Week Four - Baroque Part Two by McCalla

Hello again, with only 2 days left here in Rome I am said to have to say that my time in this beautiful city has already come to an end :(

This week I will again be talking about Baroque art but this time I will step away from how it relates to the Jesuit's and focus on two the most memorable artists, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, as well as my favorite Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi. As a reminder, Baroque art is profoundly tied to the religious and political context of 16th and 17th century Italy; in a time where the Protestant Reformation was in full swing, the church needed a counter-reformation of its own. This is why she called forth artists who could create spectacular feats of dramatization and theatrical production in the three major arts; architecture, sculpture, and painting.

Bernini was one of Italy's most remarkable artists during the Baroque period. He lived between 1598 to 1680. Bernini's sculptures are recognizable for their engaging tension, naturalism, texture, drama, and dynamism. Texture and naturalism are perhaps the most unique to Bernini: no one can make stone convey curling hair, soft skin, induce the sight of folding fabric in stone the way Bernini can. His sculptures are also unique for the careful attention he pays to the effects of light and shadow, effects which are traditionally more important to the painter than the sculptor. This is in opposition to Michelangelo who traditionally made his paintings look like sculptures.

Here we can see an example of one of Bernini's most well-known statues, Apollo and Daphne which can be found at the Borghese Gallery. In this statue, Bernini is attempting to recreate the story from Ovid's Metamorphosis in which Daphne's father turns her into a tree in order to escape the persistent chase and attempted love of the god Apollo. Typical of Baroque art, Bernini is able to capture time in a moment, the figures inexplicable in motion though they remain static in stone. We can feel the two in motion, as defined by Daphne's flowing hair and Apollo standing on one foot while the other is just slightly raised as if to indicate the chase that is meant to be coming to its closure. In contrast to Renaissance art which is very stable and exhibits a sense of clarity, this piece gives us confusion and disorder.

Caravaggio lived between 1571-1610 and he lived quite a colorful life. He was both loved and hated all throughout Italy. He really pushed the limits of what was deemed acceptable as he depicted his subjects in a way that today is considered real but in his time period was deemed too real for the religious subjects he was painting. He was known for taking bodies of dead prostitutes out of the river and using them as models for his renditions of the virgin, and he was also most notably known killing a pimp in a brawl. His work was popular for and is most well known for the tenebrism technique which he used and developed, which used shadow to emphasize lighter areas.

  

The picture above (1602) is an altarpiece for a side chapel in the San Luigi dei Francesi. It is a representation of the Inspiration of St. Matthew who is thought to be the writer of the Gospel of Matthew. This was actually the second version of the painting because the first was rejected by the congregation of the church. This is thought to be because Caravaggio had painted the first with the angel Gabriel holding the hand of Matthew which held a representation of the Gospels that is not accepted in Catholic doctrine. By changing this scheme for the traditional arrangement of the angel's flying in, Caravaggio emphasized the divinity of Matthew's inspiration and thus the authority of his Gospel.

The final painter I want to talk about is my absolute favorite, Artemisia Gentileschi. Not only was she the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence, but she also stood for every woman who has ever had to deal with the upholding their integrity in the vile world of man.

Her most famous painting, executed in Florence c. 1620 which now resides in the Uffizi in Florence, is Judith Slaying Holofernes. It is considered one of the bloodiest and most vivid depictions of the scene, surpassing the version by Caravaggio in its immediacy and shocking realism. Artemisia was certainly familiar with Caravaggio’s painting of the subject; her father Orazio, who was responsible for her artistic training, was Caravaggio’s friend and artistic follower. Caravaggio’s painting inspired, and perhaps even challenged, the young Artemisia.

However, unlike Caravaggio, Artemisia's seemed to have a more personal touch. The painting is restless physical, and the gore and power that is being caused by these two women is loud. Not only that but the frustration of the women can be seen clearly written on their faces. The maid, who is much younger than Caravaggio's holds her ground aHolofernesss reaches his large fist at her in vain. It is said that she painted herself as Judith and a man named Agostino Tassi.



 Artemisia was raped at the age of 17 by her mentor, the artist Agostino Tassi, who also happened to be a close friend of her father. When Tassi failed to marry her, as the social dictates of the time demanded, her father sought recourse in court. During the trial, Artemisia describes her struggle against Tassi and her attempt to attack him with a knife.  Gentileschi's biographer Mary Garrard famously proposed an autobiographical reading of the painting, stating that it functions as "a cathartic expression of the artist's private, and perhaps repressed, rage."

That is all for my last weekly blog post! I hope you enjoyed reading about all these artists, time periods, paintings, and sculptures as much as I enjoyed looking at them and learning about them.

CIAO <3