Death of Adonis by Giuseppe Mazzuola

The tale of the death of Adonis comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses and tells of the handsome youth, beloved of the goddess Venus, who died whilst out hunting boar. In creating the statue Mazzuola, a pupil of the great Baroque sculptor Bernini, worked on it for nearly 30 years. Begun in the 17th century and finished in the following century, this work embodied all the features of the late Baroque. The sculptor showed Adonis at the moment when, hit by the wild boar, he is about to fall: the rapid movement is combined with static. The cloak thrown across the youth's shoulder gives the statue calm and picturesqueness. The varied working up of the marble, from elegant polish to roughness, giving the hard bristle of the boar, reinforces the deocrative quality of the work.

Third Sky-lighter – Spanish art.

Jose Ribera 6 paintings, we will show 3.

Most of his life he lived in Italy, in Rome, then moved to Naples. He summarized the achievements of Italian artists of different schools. He took subjects from the Bible or depicted saints.

St. Onuphrius – came from a royal family, but abandoned the vanity of the world, went into wilderness, spent 60 years there in a cave as a hermit. His only food was the fruit of a date palm and bread. He is always represented with a crown – a symbol of his noble origin and a skull – as a reminder of the fact that life is impermanent.

“St Jerome” – a hermit, who lived in 4-5 centuries. He was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, wrote several books on religion. He was the first to translate Holy Bible into Latin.

Once a lion came to his monastery, his paw wounded. All the monks ran away in fear but St. Jerome helped the lion and took care of his wound. The lion stayed at the monastery.Monastery brothers decided that the lion should work to earn his living and indeed he was given a task of guarding a donkey. He did the task honestly, yet one day some robbers managed to steal him. The brothers thought that he ate the donkey and ss punishment the lion had to do donkey`s work now. The obedient animal did it. Once he noticed the stolen donkey in a caravan and to prove his innocence brought it to the monastery together with the rest of the caravan.

Once he heard sound of a trumpet, announcing the doomsday.

“St Sebastian and St Irene” – when Romans left St Sebastian, Irene found him, removed all the arrows and healed his wounds. (archers)

Frantisco Surbaran

Frantisco Surbaran (1598-1664). Seville. He decorated churches and monasteries.

“St Lorence” – he was a priest of a Christian church. It was his suty to take care of the church possessions. Once he was demanded to give church property to the roman warriors, so he asked for 3 days to fulfill the task. Throughout these 3 days he distributed all the property of the church among poor, disabled and ill people. When the time to give the treasure to the Roman authority came – he brought all those people with him and showing them to the warriors said: «This is the real treasure of the church”. For this he was tortured a lot and eventually was burnt on an iron grill. As legend had it he said to his executors: “You`ve cooked one side all right, cook the other, then yoll be able to eat me”.

A lyrical landscape, a rich garment of the Spanish deacon.

“Youth of Madonna” – presentation in the Temple.

Madonna is shown as a little innocent girl depicted at the moment of a pray. Nothing theatrical or artificial about her. Looks monumental - not airy, as one could expect. Is depicted against plain monochrome background – all the viewer`s attention to her face. The elegant pattern of a dress – the artist enjoyed the beauty of thing and translated in a form of nice details in his paintings.

From 1640^th he started to paint Seville’s beautiful women as saints. He introduced kid’s images.

Diego Velaskes “Portrait of duke Olivares”.

Duke Olivares became the prime minister of Spain and became extremely influential the moment king Philippe IV of Spain who only turned 16 at the moment succeeded to the throne. Practically was the ruler of the country for a while but later fell out of favour – very intelligent and cunning he overestimated military might of Spain, which due to his intrigues often happen to be involved in wars which were extremely destructive for its economy and well-being of its people. Hated by court and nation Duke Olivares ended up in exile.

Velaskes was always patronized by Olivares, with his support Velaskes became a court painter. It looks like there friendly relationship lasted for quite a long period – the artist was one of those friends of the duke who came to bid him goodbye when he was leaving for exile.

Portrait:

Olivares – depicted realistically, no decorations or fancy luxurious garments. Chubby face, kind of funny shape of a nose. But the viers attention is arrested by the eyes of the duke. The look suggests smart, intelligent personality, capable of cruel and great things.

Murillo (13 paintings) – came from Seville, at the age of 20 he moved to Madrid and worked there with Velaskes for a while. When he returned to Seville, he soon became the most popular artist there, he is considered to be the founder of the academy of fine arts, he was the first president there. His popularity was so high that he was considered the greatest artist of his time and his talent was compared to that of Raphael.

His style developed from somewhat weighty and dense painting to airy and transparent. 3 periods: cold, warm and airy.

He painted genre scenes, very often depicting children (“A boy with a dog”). Painted biblical subjects, portraits and murals. “Rest during the flight into Egypt”. It treated Biblical subject as a genre style, he always used landscape to get more expression. He never painted landscape as a separate genre, but landscapes are always important for creating a certain mood and atmosphere and sometimes, given special prominence by the artist, seem to dominate in the painting.

The flight into Egypt is a biblical event described in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 2:13-23), in which Joseph fled to Egypt with his wife Mary and infant son Jesus after a visit by Magi because they learn that King Herod intends to kill the infants of that area. The episode is frequently shown in art, as the final episode of the Nativity of Jesus in art, and was a common component in cycles of the Life of the Virgin as well as the Life of Christ.

When the Magi came in search of Jesus, they go to Herod the Great in Jerusalem and ask where to find the newborn "King of the Jews". Herod becomes paranoid that the child will threaten his throne, and seeks to kill him (2:1-8). Herod initiates the Massacre of the Innocents in hopes of killing the child (Matthew 2:16-Matthew 2:18). But an angel appears to Joseph and warns Joseph to take Jesus and his mother into Egypt (Matthew 2:13).

Painted a series of 6 paintings on Jacob’s life.

Egypt was a logical place to find refuge, as it was outside the dominions of King Herod, but both Egypt and Palestine were part of the Roman Empire, making travel between them easy and relatively safe.

“Isaac blessing Jacob”. Old Testament. Isaac had two sons – Isau and Jacob. Ones Jacob, who was the younger brother, forced Isau to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage. Isau was Isaac’s favorite son, while his wife Rebecca preferred Jacob. Isaac was an old man, he felt, he would die soon. He wanted to bless his firs born son Isau, but Rebecca wanted Jacob to have his father’s blessing. When Isau was out hunting, Rebecca covered Jacob’s arms and shoulders with a goat skin as Isau was hairy. Isaac touched the goat skin, took Jacob for Isau and blessed him. When Isau returned home, he was furious and wanted to kill Jacob, so Rebecca advised Jacob to go away to Mesopotamia to her brother. “Jacob’s dream”. When Jacob was on his way to Mesapotamia, he stopped to a night on an open air, he fell asleep on a stone. He had a vision of a stairway, that went up to Heaven and there were angels going up and down, he heard god’s voice, who promised to protect him wherever he went and that he and his descendants will be blessed by God. In the morning Jacob promised to build an altar on this stone and later he settled down here and founded a city here Bethel (Вифель).

“Immaculate conception” .

Francisco Goya (the end of 18^th, the beginning of 19^th centuries). Golden age of Spanish art was finished by Goya-style, there was a decline of Spanish art by the end of the 17^th century, only in the second half of the 18^th century a new phenomenal artist appeared – Goya. He was also an engraver. Most of his live he lived in Madrid, court artist of Spanish king, at the end of his life he emigrated to France.

In his portrait painting activity one can distinguish 2 kinds of portraits:

Official, commissioned by people who he didn`t know closely. Painted masterfully but without much sympathy translated into work.

Portraits of friend and acquaintances, reflecting sincere affection and empathy of the artist. To this kind belongs “Portrait of an actress Antonio Sarate”.

Not much is known about her. She came from a family of artists. She was wife of a famous singer and comic actor Bernard Hill. Very likely she divorced her husband.She died at the age of 36 of tuberculosis, this portrait is painted just couple of month before her death.

Its not very clear how they got acquainted but most likely in the theater where she performed. Goya visited it quite often.

The portrait was called the “portrait of heart” because of its intimacy, sympathy of the artist for a woman with such a tragic life, shown in the portrait. The painting is filled with warm feelings toward the model, with humanity. He is interested in her personality, inner world, feelings and emotins. Doesn`t show her as actress with certain attributes or on stage. She is a human being with complicated fate and that what matters.