The Veiled Rebekah 1864
Giovanni Maria Benzoni
Q1 Does anyone know the story of Isaac and Rebekah ?
Isaac was the son of Abraham and Sarah.
When Sarah died Abraham felt he needed to find his son Isaac a spouse.Abraham sent his servant to Mesopotamia to find him a wife.
Abraham prayed to God that he would bring the right girl to that well and lead her to offer
water for his camels. It was a very specific request for exactly the proper mate for Isaac.
On the way to Mesopotamia Abraham's servant stopped in the city of Nahor and saw Rebekah with a jar on her shoulder. She was a beautiful young lady, vivacious, friendly, outgoing, unselfish and energetic. She was Abraham's niece. Abraham's servant asked her for some water and she let him do so. She then offered to feed his camels. The servant knew that this is the girl ! So he told her : “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His loving kindness and His truth toward my master; as for me, the Lord has guided me in the way to the house of my master’s brothers”
Rebekah agreed to go back to Issac. When they arrived Issac was working out in the fields. Rebekah dismounted from the camel when she saw Isaac, and covered herself with a veil as the custom was. After he had heard all the exciting details of the eventful trip and the providential guidance that had found him a bride, we read, “Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her; thus Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death” . It was a tender beginning.
*Giovanni Maria Benzoni ( 1809 – 1873) was an Italian neoclassical sculpture. He was trained in Rome, where he later set up his own workshop.
Benzoni designed some of his sculptures with a production line in mind using other sculptors to produce the works in order to satisfy a growing demand for people on The Grand Tour who wanted culture to take back home. So three of these Veiled Rebekah were created and found in Massachusetts, Atlanta, and in India.
*The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly Upper Class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scaler rail transport in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary . It served as an educational rite of passage . When the men returned home from these trips they were said to be prepared to become an aristocrat.
 |
| St. Catherine of Alexandria |
 |
| St. Vitalis |
by Niccolo di Segna
Q1 How old are these paintings ?
675 Years old
Q2 What are they painted with ? Tempera Paint What is Tempera Paint ?
Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium (usually a glutinous material such as egg yolk ). Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist. Egg tempera was a primary method of painting until after 1500 when it was superseded by the invention of oil painting.
Q3 Who was St. Vitalis ?
St. Vitalis Martyr . His legend , which is of little historical value, relates that he was martyred by order of a judge named Paulinus for having encouraged St. Ursicinus, who was wavering at the prospect of death, and for having given burial to his remains. St. Vitalis was racked and then buried alive.
He is shown dressed as a Roman soldier and holding the instrument of his martyrdom or torture. This painting is intended to be symbolic of a saint and is not meant to look real.
Q4 Who is St. Catherine of Alexandria ?
St. Catherine is believed to have been born in Alexandria of a noble family. Converted to Christianity through a vision, she denounced for persecuting Christians. Fifty of her converts were then burned to death by Maxentius at the time the current Roman Emperor.
Maxentius offered Catherine a royal marriage if she would deny the Faith. Her refusal landed her in prison. While in prison, and while Maxentius was away, Catherine converted Maxentius' wife and two hundred of his soldiers. He had them all put to death.
Catherine was likewise condemned to death. She was put on a spiked wheel, and when the wheel broke, she was beheaded. She is venerated as the patroness of philosophers and preachers. St. Catherine's was one of the voices heard by St. Joan of Arc.
In this painting She is crowned and holds the palm of martyrdom and the wheel of shapes
Madonna and Child with Two Angels,
St. Francis and St. Louis of Toulouse ca. 1375
By Giovanni Fei
Q1 Where would this painting hang ?
Q2 Who is the main focus of this painting ?
Q3 What kind of paint is used in this painting ?
Q4 Are the people painted in this altarpiece 3 dimensional or flat ?
Q5 What symbolism did Giovanni Fei use in this piece ?
Madonna and Child with St. James Major and St. Jerome 1512
by Girolamo di Romano, Called II Romanino
Q1 When was this painted ? 1512
Q2 What type of paint was used to make this painting ?
Oils and Pigment
Q3 What colors are symbolic of Mary ? What color is her robe ?
White: Purity, Virginity, Innocence, and Virtue
Yellow: Renewal, hope, light and purity
Orange: Courage, Endurance, Strength
Green: Nature, Fertility, Hope, Bountifulness, Freedom from Bondage
Red: Holy Spirit, Power, Importance, Presence of God, Blood of Martyrs, Atonement and Humility
Black: Death or Fear of Ignorance
Brown: Earth, Poverty, Humility, and Closely Associated with Monks
Blue:Heavenly Grace, Hope, Good Health and State of Servitude
Purple: Royalty
Q4 What is Lapis Lazuli ?
From Afghanistan was ground into powder and made into ultramarine and was the most expensive of all the pigments. Used by the most important artists of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It was often reserved for the clothing of the central figure of the painting, especially the Virgin Mary
Q5 Who was St. James Major?
St. James and his brother John witnessed the transfigured Jesus
First Apostle to be martyred by execution
Patron of Pilgrimage
Has emblem of a scallion sea shell and people would wear them on their clothes and hats
Q6 Who was St. Jerome ?
Priest, confessor, theologian and historian
Doctor of the church
Translated the Bible into Latin
Featured with a Bible or a lion that legend say he drew a thorn from
Portrait of Duke Henry the Devout of Saxony 1528
by Lucas Cranach the Elder
*One of the masters of the German Renaissance,
Lucas Cranach was a follower and friend of Martin
Luther and a strong defender of the Protestant
Reformation. In 1505 Duke Frederick the Wise
of Saxony summoned Cranach to Wittenburg,
where he remained as court painter for the rest
of his life. Cranach made several portraits of
Henry the Devout (1473–1541), one of Frederick’s
successors. In this painting, the sturdy torso and
powerful head with carefully delineated features
convey the duke’s forceful character.
*In 1517, Martin Luther started the
Protestant Reformation in Germany,
and a few years later Heinrich converted
to Lutheranism.
*He was then 66 years old, and reigned
for only two years. Heinrich made Lutheranism
the state religion of the Duchy of Saxony.
 |
| Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac |
 |
| The Thanksgiving of Noah |
by Giovanni Battista Gaulli called Baciccio
Q1 What year were these painted ? 1700
This was the late Baroque Period
Baroque style featured "exaggerated lighting,
intense emotions, release from restraint, and
even a kind of artistic sensationalism". Baroque
art did not really depict the life style of the
people at that time; however, "closely tied
to the Counter-Reformation, this style
melodramatically reaffirmed the emotional
depths of the Catholic faith and glorified both
church and monarchy" of their power and influence.
Q2 Does anyone know the story about the Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac ? God told Abraham to his only son Isaac to the mountain and use him as a burnt offering. So, in the morning Abraham, Isaac and some other men went up to the mountains. On the 3rd day God showed Abraham the location of where on the mountain he was supposed to go. Abraham told his men to stay where they were . He took Isaac went up the mountain with a knife and wood to the place shown him. Isaac asked him where the lamb was that he was to sacrifice and Abraham told him that the lord would provide it. Abraham built an alter and then laid down the wood in order to bound his son. He laid Isaac on the alter and reached out his hand and grabbed the knife he was going to use to sacrifice him. An angel from God came to them and sad " Do not lay a hand on your son ." Abraham looked up and there stuck in the thicket was a ram. Abraham released his son and sacrificed the ram instead.
Q3 What about the story of Noah in this painting ?
In this scene, Noah and his family built an alter for burnt sacrifices in thanksgiving to mark the survival after the great flood.
Q4 Do people look happy or afraid in this painting ? What about the person carrying the dove ? What does the Dove symbolize ?
The Denial of St.Peter 1625
by Nicolas Tournier
While studying in Rome, French artist Nicolas Tournier completed a large-scale oil painting, The Denial of Saint Peter, in 1620. The scene illustrates an event described in all four gospels of the New Testament. Peter denying association with Christ served as an appropriate and popular subject to interpret for the promotion of decrees established by The Council of Trent. Nicolas Tournier derived his style from other seventeenth-century artists’ renditions of the denial, most notably, the compositional elements found in the paintings of Bartolomeo Manfredi and Valentin de Boulogne. Each of these artists set a religious scene with a group of gamblers seated at a table playing with die.
The Dice Players
by Nicolas Tournier
Stop #8 The Knight, The Devil and Death by Albrecht Durer
Stop #9 Posset Pots
by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Born and trained in Venice,
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
enjoyed an illustrious career as an
eighteenth-century Baroque painter.
Roman Matrons Offering Gifts to Juno
was one of four over door panels painted
for a Venetian palace and depicts a scene
from Livy’s History of Rome. During the
Second Punic War, the temple of Juno
Regina, which stood on the Aventine Hill
in Rome, was struck by lightning.
Livy describes how the city’s matrons
brought offerings of gifts and jewels from
their dowries to the temple to appease
Juno, Queen of Heaven, represented here by
her distinguishing attribute, the peacock.
Erigone
By, Carle Van Loo
* Daughter of Icarius
*Icarius had been taught by the God
Dionysus (also known as Baccus) to
make wine
* God of the Grape Harvest, Winemaking,
Wine, Ritual Madness, Religious
Ecstasy, and Theatre.
*Icarius made wine and gave it to his
shepherds to drink and they became very intoxicated.
* Their companions thought they were
dead and killed Icarius and buried him under a tree.
*Erigone and her dog Maera found
the grave of her father. She was so
upset by his death that she hung herself
on the tree and Maera jumped into
a well and drowned.
*Dionysus sent a plague in the land and
all of the maidens in a fit of madness hung themselves.
*Icarius, Erigone, and Maera were
send among the stars as constellations.
The Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs
by Sebastiano Ricci 1705
No comments:
Post a Comment