"Exactitude and Fidelity"? Paintings of Christ Healing the Blind by Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne (original) (raw)
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The papal palace in Avignon (figure 1) was an architectural marvel. In describing it, an anonymous fourteenth-century chronicler enthusiastically noted that the building also displayed ‘marvelous painting and more marvelous writing.’1 The chronicler was referring to a lost cycle painted by the Italian artist Matteo Giovanetti. Giovanetti was known as the ‘painter of the pope,’ and although some of his wall- and ceiling-paintings have been lost, others survive.2 This study focuses on the two remaining cycles that are the most complete. These are the Chapel of St.Martial, dating ca. 1344–46, and the Chapel of St. John, dating ca. 1346–48, both executed under the patronage of Pope Clement VI. The chronicler celebrates the high quality of the painting, but is even more impressed by the ‘more marvelous’— mirabilioribus — painted texts that form part of each ensemble. It is those texts that I will explore most closely.3 In both chapels, substantial painted Latin inscriptions appear repeatedly within and below the image fields (figure 2). Although previous scholars have noted the emphasis on the written word in these programs, none have pursued their analysis further.4 I propose that these texts and, more particularly, the forms in which these texts appear are integral to our understanding of the programs. The letter forms, placement in space, and support on which a text is presented deliver information that directs a particular understanding of the text. More specifically, I show that in each chapel, text forms are nuanced to direct two different interpretations. In the Chapel of St. Martial, the form of the text and its placement within the cycle emphasize the transfer of divine authority from Christ to St. Martial, a French saint seen as the precursor of the French popes, and from St. Martial to the chapel’s patron, Pope Clement VI. In the Chapel of St. John, the appearance of the word is nuanced to suggest silence, dialogue, and divine speech, such that historical scenes are enacted through eyes and ears in a way that makes them seem miraculously present. This presence of historical scenes may be tied to the performance of the Mass, the Divine Office, and other liturgies that allude to and in some sense reenact depicted scenes.
The Holy Fool: Pushing Boundaries in Christian Narrative Painting
Religion is one of the most powerful devices in the visual arts. It attempts to explain what cannot be seen, as the arts so often attempt to do as well. But religious art attempts to codify belief; no easy task, and certainly one open to unceasing disputation. The fact that so much is open to interpretation, coupled with the notion of theological disputes, leads me to constantly ponder and doubt if the path I have chosen as a painter of religiously discordant imagery is spiritually sound. I have discovered over time, however, that perfect depiction is not truly possible, only the wisdom through experience of new ideas. I wish to depict the concepts of doubt and dispute, as well as faith and forgiveness, in my paintings. I am fascinated by the power of one Biblical verse in altering the spiritual life of a person, community or society. The differences between a Catholic and a Protestant, for example, are wide and varied. The only thing that would ultimately separate their intentions, however, lies in interpretation and context.
Review Thomas Mathews The Dawn of Christian Art in Panel Paintings and Icons
Bryn Mawr, 2018
In late antiquity, both the nature of images and the treatment accorded to them generated deeply divisive debates. Portraits of human subjects were an accepted convention, but offering reverence to them might be controversial. Art historian Thomas F. Mathews here retells the story from the Acts of John about the apostle's rejection of the pagan-style honours-garlands, lamps, and an altar-given to the portrait secretly made of him, in gratitude for being raised from the dead, by the praetor of Ephesus Lykomedes. The third-century Platonist Plotinus, likewise the subject of a surreptitious portrait, went even further and questioned the very purpose and meaning of creating an image of an image: "Isn't it enough that I have to carry around the image that nature has clothed me with?" (Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 1). As for images of divine beings, Clement of Alexandria condemned the masterpieces of the sculptor Lysippus and the painter Apelles, leading Greek artists of the fourth century BC, as examples of a "deceitful art" that vainly seeks to emulate God's perfection ( Exhortation to the Heathens 4). Nevertheless, the gods continued to be depicted both in statues and on movable wooden panels. Clement specifically mentions lewd paintings of Aphrodite "hung on high like votive offerings" in pagans' bedrooms. Comparison is unavoidable with the emergent Christian genre of the icon. It is to documenting and speculating on these resemblances and possible continuities that Mathews addresses himself in this elaborate and sumptuously illustrated publication from the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Miracles in Monochrome: Grisaille in Visual Hagiography (Art History, 2019)
Art History, 2019
Through an examination of the miracles of Anthony of Padua painted by Girolamo da Treviso in the Saraceni Chapel (1525–26), this essay demonstrates the complex ways in which monochrome painting would have created meaning for diverse audiences. It is argued that the use of grisaille in the chapel, by visually evoking marble relief, did many things at once: it presented both established and lesser‐known miracles as reliable evidence of Anthony's saintly power, ‘carved’ in immutable stone; it conjured the specific thaumaturgical context of burial shrines, with elevated marble tombs; and it activated the paragone to produce sensations of both intimacy and distance, and to foster both comprehension and confusion. Taking as a case study visual hagiography – a form of pictorial narrative that addressed multiple audiences and engaged dynamically with both visual and textual precedents – this essay sheds new light on the semantic operations of grisaille in Renaissance visual culture.
Theological and Philosophical Themes in Poussin’s Landscapes
Poussin's landscapes that have been characterised as stoic, and therefore secular in the eyes of some scholars, do, in fact, deal with specifically Christian themes. This chapter will in part develop new research on Christian themes in Poussin’s art which was presented in an exhibition of seventeenth-century French painting held in Rome in 2000, Le dieu caché, Les peintres du Grand Siecle et la vision de Dieu. This exhibition considered how Pascal’s concept of the dieu caché, or hidden god could be seen as a key to interpreting religious themes in Poussin’s and other artist’s paintings. My contribution to this debate of the role of theology and philosophy within Poussin’s art is to argue that the concept of the hidden God actually became assimilated into the way that Poussin painted landscapes that have been called secular and ‘stoic’. With the current show in Paris, Poussin et Dieu, it seems timely to upload the fourth chapter of my dissertation!