Daniel M Unger | Ben Gurion University of the Negev (original) (raw)

Papers by Daniel M Unger

Amsterdam University Press eBooks, Jun 28, 2022

Amsterdam University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2022

Titian's Allegory of Marriage

Religion and the Arts

The article highlights the added value with which the scene of David with the head of Goliath has... more The article highlights the added value with which the scene of David with the head of Goliath has accumulated in the seventeenth century. During this period these paintings were intended to represent the young David as a penitent saint atoning for his sins rather than the divinely supported triumph of the young shepherd over Goliath, the skilled and talented military hero. What is emphasized is the a-temporal nature of this iconography, using David, the boy who killed Goliath as atoning for his most grievous sin that he committed many years later when he was already king of Israel toward Uriah the Hittite. In what follows I would like to characterize the unique iconography developed in the early seventeenth century, which represents the young David as a penitent while Goliath’s head signals the memento mori. Goliath’s severed head stands for the skulls appearing in other visual representations of penitent saints.

Europa Sacra, 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,... more All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, * Research conducted for this study was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant no. 312/14). 1 Malvasia mentions additional depictions of Borromeo by painters discussed in this article. One example is Brizio's Madonna and Child with St Francis and St Carlo, which was made for the Church of San Antonio Abate. See Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, i, 539. For a further discussion of Borromeo's fame and the many representations of his portrait in art, see Aresi, Panegirici fatti in diverse occasioni, pp. 41-42.

Arts, 2021

This article focuses on Guercino’s Return of the Prodigal Son, commissioned in the name of Cardin... more This article focuses on Guercino’s Return of the Prodigal Son, commissioned in the name of Cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi and on his marketing choices. This is a case study in terms of self-promotion tactics employed by an ambitious artist. My argument is that one finds in the painting a secondary and more sophisticated level of interpretation, which relates to the relationship between the painter and his patron. To the most traditional iconography of the scene, Guercino added musicians and spectators, thus positioning the entire composition in the theatre. One of the musicians is depicted in a way that casts him as a representative of the painter. The patron understood Guercino’s intentions and commissioned what became Guercino’s most important artworks. It was Guercino’s ability of shifting the attention of a given iconography and deliver current political meaning that is discernible in his Roman works commissioned by the same Cardinal Ludovisi who was elected Pope Gregory XV.

Katrin Kogman Appel, Nirit Ben-Aryhe Debby, et al eds., Maps and Travel: Knowledge, Imagination and Visual Culture (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019), 252–280.

This book focuses on the unique nature of early modern Bolognese painting that found its expressi... more This book focuses on the unique nature of early modern Bolognese painting that found its expression in stylistic diversity. The flourishing of different stylistic approaches in the Mannerist paintings of the previous generation evolved, at the turn the seventeenth century, in the work of the Bolognese painters into an approach best described as eclecticism, characterized by the combination of two or more styles in a single work of art. Eclectism was a major innovation and major contribution to the history of art. But it then also became a critical term that suffered much negative press. The book therefore also traces the role of ecclecticism as a concept in the evolution of criticism and scholarship about the Bolognese school of painting over 250 years, showing how the dramatically vacillating attitudes towards this concept shaped the historical view of the Bolognese painters, ultimately having a tremendous dampening impact on our understanding of seventeenth-century art.

Soon after the canonization of St. Carlo Borromeo, Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani commissioned Lo... more Soon after the canonization of St. Carlo Borromeo, Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani commissioned Lorenzo Garbieri to create three paintings for one of the chapels in the newly-erected Barnabite church of San Paolo Maggiore in the center of Bologna, with scenes taken from the new saint's life. This was the first chapel to be decorated in the church. Here, as will be argued below, one may find the seeds of what eventually became common in representations of the saint: Barnabite propaganda meant to accentuate not only the saint himself and his important altruistic deeds, but also the order's part in those deeds, as well as the connections between the saint and the Barnabites. An emphasis is given to the Barnabites' participation in the very deeds that became associated with the saint and through which he became known during his lifetime as a living saint.

This essay offers a political reading of the artistic choices made by seventeenth-century painter... more This essay offers a political reading of the artistic choices made by seventeenth-century painters in their depictions of the heroines of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered (1581). It discusses the political subtext of Tasso's epic poem by exploring the roles Tasso assigns to his oriental heroines and their representation in seventeenth-century paintings. Painters and patrons alike were particularly enthusiastic about the love stories that developed around Jerusalem. But Tasso is promoting a crusade, and the visual focus of later painters on Tasso's seductive female protagonists and their submission to Christian warriors, suggests that their aim was to display the delights that await those who join a military expedition to conquer the Holy Land.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears... more Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.