrops" up close.

There are many YouTube videos showing Chihuly working on his various pieces

if you are interested in seeing how he creates his works.  He is blind in one eye, so he

does not handle the hot glass himself, but he is the creator and director of the studio.

Meanwhile, far above the installation, hangs the "Chartreuse Hornet."  You can
 see here the "Canopy Walkway" high above the trees and ground.

The "Chartreuse Hornet" is made of polyvitro, a new plastic invented by Chihuly and some chemists. It has many of the qualities of glass, but it weighs much less so it offers many possibilities.

Continuing along the "Canopy Walkway" between tall trees, you begin to get glimpses of "Red Reeds."  There were several bunches, almost like teepees, scattered on the forest floor below.

Two of the "Red Reeds"  There were perhaps six in all.  Mysterious.
They seem close because I was using a telephoto lens; they were actually quite far below.

And then you made a bend on the "Canopy Walkway" and far in the distance, between 
tall trees, appeared the "Saffron Tower."  This is made completely of neon-tubing 
and was lighted at night in a spectacular display.

"Saffron Tower" of neon glass tubing.

There were many flowers growing around the Tower in the "Glade Garden."  

One of the most prolific was this Blue Rose of Sharon.  There were many of

 these bushes/small trees in the Glade.  They are a beautiful French blue.

There were also many "Pink Coneflowers" around the Tower.

Another common flower in the Garden, and appearing in many different colors,
was Phlox.  Here is a large head of beautiful pale lavender phlox.

As you followed the path, you descended further into the valley, and then around a bend,
suddenly you saw the "White Belugas."  Chihuly has been using these large bulbous
 white forms  for several years, but until now, they have been kind of a milky-white. In Atlanta,
 the one on the left, as you can see, is a pure snow white, and I think it works much better. 
 The forms are also slightly less bulbous, although certainly full and blown out. 
 I liked them much better this time.

"White Belugas."  Notice how they echo the shape of the agaves and other plants growing nearby.

These are "Snowflake Hydrangeas," quite different in shape and size from the usual hydrangeas.  They look almost like clusters of grapes.  Their botanical name is Hydrangea quercifolia.

The path now led around the restaurant and toward the Children's Garden.  This large
 flower head of pink and rose phlox was part of a bed beside the building.

A beautiful large flower head of white phlox; it is perhaps ten inches across.

You cross over a bridge to enter the "Children's Garden," and high above the bridge stretches
 this iron armature to support vines (usually).  But this summer, it supported Chihuly's
"Trumpet Flower Arbor," a sculpture made of dozens of platter forms in many colors 
and resembling trumpet flowers.  The best view of it was obtained by lying flat
on the ground and looking up, as all the good photographers did.  : - )

The trumpet flower forms are all attached to a steel armature with many brackets.
Each trumpet flower is a different shape and color.  It was a wonderful piece.

The largest of the installations is this - "Fiori Boat and Nijima Floats."
It is very complex and consists of many parts, as you can see.  There is a waterfall, three ponds, the "Earth Goddess" figure, the "Fiori Boat" and the "Floats."  The "Earth Goddess" is made up on a steel armature underneath (weighing 67 tons and coming from Montreal), which is covered with chicken wire and bags of dirt, which are pierced and little plants are stuck in each hole.  The female figure and her colorful hair are made of six different groundcover plants, which are described on a sign.  Her hand also is a waterfall.  The boat is a typical Japanese fishing boat which is filled with the glass forms Chihuly calls "Fiori / Flowers."  There are hundreds of them.  

Waterfall, two ponds, "Fiori Boat", Earth Godess mosaiculture, and Nijima Floats.

There are hundreds of fiori forms in the boat.  Chihuly usually has one or two boats in each exhibition, but each time they are filled with different glass forms.  This particular one
 is all brand new and made just for this show.

The "Nijima Floats" are based on the small glass or plastic balls Japanese fisherman use
 to hold up their nets as they fish.  These colorful glass floats are the largest balls of glass 
which have ever been blown.  Remember, each of them was a bubble on the end of a blow pipe. 
 You can imagine how heavy they are, and several assistants are needed to help support
 the molten bubble and keep rotating it so that it stays even.  They were incredibly difficult
 to make.

The path now wandered through beds of these deep rose hydrangeas.

Pastel colored hydrangeas were all over; these are pale lavender.

One of the restaurants and a gift shop were in this semi-circular building.  In the center 
is the fountain which was surmounted by Chihuly's "The Three Graces" made up 
of a number of amber-colored forms which he calls "Persians."

"The Three Graces" fountain with "Persian" forms.

Inside the gallery were a number of smaller Chihuly pieces, which were for sale, and also 
some of his drawings and paintings and many different books.  This beautiful form
 is one of his "Macchia" bowls.  The price was $8,100.

These were the "White Forms with Turquoise Lips."

"Turquoise Bowl with Yellow Rim."
To make this, a glass blower blows the bubble and gradually expands it with additional gathers of molten glass.  When it is large enough, another glass maker takes a small gather of molten glass from the oven on the end of a steel rod called a puntee.  The first  blower is meanwhile continually spinning the glass ball so it stays symmetrical.  The second worked now touched the hot glass to the hot bubble and rotates it at the same speed.  As the glass cools, it hardens.  When both artists believe it is ready, another worked takes a file / rasp and runs a but around the neck of the bubble by the blowpipe and then taps the pipe and the bubble breaks off and is now attached to the puntee.  The second glass maker now works the piece while a third worker uses iron tongs to bend the shape, and another worked drapes the yellow glass along the rim.  It takes many glass artists working together to make a piece like this.

"Red Nesting Bowls."

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