Posts Tagged ‘fresco’
“The pieces I chose were based on one thing only — a gasp of delight. Isn’t that the only way to curate a life?”*…
The Louvre has the Mona Lisa. In his nifty newsetter Ironic Sans, David Friedman reviews the “most treasured” holding of other museums…
Did you know that there is only one painting by Leonardo da Vinci on view in America? It’s a portrait of a teenage girl named Ginevra de’ Benci, a Florentine aristocrat, possibly commissioned for her wedding. And it’s one of only four portraits Leonardo painted of women. The most famous one, of course, is the Mona Lisa.The portrait of Ginevra is on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, which acquired the painting in 1967. There’s an interesting story of how the painting was brought from Liechtenstein Castle to Washington in carry-on luggage.
[I haven’t told you this yet, but for the past year I’ve been working full-time as Senior Video Producer at the National Gallery of Art. I love it. Working in a museum surrounded by some of the world’s best art and telling stories about how art makes a difference in people’s lives, every day is a good day. Another time, I’ll share some of the work we’re doing. But for now, I just need to make clear that this newsletter is in no way formally connected to the museum or my work there.]
Here is Ginevra, painted by Leonardo around 30 years before Mona Lisa:
I once heard someone refer to Ginevra as “America’s Mona Lisa.” Obviously that’s in part because they’re both by the same artist. But sometimes people refer to something as their Mona Lisa to mean it’s their prize possession, or an incredible work, or the draw that people come to see.
And that got me wondering: What do other museums and institutions refer to as their Mona Lisa?
So I did some digging and I’ve gathered 17 works of art and other surprising things where someone from the institution has gone on record calling it their Mona Lisa…
From Duccio and Matisse to Sow and Warhol: “It’s Their Mona Lisa,” from @ironicsans.com.
* Maira Kalman, My Favorite Things
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As we hit the highlights, we might spare a thought for a man whose works were often the “Mona Lisas” of the halls they graced: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (AKA, Giambattista or Gianbattista Tiepolo): he died on this date in 1770. A painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice, his luminous, poetic frescoes, while extending the tradition of Baroque ceiling decoration, epitomized the lightness and elegance of the Rococo period. Indeed, he was described by National Gallery head Michael Levey as “the greatest decorative painter of eighteenth-century Europe, as well as its most able craftsman.” He is considered– with Giambattista Pittoni, Canaletto, Giovan Battista Piazzetta, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, and Francesco Guardi— one of the traditional Old Masters of that period.
“To paraphrase Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear, and all those guys, “I wish I had known this some time ago”*…
“Irony” is a term that everyone uses and seems to understand. It is also a concept that is notoriously difficult to define. Much like Winona Ryder’s character in the 1994 rom-com “Reality Bites,” whose inability to describe irony costs her a job interview, we know it when we see it, but nonetheless have trouble articulating it. Even worse, it seems as if the same term is used to describe very different things. And following your mother’s advice — to look it up in the dictionary — is liable to leave you even more confused than before.
Uncertainty about irony can be found almost everywhere. An American president posts a tweet containing the phrase “Isn’t it ironic?” and is derided for misusing the term. A North Korean dictator bans sarcasm directed at him and his regime because he fears that people are only agreeing with him ironically. A song about irony is mocked because its lyrics contain non-ironic examples. The term has been applied to a number of different phenomena over time, and as a label, it has been stretched to accommodate a number of new senses. But exactly how does irony differ from related concepts like coincidence, paradox, satire, and parody?…
A handy guide to distinguishing the notoriously slippery concept of irony from its distant cousins coincidence, satire, parody, and paradox: “What Irony is Not,” excerpted from Irony and Sarcasm, by Roger Kreuz.
* Sign of the Unicorn
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As we choose our words, we might recall that it was on this date in 1483 that Pope Sixtus IV consecrated the Sistine Chapel (which takes its name from his) in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. Originally known as the Cappella Magna (Great Chapel), Sixtus had renovated it, enlisting a team of Renaissance painters that included Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli to create a series of frescos depicting the Life of Moses and the Life of Christ, offset by papal portraits above and trompe-l’œil drapery below. Michelangelo’s famous ceiling was painted from 1508 to 1512; and his equally-remarkable altarpiece, The Last Judgement, from 1536 to 1541.
“I dream my painting and I paint my dream”*…
What if the great painters had filled larger canvases?…
Yarin Gal, at Cambridge University’s Machine Learning Group, has set out to answer the question: “New techniques in machine learning and image processing allow us to extrapolate the scene of a painting to see what the full scenery might have looked like…”
“Enhanced” Monet, Picasso, O’Keefe, (more) van Gogh, and others– with more added regularly– at Extrapolated Art.
* Vincent van Gogh
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As we look beyond the frame, we might send broadly gestural birthday greetings to Ludovico Carracci; he was born on this date in 1555. An early Baroque master, his paintings, etchings, prints– but especially his frescos– are credited with reinvigorating Italian art, rescuing it from the formal mannerism that had accrued in the mid-late 16th century.
Annunciation
Portrait of Carracci, Emilian School
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