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 SISTER WipPDY'S
GRAND TOUR
'ollowiiig the popularity- ot Siitcr

11 (•»</)'. 0(/)'.<.<()', a highly acclaimed

PBS television series and book. Sister

Wendy Beckett's love of art has now taken

her further afield on a Grand Tour of ten

of continental Europe's cities ot art.

Like the eighteenth-centur\ travelers

who embarked on the Grand Tour before
her. Sister Wendy delighted in the oppor-
tunity to see in realit\- great works of art
she had previously seen only in books.
Her journey encompassed masterpieces by
Velazquez and Goya in Madrid. Bruegel
and Titian in Vienna and Kandinsky in St.

Petersburg, among many others, but her

aim was always to choose art she could

share with people at home.
Sister Wenciy finds huge pleasure in

the "total visual experience of the real

world" afforded by Cezanne's The Bathers
in Paris. In Amsterdam she captures the
essence of van Gogh's personal tragedy
in her interpretation ot Artist's Bedroom,
and in Antwerp she finds extraordinary

grace in a simple carving by an unknown

fifteenth-century sculptor. Florence. Venice
and Koine, milestones of any Grand Tour,
orter further delights: the joyous work of
Botticelli: a rarely seen Giorgione. Tlie
leiiiiHsl: and Michelangelo's awesome
hetit. a wt>rk expressing immense anguish
and love.

Sister Wendy Beckett has been

described js "the best talker on art since

Lord C!ljrk gave us (jrihsiiiioii!' Her inter-

pretatuMis of over sixty paintings and (a

few ) sculptures speak to everyt>iie. be thc\-

art historian, student, or simply st>meonc
scu>itive to the Ivauty t>f life and art.

Shffr llciidy'} Cntinf liuir otVers u\ the

chjticc lo discover the gUj^|^«>f Bunipe's
great an.
 CfVlCCEhfTER
^M
3 1111 01669 0792
 SISTER
WENDY'S
GRAND

/ look forward to the thiy when it it'ill dawn upon

cuerybody that they can have odysseys and Grand Tonrs

and share the fruits of the world. TJie capacity

to see, to open np the vision of reahty that

an artist offers, is iiniatc in us all.

 ^

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<^,
 SISTE
WENDY'S
AND
TOUR
Discovering Europe's
Great Art

SISTER WENDY BECKETT

STEWART, TABORI & CHANG

NEW YORK
 © 1994 Sister Wendy Beckett

First published in 1994 for BBC Books.

This book is pubhshed to accompany the television

series entitled Sister Wendy's Grand Tour,

which was first broadcast in spring 1994.

Published in 1996 and distributed in the U.S. by

Stewart, Tabori and Chang, a division of U.S. Media Holdings, Inc.

575 Broadway, New York, New York 10012

Distributed in Canada by General Publishing Co. Ltd

30 Lesmill Road, Don Canada, M3B 2T6.

Mills, Ontario,

Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Peribo Pty Ltd.

58 Beaumont Road, Mount Kuring-gai, NSW 2080, Australia
Distributed inall other territories by Grantham Book Services Ltd.

Isaac Newton Way, Alma Park Industrial Estate, Grantham.

Lincolnshire NG31 9SD, England

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording, or otherwise) without the written permission of the pubhsher.

Designed by Barbara Mercer

Illustrations by Caroline Mauduit
Photographs on pages 2 and 8 by Justin Pumfrey
Set in Bembo and CasteUar by Selwood Systems, Midsomer Norton
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
Color separation by Radstock Reproductions Ltd., Midsomer Norton
Jacket printed by Lawrence Allen Ltd.. Weston-super-Mare

ISBN: 1-55670-509-3

Library of Congess Catalog Card Number: 96-691 10

10 9876 5 4321
 CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 9

MADRID 14

Las Men ill as (Maids of Ho on 1)

11 Diego Velazquez 16
Mars Diego Velazquez 18
Christ Child and the Infant St John
Bartolome Esteban Murillo 20
The Parasol Francisco de Goya 22
The Dnke and Duchess of Osniia and their Family
Francisco de Goya 22
Third of May iSoS Francisco de Goya 24
The Colossus Francisco de Goya 26

FLORENCE 28
St Mary M dalcne D o n a
a^^ t e 1 1 o 30
Annunciation Fra Angelico 32
Judith an d h e r ATii d se rvaiit Ar t emi si a Gentil es chi 34
Judith with the Head of Hoi femes Cristofano Allori 34
Birth of Venus Sandro Botticelli 36
Primal' era (Spring) Sandro Botticelli 38

ROME 40
Unicorn Raphael 42
Lady with a

Rape of Prose rp Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini

i n a 44
Apollo and Daphne Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini 46
Pictd Michelangelo 48
 Call in^^ of St Matthew Caravaggio 50
Co livers ion of St Paul Caravaggio 52

VENICE 54
Young Man in his study Lorenzo Lotto 56
St George and the Dragon Vittore Carpaccio 58
En to nib me lit {ox Pi eta) Titian 60
The Tempest Giorgione 62

VIENNA 64
Andrea Man tegna 66
St Sebasti an
and Adonis Paolo Veronese 68
]''eniis

Hercules, Deianeira and Nessns Paolo Veronese 68

Angelica and the Hermit Sir Peter Paul Rubens 70
Peasant Wedding Pieter Bruegel the Elder 72
The Assassin Titian 74
S II i c i de
a Titian 74
of Liicret i

Titian 74
I'iolaiite
IVoman in Black Titian 74
Gypsy Mad on n a Titian 74

ST PETERSBURG 78

Return of the Prodigal Son Rembrandt 80

Portrait of a Lady Correggio 82
Tancred and Erminia Nicolas Poussin 84
Union of Earth and Water Sir Peter Paul Rubens 86
Apostles Peter and Paul El Greco 88
Composition 17 Vassily Kandinsky go

BERLIN 92

Hierony mils Hoi zschuher Al bre c h t D ii re r 94

Georg Gisze Hans Holbein the Younger g6
PYramiis and Tin she Hans Baldung 1)8
 Sf V I r i ell Hans Burgkmair oo l

St Barbara Hans Burgkinair lOO

Allegory A b r e c h t A 1 d o r f e r 102
1 1

PARIS 104
The Bathers Paul Cezanne io6
The Balcony Edouard Manet io8
Gillcs Antoine Watteau iio
Inspiration Poet Nicolas P o u s s i n 112
of the
Oedipus and the Je an - Au gu s t e -D omini q u e Ingres
Sphinx II4
M a de III i s e 1 1 e R e rc Jean-Augu ste-D o
i I' i i n i q u e Ingres m 1 1 4
The Conversation Henri Matisse 116

ANTWERP 118
A t a a n d
a I a n
e e a e r
t rd a en s 120 M g Jacob Jo
I

Ve n F r ig d a Sir Peter Paul Rubens 122

u s i

The Lance Sir Peter Paul Rubens 124

Dulle Griet Pieter Bruegel the Elder 126
St John Resting on the Bosom of Christ
Master Heinrich of Constance 128

AMSTERDAM & THE HAGUE 130

Artist's Bedroom Vincent van Gogh 1 j2
Rembrandt IJ4
Jewish Bride
Pare nt al A dm n it n G er ar d er B o r ch i t 136
Vieu'of Deljt Johannes (Jan) Vermeer 138
Saul an d D av d Rembrandt 140 i

BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISTS 143

PICTURE CREDITS 161
INDEX 163
 ^/i'

i .»

1x

i )

^ f-;
 INTRODUCTION
Iiterally speaking, 'grand tour' means 'bigjourney', a French phrase because in the latter

J halt of the eighteenth century, at the time of its flourishing, all eciucated people spoke
French (and, it they were male, had a knowledge of Latin and often Greek). For the well-
born young men setting off on their Grand Tour, it was indeed a big journey, one that
would take them all around Europe and give them the opportunity to learn the nature and
significance of their own cultural roots. It was a cultural search in the broadest sense. These
youths were thought to be, in an age innocent of democracy, the future leaders of the
country, and it was essential that they should understand their heritage as fully as possible.

In practice, of course, the journey was all too often a cultural jamboree, amusement and
freedom from parental discipline being the central attraction.

The young men did not venture out alone, however. The Grand Tourists travelled
with an entourage, prominent among whom was the tutor, the scholarly cleric whose task
it was to foster the educational purposes of the journey. The Grand Tour couki - and did —
last for several years, involving prolonged residence in the sites of special importance. Athens
was high on this list, as incieed were Rome and the major cities of Italy, from which so
much of our civilization has come. It was intended to be a serious learning process, a secular

version o{ the pilgrimages of the religious past, and if it seemed often to fail in this, the

same comment could be levelled at those very pilgrimages. Preachers in the Middle Ages
were always thundering denunciations of pilgrims who appeared primarily bent on the
excitements of travel, seekers of pleasure rather than grace. For the most enlightened, the
two ends probably did not seem uncomplementary.
When in Rome or another artistic capital, it was a common practice to commission
a self-portrait as a memorial of those happy days of youthful aspiration; even major artists

such as Pompeo Batoni and JVlengs made a good living on such commissions. The charming
self-importance of the aristocratic young male of the eighteenth or nineteenth century is

still a deUght. Britain is the major centre for Canaletto studies because nearly every British
visitor to Venice brought back the contemporary equivalent of an expensive picture postcard
showing Canaletto's view of some stretch of the Grand Canal.
Through the kindness of the BBC, I probably travelled in greater comfort than the
wealthy milord, who bumped along the rough roads of pre-industrial Europe in a lumbering
 INTRODUCTION

carriage, staying at tiea-iiitested inns and encountering the hazards of a foreign menu. And.
of course, I could never have gone on my own, asking the CarmeHte sisters at Quidenham
to pav for me. however intense my desire.

Yet. let me confess, the desire was not all that intense. The Grand Tour is essentially
for the young, whose stamina is up to its surprises. Not only am an ancient ot 1930s
I

vintage, but I have chosen a Hfestyle which otfers the bhss of living alone in prayer. That is

a happiness so great, so humbhng. that no other experience, however splendid, can compare.
When kind people asked me if I was enjoying myself on my Grand Tour, I all too otten
found It hard to say 'yes'. I would then feel ashamed of seeming so ungrateful and. after

much tactless honest\-. I found the truthful ans\\er. I would say: 'Yes, relatively" Of itself,
absolutely. I would never want to leave my solitude. But relatively, since it had become
clear to me that there was a certain value for people in what I said about art. then I accepted

with gratitude chance to see some of the most wonderful things that human
this great

beings have ever created. Now that the travelling is over, and I am back in silence again,
the memories are happy ones. Sightseeing is a strain, but to have sightseen is lovely!
I did not. of course, go to 'sightsee". There is a sense m which I hardly teel that I

did visit ten different cities, as well as. briefly. Bologna. Padua and Arezzo. For I was in

these enchanted places to work, to choose the art I could best share with people at home.
I sometimes recalled what Matisse said of his first visit to Italy paid for and accompanied

by Leo Stein. Gertrude's elder brother. Everything they saw, Matisse complained, set Leo
off, asking Matisse his opinion: 'I was only looking at art so as to talk about it.' For me,

that was the condition under which I accepted my travelling privilege, and it would be
ignoble of me to repine.
I must also add that my tour, though very big indeed for a sedentary solitary, was a

brief affair. I did it in bursts, retiring to tranquillity m between: there were never the
prolonged stavs in great capitals that enabled the youthful and well-born to soak up culture
by osmosis. But then, the advantage of age is that one has had years of contemplation, ot

savouring life, and so one knows already what one values and needs.
I did not want to consider the political structure of Europe, a vital part ot the Tour-

as-education, nor was I particularly keen to enjoy the cities as architecture. My sole interest

was in the art. Might I have chosen differently had I had longer in each cif>? As all who
have visited the European continent know, there is an immense wealth ot art. and some
cities, like Rome, are almost art incarnate. But since in each place I was able to see and
discuss only five or six paintings or sculptures. 1 had to exclude even works I loved

passionately. (I recall particularly St Sdhistian in the Hermitage, emerging out ot the smoky
darkness with the pale luminosity of the late Titian, the unforgettable Leonardo Madonnas

in the same museum, the small and haunting iVrugino St Mary Ma^^tialaif in the I'ltti Palace,

10
 1 N 1 KODUCTION

the Vernieer AIIci^oiy oJ I\iiiitiiix at the Kunsthistorischc, the enigmatic Portrait of a Yohv^i
Man, bkie turbaned and tasselled, by the equally enigmatic Sweerts at the Reina Sofia in
Madrid and the glorious glamour of Dosso Dossi's Circe at the Borghese.
This agonizing question of choice was eased by a decision I made at the start, that I

would only deal in each country with its own national art. There were two or three
countries where this resolution was very simple to keep. The Prado, for example, has all

the great Spanish artists in such grandiloquent abundance that there was not the slightest

and Goya are among my absolute favourites. was eager

desire to look elsewhere. Velazquez I

to have agood long look at Murillo, once so admired, now so disregarded, and see if I
could make up my mind about his importance. There were rooms of El Greco, Zurbaran
and Ribera, of the controlled forcefulness of the medieval Spaniards, so fiercely unlike the
art ot anywhere else. (Bermejo, for example; the severe grace of his St Doiiiiii<^o of Silos is

quintessentially Spanish.)

The only problem in Italy was where not to go. I could choose only three Italian

cities, so out went Siena (which contains some of the art that most enthralls me, the
paintings of Duccio, Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti), Milan, with its Leonardo Last
Supper, Naples and Bologna, so rich in my beloved Baroque art (Guercino, Guido Reni,
Domenico, Pintoricchio, the Carracci), Assisi. where every artist of note in the early
Renaissance seems to have paid his loving tribute to St Francis. It had to be Rome, Florence
and Venice, even though that left me in the sad position of not being able to include an
example of my beloved Piero deUa Francesca. Giotto, too, got crowded out, as did the
Bellini brothers, those glorious forerunners of Titian, and a score of lesser but lovely artists

like the quiet Cima da Conegliano or magical UcceUo.

Amsterdam was so rich in Dutch pictures that it appears ludicrous that I made a

side-trip to The Hague, but the lure of the greatest of all Vermeers, his View of Delft, was
irresistible. Antwerp has a marvellous collection of the great Netherlandish and Flemish
painters, though there may be greater individual examples in other Belgian cities: van Eyck
in Ghent, or Bruegel in Brussels. In r\\'o cities I must admit to a struggle, a temptation to
abandon my plan. The wealth of world art in Paris is ovei-whelming: the French owe a

great deal to the rapacity of Napoleon and his royal predecessors. It was horrid not to
attempt the Moiia Lisa in the Louvre, though I comforted myself with the assurance that it

would have been a failure. Likewise, though I am fascinated by German art, spiky with an
inner Gothic passion, Berlin had at least two non-Germanic pictures I longed to include.
One was Rembrandt's Susanna Bathing and the other was Tiepolo's St Agatha, the most
moving illustration known to me of the wonder of faith. I have no consolation to assuage
my sadness over leaving out St Agatlia. (She has had her breasts cut oft" in her martyrdom,
which sounds revolting, and indeed two pathetic little pieces of bosom are being borne

II
 INTRODUCTION

away by a torturer. But she transcends her agony with such total trust, looknig up to where

her Saviour awaits, hidden to her but more real than her dreadful sutler mgs. It is a wholly

positive treatment of a wholly negative theme: human cruelty - but here harnessed to taith.)

Only twice did I stray from the national art of the countries I visited, but both Russia

and Austria are special cases. For somebody like myself, who believes that fundamentally all
people are the same, it is an abiding mystery as to why there should in practice be such
divergencies. The Austrians are the most musical of races and when we stayed m Vienna I
had the daily joy of going to Mass in Haydn's church. Mozart is celebrated on all sides,

Strauss ripples out of every alley But the Austrians produced Htde art. Even in the twentieth
century, when almost every country in the world seems to have flowered into visual
expression, Austria only came up with artists like Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka, all ot

them pleasing artists with graphic or chromatic skills, but not of Old Master standard. So I

regarded Vienna as a free city, and ranged at will through the wondeiful Kunsthistorische.

Russia, too, is mysteriously bare of great artists. (Their natural genius - like Britain's -
IS for literature.) They had the great icon painters in the past, but then there is only salon

art until the tw^entieth century and the glories of Malevich, Chagall, Kandinsky
Popova,

Alexandra Exter and others. Since in my Grand Tour I wanted to look primarily at the

past, my choices at the Hermitage were mainly of non-Russian paintings. (I did go to the

Russian Museum m St Petersburg, where there are impressive works such as Natan Altman's
angular and dramatic portrait of the poet Anna Akiiniatom, or the delicious humour ot

Bakst's portrait of .4/;/;(7 Bcnois, who donated the Benois Madonna by Leonardo to the State.

These are fine paintings but conventional: they do not expand the capacities ot the viewer

as do the great artists.)

Now that I have grandly toured, it all seems very dream-like. Was I really there? It

is shameful to despise the bodily aspect of oneself; it is not just that we 'have" a body, which
suggests that it is a tool, but that we 'are' a body, just as much as we 'are' a spirit. I hoped
to be a tool for people to see through, a sort of human magnilying glass. I have been gready

touched and encouraged by the kind response to Sister IVciidy's Odyssey in 1992, but it was
a disappointment to find that people were not only interested in the art, they were also

interested in me. It is the habit that does it. The veil and the cloak and the long black robe
have a fascination for those who may not realize that beneath them is a rather dull woman.
But if looking at, instead of merely through, the magnitying glass helps someone to see the

art more truly, then it is not important. I look forward to the day when it \\ill daw n upon
everybody that they can have odysseys and Grand Tours and share the fruits ot the world.

The capacity to see, to open up the vision of reality that an artist ofters. is innate m us all.

The greatest reward I could have is to know that, despite my inadequacies, more and more

people are coming to believe in their own powers of artistic appreciaticm.

12
THE PLATES
 i

M -1 ^OVi"

1^1

^w*. ;i ''?

111
J' K
r- ;: U
j II (i ;(
 A Ithough I never really expected to go anywhere, I always thought that, should the unexpected
-Z~~JL ever happen, my first choice would be Madrid. This was solely because of the Prado, that
great museum that contains the supreme works of Velazquez and Goya, two of my most dearly
loved artists. Now that it has actually happened and I have been to the Prado, I find my hopes
more than tultilled. There are no words to describe the e.xperience of seeing wall after wall of
Velazquez's paintings, most beautifully hung, and room after room of Goya. The Prado has the
added advantage of not being too large. One can take it aU in without over-exhaustion, though
'take m" are inadequate worcis for the impact one receives. There are wonderflil El Grecos too, and
a wealth of Spanish medieval art, some of it installed in a chapel so that we can understand the
setting from which so many of these early works came.
The Prado does not stand alone in Madrid. An ancient hospital has been turned into the
Reina museum, a triumph of modernization that keeps intact the wide, peaceful outer
Sofia

corridors that look down on to a sun-fiUed patio. The glory of the Reina Sofia, installed in a sort
ot sacred space ot its own, is Picasso's Guernica, which unfortunately does not appeal to me. It is

probably one of the most successful political posters ever made, but although I find its message of
the evil of war magnificently illustrated for me it is not - as it is in Goya - made emotionally real.

The other great museum in Madrid houses the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, and I

would have spent all my time there had it not been for the Prado. Although there are two superb
El Grecos, all fire and surging passion, the Collection on the whole contains non-Spanish artists,

and makes a lovely synthesis with the Prado. Of course, there are non-Spaniards there too. including
the best-known Bosch, the Garden of Earthly Delights. To my amazement and distress, this was less

impressive in reality' than in reproduction. The colour seemed faded and the intricate detail, the
great glory of this wholly inventive painting, is hard to see in the gallery. But I may only have
thought this because my eyes were so dazzled from the brilliance of the Goyas around the corner!

15
 Las M c n i n a s (Ma i ds of Hon on r)
DIEGO VELAZQUEZ
Born Se\'ille. Spain 1 599
Died Madrid, Spam 1660

elazquez is a deeply enigmatic man. It is very inating from the side, equal in status to the King,

V" hard to know-what made him tick because he controlling the canvas, that great sweep ot material

gives us no clues. He is essentially secretive, never that bulks so powerfulK- and symbolically beside
letting us in, always hiding behind his immense him.
technique. This is not a drawback but, on the con- Eversthing in the picture is wonderfully imagined

trar\; one of the reasons why he perpeuially fas- and painted, yet somehow the whole is more than
cinates. a sum of the parts. Some of the grandeur may come
Las Meniiiiis has constantly been described as the from Velazquez's own psychic triumph. He was a
greatest painting in the world, and standing before divided man, split by tvvo opposing desires: to be a

it, overawed, I understood why this is so. But it is great painter, which he v-isibly achieves, and to be

another matter to find the words to explain its accepted as a great nobleman, also demonstrated

greatness. On one level it must be the extraordinan,- here by the ease of his demeanour before the King.

sense it gives us of being somewhere else, there in He lived in a class-dominated societ\-, and a painter,

the artist's studio on a sunny morning as he was who bv definition worked with his hands, could

painting the King and Queen, when the maids ot therefore never be a gentleman. Velazquez won this

honour {las inmiiias) brought in the litde princess pri\nlege bv long and hard campaigning, and he
with her attendants, dwarfs and dog. Velazquez looks wears the emblem of his victory, the cross ot the

at all of them with his usual impartiality, giving as Order of Santiago. (It had not yet been awarded
much weight to the squat female dwarf and the when he painted Lis Mcninas. so he took the picture

magnificent mastiff as to the Uttle silver creature in back and painted it in.)

the centre. Perhaps, in the end. the nearest we can come to

It is a gloriously lucid picture, in the way he has explaining this picture is that we feel we are in the

managed to show us both sides of his studio. The presence of greatness. It lifts us up out ot our small-

device of seeing the royal couple only in reflection ness into something bigger, which we could not
means that the \aewer is standing where they stood have achieved by oursehes. We are ennobled, not

and, in that sense, becomes the pictorial centre. Yet in the trivial way the courtier Velazquez craved, but

the real centre is clearlv the artist himself, dom- in the protbund way only accessible to the artist.

16
Las Meiii)ias (Maids of Honour) Diego Velazquez 1656
Oil on canvas 3 18 x 276cm (1255 x loSjin)

Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain

 Mars
DIEGO VELAZQUEZ
Born Seville, Spain, iS9y
Died Madrid, Spam 1660

his is how Velazquez sees Mars, the great god of slumps here, brooding and melancholy, his armour
T'war; deflated, dejected, stripped of his armour, useless around him and the only thing still erect

completely vulnerable. This is not because he has is his moustache. (A subde touch is the pole so

been defeated, but because he has just suffered the mysteriously poking into the picture, which we can

great male humiliation of being laughed at. Nothing read as we please!) His loose blue drapery also diverts
is more painflil to vanity than mockery, and Mars me. It looks rather like a great nappy, as if to hint

has just been pubUcly made a fool ot. that men who cannot take being laughed at,

Mars had fallen in love with Venus, and when her especially when they are in the wrong (as Mars was
husband Vulcan, god of fire, heard about it, he in this story), are really great big babies.

forged a net and threw it over the sleeping lovers. Velazquez was well aware of the usual images
Then he summoned aU the other gods to come and of Mars, that heroic and undaunted muscleman of
laugh at them. Venus was not all that upset, but Olympus. He himself was not, by all accounts, the

Mars was deeply humiliated, and here you him

see kind of man to whom battles had much appeal, and
brooding over the fact that the gods all found him he may here be working ofFhis irritation at the kind

and his predicament highly comic. of brawny, brainless soldier who received undue
If only we could do this to all arms-bearers, all adulation in the troubled seventeenth century.

warriors: laugh at them. It would be the end of Velazquez is conquering the unconquerable by
wars, as nobody could raise the energy to fight when the sheer power of his art. It obviously gave him
evervbodv thinks thev are hilariouslv tunnv. So he satisfaction, and his pleasure communicates itselt.
Mars Diego Velazquez c. 1636-4:
Oil on canvas 179 x 95cm (705 x jyfin)
Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain
 Christ Ch 'Id and the I„f a n t St John
1

BARTOLOME ESTEBAn MURILLO 1

Born Seville, Spam 1617

Died Seville, Spain 16S2

>--^t

one of the great problem him water which

For us, Murillo is is giving to drink, ot course is

painters. He was no problem whatsoever for conduct only to be expected: this is the Christ Child
the eighteenth or even early nineteenth century: and the young John the Baptist. The pet lamb, as
they thought he was wonderful, the greatest well as adding charm to the scene, is meant to

religious painter of all time. This was because he remind us gently of what John would say later, that

exactly met their religious needs. He provided Christ was the lamb of God. It is a beautiful lamb,
something sweet and moving and tender that you with thick fluffy fleece that you could sink your
could put up in your dining-room and not feel fingers into. The colour of the landscape, too, is

threatened or challenged Now, of course, that is

by. amazingly lovely: everything is misty and indistinct,
the very thing we do not want: we want our religion giving a sense of peace and happiness without the
hard, we want it to be in our own real world, sharp outlines that reality so often has.
speaking to our own real difficulties. We actively I cannot look on unmoved: it is a lovely, lyrical

dishke any pretence that everything in the garden is painting. But somehow, it does not speak to me of
rosy, knowing so painfully well that it is not. So we the truth. So when it comes down to it, despite all

hnd It very hard to take Murillo. 'Sentimental" is that I love about this picture, I have to say that the
the word used ot him and you can see why. unreality' counterbalances the beaut\'. In some ways,
This is one ot the Murillos recognized as great, of course, warmth and sweetness and tenderness do
soit is a good test-case before which can struggle to I exist: they are a vital part of religion and of life. But
make up my mind, irrespective of what the general they are only a part of the whole, not the deepest
opinion may be. This painting shows us two dear part, and my reluctant decision must be: let those
little boys playing in the sunHght. One child, instead who love this painting be glad that they love it! But
of tormenting the other, as is the habit of little boys. I go away dissatisfied.

20
Christ Child a\id the Input St Joint Bartolome Esteban Murillo c. 1675-80
Oil on canvas 104 x 124cm (41 x 485in)
Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain
 y

Til e Pa ra s I

The Dukc a // d Du c h c s s of O s u n a
a u d t h c i r Fa in i I

FRANCISCO DE GOYA
Born Fuendetoiios. Spam 1746
Died Bordeaux. France 1S2S

he young Goya had the good fortune to be enjoy by virtue of his masculinitv'. Goya gives the
T'commissioned by the Spanisli royal family to royal family what they want but adds his own gloss,

do tapestry designs in the carefree days before the with the lightest of touches.
French Revolution. Tlic Parasol is a carefree design: Tapestry cartoons did not call forth Goya's
two lovers ni tlic sunshine, smiling at us. Their greatest powers: portrait painting did. He is .\ston-
bright eyes are full of the delight of being young and ishingly free from preconceptions, able somehow to
in love. Yet, topical of Goya, there are undercurrents, pierce through to an unsuspected truth. The Osunas
despite the physical allure. were one of the most powerful and wealthy of the
On the girl's lap, so precisely positioned, is a little great Spanish aristocratic fiunilies. Yet he does not

black dog, delicately hinting at the animal and erotic. show us princely magnificence but a rather fright-

The young man is behind her, relegated to the ened little family clinging together. The Duke was
background. She looks out at us as though he were a great grandee and highly influential, but Cioya saw
not there as a person but only as a servant, a means. only a kindly, ineflectual father eager to protect

Yet the actual service he is providing is to shield her his vulnerable brood. The Duchess was a leading
from the sun, from the realit\' of the world. What intellectual, and having lost her first family of four
else is behind her? A blank wall. Beautiful though children was passionately eager to be a good mother
she is, smiling in the sunlight and flirtatiously tilting to the second family. Whatever her love, she is

her fan, she is a Spanish girl; no freedom lies ahead without a curve to her body, and her bosom is

for her. She does not know it, but the young man rigidly unyielding. The children are pathetic, trying
she ignores is her gaoler, behind him lies the whole so hard to be good, little round eyes fixed anxiously
world, there for his activirs'. It may seem an artificial on the artist. Only the dog is tree to pLiy; ever\0!ic

world, but those trees fluttering in the breeze, those else is bearing the great weight of t")suna-hood.
endless distances, all those pleasures are for him to Goya makes no comment; he simpK shows us.
 I'lic Piiiiisol Francisco de Goya i
777
Oil on canvas 99 x i socni (39 x 59sin)
Prado Museum. Madrid, Spain

Tlic Dnkc and Duchess of Osuiia aitd their Fiiinily Francisco de Goya c. 1788-90
Oil on canvas 225.5 x 174cm (88^ x 685in)

Prado Museum. Madrid, Spain

 May 1808
Third of
FRANCISCO DE GOYA
Born Fuendetodos, Spain 1746
Died Bordeaux, France 1828

As he grew older, Goya's artistic vision dark- responsibly. The victims have a terrible majesty,

Jr\. ened, as though the horrors of the Napo- their faces vitally individualized and their deaths

him that the fi-ighteningly real. They have nowhere to run to,
leonic invasion of Spain convinced
sinister undertone he had always sensed in lite was they are trapped: corpses to one side, groups waiting

He was deeply affected by the for their death on the other, a great hill behind,
an objective fact.

popular uprising against the French on the second darkness all around and the anonymous automatons

of May 1 808, and the brutal executions that followed in front, levelling their hedge of weaponry. Real

on the next day. He painted both events, the rebel- people, in a real trap, but they at least save their

tragic aftermath, yet nobody ever looks individuality. The French firing squad are in a worse
lion and its

twice at the first painting. It is as if revolt, unco- trap, because obedience to orders has drained them

ordinated violence, did not move him emotionally of their personhood.

He could plan the image but did so only intel- The great shouting figure in the centre, refusing

lectually The actual shooting of the rioters, how- to die tamely, asserting his rights as a person, is

ever, comes across with enormous personal force. an image from deep within Goya's psyche. The
The Third of May is one of the great icons of inexorable snare of cruelt\' and suffering was some-

human cruelt\- and human courage. (Goya may not thing heknew intimately, and his genius is to make
have felt an empathy with fighting, but he did with usknow it too. We are also ensnared in this picture;
dying.) He paints a kind of crucifixion, suggested we cannot walk past it unaffected. The agonized
taces are thrust against us, and since they are trapped,
visuallv by the outstretched arms of one of the
victims, but he involves us not only with the killed we too are trapped. We share their anguish; that is

but also with the killers. The executioners have why this is one of the most terrible and moving

become faceless hordes, machines tor slaughter, depictions of the destructiveness and the heroism ot

which is what we can all become it we do not act which we arc all capable.

^4
Third of May iSoS Francisco de Goya 1814
Oil on canvas 266 x 345cm (1045 x is^sin)
Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain
 The Colossus
FRANCISCO DE GOYA
Born Fuendetodos, Spain 1746
Died Bordeaux, France 1828

ova lived in terrible times. The Napoleonic really exist in material The Colossus may be
terms?

armies invaded Spain with a great outburst ot fear itself, the universal human dread that everyone
savage brutality. It seems an eerie coincidence that experiences sooner or later. It may not be a specific

there was present an artist who understood more fear: of the atomic bomb, of cancer, of Aids, but just
than any other the terror of war. He was shocked to generic fear, the fear that goes with being a creature

his emotional depths that human cruelty seemed to that will one day die. It may even be a fear of life,

have been hcensed. of the burden of being an adult. But whatever the
Tlte Colossus shows the great panic that war brings Colossus stands for, he causes panic, and both the
to the innocent: all those htde coloured figures giant and his effect have to be reckoned with.

fleeing away from the great giant who straddles the That is the wonder of this picture, that it is not a

horizon and dominates the sky. If we ask who the despairing picture. In own way, it is really a great
its

Colossus is, the obvious answer is that he is Napo- affirmation of hope. What we experience here is
leon and Napoleonic fear and Napoleonic armies. Goya, old, tired, deaf, lonely, yet coming to terms

Then we look again. We see that the Colossus is with the mystery of suffering, with fear. It is his

not threatening the people, he is not even looking own fear that looms so hugely over him, yet he
at them. Perhaps, then, this is not an attacking Col- accepts it and shows us the incredible beauty of the
ossus but a defending Colossus, the great heroic Colossus-landscape. The people flee into nothing-

spirit of Spain fighting to the bitter end? We look ness, the giant menaces; Goya looks steadily at it all

closer, and notice that the Colossus does not make and in accepting, conquers. The darkness is shown
visual sense. Where is he? Is he rooted in the soil? as luminous, and that hard-won inner peace that

Or is he standing low in a valley? Is Goya saying Goya grasped is made available to us. If a Colossus

something deeper stiU: that what we fear does not is seen to be beautiful, it is overcome.

26
The Colossus Francisco de Goya c.i8o8
on on canvas 1 16 x 105cm (455 x 41!^")

Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain

vJW^ MoJiia. AAvcU^

:%
to '
*! v^

£751

r^ J" ^)^-^'

rr
/Cloi/)'^JUh. SoUV /j>^UlM.-ZX)
 FLORENCE

My aim
me! It
in every city

was too
Take tor example Giotto, with
was to home
rich, the possibilities too dazzling.

whom the
in on its own art, its

whole Renaissance began,

I spent
native

my
artists.

time
a Florentine
m
But Florence flawed
a state of holy awe.
by domicile if

not by birth, who possibly decorated four chapels in the Church of Santa Croce. In the wasteful
manner ot the over-rich artistically, Florence aUowed two of them to fill into decay. But even to

begin to describe the other two, the Bardi and Peruzzi, would have taken too long. Faint but
visible, the great cycle of St Francis and the two St Johns remain an intense joy.
But if I linger with them, what time would I have for Masaccio? Among the glories of
Florence are his great frescoes, all the more precious for the artist's early death, perhaps the greatest

loss art history will ever know. His Adam and Eve are driven from the Garden of Eden and expelled
into the world as we have all been expelled from the womb. Eve utters the primal scream in grief
and anguish at the wrongness of life (it should not be like this; our common feeling). Her pain
makes pitifully visible our common pain, but the scene is set amid such a richness of other scenes,
other pains, other joys, that again it was either all or nothing. But all meant I would not have time
for Leonardo.

The Uffizi has the amazing total of three works by this most magical of artists (one in
collaboration with Verrocchio). The greatest of them, the Adoration of the Magi, remains unfinished,
awesome but incomplete. It is infuriating to remember that this was the time when Leonardo was
sending out job applications for the post of engineer, adding that he was also quite good as a

painter. Has there ever been such prodigality of gifts? Perhaps the answer is yes, because the Utfizi
also boasts the only oil painting that Michelangelo ever took the trouble to finish. This is the Doni
Tondo of the Holy Family, which is the Sistine Chapel in miniature: same sculptural mass, same
superhuman unity of form, same strange acidic colour, same nude youths in the background. Here,
as in the Sistine, interpretation is strictly up for grabs. But, oh, the dehght of that grabbing!
Everywhere in Florence I was overwhelmed by the joy of the art; I wafted around in a sort of
blissful dream, grabbing, savouring, delighting, anguishing. I longed, above all, to share my
experience with all my friends.

29
 St Mary Magdalene
DONATELLO
Born Florence, Italy 1386/7
Died Florence, Italy 1466

M
I
ary Magdalene is one of the great mythic
characters that have always fascinated

say 'mythic', because, although she does appear in

artists.
is nothing sterile or negative about Donatello's Mary
Magdalene.
burning desire
He shows us a positive

for goodness, tor fullness, for beauty,

passion, a

the Gospels, we really know little about her. tor total love, that passion we all have potentially

There are three Marys in the Gospels and the though we may be too half-hearted ever to express
myth-makers have made the whole story more it in full seriousness.

exciting by conflating them into one. We are told Donatello has carved an expression of absolute

that at one time she had 'seven devils', which may desire. He has had the wisdom to use not marble,

only mean that she had an illness, such as epilepsy. that enduring material, but wood, that fragile

But it has been built up into this great legend of the organic stuff that only seems to survive by some
glorious glamorous sinner who one day met absolute miracle. He shows her praying, not with clasped

goodness, incarnate, and the scales fell from her eyes. hands as if her intensity was her own business, but

This poor Httle creature of the slums, who had with hands held delicately apart, ready to receive.

clawed her way up into being a polished and expens- In a great stance of faith she becomes resolution
ive call-girl, suddenly reaHzed that her life was incarnate, totally certain that whole-hearted desire

meaningless. She had met goodness. She saw what brings its own answer.

she was meant to be, what anybody could be it Though burnt out with longing, she is still essen-

they wanted, and she wanted desperately. She was tially beautiful. Her bone-structure has an inde-

transformed overnight, threw away her silks and set structible grace. Her face is gaunt from the desert

herself to pray. sun, and though it is now almost fleshless, it is still

The legend says that she went out into the desert e.xquisite, like her long slender legs and the glinting

to live alone. She went naked, clothed only in her wave of her thick cloak of hair. Some of the gilt

long golden hair, and lived there, consumed by Donatello painted can still be seen, shining in the

passion. This was not the passion of remorse, regret: Florentine sun, reminding us ot the desert and her

that is a sterile emotion, when we wish wc could longing. She still craves for the goodness that

rewrite the past ('If only 1 hadn't done it!'). There Donatello shows us siu- has alreadv attained.

30
St Mary Magdalene Donatello c. 1455-60
Wood ht 1 88cm (74in)

Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence, Italy

 1
An 11 u n ci a t i o n

,FRA ANGELICO i

Born near Vicchio, Italy c. 1400 1

Died Rome, Italy 1455

CJ^t

Renaissance Florence was a violent and with his peacock-bright wings and pink and golden

. ambitious place, and I cannot believe that attire, is stooping humbly before this slender girl

the monks of San Marco were untainted by this and addressing her with the greeting Ave. To some
turbulence. That is what I think intellectually, but extent, the painting is about the word Ave and about
emotionally, standing where no woman was ever silence. Ave Hterally means 'Greetings', 'Hello', but

allowed to come, at the head of the stairs leading to it is a solemn word, destined to be the beginning of
the monks" private rooms, I could only think that the Ave Maria, the Hail Mary. Yet the picture is

they were free, pure, happy and untouched by their almost more about wordlessness, because we can see

world. I feel that, solely because of the work of Fra that both of them have their mouths closed. The
Angelico. When we share the experience of those Ave is being said from heart to heart.
coundess monks of the past, looking up at his The bare htde ceO where Mary sits is enclosed

Aiuiunciation as they passed by, we too are taken into from all noise. There is a humble picket-fence and
something so serene and pure that we feel we belong beyond it, the whole turbulence of the outside
there. world, those rambunctious trees, that lofty moun-
In the Annunciation, the angel came from heaven tain. Inside are the litde flowers and domesticated

to ask a creature of earth if she would become the sweetness of a place of silent prayer. Fra Angelico is

mother of God. It is a very fraught moment, but reminding his brothers not to pass this scene without

there is nothing fraught in this painting. His Mary an Ave, but, even more, he is pointing out that they

is almost a child, hardly bosomed at all - there is just should go to their rooms to pray, to be silent with

a gentle curve to be seen. She sits on her stool God, and any idle talk or occupation (the medieval

without support, since life will not give this girl equivalent of mindlessly watching television) will

much support, her big apprehensive eyes hxed upon silence the Ave, drown it out. Noisiness, in words

the angel, just waiting to hear what his message is or thoughts or activities, drowns the silent sound ot

so that she can obey. the heavenly greeting that conies to all ot us. one
The angel, so certain, so strong, so resplendent way or another.

32
Ainiiincidtioii Fra Angelico c.i440ori450
Fresco 216 x 321cm (8s x I26jin)

San Marco Museum. Florence, Italy

 Judith and her Mai dserva ii t

ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI
Born Rome, Italy 1593
Died Naples, Italy 1652/3

J" dith with the Head of Hoi of ernes

CRISTOFANO ALLORI
1
I Born Florence, Italy 1577

Died Florence, Italy 1621

1

his is
L
the story of Judith, the Jewish heroine
G^^

much more practical, to begin with,

1

and much more

T'who saved her people from the Assyrians. Hol- honest. Allori's Judith is a slim slip of a girl, the

ofernes, the Assyrian general, was besieging them; last person an innocent male would think of as

Judith stole out of the city by night, captivated him, homicidal. But Artemisia's is a solid young woman,
got him drunk, and then beheaded him. In the bad with the muscle power to tackle a beheading and

old days, before men were fully equal,

women and the sense to realize that if there is to be a decapi-

one of the great fears of any man was to meet a tation, there will be blood and disorder. Allori's

powerful woman who would cut him down to Judith carries the head, swinging it like an apple, no

size. So Judith expresses the hidden fears, the pre- blood dripping, no preparations made. Artemisia's
Freudian fantasies, of men - not now, of course, Judith has brought a basket, with cloths to mop up
but then. the blood, and the stains are very evident already.

AUori shows Judith as a supremely glamorous and She has intelligendy entered into the practicalities

destructive woman; yet notice the little butterfly of slaughter and, as a lady, handed over the nasty
jewel in her hair (even the strongest woman is at thing to her maid. She is not proud of what she has

heart a plaything, he hints). Her maid, the chap- done: both women are apprehensive, looking over

erone, looks on with breathless admiration, as well their shoulders. Allori's Judith is fearless; Artemisia's

she might, since Judith has done a nice surgical job lives in the real world, carrying her sword like a

of her beheading. There is no mess to disfigure her. weapon, knowing that innocence is no defence.
She is on the point of marching triumphantly back There is an added poignancy in that Artemisia her-
to her people, a heroine, but a deceiver, whose self had suffered the indignity of rape. She also has a

lovely looks mask an implacable wiO and a terrifying tendency, whenever she shows a woman vindica-

bloodthirst. This, powerful and beguiling as it is, is ting her rights, to paint a self-portrait. Judith looks

the approach of a male artist. very like Artemisia: heavy, not pretrv; but clever,

By great good fortune, the same gallery holds alert and energetic. There is a secret personal power
a female version of the same event, by Artemisia lierc that makes the story tar more real to her - and

Gentileschi. We see at once how difteront it is. It is to us - than it could over have been for a male artist.

34
 Judith and her Miiidscrvant Head of
Judith with the Holoferiies
Artemisia Gentileschi c.i6ii Cristofano Allori c.1615
Oil on canvas 1 16 x 93cm (45 j x 36^in) Oil on canvas 139 x Il6cm (545 x 45sin)

Pitti Palace, Florence, Italy Pitti Palace, Florence, Italy

 Birth f Ve n us 1

SANDRO BOTTICELLI |

Born Flo rence, Italy c.1445 1

Died Florence, Italy 1510 1

^^-^
1

and some and Zephyr and Chloris, the winds that blow Venus
Some artists are realists are idealists,

we have no need to wonder in which camp to shore, also have a relevant story. Zephyr raped
Botticelli belongs. Although he never married, or Chloris, and then fell in love with her. She forgave
perhaps because he never married, he always had an him, and from that act of heroic forgiveness a change

ideal of the perfect woman. She was both Venus and came over her and she became a goddess, the

Virgin. She never changed. She was always as goddess of flowers, Flora. I think that Flora is the

we see her here: tall, slender and white, delicate nymph waiting with the cloak to welcome Venus as

long fingers, exquisite face, wistful mouth, big she conies ashore; so we see Cliloris twice: before

sad eyes and cascades of long golden hair. She her transformation through love, and atter.

seems infinitely removed from the common things Venus comes naked, and this is the saddest part of

ofHfe. the story: she is not permitted to step naked on to

The Birth of Venus shows her borne on a scallop the land. It is a lovely world that awaits her, with all

shell to the island of Cyprus, blown through a con- the brightness of the pebbles shining in the water,

fetti of flowers by Zephyr and his consort wind. On and Flora holds out a glorious cloak to wrap around

the shore Humanity, a nymph, waits to receive her. her. But she does so because our world is not strong

That is beautiful enough, but the beautv' goes tar enough to receive Beauty naked. When Venus steps

deeper because it is based on some hard, painful but into our world we shall cover her up, cover her with

necessary human truths. Venus was born out ot an exquisite garments, hide away from us her pure
act of savage cruelty. The god Cronus murdered his radiance. Venus is Love as well as Beauty, the two
father, Uranus, tore ofl^his genitals and flung them deepest human realities. T.S. Eliot wrote that human
into the ocean. It was from the foam that was then kind cannot bear very much realirs'. Love in its

generated that Beauty arose. Even from the ugliest nakedness and Beauty unadorned are too much tor

destruction and brutaHty, says the myth, can come us. We are challenged at some deep le\el. and

Love and Beaurv. Botticelli sees us as unready to t'ace that challenge.

Urth of rciiiis Sandro Botticelli c. 1485-90
Tempera on canvas 175.5 x 278.5cm (695m x logfin)

Utfizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

 Primavera (Sprir
SANDRO BOTTICELLI
n _

Bom Florence, Italy c. 144.S

Died Florence, Italy 15 10

-^^'-

otdcelli's Primavera is almost an anthology ot so similar to pictures of the Madonna that we can
'the things we love best about him. It is one ot see how there was no problem for Botticelli in

those rare paintings you have to read from right to combining the erotic and the rehgious.
left, almost as if he is letting us know that love can On the left of Venus is another threesome, surely

turn things back to front. the most wonderful thing he ever painted: the three

This is a picture all about love and spring and Graces in their eternal dance. These are girls com-
youth and fruitflilness. Some Uke to read it as a sort pletely virginal, lost in that secret world of the
of calender of the months from spring to summer, young maiden in times gone by. But their timeless

but I prefer to see it as two mini-dramas closely maidenhood is not to last. Over the head of Mother

connected with love, taking place on either side ot Venus flies her fat little son Cupid, and though he
Venus. There on the far right is Zephyr, the west is blindfolded he is taking careful aim at the Grace

wind, raping the nymph Chloris. She is breathing in the middle. She is just that fraction unlike her

out tlowers as she turns, naked and ashamed, to sisters, wearing no pearls, for example, and she is

confront him. But Zephyr then fell m love with her, the only one looking to her left, where, by chance,

and she turned into Flora, goddess of tlowers. and Mercury stands, very evidently male. He is the god
BotticeUi paints her again in her new dignity, radi- of distances, the messenger god, and behind him
antly fertile and Hfe-giving. So that is one story: a gleams the world outside this secret grove: infinite

husband and wife who have passed through the horizons, meadows and wide fields. BotticelH is

stage of initiation, with its struggle, pain and final suggesting that this maiden in the middle who is on
flowering. When you think that this picture was the point of tailing in love must realize that love will

probably meant for a bridal chamber, it may be carry her away into far pastures.

that Botticelli intended some comfort to the young We see two stages of love: consummated on the
Florentine maiden who was going to the bed of a right, just about to begin on the leti. .iiid all held

perhaps unknown husband. Beyond Flora, in the between two male gods in a grove where Venus is

centre, is the benign motherly presence of a Venus queen. It is a supremely comtbrting picture.

38
Priiuiwera (Spring) Sandro Botticelli 0.147!
Tempera on panel 203 x 314cm (79^ x I23sin)
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
-V

A
 ROME

Theend It
simple matter of geography means that the Grand Tour cannot begin in
there, yet it seems to be all about Rome. This great city has been central to
Rome
all
nor can
our ideas
of cultural history so that it has a symbolic as well as a Uteral importance artisticaUy. There is a sense

of age-old creativity in its streets and squares that seems, when experienced, to be part of a personal
heritage happily rediscovered. It is a cit\' dense with art, the lived-with art ot its crowded churches
and old palaces. The Doria family, for example, stiU Hve in their prmcely palazzo, with a supreme
Velazquez on their walls. It is not just any Velazquez, but liis portrait of their ancestor, 'the Doria
pope', Iiniocciir X. that astounding depiction of encaged authority, which so affected Francis Bacon
that it led to his series of screaming popes, hniocent X is far from screaming; he is rather intensely

controlled, but such icy discipline, combined with the angular power of his confining chair, is verv'

much in keeping with what Bacon intuited. (He painted his popes from reproductions, and when
in Rome never ventured to see the original.)
I felt an unexpected sympathy for Bacon's attitude when I finallymade the crossing from
seeing pictures of the Sistine Chapel to experiencing 'the real thing'. The Chapel was jammed
with eager sightseers, all buzzing excitedly to one another, and in the jostle I found it hard actually
to look. The angle too: for the stiff-of-neck there is a lot of awkward craning to be done here.
How wonderfril Michelangelo's frescoes are only becomes clear when one has left and is thinking
back. Then the strange clarity of his colour and the great sweeping majesty of his line seem so

beautiful that it is almost a good thing that one could not respond fully at the time. One needs to
sit down and be undistracted, and the Sistine cannot allow for this.

Rome is overwhelming m all sorts of ways. It was ditficult to choose amongst its thronging
centuries of art, but it seemed clear that the 'essential' Romans were Michelangelo, Raphael and
Bernini. What I had forgotten, though, is how omnipresent Caravaggio is. He spent most of his

wild but immensely creative life in Rome, and his energetic visions of reality seemed to meet me
at every turn. Rome is a cit\' so deeply layered with art that it was sad only to investigate one layer,

Renaissance art, but one sees it m the context of the Etruscan tombs, the catacomb murals, the

church mosaics and frescoes, the galleries of contemporary' art. Above all, there is the magnificence

of the architecture.

41
 Lady with a U ii i corn 1

RAPHAEL (RAFFAELLO)
Born Urbmo, Italy 14S3

Died Rome, Italy 1520

-Sl^"-

I
aphael can appear rather remote in his per- her virginal state? Had there been gossip? She cer-
fection. His noble virgins with their regal tainly does not look like a loose woman: far from it.

children draw our deep admiration, but do we Though she may wear glorious clothes, she is very

always love them? Hence my particular fondness for well protected, with a wall and pillars, and though

this work, the Lady with the Unicorn, because she is the whole world is there, Raphael shows it behind

so accessible. her: she has turned her back upon it. This may mean
It is a charming portrait of a young girl by the no more than that, as her stiifness suggests, she has

young Raphael. He was a great ladies' man all his not yet been awakened: the unicorn's horn points

brief life (he died in his thirties), but one feels certain past her, not yet towards her, firmly though she

that there was no emotional involvement with this holds It. The meaning may only be that she has not

girl. She is a chilly htde creature, with that self- seen the space at her back and the promise of love,

contained face, pink cheeks and pale blue eyes, her that she is a temporary virgin. But it might also

neat little figure tightly girdled in and her bosom mean, despite her grandeur, that she is holding the

well defended. Despite her beauty and the richness unicorn because it is a symbol of Christ, the symbol
of her jewels, she seems essentially unsensuous. of a consecrated chasdty. It could be that she is

That, of course, is part of the meaning of the indicating her vocational choice, that this girl wants

picture. She is shown holding a unicorn, and the to be a nun. It may be perpetual \irginit\- that she

legend held that a unicorn could only be captured seeks, a unicorn life.

by a virgin. A subsequent owner of this painting did Because he was a great painter, Raphael involves

not understand the symboHsm and had the unicorn us emodonally, though not erodcally, with this rich,

painted over with a wheel, turning the lady into St beautiful but unknown young woman. He is a litde

Catherine. Rescued from its overpamt, the poor daunted by her unresponsiveness, but that too he

unicorn looks rather bedraggled, but its presence is expresses in his painnng. Like him, we never teel

important. Why did the lady insist so much upon we know her, but we want to go on trying.

42
Lady with a Unicorn Raphael 1505-6
Oil on panel 51cm (25|x lOgin)
65 x
Borghese Gallery, Rome, Italy
 Rape of Proserpina

GIOVANNI LORENZO BERNINI

Born Naples, Italy 1598
Died Rome, Italy 1680

ernini is the most dramatic of sculptors, using their explanation for the alternation of the seasons.

^ drama in the strict theatrical sense. Here we For six months there is death - autumn and winter -
have a whole story encapsulated m one intense and then life rises up again and we have spring and
moment of overwhelming excitement. summer. Proserpina will not stay in the Undenvorld;
It is the story of Pluto, the god of the Underworld, she will come back to the meadows in six months'
and Proserpina, an innocent nymph. She was gath- time, bringing the spring. Amidst the rushing move-
ering flowers in a meadow when out of a pit of ment, with garment and hair flying, we are struck

darkness surged the dark god, seized her and carried by the unholy glee of the god's expression: he feels

her oft' to his underworld kingdom. No sculptured he has conquered. But the Greeks knew that he
form has ever struggled more violently against the had not conquered, he had merely set in order the

power of the brute than Proserpina. Pluto digs his rhythm of the seasons, and though poor Proserpina
hairy fmgers deep into her soft flesh and she almost does not know it now, she will know it in the end.

puts out his eye as she passionately but helplessly We could almost say that the work is about birth.

resists. She desperately does not want to go down Proserpina feels she is entering into death, but she

to the Underworld. At one level, that is what this is really entering into fertility, into motherhood. In
work IS about: death, the Underworld. At any giving birth, a woman goes down into the darkness,

moment the young as well as the old can be snatched as it were, and comes out of it with new lite. Pro-

away. The Underworld waits beneath the meadow serpina is entering upon the labour of childbearing,

for us all. Yet there is a great, swinging exuberance hence the wonderful note of hope and power that

in this sculpture that tells us it is not just about rape infuses the shapes. Death is life seen from another

and death and grief; it is also about fertility. angle, something the Greeks understood poetically
The Greek myths survive because they deal with and that Bernini makes us understand sculpturally.

fundamentals; the myth of Pluto and Proserpina was His drama does not end in death; it leads to life.

44
Rape of Proscrpiiui Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini 1621-2
Marble ht 255cm (loofin)

Borghese Gallery, Rome, Italy

 Apollo and Dap h n e

GIOVANNI LORENZO BERNINI

Born Naples. Italy 1598
Died Rome, Italy 1680

^pr^

his IS the Bernini sculpture that moves me walling her in to protect her against Apollo. We see

T'most deeply. It is overpowering in its excite- it, and so does he. On his handsome face there is

ment and profound in its implications. If Bernini the dawning recognition that he is not going to get

had lived today, I am sure he would have been a tdm his heart's desire.

maker, because he was never interested in the static This myth goes deep into the human spirit. Why
but rather in the moment when things are moving did Daphne flee? Was she afraid of sex? Or was she
and happening, the moment of the most intense afraid of this particular lover, Apollo? Or was it

emotion. The myth of Apollo and Daphne seems power she feared, since he was god of the sun, and

to have had some personal significance for him, anyone he married came into the ambience ot his

anxious man that he was. (His self-portrait shows a glor\' and brightness: was she timid? Or was she

thin, nervous face, pop-eyed with emotional afraid of God, of the divinity itself the over-

tension.) powering challenge of divine holiness? We shall

The Greek myths live on because they touch on never know. Bernini does not tell us her motive, he

things that continually matter to us. This myth is tells the strange story that is repeated throughout

about one who loves and one who does not, who human history: the story ot unrequited love.

rejects. Apollo, the great sun god, fell passionately The Greeks explained such love by saying that

in love with Daphne, a water nymph. She fled from Cupid had two arrows: the golden, which caused
him; he pursued, and here we see him almost on love, and the leaden, which caused hate. But think I

the point of capturing her. He finds it impossible to that is to oversimplify Whatever it was she dreaded,
believe that she does not want him, and he has she has been saved from it. Yet, in some miraculous
one hand actually touching her, while Daphne, in way Bernini, who never takes disaster as an absolute,

anguish, is calling out to her father, the river god, makes us feel that Apollo does get his heart's desire,

to save her. Her face is contorted with distress though noi m the way he expected. When Daphne
because she feels her prayer has not been heard. became a laurel tree, Apollo made that his special

But we see, before she does, that her father has emblem, and for ever after he wore in his curly hair

responded: by turning her into a laurel tree. Already a wreath of laurel. So he will have his lovely Daphne
those delicate toes are beginning to sprout, her long and she will have him, wreathing him, crowning

slender fingers are turning into leaves, and bark is hill), but in the only way she can accept: platonually.

46
Apollo and Daphne Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini c. 1622-3
Marble ht 243 cm (q^b'")

Borghese Gallery, Rome, Italy

 Pieta

MICHELANGELO
Born Caprese (now Caprese Michelangelo), Italy 1475
Died Rome, Italy 1564

M ichelangelo was the great colossus ot

The ItaUans speak of his

someness, and certainly one

terribilita.

feels
his

awed standing
awe-
art. universal.

the
The Christ, so abandoned in the arms of
woman; the woman, so tenderly receptive ot the
power and grace of the young male she holds, both

before the Picta, the masterwork of his youth. It seem to me wonderful synibols of the two sides of

floats there, serenely above us, and we feel so small our psyche. None of us is only male or temale, we
and yet, also, so great, because looking at it we all have two sides to us: left brain and right brain, the

magnify our own selves. I am struck by the deep rational intellectual, judging side, and the intuitive

loneUness of those figures: Mary like a mountain, instinctive accepting side. We stereotype these into

beautiful and grieving; Jesus like a great river flowing male and female, but the true person is a whole, both

down her side. They are both isolated, the dead sides integrated. There is a wonderfiil satisfaction in

Jesus and the Hving Mary, yet they are so intimately seeing the t\vo sides of the human whole come
united because they belong to one another. together hke this, to see what it means to be united

Michelangelo was a lonely man, a man ot enor- within, as Mary and Jesus, female principle and male
mous and tempestuous passions, who lost his mother principle, are here united.

when he was very young. He Hved in a family ot I am not speaking theologically, and Michel-

men: an irascible old father and squabbHng brothers, angelo I am sure meant only to show the Virgin

and one feels that he was always unconsciously agonizing over her Divine Son, but he has tran-

seeking for what he shows us here, this beautiful scended the normal interpretation. Mary summons
young mother. He was once asked why he had made us, not with her eyes which are wholly bent on

Man,' so young, and he said that she was too beautitul Christ, but with that exquisite hand, just held out,

ever to grow old: that is the remark ot a man who empt\-, to tell us how empty life is without the

has lost his mother young. fulfilment of the loved one, the other part of her own
I do not myself find here so much the anguish ot being. That silent suiumons is a sublime imitation to

a mother for her child but something even more become a full human bein^.

48
Pieta Michelangelo 149S-
Marble ht 174cm (eS^in)

St Peter's, Rome, Italy

 Calling of St Matthew
CARAVAGGIO
Born Caravaggio or Milan, Italy 1 57 1/2
Died Port'Ercole, Italy 1610

aravaggio is the great painter of light and dark- earthiness of it all. There is that very solid table, the

ness, which he understood as few artists ever great muscular legs of the men and the way the

have. His light shines upon the absolute soHdity of sword juts out to remind us they lived in a violent

the real world, and his darkness speaks - sometimes - world.

of that other world; so we get body and soul, won- What fascinated him most of all was the different
derfully conjoined. responses to the summons. The two young men on
Here he is delving into the meaning ot one ot the right are intrigued but uncomprehending. The
the great gospel stories: how St Matthew, that one nearest Christ looks on with a kind of animal

comfortable, nice-looking, elderly bourgeois in the wonder; his friend, a typical Caravaggio pretty boy,

middle, was at his usual job of taking in the taxes (he has a sophisticated half-amused expression. We
was that unfortunate thing: an official tax-coUector), know at once that they will not take the slightest

when suddenly a summons came from Christ. He notice of the summons to new life. The two on the

was called to leave his work and follow Him. Christ left do not even see the summons. The old man at

is there in the darkness, lighting up the shadows the back, the intellectual, is wrapped up in cal-

simply by his presence. That is all Matthew sees, culations; the young man in front is material-

that thin, ascetic, powerful face, and the hand, sum- minded, engrossed in his money.
moning. Christ is blocked from our view by the Only one in the group understands that a new
bulky figure of St Peter, representing the Church. possibihrv' has suddenly opened up. and we see him,

Caravaggio was a very canny man; he realized not yet responding, but trying to accept the reahty
that most of us would not be summoned by Christ of it. He is stunned: here is a complacent career man
directly but through an intermediary, another being asked to live as a barefoot apostle. He points

person, the Church, in an ordinary way, in the midst to himself incredulously. In a moment he is going

of our ordinary lives. He had no belief in angelic to spring up. scatter the table, and follow C'hrist into

visitations: a thoroughly earthly man, Caravaggio, the roofless darkness. It is a risk, a gamble, a dramatic

and what makes his painting so convincing is the version of the question put to each one ot us.

50
Calling of St Matthew Caravaggio 1599-1600
Oil on canvas 33S x 348cm (1335 x I37in)
San Luigi dei Frances!, Rome, Italy
 C ti ve rs i II of St Paul

CARAVAGGIO
Born Caravaggio or Milan, Italy 1571/2
Died Port'Ercole, Italy 1610

his is Caravaggio's picture of the conversion with compassionate truthfulness, so that we see what
T'of St Paul. Caravaggio is generally regarded as it means to be thrown off a horse: not just coming
the 'bad boy' of art; I do not altogether agree with down to the level of others, but laid flat. And Paul

this. I adnut he dici cireadful things, such as killing becomes even less important, because, with a stroke

somebody in an argument about tennis, but as to of utter brilliance, Caravaggio shows the whole
how responsible he was, how much freedom ot event not in terms of Paul but of the horse. It is the

choice he had, none of us can judge. horse who is spothghted as central, and what is the

But it is that reputation, of the wild, violent, horse doing? He is a sensitive horse, careful not to

disreputable Caravaggio, that makes this picture so tread on the poor creature that has so une.xpectedly

moving. He is showing us St Paul, who was also a slid beneath his belly. Paul has become lower than
kind of 'bad boy' at the beginning: a narrow, intol- man who thought himself able to
the beasts, the

erant man who angrily persecuted the Christians. judge and condemn others. The horse is more alert
He was riding on a mission to intensify the per- to Paul's predicament than he had ever been to the
secutions when, suddenly, terrifyingly, he had a needs of his fellow humans. The groom too, there

vision. Christ appeared to him. He was blinded and at the back, is a moving figure, completely indiffer-
thrown off his horse. There is a significance here, ent to Paul, concerned only with the well-being ot

because a man on horseback is a proud man, in his responsibilirv', the horse. He is tenderly leading

control, above the others, but once thrown ofl" his hmi away, and in a minute we will be left only with

horse, all the trappings ot power and digniry- and Paul, with his useless sword and armour, tiat on the
self-certainty are roughly removed. ground, exposed to the light of truth.
Look at Paul, absolutely vulnerable, legs out- One teels that Caravaggio hoped something like

stretched, arms raised up to heaven as he fills, eyes this would happen to him, that he would be thrown
shut since he has been blinded. Now he cannot even off die horse of violence and self-will that made him
see what is in front of him, let alone have vision a misery to himself and to others, and be made to
superior to anybody else. Caravaggio paints him he flat, exposed to the light of truth.

5^
Conversion of St Paul Caravaggio 1600-1
00 on canvas 230 x 175cm (903 x 68^in)
Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, Italy
 .Ca)

:ii^:^ 4

7"^
iL. ..u;
,iW *

^ 1 TciCazzo Tsa/uxr

^#i
 VENICE

Doge's Palace in Venice, building so splendid the equal of any of the art within
In the
there
it, grand picture by Giambattista Tiepolo
is a
a

that
that it is

shows us how the Venetians of his time

thought of their city. It is called Venice Receiving the Tribute of the Ocean, and it depicts Venice as a

queenly beauty, relaxing with grave sweetness on her couch. On one side, Neptune and a

companion sea nymph cower as suppliants, awed, holding out their riches, which Venice graciously
deigns to accept. On the other side, equally cowed, lies the massive lion of St Mark, a symbol here
of the Church. The commercial world of shipping and the ecclesiastical world both venerate their
overlady. It is a delightful painting, none the less so for being sheer fantasy. Tiepolo was one of the
last of the great Venetian artists, but he is here using his art, perhaps with a twinkle, in the service

of the State. It is political propaganda at its best.

Artistically, Venice needs no propaganda: the art there is unrivaOed. This is the city of

Titian and Giorgione, of Carpaccio and the BeUinis, all three of them. It is still adorned with
numerous great images by Veronese, who instinctively painted gospel teasts as contemporary
celebrations, complete with fools, Negro pages and silk-clad musicians. (He got into trouble with
the Inquisition for his Last Supper but solved the problem by simply changing the title to Feast in

the House of Lei'i; also bibhcal, but less likely to frighten the timid.) The immense energy of
Tintoretto adorned church after church, though some of his most colourftil and exuberant pictures
are now m the Accademia Gallery. I lament this. There is a wonderfiil Tintoretto, Crucifixion, in

the church where I went to morning Mass (the Gesuiti), but I would have loved to have seen in

its original setting the dynamic God Creating the Animals, all sweep and fervour, with the animals
vers' taken aback, or his picture of Sf Louis and St George, which is really about celibacy (the modest
St Louis) and marriage (St George dehghting in his rescued princess as she rides the defeated

dragon of lust).
We are blessed with so many fine Canalettos and Guardis in Britain, mementos of the
Grand Tourists, that I saw the whole city through their loyal and craft\' eyes. Perhaps the greatest
tribute one can pay Venice is to say that it is even more magical than its landscape artists make it

appear. Titian, who Uved at a time of plague, was well aware of the darker side to his citv; but it is

the bright imaginings of Tiepolo that hnger in my mind.

55
 Yo u rig Man in h is Stu dy
LORENZO LOTTO
Born Venice, Italy c.1480
Died Loreto. Italy IS 56/7

3^^

was nervous, neurotic, secretive man, and rationahty, and it may be that is its meaning here,
Lotto a

J perhaps that is why he could home in so well on reiterating the basic common sense of the sitter. But

the secrets of other people. That was what interested then we look at that brooding face and the intent

him; not so much the face as what was behmd the dark eyes, the long and slender person of this young

face, the secret life. man and his self-awareness. He is not acting but he

Here he shows us a rich young man in his study, is aware that he is being watched. The look he is

and he gives us plenty of hints as to what this young giving us, the subliminal message, indicates a much
man was like. There at the back is his hunting horn, more personal sense of the lizard. The hzard is a

and behind it a window showing the land - his own ver^' secretive beast, darting in and out, hiding away,
land — over which he hunted. There is his musical mysteriously appearing and then gone again. I think

instrument, the keys of authority, the writer's pen, that what Lotto is saying is that this youth, pondering

the books: the young man is clearly an intellectual gravely over his book, obviously concerned and

with other pursuits, a balanced young man. wondering about hfe, has a secret, darting inner lite

Many artists do this, giving us a setting for the that nobody is allowed to see.

sitter, to help us get him or her in perspective. In a way. Lotto sets before us the ingredients ot a

However, Lotto goes further, with that mysterious novel; using his visual dues we must make up our
and disconnected (apparently) still hfe in front. own story. He does it sober-faced, not a hint of an

There is the letter that seems just now to have fallen amused wink to the viewer. Yet, for all its gravity, we
from the man's hand, the gold chain and the signet feel that the delicate melodrama, all these romantic

ring, the rose petals that lie scattered, with a 'last indications, suggests that deep down Lotto found

rose of summer" touch to them, the blue silk shawl the voung man rather touching in his youthful self-

or scarf that seems so inappropriate, and the lizard. importance, touching and yet very vulnerable, as

The Hzard has been thought to be a symbol ot voung people otten are.

56
Young Mill! in his Study Lorenzo Lotto c.1527-
Oil on canvas 98 x 1 1 icm (385 x 43!iin)

Accademia Gallery, Venice, Italy

 5

St Ge rge and the Dragon

VITTORE CARPACCIO
Born Venice, Italy c. 1460—
Died Venice, Italy 1525/6

George Christian is whoa saint also existed air seems filled with the softness of the early morning
Stbefore Christianity. He has always been there; as the creature of darkness emerges from its lair and

he is the Green who fights the dragon

Man, the hero the man of hght attacks it.
of winter, the warrior who goes down and fights What is this dragon? It is the principle of destruc-

the dragon of death. Human legend has always tion, and that is not something that exists outside

hymned this powerful myth of the hero who goes ourselves. We are living - unbelievably after two
to batde on our behalf, and Carpaccio, that great great and terrible wars - in a period of destruction,

story-teller, has a wonderful version of it. in the time of the dragon. It is we who destroy,

St George is sheathed in gleaming black armour, either direcdy as in Bosnia or I rat], or indirecdy

riding a great and ferocious horse, and the dragon through our laziness. We have seen on our screens

he attacks is really beHevable. With its pie-frill ot and in our newspapers those broken bits of bodies,

bright scaly wings, huge teeth and enormous frame, the effects of war and torture. Maybe we should take

it swirls out its dangerous tail to draw our attention a good look at the people in the distance, standing

to its voracious appetite. This dragon does not there so safely behind their balustrades and outside

merely eat unprotected virgins, such as the timid their churches and forts, uninterested, looking on,

little princess on the right, it destroys all in its path, uninvolvcd m the combat. But we each have a

vegetation as well. (Notice how the Utde tree in the dragon, and we each have a potential armed warrior
centre, vigorous on St George's side, is withered who can spear it through.

away on the side of the dragon.) Watching St George is not enough: we have to

Carpaccio is making it clear that St George is not become the sword-wielder and tackle the dragon

just rescuing the lady, he is rescuing all of us. There within. Then we can save our princess: our capacity

are half-eaten bodies strewn around with gruesome for peace and happiness (the third participant in the

reahsm. The saint is unhesitant; he drives his lance story, also to be internahzed). and enter into liic

right through the dragon's mouth and out the other triumph that belongs only to those who shoulder

side. It is a combat between darkness and light; tlie responsibility for dragonhood.

5«
St George and the Dragon Vittore Carpaccio c.1502-
Oil on canvas 141 x 360cm (555 x I4ijin)

Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice, Italy

 I
Entombment for Pi eta)

TITIAN (TIZIANO VECELLI)

Born Pieve di Cadore, Italy c.1487
Died Venice, Italy 1576

hen Titian painted the Eiitoiiibincnt, the personal a confession, it is a painting that glimmers

W''plague was raging in Venice. The con- between darkness and light. Everything we see

sciousness of death must have been on everyone's seems poised to tade back again into obscurity. The

mind, and perhaps specially on Titian's, because he tomb where Christ will lie is a grand Renaissance

was very old. This work was intended for the church construction, with dimly glimpsed statues on either

where he was later buried and was, in fict, to be the side and a strange, almost hallucinatory landscape

last he ever painted: he left it unfinished. setting. The haunting line of poetry by Thomas

It seems to be, in a way, his testimony to the Nashe, 'Brightness falls from the air', seems weirdly

world, this painting of the dead Christ, incaiulescent appropriate. In that tailing brightness we can make
and the living out two forms that express Titian's fear ot death,
with soon-to-be-resurrected life,

Mary, so silent and contained, yet somehow so above all death trom the plague. At the right there

united with her son in love. There are two other is a strange hand reaching up out of nothing, groping
central figures. One is Mary Magdalene, wild with for light, for help, for salvation. To make this explicit,

grief, painted with enormous passion. She is fiercely he has painted beneath it a small c.v volo (a painted

feeling that Titian may well panel put on an altar as a silent prayer). In it Titian
angry about death, a

have shared: death is hateful, we are not meant shows himself and his son Orazio on their knees,

for it. But on the other side of Christ is a very old imploring deliverance trom the epidemic. But

man, coming as if in his second childhood on before this painting reached the church, both ot

hands and knees. This is a self-portrait ot the old them were dead - of plague.
Titian, affirming both his faith and his need ot divine Was his prayer unanswered, his passion wasted?

forgiveness. At the deepest level, the answer is no. because his

Titian was a materialistic man, who made a lot ot passion has overcome death, drawing lite out ot

money and lived well. We know nothing abtnit his darkness and wriiigmg hope oui ot despair. In the

inner lite, but here, at the end, he is depicting the puntv of Its beauty alone the l:iiioiiihiiiciii celebrates

intensity' of his yearning towards his God. As betits so eternity, which is what painting is all about.

60
Entombment {or Picta) Titian 1576
Oil on canvas 351 x 389cm (1385X I53sin)

Accademia GaUen; Venice. ItaK'

 The Tempest
^ GIORGIONE
Born Castelfranco, Italy c.1478

Died Venice, Italy 1 5 10 1

e^e 1

lorgione's Tempest is so precious, so fragile, the pair as Synagogue and Church.) Another party

that it has hardly ever been filmed. In one way vehemently urges the meaning as being a com-
It IS nice that there are some things too vulnerable parison between the active and contemplative lite:

for the full glare of the camera, but in another way the male being action, with his staft and working

it is rather sad, since this is one of the most magical clothes, the woman being contemplation (it is true

pictures ever painted. that any activity would land her in an embarrassingly
Giorgione died in his early thirties, yet in that unclad state). Lately the view has been growing that

short time he brought into art something that had we should look rather at the gulf between the fig-

never been there before: a wonderful poetry, a visual ures, and see the work as about man/woman, the at-

music that has never been equalled. It enthralled the traction and the difterences. Of all these interpreta-

people of his own time and it enthrals us still. In this tions. It IS the last that I think comes closest, but tor

particular painting this is perhaps because nobody what it is worth, my own reading is quite ditierent.

can decide what it is about. An early (sixteenth- I think what intrigues Giorgione is the flash of

century) description says it represents a landscape lightning, and that this is the centre of the pictorial

with a soldier and a g\'psy. That may be literally meaning. He is thinking of the intense darkness of

true, but it goes a very short distance towards night m that world before electricity or even gas.

explaining its beauty and fascination. Once the sun went down, darkness came. Suddenly,
Some scholars have decided that it is a picture ot through that thick night flashes a bolt of lightning,
Mars and Venus; others have put in a claim for Adam and we see. What do we a woman, see? A man and
and Eve; yet others, looking askance at the Eden mysterious, standing there.What are they doing?
theory, have emphatically disagreed: Not at all, say Darkness closes in again: we ne\er know. He is
they; It IS a symbolic representation of the Old portraying that intense moment ot \i\id sight in a

Order, the man with the broken pillars behind hiin, world of darkness, tliat sense of seeing and not-

and the New Order, the fertile woman with a city seeing, never understanding what is seen. He is

rising in the background. (A variation of this sees depicting our painful human ignorance.

62
The Tempest Giorgione c.1506-
Oil on canvas 82.5 x 73cm (325 x 28jin)

Accademia Gallery, Venice, Italy

 ^P^ 3dA/^c(jA^

4^.

^^ i 'J

At I
ilifi

h'
. 4?

•r- -^ «- f-
n

4fc-

'1
5 1

A^^ ^(U^iaju4 >^<(VIL6^ YincJu.

 VIENNA J

Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss: Vienna is primarily a city of music. There is,

of course, art there, too, hut mostly m its wealth of architecture. It comes across as a rich,

warm city, rather like gilded gmgerbread: crisp, succulent, sweet and delightful. As far as pure art

goes, Austria bloomed too late to be of great interest to me. I do indeed like Klimt, Schiele and
Kokoschka, those daring early twentieth-century painters, but not enough to want to spend time
on them rather than on the extraordinary riches enshrined in the Kunsthistorische, Vienna's great

Old Master museum. With imperial wealth and, to be just, imperial taste, the Habsburgs managed
to collect for their empire an astonishing complex of the very greatest sculptural and pictorial art.

So Vienna, like St Petersburg, is a city where, by exception, I did not concentrate on the art of the
country, but on the art of its museums.
I could even have limited myself to the actual fabric of the Kunsthistorische building. It is

the prettiest museum imaginable. Most large museums are beautiful; I remember especially the

light-filled simplicities of the Reina Sofia in Madrid and the intelligent spaciousness of the museum
in Bologna, but the Viennese museum is gloriously pretty; every surface decorated with such charm
and rightness that just to be there is a joy in itself. The atmosphere is fitting, too: warm and helpful,

the most friendly of all the museums we went to see.

I seem to be piling up superlatives when I try to explain the quality ot the collection at the

Kunsthistorische. I found much pleasure m the great Giorgione Three Philosophers, that mysterious

masterpiece with its man and aged sage, all meditating before a dark cavern, and in
youth, mature
Vermeer's Artist's Studio, otherwise known as the Allegory of Painting, where perhaps this most
reticent of masters shows us his back as he works. Then there was the Little Fur, Rubens' private

picture of his young wife, so private that it was never shown outside their home, never sold; so

tender and adoring that we feel almost ashamed to look at such a personal expression of married
love. Helene, the young wife for whom Rubens, now an elderly but passionate husband, painted
it, wanted to destroy it after his death. Fortunately it remains, a life-enhancer for aU who see it, a

treasure among the many treasures of this incomparable museum.

65
 St Sebastian

ANDREA MANTEGNA
Born Isola di Carturo (now Isola Mantegna) near Padua, Italy 1430-1
Died Mantua, Italy 1506

Sebastian was a favourite subject ot Renais- flesh, which is very vulnerable. Stone shatters; flesh
Stsance but
artists, I am afraid that this was not punctures and bleeds. But he is making this point

because he was a heroic Christian martyr, rather that about our vulnerability in the context of a man who
it was a chance to paint a glorious male nude 111 the is grievously wounded and yet remains upright. We
full flush of youth being killed by his comrades. St cannot look at Sebastian without wincing, especially

Sebastian was ordered to be executed by men of his at that arrow through the face, but it is a face that

own regiment because he was a soldier who would looks steadfastly towards the heavens. The ropes that

not acknowledge the Emperor as god. He would tie him are not all that strong or tight, and we feel

obey him but not worship him, and that was con- that he is tied to the 'stake' mostly by his choice of

sidered treason. Here you see the result: he has been principle. He is willing to die rather than give up

used for target practice, and although none of the what he beHeves in, which is Mantegna's other

archers has scored a bull's-eye through the heart, point: that you cannot destroy the human spirit.

they have made an effective pincushion of him. Flesh is fragile, but The human spirit
spirit survives.

In St Sebastian, Mantegna found the perfect is stronger than impenetrable marble. The pagan

subject. He has been able to combine his deepest civilization that built the temple where he stands has

love, which was for the actuality of stone and the crumbled away, the temple is ruined. Sebastian's

grandeur of Roman remains, with a profound human temple, his body, is likewise m rums, but his

insight into human behaviour. He is saying, spirit is indestructible.

implicitly, that in this stony setting, with a great cliff With a poetry peculiar to himself Mantegna has

behind and crumbling stone and marble all around, formed a man on a horse out of the clouds in the

with Sebastian's 'friends' departing along a stony upper left of the painting. Very subtly, he does not

road in the distance, there is nothing more stony, show a triumphant man. since Sebastian is dying,

hard and impenetrable than the human heart. but a bent, sufleniig man on a triumphant horse.

Mantegna is also expressing his fascination with The horse careers upwards: a symbol of tiie dymg
the difference between stone, the invulnerable, and man who looks hopefully, patiently towards heaven.

66
St Sebastian Andrea Mantegna c.1459
Tempera on panel 68 x 30cm (265 x i ifin)

Kunschistorische Museum, Vienna, Austria

 Venn s and A don is

Hercules, Deianeira and Ness us 1 j

PAOLO VERONESE
Born Verona, Italy 1528
Died Venice, Italy 1588

hen we think about Veronese we think of but here the love is equal. Hercules and Deianeira

W" great, opulent pictures glowing with majestic

love most are these two
were complete partners,
Veronese shows us the dramatic
all in all to each other,

moment when he
and

colour. Yet the Veroneses 1

small ones with their gentle autumnal hues and comes back from hunting to see the centaur Nessus

wistful atmosphere. They are companion pieces and (half-human, half-horse) sweeping his wife away

deal with the same theme: doomed love, the fact into the woods to rape her. This too is a last moment
that everyone, howe\-er much lo\'ed, will die. of happiness. In a second he will realize what he is

One picture shows Venus and Adonis, which is seeing, fit his arrow to the bow and shoot Nessus.

one of the great love stories of antiquity. He was It should be a happy ending, but it is not. From his

black heart Nessus wreaks revenge; he Deianeira

the most beautiful of youths and Venus, the most
tells

beautiful of goddesses, fell in love with him. Every falsely that he repents and that if she dips a cloth in

desired her, but she only desired Adonis, and blood and makes a shirt of for Hercules it
man his it

as we can see, they had a period of intense, erotic will preserve him from harm. She believes in his

bhss. He was much younger than Venus and a great repentance, but the shirt she makes is poisoned and

sportsman, and because she was a goddess she knew kills Hercules, whereupon she dies of a broken heart.

that if he went hunting on one specific day he would So here, too, love is destroyed. It is unbearable, but

be killed. Although she pleaded with him all night it IS part of being human, which we must accept.

and used all her lovely wiles to keep him home, he Tennyson wrote:
was too young to believe that he would die, too
The woods decay, the woods decay and tall,
confident of his prowess. Here we see their last time
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
together. Venus knows this is the final embrace, but
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath.
he is only impatient to be gone with his hunting
And after many a summer dies the swan.
dogs, off to a day's excitement. Soon his dead body
will be brought back to her. Their love is doomed If we can make poetry out of sorrow, which is one

because, although he loves her, he does not love her of the things that art specifically does, then we can

enough to listen to her. make it part of a fullness of being; we can use sorrow,

The other picture is also of a famous love story. and not be destroved.

68
 6

I 'cutis and Adonis Hercules, Dciaiicira and Nessus

Paolo Veronese c. 1580— Paolo Veronese c. 1580-6
Oil on canvas 68 x S2cm (26^ x 20310) Oil on canvas 68 x S2cm (265 x 205111)

Kunsthistonsche Museum, Vienna, Austria Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna, Austria

 Angelica and the Hermit
SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS
Born Siegen. Germany 1577
Died Antwerp, Belgium 1 640

whom special Ariosto reveals that nothing happened, as the hermit

I
ubens is an artist for I feel a

empathy, not just because I love his art, but found himself impotent, but that is not Rubens"

because he himself seems to be a sort of exemplar point. His point is that the rapist looks at the sleeping

of what human beings are meant to be: balanced girl with an infinite tenderness and longing. He is

and generous and good. This picture, which could beholding the Promised Land, the heaven that he is

so easily be seen as pornographic by a cynic, is a not yet to enter. Other men know this bliss (as

perfect example of why I love him. Rubens himself knew it), but it is not for him.

This IS an episode from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Where aU other artists who have treated this

sort of soap opera of the Renaissance, in which episode depict the hermit as contemptible. Rubens
a

the heroine, Angelica, has many adventures. She has shows him as pathetic, as a hungering lost soul who
fallen into the hands of a hermit, with whom she is encountering not so much temptation as a vision

feels wholly safe, unaware that he is not a man of of happiness. Angelica in her purity is no temptress:

God but a sad creature trapped in the wrong choice the human body is a thing of divine beaut\'. On the
of hfe. He chafes against the celibacy he has vowed right we see what the viewers might expect from

and is determined now at least to know sexuality such a subject: Rubens has painted in a devil, lifting
Angehca into an hyp- Angehca up on her pillow as if presenting her to the
from experience. So he casts

notic sleep and he is creeping up in the darkness to hermit. On the we see

left, the truth, the bewil-

pull off the sheets and rape her. dered, suffering man who can only respond to

It could hardly be a more unpleasant story, but 'temptation' with reverence. The devil is a bog>- tor
Rubens is able to see it in context. He understands the childish, but it takes Rubens to realize that and
the tragedy of the old man who cannot live up to make us see it too. Angelica appears to liiin as a

which what the human body meant to

the vocation he has chosen, and he feels compassion vision, is is

for both the sinner and the sinned-against. In fact, be to us: a vision of the bcaut\' of its ('reator.

70
Angelica and the Heniiit Sir Peter Paul Rubens 1625-
Oil on canvas 43 x 66cm (16^ x 26m)
Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna, Austria
 Peasant Wedding
PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER
Born near Bree (?), Belgium c.i 525-30
Died Brussels, Belgium 1 569

mnocenriy thrilled to be the centre, with a paper

I were ever arrogant enough to want to put
Ifsomebody to a moral test, this is the work I crown hung lopsidedly above her head. One looks in
vain for the bridegroom, which is part of
Bruegel's
would choose. At one level it is highly comic. It

theme: this not a wedding in 'our' sense, not a

shows a wedding feast where practically everyone is is

away at the marriage of lovers and friends. The pinched little

ugly, brutish and squat, and gobblmg

food. There is a ludicrous bride, whose

fat and man with the thin fur collar is probably the lawyer
fatuous face is aglow, with a wide beam ot
com- who has made this contract, which is aO that it is.
placency. Yet if we see it as only comic, we have The bride is interested and excited by marriage
artist that he he Itself the ceremony, not m the man
whom she may
missed Bruegel's point. Great is,

hardly know. She in tact merely exchanging slave-

keeps both levels afloat: that of the surface - the is

of the peasants; and that of the depths - the

toil on her father's farm for slave-toil on her hus-
antics
human beings band's, except that now she will work night as well
tragedy that poverty should reduce
as day. Her expectations are so pitifully small, and
to such a narrowness ot lite.

the whole room of chewing faces is so lacking in

I get very angry when hear talk about gluttony
I

any dimensions that make life a thing of beauty, that

in this painting. The child who is scrabbling so
Bruegel clearly feels a kind of angry pit\^
earnestly in her bowl is not greedy but hungry, and
who yearns with such Commentators often wonder what the well-
the man with the bagpipes,
man at the far right is doing and who he is.

longing towards the tray of food, is one of the most dressed

He represents, think, the viewer, the educated and
moving images in art: a hungry man. The tood he I

well-to-do who do not see their responsibility tor

hungers for, the great festival fare, what is it? Plates
He seems to be making his contession
the poor.
of porridge or custard, carried around on a tresde,

which the artist must teel is the only

to a priest,
exquisite only to the truly poor.
appropriate response. That man is us: you and me.
The foolish little bride is also heart-rending, so

72
Peasant Wedding Pieter Bruegel the Elder 1568
Oil on panel 1 14 x 164cm (44^ x 643in)

Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna, Austria

 a

The Assassin S u icide of Lucre ti

Viol ante Woman in Black

Gypsy Ma d n n a

TITIAN (TIZIANO VECELLIO)

Born Pieve di Cadore, Italy C.14S7

Died Venice, Italy 1576

hese five Titians are on a wall together, each this case never to be revealed) has caused the assassin

T'superb in itself but even more wonderful to take up the dagger against the fair youth at the

together, because the museum has seen how they banquet.

balance and complement one another. Equally dramatic - perhaps for some people even
At either end is one of Titian's great dramatic more dramatic - are the two magnificent blondes
pieces. In The Assassin (or The Bravo) we see a on either side, where we can feel Titian's physical

beautiful, carefree youth at a party, crowned with excitement at the wonder of radiantly fair hair and

vineleaves. Suddenly an enemy confronts him, the way it contrasts with the gorgeousness of their

someone from his past, who grabs him by the neck, clothes. The girl who wears black seems to do so

Nemesis, arising specifically to make her white skin gleam so whitely

conceahng the dagger. This is

unexpectedly to haunt and take vengeance. The and her fair hair shine with such brilliance. Both

young man reaches immediately for his sword, so girls were probably courtesans, but they know their

there is a hint that he has a guilty conscience and own worth: these are superior ladies of the night

that it is indeed the past come back to exact its toll. whom Titian depicts with great dignity. Even more
dazzhngis Violante, so called because she has a violet
The fear and violence are echoed by the mar-
vellous Litcretia at the other end. She was the chaste tucked into her bodice. She used to be called La

wife who was raped by Tarquin, son ot the king ot Bella Gatta, 'the lovely cat', because (I say this as a

Rome, and who could not hve with the dishonour: cat-lover) there is something so feline about her self-

in the morning she killed herself. Here again, the possession, her sleek beauty. No woman in art is less

memory, has returned. The dark head behind of a modest violet than this lovely creature, with the
past,

her own is not there in reality but in consciousness. almost canary yellow of her hair so triumphantly

Tarquin has physicaUy gone, but Titian is reminding played olT against the deep blue of her gown. It is a

us that for a raped woman, the rapist has never completely modest gown, as is the woman in black's,

but the long, slow under-the-eyelids glance is

'gone'.The foul intrusion into a personal sanctuary
remains; a memory that causes Lucretia to take up wholly challenging.

the dagger and stab herself just as some secret (in Then, in the middle, there is the (•ypsy Maihiina.

74
 It is the only one of the five that is still, silent; it has curtain or carpet, with the rich deep colours that
a quiet centre, without excitement. Yet there is an Titian paints so beautifully. But even more lovely is

inner dynamism that makes it perhaps the most the landscape on the left, so misty and luminous, so

exciting of the five. It is known as the Gypsy suggestive of the immensities we sense around us.
Madonna because Titian's model for Mary is a dark, In that mysterious background there is a solitary

countrified girl. Against her arm stands her superbly tree, and, under it, a solitary young man, sitting

insouciant little son; both of them are lost in some alone, not showing us his face. Could this perhaps
reverie. Behind her swarthy beauty hangs an exotic be the young Titian?

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Titian
of Lucrctia
c. i 5 i 5

Oil on canvas 77 x 66.5cm (301 x 26gin) Oil on canvas 82.5 x 68.5cm (323 x 27in)

Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna, Austria Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna, Austria

 Viol ante Wo III a II ill liliU'k

Titian c. i 5 i 5-1 8 Titian c . i 5 2o

Panel 64.5 x 5 icm (255 x 20in) Oil on canvas 59. s x 44.scni (23^ x ly^in)

Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna, Austria Kunsthistorische Museum. Vienna, Austria

Gypsy Madonna Titian c.1510
Panel 66 x 83.5cm (255 x 325m)
Kunsthistorische Museum, Viemia, Austria
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 T PETERSBURG ]

The but
oiily city

I
I was reluctant to
was apprehensive that it
visit was St Petersburg.
would be viewed in a
I was eager, of course, to see the
dank and depressing atmosphere. These
art,

foolish expectations were immediately confounded. The gentle good manners of the people, their

touching hopefulness and courage, all this seemed to shine through the spacious and shabby
magnificence of St Petersburg's streets and noble buildings.
The Hermitage itself is perhaps even more splendid than the art it enshrines. It is not the
only museum that was formerly a palace (think of the Louvre, for example), but it is unique in
maintaining its palatial identity. Crystal chandeUers flash their rainbow colours to the marble walls,

and we walk dazzled through corridors of splendour: gigantic malachite urns to the right, irmnense
Sevres vases to the left, mosaics to the front, damask and gilt to the rear. All this cherished

magnificence leads one through and on into the actual galleries, themselves resplendent.
To take merely one example: with true Russian largess, the Hermitage boasts not one
Leonardo but two - the very beautiful, if icily regal. Madonna Litta, and the enchanting Benois
Madonna, which was the first authenticated commission Leonardo received. It was lost for centuries
but turned up mysteriously in the nineteenth century in the centre of Russia. It has aU the rough

power of early genius: a plain httle Mary, whoUy engrossed in the miracle of her baby. He is

examining, with infant absorption, a flower. It forms a cross, but neither are aware of anything
except the fascination of watching. Almost always, artists show the Madonna as aware of spectators,
sharing her prayerful worship with them. Leonardo sees her as completely human and private, a

dehghtful child, and in this very simpHcity, a most moving icon.

I dwell on this picture because it saves me from the daunting task of trying to describe the
wealth of this museum, its hall of Rembrandts, room of major Poussins bordered by a room of
Claudes, with Rubens around the corner. From the Director himself to the guards, we were given

a gracious welcome.

79
 Return of the Prod ig a I Sou
REMBRANDT
Born Leiden, Netherlands 1606
Died Amsterdam, Netherlands 1 669

could take this picture anywhere in the penniless, had gone out every day to watch tor him.
Y^ou
world, to the deserts, jungles or islands, and When they embraced, the son tried to stammer out

everybody would unniediately understand it and his speech of repentance, but the father would not
respond. let him. He simply held him tight and rejoiced,
This is a picture about parental love, and we have summoning the servants to bring out the best gar-

all either had a loving father or longed to have one. ments and to kiU the fatted calf, because the true

The story is the gospel parable about the father who father offers total love, always.

had two sons. The younger was unwilling to wait Rembrandt shows them lost in a silent intimacy,

until his tather died and asked for his inheritance in the son's fice half-hidden, his poor, worn-out shoes

advance. The father gave it, and the son went oft falling from his calloused feet, his clothes ragged, his

and wasted it. Then there was a famine, and the son exhaustion palpable. The father's cloak swells out in

found he had only fair-weather friends. He kept almost womb-like protection, enclosing them in

aUve by working on a pig farm, so hungry that he that one-to-oneness that is the essence of all

envied the pigs their swill. He came to his senses, relationships and cannot be judged by anyone else.

remembering how even the servants at home were The elder son looms judgementally at the side,

well fed and housed, and he decided to go back. He resentful, as stiff'as his staff', a man of legal narrowness

composed a little speech confessing that he had been instead of love. He receives no embrace because he
a rotten son, and asking only to be treated as a does not seek it, standing aloof from the family

servant. and the extended fimily of servants, all-eyes in the

Now we come to what I think is the loveliest part background.

of the story. We are told that when he was a long This parable may have had a special poignancy
way oft", his father saw him coming and ran out to for Rembrandt, all of whose children died young,
meet him. It is as if the old man, knowing his except for one son, Titus, and even he died before
son's weakness and that he would one dav return his hither.

80
Return of the Prodigal Sou Rembrandt c.1662?
Oil on canvas 262 x 205cm (103; x So^in)
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
 Portrait of a Lady
CORREGGIO (ANTONIO ALLEGRI)
Born Correggio near Modena, Italy c.1489
Died Correggio, Italy 1534

orreggio's Porrmir of a Lady fascinated nie. not, grief of our Inuited lives and take us into something

I confess, because of her beauty, though it is greater. There is a hint, then, that this woman may
indeed an extremely beautiful painting, but because perhaps have some connection with the arts. This is

of her expression. It would be unkind to call it smug, confirmed when we look at the tree that shades

but she has an air of ineffable self-possession, as it her. On it grows ivy, symbol of immortality, and
she knows something and vaunts it. There is almost there we see the laurel, sign of Apollo, god of song.
an element of split personality, too, with her hair so Might the chain then be not merely a personal

tightly compressed, the obsessive perfection of the adornment but the gold chain given to the tri-

rwisted braids of headgear and the cascades ot umphant artist?

flowing sleeve. There is a great expanse of bosom, There were two women in C'orreggio's life who
but so modest, so tightly nipped in, and while she meet these conditions, but one I dismiss because he

wears the golden chain of luxury and success, under described her in a letter as 'the most beautiful
her gown peeps the coarse knotted rope ol the woman' he had ever seen, and this lady, seductive

Franciscans, an Order vowed to poverty. though she is, has rather a long nose. But the other

Sometimes in art we need to practise detective candidate, Veronica Gambara, was not only a poet

skills, and here the first clue is given by the silver of renown hut was closely associated with the Fran-
bowl she carries. On it is an inscription in Greek, ciscans. So now we see her secretive smile diflerently.
taken from that part of Homer's Odyssey where Poets live in two dimensions, that of the imagination
Helen is mixing a magic potion that makes people and that of the earth, and the secret they know is

forget their sorrows. It is a phrase often applied to that of creativity. But we notice that she is offering

art; music, poetry and painting lift us out ot the the silver potion tor us to share.

82
Portrait of a Lady Correggio c.1519
Oil on canvas 103 x 87.5cm (405 x 345in)
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

rv
 1
7 1?// L rcii / // d E rill i II i ii

N^C OLAS POUSSIN

Born Lc"' Andclvs Normandy. France
. i ><;4 |
Died R onif Italv I66s 1

.'t?;

TT^ oussin has a disciplined poetry that I t'lnd irre- horror, she recognized that the other was Tancred:

JL sistible. Here his subject is an episode from they had come too late.
Tasso's epic poem about the First Crusade, Jfn(.<.j/cHi Erminia knelt down beside him, says Tasso, and

Dclhrnd. in which the Saracens have captured Jeru- whispered: 'Though gone, though dead. I love thee

salem and the Christians are tightini; to i;et it back. still; behold/ Death wounds but kills not love." and

Needless to say. the issue is basically political, rather she wept. Her tears tell on his tace and he opened

than religious. his eves. Tancred was not dead, but dying. Tht^

Tancred w-as the great Christian hero, not only wrenched otihis armour, those great plates of steel;

because he was such a wonderful tighter but also he was dying of loss of blood, and they had no
because he was the ideal knight: gende, courteous bandages. Erminia seized his sword and cut oA her
and thoughtful. At some stage in his adventures he hair - the crowning beaun- of every woman ot that

met a Saracen lady called Erminia, whom he treated time - and bound his wounds Then his tn>ops

with his usual, calm thoughtfulness. and she tell appeared, and the ston. has a blissful ending. We can
trrcx-ocably in love. It was a doomed love, because foresee this ending, I think, because of the horses.

of the difference in politics and religion, the war The warrior's dark steed stands motionlc*ss. obedi-

between their peoplc-s. geographical separateness ent, passively waiting. But Ermima has a horse of

and the sad tact that Tancred hardly knew that she active power, lovely, intelligent, his flowing nunc
existed. However, Erminia tt)o had adventures, was and tail rather like her own hair, as keen as she is to

captured, escaped, and was tound by Tancred's see if love will bring the dead back to life.

tquirc. Vafrino. who pronuscd to ukc her to his lord it IS a stor\ abtnit hardness and softness, the gleam-
for piDtcction. ing metal and the vulnerable girl. Onlv when the
With beating hcan. Erminia tnwllcd thmugh armour is taken otican he be healed. This ht'e-out-

the night with the squire, and as dawn bn>ke the\- ot'-dcath theme, showing that Imr is stmnger than

cjmc to the cit>, where ihe>' tound rv\t) dead I Aar. IS svinboli/ed in the lower right corner where

One was a Saracen, and with a crv of incf I here is i\>ugh stone, but fn>iii the stone gfxjss tlowrn.

84
Tancred and Enuiiiia Nicolas Poussin 1630s
Oil on canvas 9S.5 x 146.5cm (385 x SVjin)

Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

 I Union of Earth a n d Wa t e r

SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS

Born Siegen, Germany 1577
Died Antwerp. Belgium 1 640

the sheer size of the Hermitage 'marrying' him by her very look, and so is he.
For many artists fully,

But profound friendship, not a

and its halls is a fearsome challenge. But Rubens this giving, this is

responds to challenges and faces up to them with mild affair. Earth has brought to the marriage her
tiger (not a very good tiger, which suspect was
superb verve and insight. This picture celebrates I

the mythological marriage of Ceres, the goddess of painted by one of Rubens' pupils). The tiger ot

earth, and Neptune, the god of the waters. She passion has to be brought into the relationship, but

comes with all her fruitfulness and flowering, and it is a domesticated tiger. Neptune's equivalent is

he meets her with his trident, his waves and a triton probably the wild triton, subdued into ecstatic horn-

blowing a conch. Above them, Hymen, the god ot blowing, serving his lord's cause. Rubens reverences

marriage, holds a wreath: Water already wears his human sexualit); that divine gift. Neptune's trident

crown, and now it is Earth's turn. We are shown is a phallic symbol, the openness of the conch has

the human body at its most magnificent; Neptune female connotations, and in the centre is a large

is great, bronzed and muscular, his hand reaching open jar, a womb symbol, pouring forth its fullness

out to Ceres, who is pale, opulent and gleaming. while the ptitti below remind us that marriage nor-

It is in the union of these hands that we see the mally leads to children.

unique Rubens insight, his deep understanding Rubens was a man whose o\\ n marriages were

of the meaning of love, of married love above all. absolutely happy. After the death of his beloved first

Their hands are clasped, the clasp of friends. wife, he grieved sincerely and then married again
with that genuine and lasting liking that gives with equal joy. He understood that the union ot

reality to a lifelong partnership. Earth and Water earth and water gives us clay, and that it was from

look deep into each other's eyes with a sweet clay that God fashioned the human race: that from

and unaffected trustfulness. She is giving herself cl.iv comes creativity'.

86
Union of Earth and Water Sir Peter Paul Rubens c.i6il
Oil on canvas 222.5 x 180.5cm (Syf x yiin)
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
 Apostles Peter and Paul
EL GRECO (DOMENIKOS THE OTOKOPOULO S)
Born Candia (now Iraklion), Crete C.IS41

Died Toledo. Spain 16 14

his is just the kind of picture that gets ignored such a contrast: Paul's pale and vehement, Peter's

T' in a big gallen,'. It is not one of the great flam- the brown hands of a working man. One brown

boyant El Grecos and in any large museum we see hand is tranquilly folded in on itself at peace; the

hundreds of saints, so there is a real danger that we other holds the keys of authoriU', but unobtrusively,

shall do no more than mentally register the artist's the fingers holding the v,-ards and only the circle ot

name (El Greco: typical elongation) and pass on. the open handle visible to us. Peter is the man of
But if we Unger long enough really to look at it. we peace, the man of prayer, his face humbly hidden in

see that the painter is not interested in Peter and his greying hair. But El Greco shows the two bodies

Paul and generic 'saints', but that his interest is much forming one block: they need each other, they
more complex and demanding. complement each other. It is this mutual depen-
At one level, El Greco is interested in the human dence that gives them their balance.
difference between these two men. Paul is the intel- El Greco is saying something profound. In each

lectual, the man of fire; he is all activity', all passion, of us, there should be a union between the decision-

all power. One hand is thrust with great emotion making part, with its passion and energy-, and the

on to a page of scripture, tense with the desire to loving, quiet part of us. It is the wise and gende part

make us understand. The other hand is equally tense, that keeps the active, choosing part from making

one finger jabbing outwards like the sword of the the wrong choices. It is the Peter and Paul in our

spirit that he preached, lit up as brightly as is his own psyches that El Greco paints, and it is important
unprotected head. That wide brow suggests his that, at the back, there is a broad beam ot light, the

intellectual sharpness, and the large pointed ears open door. The picture invites us to go through the

remind us that the preacher needs above all to listen. door, and the more we look, the wider that door

The pictorial centre is the two hands that make- seems to open.

88
Apostles Peter and Paul El Greco c. 1587-9:
Oil on canvas 121. 5 x 105cm (47^ x 4l|in)
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
 Composition VI
VASSILY KANDINSKY
Born Moscow, Russia 1866
Died Neuillv-sur-Seine. France 1944

A part from the icon painters, the Russians had shown graphically, and to the side may be masts

x\. no artist of genius until the twentieth centurv', or oars or lances, with a Roman battle standard

was an enormous dramatic flower- on the upper left. This is a classical sea battle from
when there anci
wild and confused the batdes
ing. My favourite among these painters is Kan- the past, but is as as

dinsky, although I hesitate to speak about him of any age.

because he is essentially an abstract artist and that is I am not insisting on my interpretation, but it is

a kind of painting that many people find difficult. obvious that we are watching a scene of violence.

But, if vou let some of his early figurative work allay Kandmsky is not trying to represent literally, say, a

your distrust, you may be persuaded to share my ship or a storm. What he is trying to do is to give

dehght m this large work that lights up the attic in us the feehng of what such an experience might be

the Hermitage, where it hangs with a select group like. He is using colour and form to express emotion.
of Kandinskys, of which this is my clear favourite. This is really rather a dark picture, with the lowest

At this stage of his life (19 13), he usually based centre very black and ominous, and closed and

his abstraction on some actual scene. The great sinister shapes shutting in the centre, yet it is an

explosions of colour and the air of controlled viol- exhilarating work because the explosion is so mar-

ence tempt me to risk guessing what I think the vellously controlled; remember, its title is Com-
subject is: a batde at sea. At the left there seem to position VI. After the Revolution, the authorities

be two ships colliding, oars waving wildly, and there were dismissive of this kind of painting, as being

is another form hke a ship in the centre, ghding beyond the understanding of the workers. But I

down beneath the huge curve of the wave above think they underestimated the ordinary capacity to

it. The bright diagonals mav suggest cannon-shot. understand; they had a sadly elitist approach.

90
Conipositio)! 17 Vassily Kandinsky 1913
Oil on canvas 195 x 300cm (765 x i iSjin)

Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

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 BERLIN

erlm is not the most romantic of German cities but it is one ot the most exciting, and in this

It reflects something of Germanic art. It is an uneasy excitement, though, and the spHt that
was symboHzed by the Wall runs deep through the psyche ot the art.

It seemed oddly fitting that the Gemalde Gallery, the great Old Master collection, should

be housed in a building that is modern on the outside and traditional on the inside. This is in no
sense a criticism. There are tremendous works in the gallery, from every age and country. I

especially rejoiced in the medieval and Renaissance sculpture (which is not actually in the Gemalde
Gallery but in another section of the parent Dahlem Museum). I hngered lovingly over a serene
Rienienschneider carving of St Crispin, the shoemaker saint, calmly bent over his last, with a
wilderness of heels and soles tucked under the bench.
In the gallery hangs my favourite painting of St John the Baptist, by Geertgen tot Sint Hans,
where a bearded John sits rather glumly in a forest clearing, uviddling his largish toes. It is a grief

to me that I missed the cities that are richest in Piero della Francesca, but Berhn offered
compensation: a deeply silent StJerome, where the intentness of the saint's concentration is paralleled

by Piero's concentration on the geometric trees and their gleaming reflection m the little stream
that winds gently through the grasses.

Berhn also holds the picture that moves me more deeply than any other: Tiepolo's St
Agatlia. He is all too often considered a brilliant lightweight, but no painting so marvellously

expresses the depth of faith than this one. It has a wall to itself in an upper room, a quietly contained

explosion of pain sublimated by a trust in the meaning of what is happening.

I would have loved to have talked at length about this and other works, but I wanted to

dwell only on German art, with its contradictions, its graphic energy, its uncanny sense of the
pagan forest united, by a sort of wild control, with a muscular, philosophical vigour. It is uniquely
exciting, like Berlin itself.

93
 Hierony mus Holzsc h uher
ALBRECHT DURER
Born Nuremberg, Germany 1471
Died Nuremberg, Germany 1528

power of German hairs snake round his head, electric with vitality yet
The uncanny
and most characteristic in
art is seen
Germany's
at its

so intensely controlled.
deepest
greatest artist, Diirer. This is a portrait he painted Diirer makes us aware of two qualities: great

two years before he died, a superb depiction ot his power and great disciphne. He subtly contrasts the

friend Hieronymus Holzschuher, one of the most fox fur around his neck, the dead fur of the animal,
with the of his beard, the live fur of the man.
influential men in Augsburg, a major poUtician and bristle

Everything in this picture functional. Beneath the

wealthy aristocrat. Holzschuher could only have is

become a friend of an artist because Diirer had built outer garment we glimpse the straight line of a white
of his profession and laid a proud claim shirt, one short tab of material, as if Holzschuher
up the status

to human significance.
its is even controlling his underwear. We experience

What makes this portrait both so great and so within him a double source of power: the casual,

Germanic is that Durer is interested not only in passive power of the nobleman and the dynamic
rich

what Holzschuher looked like but also in what he wilful power of the skilled pohtician. These two
actually was like. He sought not the facts alone but powers almost make him seem a force of nature.

the truth behind them. We get an impression of an No setting is provided. Durer almost skewers

entire and distinctive personality. It was a tamily him to the panel, undefended, because he needs no

portrait, cherished for generations by his descend- protection. Diirer sees his friend as transcending

ants (which explains the perfect state of preservation: his context. He sets him against an indeterminate

the Holzschuher family kept it covered by a pro- blotchy blue, so that we can be free to encounter

tective panel). The sitter clearly had precisely this him and respond. We can meet his gaze, despite its

strong prow of a nose, a firm yet kindly mouth and tbrce. In showing the potential of this one man,

eyes of a pale brilliance. But look at the hair. Look Diirer enables us to become aware ot our own
at the almost obsessive perfection with which those personal potential.

94
Hicroiiyiiiiis Holzsclnihcr Albrecht Diirer 1526
Oil on panel 51 x37cm (205 x I45in)
Gemalde Gallery, Dahlem Museum, Berlin. Germany
 Georg Gis ze
HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER
ER
Born Augsburg, Germany 1497-
Died London, England 1543

German artist: without The carnations add a more intimate note, because
Holbein is not a typical

disrespect we could call him 'a German who they were the flowers of betrothal, which suggests
teenager and that this portrait was intended for Christine Kruger,
got away'. He went to Switzerland as a

then moved on to England, later becoming Court to whom we know he was engaged. He may be

Painter to Henry V I II Holbein's work, so smoothly

.
anxious to impress her - on one wall is his motto:

perfect, is in many ways more international than 'No pleasure unearned.' She is getting a serious,

national. He does not have the German interest in responsible, successful young man for her husband,

inwardness. What concerns him is not the nature of and a meticulous one. The lovely hanging ball is a

Gisze's deepest self but the nature of his personal pomander, filled with scented petals to sweeten the

world. We are, as it were, going through the keyhole air, and the gold clock reminds us of the need to be
and being asked to guess what kind of man he is. thrifty with our time.

not a difficult question. There are many clues, It is by no means an impersonal portrait, but
It is

not least a placard giving his name and age: he is Holbein does not go too close. He respects Gisze's

thirty-four. There is even an envelope addressed to privacy. Even more, he protects him by cocooning
him at the Steelyard in London, so we know he is a him in the sanctuary of his office, walled away from

Hanseatic merchant, with the tools of his trade all what might have been a sense of loneUness, here in

around him in his neat, green office. We can see the an alien land, far from his home, perhaps a Httle

weighing machines, the books, the boxes, the seals, pressured and needing the familiar certainties of

the ledgers, the petty cash, all he needs for his his private workspace. We warm to good, serious,

correspondence. His sleeves, with their cascade of lonely young Georg, and we may share this happy

glittering satin, tell us that he is a wealthy young sense of the protective enclosure that Holbein

merchant. On his desk is a wonderful, exotic rug offers with his wonderflil understanding of the

and a fine Venetian glass vase. ordinary.

96
Georg Gisse Hans Holbein the Younger 1532
Oil and tempera on panel 96 x 86cm (375 x 33jin)
Gemalde Gallery, Dahlem Museum, Berlin, Germany
 P Y ramus and T h i s h e :

; i

HANS BALDUNG i

Born Schwabisch Gmund(?), Germany C.14S4-6

Died Strasbourg, France i S4S

H
In his
ans Baldiing was a pupil of Durcr; a weird

man with an obsessive interest

work we always seem to feel
in witchcraft.

the Teutonic
tragedy,

he killed

she too
and

felt
m a

himself All too

passion ot sorrow and selt-disgust

herself to blame:
late, Thisbe returned, and
it was because ot her
forests and hear the wind whistling through the trees that he had lost his life. So she took his sword and
while ghosts and witches mutter m the under- joined him in death.

growth. This is his depiction of the story of Pyramus The legend says that there was a \\ lute mulberry
and Thisbe. We are accustomed to regard this as tree at the meeting-place, whose fruit turned scarlet

broad comedy becaiise of the 'play' put on by because of their blood, a myth wittily suggested here

Bottom and friends in Shakespeare's A Midsuiiuiicr by the scarlet cloak that spreads out under Pyramus
\iglit's Dream, but it is a genuine tragedy. like a great pool, and by Thisbe's white overskirt
Pyramus and Thisbe were lovers whose families that will redden like her underskirt wlien she stabs

lived side by side but hated one another. The lovers herself There are Baldungesque touches every-
could never meet but only speak through a hole in where, from tile ominous sky with its hidden moon
the party-wall, until they finally decided to steal out to the sad litde cupid on the pillar and the two
one night and come together at a tomb where fountains with their separate pools.

they would not be seen. Thisbe arrived first and Remarkably, Baldung makes the lovers tar older

discovered a hungry lioness, rending its prey. She tlian the adolescents of the original tale. This is

ran away, but the lioness, as cats do, played witli tiie serious heartbreak between mature people. But the
scarf she dropped and bloodied it. When Pyramus most characteristic element, springing from his fear

turned up he found the scarf and traces of the lioness of the feminine, is the position of the rvvo figures.

and jumped to the conclusion that Thisbe had been We know that both die, but what we actually see is

killed. He felt great grief and even greater gmlt. It the man, recumbent in death, and over him, t.ill.

was his late arrival, he thought, that had led to the erect, tatetul. looms the woman.

9«
Pyriiuius and Thishc Hans Baldung c.1530
Oil on panel 67cm (365 x id^in)
93 x
Gemalde Gallen; DaWem Museum, Berlin. Germany
 St Ul rich and St Barb ara

HANS BURGKMAIR
•
Born Augsburg, Germany 1473
Died Augsburg, Germany 1531

-1^

hese two magnificent panels by the little- patron saint of artillery. Her other emblem is the

T'known artist Hans Burgkmair used to stand in chalice and host, the last sacraments, since she died

a church. I must admit I am glad they are now in a so heroically.

museum because they make me laugh. This is not The stories merely tell us that Ulrich was a kindly

because of their respective stories, I hasten to add. if absent-minded bishop, while Barbara was a very

The saint on the left is Ulrich, as we know from his courageous martyr. But look at what Burgkmair has
emblem of a fish. The legend, which agree is I done with them. Ulrich is clearly a saint: he wears

mildly humorous, is that he once gave a messenger his episcopal robes, he has a noble countenance, his

a gift of meat, completely forgetting that it was a eyes are sunken with prayer and penitence, and he
day when meat was forbidden by church law. The looks beseechingly up to heaven. He is a beHevable

messenger, who must have been a rather nasty saint. Compare Burgkmair's treatment of the female
character, immediately went off to denounce Bishop saint, Barbara. She is bedizened to the skies, her

Ulrich. When he self-nghteously brought forth the bosom swells with large pearls, her very petticoat is

evidence of the meat, it had mysteriously changed embroidered. She stands comniandingly, a hussy of

into a fish! the first water. Her face is prim with upper-class
St Barbara's story is wholly serious. Her emblems hauteur, and hard, Hke a courtesan's. It is nnpossible

are double. One is a tower, because she was impri- to beheve that this woman is a saint.

soned in one by her father who did not want her to Holy Ulrich and Barbara the floozie: why? Why
become a Christian. She did become one and as should the man be clearly a saint and the woman so

a result he had her beheaded. As her head was clearly not? Can it be that Burgkmair is a sexist?

struck oft" there was a tremendous flash of lightning, Faced with this horrible possibility, I refuse to be

which kiUed her cruel father and has made her the irritated and opt for benign amusement.

100
 Sr I'Irich 5f Biirbara

Hans Burgktnair c.1518 Hans Burgkmair c.1518

Oil on panel los x41cm (41^ x 164^1) Oil on panel 105 x41cm {415 x i6jin)
Gemalde Gallery. Dahleni Museum, Berlin. Germany Gemalde Gallery, Dahlem Museum, Berlin, Germany
 All egory 1

ALBRECHT ALTDORFER i
Born Regensbun;(?), Germany LM4S0
Died Regensbiirg, Germany 538

Altdorfer's Allegory is an enchanting little our backgrounds. This is the Gemalde Gallery's

x\. picture. The more I see it. the more I love it, interpretation: the beggars are sitting on the train of

but it is a strange work. It is dominated by an the mmveait riclie, the upstarts, the pompous. If we
extraordinary castle, each corner of which is differ- begin in a slum we carry the slum with us, tor ever

ent, bizarre in its complexity and seeming to sprout connected to the family back in the tenements and
balconies and colonnades on every side. It is all to our memories. This is the usual meaning, and an

the more surprising because Altdorfer was also an acceptable one.

architect. It is weirdly unpeopled, a huge building To me, though, it does not quite account for the

empty except for the t\vo aristocrats in the court- magical, unreal, dreamhke quality of the picture.

yard. One holds aloft the golden goblet of welcome, Take the casde; in the landscape there is a perfectly

while the other slouches against the balustrade, normal castle, so why is this one so fantastic? My
watching with bemusement the absurdly over- suggestion, which I shall not take up arms to defend,

dressed couple sweeping up towards him. On their IS that we are looking at the dream-world of the
train travels, in comfort and happiness, a little family iioiiveau riche. They can imagine their grand, expens-

of the poor. All is set in a wonderful, fairy-tale world ive, elaborate casde, and a welcoming nobleman -
of light, peace and sunshine. But what does it all and then their imaginadon takers. They do not
mean? know how this upper-class existence works. The
It is obviously an allegory that is concerned with one thing they do know is the type ot existence

riches and poverty. At first I tried to give a kindly they have come from, and that is represented by the
interpretation and see it as meaning that the rich beggar family. They do not try to shake them off:
always take responsibility' for the poor, but I think they accept them, because they are tied by blood. It

Altdorfer is too much of a reahst to be saying that. is this heartening touch of down-to-earth reahsm

Perhaps the meaning is rather that we cannot escape that makes the dream so charming.

102
Allegory Albrecht Altdorfer 1531
OU on panel 41cm (i I5 x 165m)
28.5 x

Gemalde Gallery, Dahlem Museum, Berlin, Germany

 IMMM iL I
^1 M/vL'T^cumJ^

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lla,
^». -. " w i' u 'if^ n ti t. 1 • •' »> T- ' 1' ^1 r It It n » n 'I 11 jt SI II ii I
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ft

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^1«:^#-^.
 PARIS
]

Pans was of ravishing bcaut\- and that would love it. If I confess
Everybody told ine that a cir\- I

to being disappointed, it must be because my expectations were impossibly high. I had a

dream of a romantically sun-dappled city, all greenery and medieval architecture; the reaUty ot the

noisy and the preponderance of massive nineteenth-century buildings weighed down my

traffic

There were, of course, dehghts to be found, and in the end I forgot both the disillusioning
spirits.

and the exhilarating in the presence of the actual art in the galleries.
The Musee d'Orsay may be a rather weirdly shaped museum, fashioned as it is out ot the
great former railway station, but it provides space and light in which to contemplate roomfuls of

Cezanne and Manet. Courbet and Corot, Degas and Gauguin. Cezanne is the painter I prize above
all others, and there was a sort of sweet agony m having
to decide on just one masterwork: the

marvellously luminous landscapes, the noble still lifes, the portraits? There is a whole row of Bathers,
the theme that engrossed Cezanne all his life and that I have come to love best of all his works. I
played with the idea of Tlic Card-players or the House of the Handed Man. but the serious
choice had

to be among the variously dated Bathers: all superb.

Then there was the Louvre, not a pleasant museum physically, but had the privilege of I

seeing it on its closed day, when no one else was around. There is something eerie
about being

alone with the Moiia Lisa, able to 'see' her without company, yet somehow never able to 'see',

because she has become too familiar to us as icon. Small and darkened as the picture is, it lives a

subliminal life of its own in the modern consciousness: the supreme image of enigmatic beauty. I

tried to pierce through the veils of accreted myth, seeking an encounter with
the young ItaUan

She evaded me, yet cannot free myself

wife who sat to the famous Leonardo for her portrait. I

from that failure. It is as if Mona Lisa affected me more by this evasion than if I had succeeded, and

this may be the secret of the work's greatness. She stayed with me as I went on to meet the other
masterworks in the Louvre, and was invisibly present in her ven,' absence! Ironically, I had thought
intended to speak only about French artists in this great
I would escape her challenge because I

Leonardo ended his days at the French court and is an

French museum, hut then recalled that
honorary Frenchman.

105
 ^^^
The Bathers
PAUL CEZANNE
Born Aix-en -Provence, France 1S39
Died Aix-en -Provence, France 1906

have always loved Cezanne, always found hmi This particular version is of male bathers; he not
I completely satisfynig. I thmk this is because he only used his customary photographs and his prints

is doing two infinitely important things. He is utterly of Old Master paintings of bathers, he also drew
committed to what he called his 'sensation', to a upon his own memories. The one time when he
total visual experience of the real world, and he is seems to have been truly happy was when he was a

equally committed to expressing that in paint. It is boy in the countryside, bathing with his friends, and
an impossible ambition, because the real comes at there is a great force of nostalgia behind this picture,

us from all directions at once, changing as the hght one of the times when this theme, to which he
changes and our position moves, yet Cezanne was returned obsessively all his life, is triumphantly suc-

reluctant to leave out any one of these directions. cessful. Although he is using memories, they are

He longed to make totaHty visible, while suffering memories of what is irrevocably past, and he
the agonizing sense of inevitable failure; it is this expresses that by blocking us out of the picture. The
radiant anxiety that gives his work its force. two men in the iniddle shut us out, with the dan-

Since what he painted was based on visual gling towel reinforcing the exclusion. We cannot
response, he always painted with the subject in front get into the scene, any more than Cezanne can
of him, whether it was a mountain or a still lite; return to his carefree youth.

with one exception: his compositions ot bathers. It He has buried the figures in nature, with the

is not until now, when I am relatively old, that I clouds following their contours and a lozenge-

have come to understand their greatness. Cezanne shaped woodland enveloping them. In case that
was a prudish man, afraid of the flesh; nothing would seems too imprisoning, great trees shoot out of the
have induced him to ask models to unrobe at the centre like rockets, not real trees any more than
river. But he was also an intensely truthful man. these are real bathers, but the essence of tree, just as

aware that the flesh matters supremely, and that he the young men are essential flesh. This anxious,
had to come to terms with it. beautiful joy is something that we actually need.

106
The BiUhcrs Paul Cezanne c. 1890-2
Oil on canvas 60 x 82cm (23! x 32jin)
Musee d'Orsay. Pans, France
 Th e Balcony
EDOUARD MANET
Born Paris, France 1832
Died Pans, France 1S83

world was thrown the seated woman his tellow

The nineteenth-century
ferment of and confusion by Manet.
rage
art instrument;
hnpressionist, Berthe Morisot. Yet,
is

however great
into a

Looking at the sheer beauty of a work hke Tlie their gifts - and in Morisot's case, her beaurv' as

Balcony, we may wonder why, yet they were right to well - they are trapped by the balcony, by 'society',

be disconcerted. Manet is, even today, a profoundly into an ineffectual dullness. They do not communi-
disconcerting artist, always suggesting the presence cate; even the dog looks away firom his ball and

of some unacknowledged mystery. shares no common focus with the three humans.

The three people on the elegant balcony were all Strong verticals of green hem them in from either

friends of his. (A fourth friend, posing as a serving side and rise up aggressively in front. They are there

boy in the background, was a relative ot his wife. in full view, there to be seen, and it is this artful

He is only there to make credible the idea oi an idleness that seems to motivate the painting. The

inner room, a potentially private space, which these only vibrant colour is the startling blue of the male

three are choosing to forgo.) At the rear stands the cravat; we are assailed with a wild sense of energies

head like a lordly unutihzed, communications stunted, life unlived.

man, bored and vacant, tilting his

pasha. The women, diaphanous in white, look idly The sultry splendour of Morisot, whom Manet's

in different directions, one playing with her gloves, brother would later marry, underlines the sheer

the other glooming sullenly into the distance. futility' of societx' and its cages, which are never-

Yet these vacant and silent people are actually theless freely entered into by all here before us,

electric with potential. The man is Antoine Guil- except perhaps the dog.

lemet, a landscape painter (whose work hangs round Cool and summery, alootiy and bcautitiilly mtel-

the corner from the Manet room in the museum); Hgent, Till' Balcony offers the most subtle ot chal-

the standing woman is Fanny Claus, a noted violin- lenges to values too easily left unanalysed. Manet is

ist, holding her parasol as if it were her musical a silken rcvolutionarv.

lOS
The Balcony Edouard Manet 1868-9
Oil on canvas 170 x 124. scm (66^ x 49in)

Musee d'Orsav. Pans, France

 Gillcs

ANTOINE WATTEAU
Born Viilencieiines, France 16.S4

Died Noti;ent-sur-Marne, near Paris. France 1721 '

attcau usually painted rather small pictures figure of fun as tar as his costume goes: those fool-
W^ with a sort of melancholy charm.
my
I love ishly short trousers and the impractical sleeves that

and
them, but thev do not make heart stop with are too long, his collar like a horse's halter his

wonder, (jillcs, hcnvever, really is a heart-stopping feet pathetic with their pink ribbons. Yet. though
picture. It is a depiction of Gilles, or Pierrot, prob- wearing this fiinny costume, Pierrot stands there

ably painted for a friend who habitually played this without a funny face. He confronts us with his own
part 111 the coniinedia dell 'arte. This is an art form that face, a real and intelligent, personal face: young,
has now ciied out, though I am told our modern honourable, composed and brave. He stands like a

equivalent is the television comedy. There were St Sebastian to be shot at, or like a slave to be
always the same characters, such as Harlecjuin, the auctioned, not evading us but looking intently and
crafty villain who won the girl, and Pierrot, the yet enigmaticallv out at his \iewers.

stupid, well-meaning clown who never quite got It is this contrast between what he is dressed to

there. seem and w hat his face rewals that he is. that makes
The actual scene Watteau shows us is rather mys- the picture so arresting. It is painful to be looked at

terious, certainly not a scene from any play. The unless we can be certain that it is our true selves that

four actors at the back, or five it we count the are seen. Ti be truK seen as what we are: tli.it is a

donkey (the most intelligent ot the lot by the look cleep jov But so often we feel th.U lite does not
of him!), are clearly invoked in some action. The allow us to show our truth, that our role or context

man on the donkey is the Doctor and the brightly disguises us: this is where the p.iin ,uid the courage

coloured man is the Captain, and they are all com- of Gilles become so relevant. He is actor - a
.ni

municating. But Pierrot is alienated from them. figure of fun - in his outer garb; a real young man -
perched aloft and exposed. a serious person - in himself He staiuls on high to
An actor protects his privacy through words .nui be looked .it. to brave our stare: \\ h.it do we see? To
actions; Pierrot has been ileprived of them. He me (iilles is noble even heniic. ,in im.ige ot how we
simply stands there, limply, to be looked .it. He is .1 udiilil .ill desire to confront lite and its mockeries.

I 10
Gillcs Antoine Watteau c.1718
Oil on canvas 184.5 x i49-5cni (72; x sS^in)

Louvre Museum, Paris, France

 / fisp i ra tio n of th e Po et
NICOLAS POUSSIN
Born Les Andelys, Normandy, France 1 594
Died Rome, Italy 1665

^'li^-

^nyone with a passion for Poussin finds a happy waiting for inspiration, and Apollo regards him with
hunting-ground at the Louvre. One ot his a godHke impatience. Whether looking up or down,
great early triumphs was the Iiispimdoii of the Poel, the youth is searching for reward, eager to 'become

though 'triumph" is too crude a word tor the gra- a poet'. Apollo sits like a priest between the youth
cious elegance of this painting. Poussin presents us and the muse and the hint is clear: he should look

with a classical frieze showing the muse of epic in a completely different direction — across. There
poetry, Calliope, the god of poetry, Apollo, and the is waiting his own personal muse, one lovely breast

poor, young, earthly poet with his tousled hair and already bared, holding her flute. She carries no laurel
look of anxiety. He is earnestly seeking for 'inspi- wreath but is herself wreathed m laurel. The poet
ration' so as to 'succeed', and the symbol ot success has to forget all about himself and the desire to
is the laurel wreath. be poetic and simply accept the realirs' ot love,

The painting suggests that the poet sees two direc- of becoming a full human being. He needs this

tions in which to look for that success. One is completion, and in that profound relationship he
downwards, where a cherub holds a laurel wreath will find his poetry.

in one hand and a book in the other. This is one Shakespeare asked in The Mcniniiir oj I cnicc:

way to search, because you only create poetry out

Tell me where is tancy bred.
of the depths of your own being, and the more
Or in the heart, or in tlic head?
enriched that being, the greater the poetry. So we
How begot, how nourisiied?
need books, learning, knowledge: Apollo's foot rests
upon books. But this is not the only way, as we also Fancy or imagination or inspiration is not a partial

need to reflect within ourselves and to look out, to thing, replies Poussin. It is neitiier iu-art nor iiead

search infinity; hence the other direction is upwards. but the entire person, forgetting about self and glory
There too a cherub waits to crown the poet. and intent upon the Other. It is fuhilnient that

Notice, though, that the poet has not yet actually makes the poet, as it makes the artist, and just to

written a single line. He is holding his pen and look at a picture like this one is to share in tliitilmcnt.

I 12
Iiispii-iUioii of the Poet Nicolas Poussin C.163 I-

Oil on canvas 1 82 x 2 1
3cm (7 1; x Sj^in)

Louvre Museum, Paris. France

 Oe dip u s and the Sp h i ii x

M a de 1)1 i s e 1 1 e Riviere
JEAN-AUGUSTE-DOMINIQUE INGRES
Born Montauban, France 1780
Died Paris, France 1867

Ingres had a ven,' high idea of the spiritual but about whom we can deduce nothing. There she
vocation of the artist, but he is really only com- stands with her swan-like neck, her pertect head,

pletely at ease when deaHng with the simpHcities of her broad, clear brow. What thoughts he behind it?

the flesh. He gives us a splendid illustration of the Ingres does not tell us, not only because he does not
storv' of Oedipus and the enigma of the Sphinx, know but more because he does not want to know,
trying to make us see it as the riddle of the eternal is determined not to know.
feminine. (Notice the bodies down below of the He paints her with infinite finesse, but with an

men destroyed by Woman's wiles andhow the amazingly material touch. See how the teather boa

Sphinx thrusts her breasts at this nobly nude hero.) wraps round her without a hint of the erotic: it

The actual enigma was a rather simple one: what clings more like a boa constrictor. It is only the

had four legs in the morning, two at noon and three outside he dares look at, those gorgeous clothes so

at night? Clever Oedipus realized it was the human minutely pleated: pleated gloves, pleated dress, as if

being, who crawls when young, then stands, and he pleats the person as finely as he can so as to be
has a stick in old age. But bodies as such do not more able to deal with her. Even the background is

really challenge Ingres, and so do not force him past like a stage set, distancing her. There is a weird
competence. imbalance in her body, the gloves too large, the head
What makes him rise to his true potential is any too small, as though he were pressed too close to

need to depict not the body but the spirit, the reahtv' her to be able to get his proportions right.
of another person confronting him. A vcr\' young Most paintings of the young have a strain of
Ingres, faced with a still younger Mademoiselle vulnerability, which would have been peculiarly apt

Riviere, is able to cope only by a fierce distancing. here as this child died soon after the portrait was
He has to objectify her, turn her into an impersonal painted. But the truly vulnerable one is Ingres

and porcelain He produces an uncanny icon,

beaurv'. himself propelled into magnificence by his human
the supreme example ot a person who is wholly real fear of personal encounter.

114
 Oedipus and the Sphinx Mademoiselle Ririeie
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1808 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1805
Oil on canvas i8y x 144cm (745 x sfijin) Oil on canvas 1 00 x 70cm (395 x 275in)

Louvre Museum. Pans, France Louvre Museum, Paris, France

 Th e C }i versa t i o n

HENRI MATISSE
Born Le Cateau. France 1S69
Died Nice. France 1954

M atisse

made
was an intensely private man. Picasso
art out of his
Matisse did not, and the unusual thing about this
own private dramas, but
him
neck
suggests contained power,

to his affinity,-

The male body rhymes with

from
with the natural world outside.
the tall
his great thick

upright trees,

picture is that it is a self-portrait of Matisse in his whereas the female is only in tune with the rounded

pyjamas and Madame Matisse in her dressing-gown, ponds, none of which is allowed to complete itself:

coiilronting each other. It is an image of marital they are all intersected.

ahenation, and I suspect he did not realize ho\\- Her introverted pose is also taken up by the curli-

reveahng it was. We are probably meant to uni- cues of the railings, and it is here that Matisse adds

versaUze it, to read it as any t\vo partners in a a witty and elegant note of interpretation. The
marriage that is not working. curves of the raihngs spell out: .VO.V Matisse and

It is the husband who is seen as the dominant his wite are saying 'No' to each other, but saying it

figure. The wife is low down, low on the totem sUently. The "conversation" is one of the heart, since

pole, as it were. She is imprisoned in her chair, its both have their mouths firmly shut. There is no
great arms shutting her in. and the bag-like dressing- need for actual speech; their ver)- body language
gown enwrapping her feet. She has no feet, appar- shouts out this rejection, this \oii, and so does the

ently: she just ends, as if she were passive, not marked distance between them. They are apart,

needing feet, since her husband is the sole source ot not because they are physically so but because they
power. Her eyes are blots of darkness, and though are mentally so. Yet, despite this separation and
she tilts her head tensely and aggressively, we teel it mutual rejection, the deep expanse ot radiant
is useless. The husband is a great long streak ot blue in the picture, the lovely patterning of form

power, shooting up and out of the picture, as if he and colour, somehow takes the edge oft the argu-

continued on into infinity, whereas the wife is ment. In the end it is not a sad picture, but a strong,

wholly contained. He is free of the picture-frame, a funny and serious picture, since everything works
freedom emphasized by the arrow-straight body and in it, everything sings, even if the lyric is a loud but

the strong white lines of his pyjania suit. All about musical negation.

116
 The Coiwerscuioii Henri Matisse 1909
Oil on canvas 177 x 217cm (695 x S^^in)

Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

(temporarily exhibited at the Pompidou Centre, Paris, France)

^('•Ili

'sy

d0
 ANTWERP

There is a gentle elegance about Antwerp that is surprisnigly evocative of Flennsh art. say 1

surpnsHigly', because thmk only of the more robust artists from the region that is
we often

now Belgium: the muscular Jordaens or the lovely plumpness of the Rubens' women. Yet Rubens
is also one of the supremely poetic painters, and even Jordaens has a wistful touch. But think of

van Eyck, van der Weyden, Joachim Patinir, Quintin Metsys or Petrus Christus, and the images
that come to mind are almost ethereal in their beauty.

Antwerp has two of these unworldly van Eycks: St Badnva and the I 7;\'//; of the Foiiiitdiii\

they are small and exquisite and I love them intensely. They shine sublimely out from the walls ot

the Koninklijk Museum, as does one of the greatest of Patinir's works, the Flight into Egypt. Apart

from the magical bird's-eye view of the landscape - this from an artist who could not have seen it

from so high, m those days without aeroplanes - Patinir has told the whole legend of the hurried
journey that Mary and Joseph took into Egypt, refugees with the Christ Child from the wrath ot
the jealous Herod. Its tiny delicacy is for personal contemplation.

This same museum Mary Magdalene by Metsys, a saint who is usually

has a wonderful

depicted with a certain amount of drama: grieving over her years as a prostitute or at least more
obviously as a glamorous woman. Metsys' Magdalene has a face worn with living, quiet and
thoughtful. She is dressed with Flemish modest>' and lingers m my mind as one of the most
touchmgly dignified portraits I have ever seen.
Antwerp is rich m museums. Rubens" house, the mansion he raised by his artistic eftorts,

recalls his eftbrdess grandeur on every floor and m the gracious garden. He, Jordaens and van

Dyck, the three greatest painters of Renaissance Antwerp, are glorious in churches and museums
throughout the city, the great Baroque sweep of their hne complemented by the still inwardness of
the earlier artists. I loved everything I saw.

119
 A ta I an t a and M eleaj^er 1

J A COB JORDAENS 1

ISnrn Aiilwi-rp, Ik-lgium 1593

Oicd A[)tvvrrp. liclgium 1678

' '^ '

/'

IF li.ui iR-\ci t.ikc iH h iiiu-RM 111 JokLu'iis, who Here we see the threatening uncles looming

A si-fiiR-cl to Ik- l<iil)(ii\ vMilidut (Ir- poetry. If ominously in the background while the two young
KuIh-hs is .1 syiiiplii'in on lu\ii.i, iIkii Jorciacns is a people are ringed in by implicit menace: dogs thrust-
Ih.iss li.iiiil liiil liiokiiii!, .It .1 \S()rk like tins li.is in.uk- ing up, hands thrusting up, the boar's teeth thrusting

nif ii-.ili/i' tli.it I .11 tii.ilK likf hi.iss li.iiuis. up. It is a moment ot drama, and Meleager, a hot-

My firsi u-.uiion w.is .1 smile ol ,istonislniK-ni, tempered voutli. is alread)' reaching tor the sword

bccaiisi- At.il.mt.i is the t.inioiis Heet-toot girl, and with which he will attack and kill his jealous uncles,

she is nsn.illy show n laeiiif; against lier suitors. Hut and so bring about his own death at the hands of his

this IS .111 e.irliei siory. Meieager, the angry young mother. For Atalanta. this is a moment of glorious
piiiue shoiiKler-to-shouKler with her. liad suni- realization: she is not only loved, she is matched.
moiuJ the heroes ofC.reeee to help hiin destroy the She and Meleager are alike: great muscular creatures
luige boar that was ravaging his t.ither's kingdom. with bright eyes and high courage. If she seenis

Among the lierocs was Atalanta. .1 gre.it sports- rather large tor a notable sprinter, she would at least

wtinian, and siic was probably welcomed with do well in the discus, and she is tar from untl-minine.
amused eondesceiision. But once the Inint got under with a flower in her hair and earrings.

way. the oiiK luinter to wmmd the boar was Ata- lordaens convinces us by his truthfulness to what

lanta. Although she did not kill it. her arrow-shot he knew: the hefty, wholesome Flemings of his era,

made It possible tor Meleager to cut otl the savage and he convinces us that these people are engaged
licad. He was eiiornunisly impressed: love at hrst in a serious controntation. It will mean death for

shot. He showed his love by insisting that the trophy Meleager, and tor Atalanta the loss of her trust in

of the head should go to Atalanta, to the fury and love. It will take her years to recover. This is their

chagrin of the others, especially his uncles. last shared moment ot love.

120
Arahiiiiii and Meleagcr Jacob Jordaens C.1617-1X
Oil on canvas 152x1 20cm (59s x 47jin)

Komnklijk Museum, Antwerp, Belgium

 i

Ve n us F r ig da
1

SIR
9
PETER PAUL RUBENS tt

Born Siegen, Germany 1577

Died Antwerp, Belgium 1640

s^--

"^ T eiius Frigida hangs on the end wall in a large not doing. She is solely occupied with herself her

V gallery, and one can stand at the opposite end long white legs curved in, her hands knotted in, her

and see it gleaming out on the whole room, shining face averted. Instead of longing for somebody else,

forth the message so typical of Rubens, that love is she is not even conscious of them, neither of sad

the brightness of Hfe. Perhaps only he could take a little shivering Cupid nor of Bacchus looming out
rather commonplace proverb and make it magical. of the darkness with coming succour. Rubens does
The proverb is that Venus freezes without the pres- not blame her. He is explaining that this is our

ence of Bacchus, or, in everyday language, without condition: body and soul are too intimately united

food and drink, you do not have the energy to love. to function separately. Love is the central hght, but

The great beautiful body of the goddess of love is that spiritual brightness needs material sufficiency

shivering, wrapped in on itself, aware only ot the to glow in its fullness, person to person.

cold. Poor silly Venus is too miserable even to realize One of the reasons why I so love Rubens is his

that she is, in fact, sitting on her cloak and could do reverence for our wholeness, his humble cherishing

something to quell the goosebumps. But she is too of the body. He never abuses it or holds it cheap.

frozen even to function intellectually, let alone He never gives it a meretricious over-importance.

emotionally, and that is Rubens' point. He takes being human with complete seriousness,

This could have been a rather cynical picture, but also with humour, delight and lyric strength. A
but instead it is both truthful and profound. Love, wise and balanced man, Rubens understands that
Rubens is saying, is a matter of relationships. Love love does not function in a vacuum but needs -
goes out to another, which is exactly what Venus is actively and essentially - material support.

122
Venus Fi-igiild Sir Peter Paul Rubens I 6 I 4
Oil on canvas 142 x 184cm (55^ x 72310)
Koninklijk Museum, Antwerp, Belgium
 The Lance 1

SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS

Born Siegen. Germany 1577
Died Anr\v erp, Belgium 1640

A painting like this comes very close to the bone he was divine and was now suffering total failure.

/A for me, because it shows the death ot someone The good thief spent his last breath saying, out of

I love. It takes us beyond what some people would compassionate concern, 'Lord, remember me when
consider as the 'narrowness ot religion' by making you come into your kingdom." The dying Jesus

it so clear that a rehgion only works when it is based raised his head and rephed, 'This day you will be
upon the deepest experiences of the human heart. with me in paradise," and the good thief slipped
If I were trying to explain this picture to those who happily and sweetly out of hfe. This is the death we
had never heard of Christianity, I would tell them all desire, a death of unselfishness and of peace.
to regard it as a great meditation upon the meaning In Tlie Lance, Jesus is already dead; his last words,
of death. It is centred on a depiction of three ways said just before his side was pierced by the lance to

of dying. prove that he was now bloodless, are hard to trans-

On the right we have one of the two thieves who late: Coiisiimmatum est in Latin, something like 'It

were crucified with Christ, the so-called 'bad thief". is done, absolutely everything has been given' in
He has been called this because he died badly. He English. To have achieved the utter fulfilment of all

died raging against death, closed up in himself and potential, to havebecome completely human:
his own bitterness and fi-ustrations, hostile to every- would that we could die Like that. Around the three
one and aware only of himself. He went screaming who are dead or dying are three other groups of
into eternirv" please God none of us die like that. three. The executioners, astonished and active; the

On the left is the 'good thief", good because he mourners, passive in the intensity of griet; and the
died trying to do a kindness to another. Dorothy interconnecting group of Magdalene and the

Sayers suggested that he regarded Christ as a sweet bystanders: us. Rubens integrates the whole world
and loving lunatic, a man who had the delusion that with magnificently unselfconscious emotion.

124
The Lance Sir Peter Paul Rubens C.161S-20
Oil on panel 429 x 3 1 icm (1685 x llljin)
Koninklijk Museum, Antwerp, Belgium
 Dulle Griet
PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER
Born near Bree(?), Belgium c. 1525-30
Died Brussels, Belgium 1569

his is a rare instance of a picture that I do not with a defensive quality that mingles bravery and

T' actually 'like', but which has such presence, timidity. Her gaunt, painfially intent face arouses our

such a sinister vitaUty, that I cannot forget it. It is so compassion, with male armour slung around her so

fijll of incident that it almost frightens me with its unskilftiUy and her loot such a weird inixture of the

complexity, yet Bruegel is one of the most lucid ot precious and the commonplace: silver caskets and

artists (razor-sharp of mind, tender of heart). frying-pans.

The key to understanding the painting is the Pages have been written as to what Dulle Griet
strange head on the left, the giant mouth ot hell. represents, and my theory, which is only mine, is

What we are seeing is a charming httle medieval that her meaning depends upon the significance in

ciry, rather like Antwerp itself, and it has become a the painting of the other giant figure, the man. He
colony of hell. The air has thickened, smoky with IS sitting not inside the house but outside it, on the

flames and evil spirits. There are misshapen creatures roof, marginahzed. With one hand he bears the

all around, and there is a special note of horror in heavy but nonsensical burden of the ship and its

that nobody even seems to notice or fear them; they strange crew, and with the other he holds a ladle.

are an accepted part of the landscape. On all sides His rear part has been cracked open like an egg, and

people are attacking each other with a horrible sense he is excreting coins and painfully helping them to

of ferocity, of things going wrong, and at the centre fall. What do we have? A man producing money
of this human wrongness strides Dulle Griet. with labour, bearing the burdens, not included in
Griet is short for Margaret, and she has been the faimly, while the woman roams free and loots.

anglicized as 'Mad Meg', although dulle is more than Their relationship has gone wrong, there is imbal-

simply 'mad'; there is an hysterical violence in its ance, there is no love or sharing. Without that, says

meaning. Despite her size, she is strangely diffident. Bruesel, life is hell.

126
Diillc Grict Pieter Bruegel the Elder 1562
Oil on panel 1 17.5 x 162cm (46:5 x 635in)

Mayer van den Bergh Museum, Antwerp, Belgium

 s t Joll 11 Rc s t i 11^ on the B s ni of Christ
1

MASTER HEINRICH OF CONSTANCE 1

Dates unknown

e^'-

Flemish art is very rich (including, in the Mayer in the curving flow of the drapery, telling us that

van den Bergh Museum, a superb work by there is no passion here, no great emotionahty, just

Pieter Bruegel the Younger, a creative copy ot his love.

father's Tritiuiph of Death) so I feel almost ashamed But if we want to e.xperience the full impact ot

to confess that here I have cheated. I wanted to this sculpture, I think we have to imagine it back

explore only the wonders of its national art in into its original setting. It came from a convent. For

Antwerp, and this carving is by a Swiss, whose verv' centuries it stood m a contemplative convent, a

surname is unknown. But I cannot pass this by: it is monastery, as an example to the sisters of the

one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. meaning of prayer. It is impossible to be a nun
Here is Jesus, a young man in his twenties, and without understanding prayer (a living under-

his friend John, a young man in his late teens. John standing, not an intellectual one). If one is going to

is leaning on Jesus with total trust. It is the perfect spend hours praying everyday, these cannot be hours
expression of friendship when one partner is a litde of talking, or asking, but hours of loving. Prayer is

older. John knows for certain that Jesus will protect essentially resting one's head on the heart of God,
him, care for him, always put him first, never act certain that He knows. Prayer is complete surrender.
other than as a big brother. The very way the work A nun takes a great gamble, that without the normal

has been carved emphasizes this. There is no space frilfilment of a partner and perhaps children, she will
between the two, no gap; these are two who think still become a complete woman. She has unshake-
John does not hold the hand of Jesus but
alike. able faith that resting on God will mean human
merely rests his hand on it. The older friend provides fulfilment, which is what this sculpture shows. So

a firm platform, absolute support. There is a won- it IS special tor everybody, but it is particularly

derful sense of peace and a kind ot rhythmic serenirs- special for me.

I2S
St John Rciinig on the Bosom of Christ Master Heinrich of Constance
early 14th century'

Wood ht 141cm (ss^in)

Maver van den Bergh Museum. Antwerp. Belgium
 XjmiUL^ioii^Mj y^rmtiAcC^my

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a » f
 AMSTERDAM
THE HAGUE

he Netherlands is one of those miraculous countries, like Belgium: so small, so geographically

T'unromantic, so astonishingly rich artistically. The friendliness of Amsterdam, low-key, just a

touch zany, offered no hint of the profundities waiting to be looked at in museums such as the
Rijks or the V;ui Gogh. I spent my time there in an almost constant state of wonder. The
Rijksmuseum had )ust finished a massive work of restoration of some of their great Rembrandts,

and that alone was sufficient cause for awe. A sensitive cleaning has revealed works like Titus as a

Monk or the Denial of St Peter as even more beautiful, more luminous with an inner intensity than
I had realized.

Skiimmng along to the Rembrandts I was arrested by the face of the Woman Warniinii her

Hands at a Brazier, a painting by a relatively unknown artist, Caesar van Everdingen. It is a plain

face, wholly serious as it concentrates on the brazier, which is concealed beneath a cloth. There is

a sense of the sacramental, of something at stake. The young woman is dressed not only in costly

seventeenth-century bed attire, she is also wearing her earrings and pearls, dressed in her tinery for
cope.
an empty bed; yet she is not repining but making do with her loneliness and setting herself to
Finding a minor artist so transcending himself, which suggests that the theme had some personal
significance for him, is one of the unexpected deUghts of a Grand Tour.
The expected delights were even greater. Amsterdam has a wealth ot quietly majestic

Vermeers, so that it seemed almost greedy

The Hague where there
to travel the short distance to

hangs the greatest of all Vermeers (perhaps of all Dutch pictures?), the Vien> of Delft. The Mauntshuis

at The Hague, which is the Queen of the Netherlands' own

collection, also contains some

moving Susanna, crouching with such vulnerable grace as she

w^onderiul Rembrandts, like his
realizes her bath is being spied upon, and a haunting pair of early and late self-portraits. Perhaps

the Dutch have a special gift for self-portraits, with van Gogh staring out at us with bleak intentness

in the Van Gogh Museum and ter Borch looking reassuringly normal at the Mauritshuis. The
Netherlands reminded me of Christopher Marlowe's great Hne: 'Infinite riches in a Htde room'.

131
 Artist's Be d ro o iii

VINCENT VAN GOGH

Born Zundert, The Netherlands iSsj
Died Auvers-sur-Oise. France 1 890

his IS one of the famous pictures of van Gogh's state at times of disturbance. There are two rather
T'bedroom. All his work is intensely personal, indeterminate sketches (he was a passionate

which is one of the reasons why we love it, but draughtsman) and there is a small wash-stand, almost

nothing is so personal as one's private bedroom. quivering with electric power, held down by the

This was the first time that van Gogh, perpetually sheer force of personal artistry. The towel hangs near

unsettled, had had a house of his own, and he it like a great flag drooping without wind, and there
invested in it an immense amount ot psychic energ\'. IS the touching eflbrt to impose order on his clothes:

That is partly why this great painting is so alarming: three sad litde bundles neatly aligned.

it is a symbol of van Gogh's inner centre. It you The painful solitude is only emphasized by the

think about it, to come close to van Gogh would two chairs, in awkward positions and with nobody
indeed be a frightening experience. to sit on them, and the double bed with its two
The room is claustrophobic, with those blue walls pillows for one head. He thought of this bed as a

closing in on us and the floor tiles seeming to shoot great svmbol of stability, yet it is a very strange bed,

like rockets towards the vanishing point with a dizzy- box-like, shutting up within it the wild animal ot

ing sense of perspective. We are shut in by that the scarlet quilt or blanket, which seems to be trying

back wall. There are two doors, both closed, and a to escape from its imprisonment.
window out of which we cannot look. There is a In this airless cell, van Gogh believed he was

mirror that reflects nothing but chaos. expressing great 'tranquillit\- and restfulness', as he

He has tried, pathetically, to enclose in this room wrote to his family. He is actually expressing intense

all that matters most to him. On the right wall hang anxiety and frustration, ordered, held in vigorous,

two paintings: one of himselt, because he was a very trembling tension. It is this moving contrast that

self-centred man, though innocently so; the other makes us feel close to him. We are an anxious,

of one of the rare people who befriended him, neurotic generation, and we warm to this neurotic

the local postman. Over the bed there is a weirdK man. struggling so bravely to impose calm upon tlie

tumultuous landscape that suggests his own mental turmoil of his mental stresses.

'3-
 \ "

IL M.

Artist's Bedroom Vincent van Gogh 1888

Oil on canvas 72 x 90cm (28| x 3 5sin)

Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh. Amsterdam. The Netherlands

 .

Jewish Bride
REMBRANDT
Born Leyden, The Netherlands 1606
Died Amsterdam, The Netherlands 1669

i all Rembrandts. this is the one that moves We feel these two may have looked "on tempests"
me most: the Jewish Bride. It has been given but they have accepted that to love is to surrender

this title because, although nobody quite knows freedom. It is a bhssflil surrender, but one ot intense

who this couple were, the exotic richness of their seriousness. The woman does not look up at her

attire suggests the world of the Old Testament, hence husband: she looks within, gently smiling, under-

'Jewish'. 'Bride' has been added, perhaps unfairly standing the impUcations of the chain and freely

since the man is as involved as the woman, trom an taking upon herself the responsibilities ot his hap-

attempt to express the view that this is a depiction piness. She lays her right hand on her womb. He
not just of love but of married love. The couple are envelops her protectively, more obviously under-
not young: their faces are worn and plain, but they taking the same responsibility. They iiave deeply

stand together in an atmosphere of utter trust and committed faces, quietly content to relinquish the

mutual commitment. treedom to choose ditferent options and accept the

To show an intangible such as "commitment' is adult freedom of total choice, which is the meaning
almost impossible, yet Rembrandt has achieved it. of mature love.

The man is not just laying a tender hand on his wife's The spiritual beauty of this is made visible by

breast, he is putting round her neck the expression ot the radiant visual beaut\- of the actual painting, its

his love: his gift of a golden chain. She lays her hand thickened ridges of colour catching the light with

assentingly upon his, accepting the gift, the gold, the ellcct of glittering jewels. Recent restoration has

but fiilly aware that it is a chain. Shakespeare, med- made it clear that they are standing not in a familiar
itating on this same mystery, wrote about love's room but in a sort of architectural enclave, almost a
inviolabilit\': dark cavern in which the only solid reality- is their

illiisionless love for each other.

. . . Lo\e is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fi.xed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken . .

i.U
Jewish Bride Rembrandt C.1662-S
Oil on canvas 121.5 x 166.5cm (47^x653^)

Rijksniuseum. Amsterdam, The Netherlands

 Parental A dm o n i r
;'
// 1

GERARD TER BORCH |

Born Zwolle, The Netherlands i 617

Died Deventer, The Netherlands 1681

'^f^r-

deHghtful picture by ter Borch, which and the gorgeously attired girl, makes the scene read
This is a

used to be called the Paremal Adnioiiitiini. The very differently. It is an unmistakable brothel scene,

girl's oyster satin shimmers as it cascades in the light, one of those glimpses into privacy (the 'interior')

a focal point that makes it quite clear to us what is that so fascinated the seventeenth-century Dutch.

happening. Here is papa, finger raised reprovingly, The 'interior' shows what goes on between
telling off his erring daughter. There she stands, halt- people when they are not in public and on display.

turned away, partly embarrassed, partly resentful, The 'mother' is the madam, waiting, sipping her

emotions we can all understand and feel an empathy wine 111 a ladylike fashion while the young people
with. Mama, of course, is distancing herselt from come to a financial agreement. The man is buying
the whole sorr\- business, pretending to be engrossed the girl's company. Obviously he has a great conceit

with her private thoughts. of himself, with the extravagance of the sweeping
This title held good all through Victorian times feather on the hat and the fancy ruffles on his bree-

and up until the present. Even,-body took an uncom- ches. But notice that underneath the ruffles there is

plicated pleasure in the interior, with its rather vague a rather unprepossessing trouser leg and sagging

furnishings and its clearly understood human centre. socks. There are ambiguities about this seemingly

Then it began to strike viewers that the "father" was gaOant young man. with his straggling hair and dull
strangely young to have such a grown-up daughter. complexion. The girl is unproblematically exquisite

The furniture was looked at more intently, and as she ponders whether the fee is worth it. Is he

seemed to reveal itself as some sort ot bed, with offering enough, this vain and relatively unattractive

adjacent and appropriate trappings. Light began to man?

dawn as people really started to look as opposed to It is a sordid picture and it is left unresolved. We
glancing casually. It is true that the man is holding see the moment of tension, with the actual issue

something on high, but it is not an admonishing unclear. But the theme is blatantly clear, and tlie

finger. Careful scrutiny shows it to be a coin, which, only comment is made by the sole moral actor in

together with the bed, the demure, elderly woman the drama: the dog, disgraced by human behaviour.

i.K^
Parental Admoiuuon Gerard ter Borch c.1654
Oil on canvas 71 x73cm {28 x 28jin)
Rijksniuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
 View of Delft
JOHANNES (JAN) VERMEER
Born Delft, The Netherlands 1632
Died Delft. The Netherlands 1675

the most beauti- past seven. Light plays with glorious impartialirs'
Some people have said that this is

flil painting in the world. And yet. what is it? It over the city buildings. It picks details at divine

is just a view of Delft, Vermeer's home town. It is random: here a streak of blue on a boat in the

this, I think, that is the secret of the Vermeer magic: harbour, there a wonderfrilly golden roof Every

he takes something absolutely simple, something brick seems to ghtter m the early morning sunlight.
coimnonplace, and then he makes the light sliine It is the precise kind of over-brightness we get when
on It. It is not that the light makes it different but a storm is coming, and we can in fact see the

that at last we see it as it really is. darkening clouds overhead. But the storm has not

This painting is an almost photographic rep- yet arrived. Delft still shines in the lucidir\- ot the

resentation of the city of Delft but it is also some- hght. So every"i>vhere we look, along the whole
thing more. It is revealed as that interior city: the expanse of the view, we see both a real cin.- and a
heavenly Jerusalem that we all long for and never magical city shining before us.

reach. But for us to be able to see this blissflil cit\', What is so interesting about Vermeer is that he

the Eden from which we have been exiled, we need never really has a 'story'. His leading actor, his 'hero',

(an absolute visual essential) to have that lower layer is always hght itself the wonder of it. This painting
of sun-baked beach. We also need the river, a further is perhaps the only one in which light finds its own
layer of separation. Above these two layers rise two subject, because it is hght that creates this cit\; in its

more: the stretch of the cits' itself ideal and distant, ideahty and realism. We see what reaHty is, infinitely

and finally the great over-arching sky under which more than we imagined. That is why this is so

all exists. profoundly tranquilhzing a picture. We do not long

We can only see the visionary' place because we with eager passion to cross the river to the visionary
are not there, yet in a mysterious sense we are indeed cit\'. We look at it with gende longing, with hope.
there, because Vermeer has made it so specific tor Vermeer has set the ciU' across a great river, but he

us. There is a specific time on the church clock: ten has triven us a boat.

I3«
View of D elf r Johannes (Jan) Vermeer c. I 66 1

Oil on canvas 98.5 x 1 17.5cm (38^ x 465in)

Mauritshuis, The Hague, The Netherlands
 Saul and David
REMBRANDT
Born Leyden, The Netherlands 1606
Died Amsterdam, The Netherlands 1669

hat I love about Rembrandt is his refusal to Saul is shown sunk in all the wretched misery of

W''romanticize and way he unerringly puts

the the manic-depressive. He is wiping his terrifying

his finger on psychological truths. The long face with his curtain because, great king though he

relationship between Saul and David was one that was, he cannot pull himself together enough to draw

could well have been romanticized, especially as out a handkerchief. He still has his dangerous spear,

the biblical events were familiar reading matter in but his grasp is flaccid. We sense that he is gradually

Rembrandt's day and all the subtleties of interpret- emerging from the horror of his condition, pacified
ation would have been savoured. Saul was the king by the music.
that God gave the Jews in response to their pleading; It is the contrast between the two - wholly
David was the hero who slew Goliath with his sling. without sentinientalm- - that fascinated Rembrandt.
Saul rewarded him, but their relationship was long The old mad king fills his half of the canvas; he is

and devious, and it ended with open warfare in present power, alarmingly unstable. The small king-

which Saul self-destructed and David became king. to-be is only able to half-fill his part of the picture.

Rembrandt is focusing on an early and Httle Above him thickens a great hole of darkness, indica-

studied aspect of their lives together, when Saul's tive, I think, of two things: one is the blackness that

mental instability gave rise to ungovernable rages 111 engults poor Saul, a darkness of spirit; the other

which he screamed and wept and hurled his spear is the future ahead for David, still innocent and

at his attendants. In these wild fits, David could vulnerable. He is destined to be king and fill the

calm him down by playing the harp. Rembrandt vacant space, but it will happen, as the contemporan,-

contemplates David the musician, and sees him as viewers knew well, only in dark and agonizing

scrawny, young and Jewish. This is not the mag- ways.

nificent David of the Renaissance but what Despite all the superficial grandeur, we are asked
Rembrandt thinks is more likely to have been true: to ponder the painful realin.- of two human beings.
an artistic, youthful harpist, lost in his music but still struggling with their personal problems and their

uneasily alert to what the king is doing. unknown destinies.

140
Saul and David Rembrandt (attrib.) C.1655
Oil on canvas 130 x 164.3cm (5i|x 64|in)
Mauritshuis, The Hague, The Netherlands
 r BRIEF LIVES
F THE ARTISTS

Cr is tofano ALLORi (1577-1621)

A Florentine bv bnth, Allon is sonietmies known by his taniily name of Bronzino. He

was taught hrst bv his tather, Alessandro, then entered the studio of Gregorio Pagani, w^hose
style he preferred to his father's. He visited Rome in 1610 where he saw Caravaggio's
paintings. He was a perfectionist and by 1616 was very famous. Mori was a gifted man, a
fine portrait painter, a landscape artist, poet and musician. Gossip reports him to have been
a libertine who had bouts of piet>', and it is true that he formed an unhappy and expensive
liaison with a w^oman known as 'La Mazzafirra'. She was the model for his Judith, while

the head she carries was said to be a self-portrait.

Albrecht ALTDORFER (c. 1480-1 538)

Born in Bavaria, Altdoifer spent most of his Ufe in Regensburg, where he held several
official posts and became prosperous. His Hfe seems to have changed in about 151 1 when
he made a trip down the Danube and was moved by the sceners' in the Austrian Alps. He
made many landscape drawings and etchings, and his paintings gradually gave more and
more importance to the landscape rather than the figures. In 1 526 he was made city architect
and became a member of the town council. Apparently, he was a happy man w^ho had a
successful career, but we only know the bare outlines of his lite.

143
 ;rief lives of the artists

Fra ANGELico (c. 1400-1455)

Guido di Piero was born in the Mugello, north-east of Florence. Unlike many novices,
he was apparently a mature man, as well as already being a recognized artist, when he joined
the Dominican community in Fiesole, where in 1450 he was appointed Prior ot San
Domenico. The tide Angelico seems to refer to his goodness as a monk as well as his genius

as an artist. He became very well known, working outside Florence and Fiesole on a
number of occasions, the most important being his invitation to work in Rome, where

between about 1445 and 1449 he painted four cycles of frescos in the Vatican. He had
studio assistants but was himself a fast worker. In about 1453 he returned to Rome where
he was buried in the main Dominican church, Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

Hans BALDUNG (c. I 484/6-1 545 )

Hans Baldung came from a family of lawyers and doctors in south-west Germany and at

about eighteen he entered Durer's workshop in Nuremberg as an apprentice, hi 1509-10

he married, setded in Strasbourg and began his series of images of witches, as well as
designing stained-glass windows and making woodcut illustrations tor books. He was
commissioned in 15 12 to paint the important altarpiece in the cathedral at Freiburg, where
he spent five years. The Reformation meant less demand for rehgious subjects and he turned
to allegorical themes from classical hterature. He was considered by his contemporaries to

be one of the greatest painters of his time, and his drawings were acquired by early collectors.

144
 ^RIEF LIVES ()I= THE ARTISTS

Giovanni Lorenzo bernini (1598-1680)

JtSeniiiii IS known as a great sculptor and architect, but he was the Renaissance all-rounder:
he wrote music and comedies, macle stage designs, and painted as well. Born in Naples,

Bernini was first taught by his father, a sculptor. The fimily moved toRome in 1605,
where Bernini stayeci all his life, apart tVom one \isit to Paris in 1665. When he was still a

teenager the wealthy Cardinal Scipione Borghese commissioned sculptures from him. But
Pope Urban VIII was his most important patron, with whom he had a long working
relationship. A devout C^atholic, he believeci he was the tool of Clod. He was said to be
stern by nature, but passionate when angry, a protuse talker with strong convictions. It was
as Architect of St Peter's that he became famous; for fift\'-six years he was responsible for
the major works in the Basilica. He employed numerous assistants in his studio, and most
sculptors in Rome worked under him at some time.

Gerard ter borch (1617-1681)

ler Borch was born m the eastern Netherlands. He was a precocious child and began his
training under his tather. When he was about fifteen it seems he studied painting in

Amsterdam and then in Haarlem. He travelled to England in 1635 to join the studio of his
uncle, who was an engraver, and two years later he went to Italy and Spain. He painted
portraits with a rare psychological penetration, but his greatest skill was in depicting the
Dutch interior and the small domestic dramas it enclosed. In 1654 he was in Deventer,
where he stayed for the rest of his lite.

145
 )

BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISTS

Sandro BOTTICELLI ( c . i 445- i 5 i o)

Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi was born in Florence, the son of a tanner. The nickname
Botticelh means 'a small wine cask', a name which seems to have first been given to his

elder brother. He was a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi and, after commissions in Florence from
the Medici faimly, he was invited to Rome in 148 1-2 to paint frescos in the Sistine Chapel.

Botticelli's brother was a follower of the preacher Savonarola, who condemned works of

art to his 'bonfire of vanities', and it seems Botticelli also became a follower about the time

Savonarola was burned at the stake in 1498. He died, unmarried, in Florence and was

buried in the church of Ognissanti.

Pieter bruegel the Elder ( c .

i 5 2 5 / 3 o- i 5 69

The details of Bruegel's life are shadowy, but it is now known that he was not a simple

peasant, as traditionally assumed, and was instead a cultured man. Recent detective work
born in what is now north-east Belgium. In that period the Netherlands
has suggested he was
(the modern country together with modern Belgium) was under Spanish rule.
In 1551 he

became a Master of the Antwerp Guild, and travelled to Italy and Switzerland. On his
and and for the rest ot his lite he
return to Antwerp he worked for an engraver print-seller,

was both a painter and a designer of prints. He married the daughter of his old teacher in
couple went to live in Brussels, where he died young, the last years ot his lite
1563 and the
being shadowed by political and religious strife.

146
 BH 1 i; I LIVES () I- 1 H i; ARTISTS

Hans BURGKMAiR (1473-1531)

1 he son of a painter, Burgkniair was born in Bavaria. He w as a pupil of Martin Schongauer,

then a famous painter and an important figure in the development of engraving. Burgkmair
seems to have lived mainly m Augsburg, painting and engraving, and we know that he
admired Oiirer and that both artists made portraits of each other. But apart from scanty
details, we know very little about his personal life: there are no 'biographical spectacles'

through which to view his painting, which is no bad thing!

CARAVAGGIO ( I 5 7 I / 2 - I 6 I )

iVlichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was the son of an architect, who died when he was
young. At eleven he began his apprenticeship in Milan, and went to Rome in about 1592.
After a difficult start he finally received a public commission in 1599; he caused a sensation

with his radical interpretations of traditional subjects, his light effects and his insistence on
painting directly from life, hicreasingly aggressive, he got involved in a number of brawls,
and his killing of a fellow-player in a ballgame caused him to leave Rome in 1606. He fled

to Naples and then to Malta, where he was made a knight of the Order at the lowest grade,

a state of grace that was, not unexpectedly, short-lived. After numerous escapades he ended
up in Naples and was seriously wounded in a fight in a tavern. Ironically, he was mistakenly
imprisoned and died whilst waiting for a papal pardon to arrive. His early death was greatly
mourned and the effects of his genius are still with us.

147
 )

BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISTS

Vittore carpaccio ( c . i 460 / 5- i 5 2 5 / 6

Apart from one possible trip to Rome, Carpaccio spent his life m Venice. He may have

been a pupil of Gentile Bellini and was an assistant to Giovanni Bellini. He had a special

gift for narrative cycles and had an enchanting command of detail. In the 1860s John
Ruskin's enthusiasm for his work made people look again with fresh eyes. We know little

about this enchanting artist and must simply deHght m the work he left us.

Paul CEZANNE (1839-I906)

Born in Aix-en-Provence to a wealthy fanuK; Cezanne desperately wanted to become an

artist, although his father intended him to be a lawyer and the art establishment m Paris

thought him remarkably ham-handed. In Paris he entered into the revolutionary fervour

of the time with his friend Emile Zola and also appHed to the conservative Academie des

Beaux Arts. He submitted work to the first Impressionist exhibitions m 1874 and 1877 but
his stylewas not well received. On his father's death in 1886, Cezanne was able to retreat
to Provence and devote himself to the revolutionary paintings which were to torm the basis
of twentieth-century art, though he himself always felt he was falling short. Like Titian and
Rembrandt (both to whom he is equal m genius) his work grew all the more beautiful as

he aged. He painted almost to the day he died.

CORREGGIO (C. I489-I534)

Antonio Allegri was known as Correggio from his birthplace near Modena, where he also

died. He was traditionally a pupil of Mantegna and his early paintings certainly show his

knowledge of Mantegna's work, although the style is softer. His greatest frescos, always

much admired, are in the cupolas in St Giovanni EvangeUsta and the C^athedral in Parma.
The events of his Ufe seem to have made no mark on the world although his art grew and
deepened. His death in his early forties was an irreparable loss.

148
 BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISIS

DONATELLO (1386/7-I466)

Oonato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi was born in Florence. He was described as a 'rare and
simple man' whose sculpture was unrivalled. In 1403 he was an assistant to the Florentine
artist Ghiberti, who haci won the competition for the bronze doors of the Baptistery. Three
years later he made statues for the Cathedral, and continued to work for it over the next
thirty years. Brunelleschi was a friend, with whom he talked about the problems of art, but
their friendship seems to have ended with a c]uarrel. He went to Kome in about 143 1—3 to
study antic]uity, and enthusiastically dug up fragments of columns and capitals to measure
and copy. In 1434 he was described man for whom the smallest meal is a large one,
as 'a

and who is content in every situation'. He moved to Padua in 1443, where he stayed for

about ten years, finally ciying in Florence, a poor man in a modest house.

Albrecht DURER (1471-1528)

Ijorn in Nuremberg, Diirer was one of eighteen children. In 1490—4 his goldsmith father
allowed his gifted son to make a prolonged aesthetic tour of Germany, before returning to
Nuremberg to settle down. He made one or two trips to Italy and met the ageing Giovanni
which had an enormous impact on him. His success as a painter, his charm and
Bellini,

sophistication as a man and the lessons he had learnt in Italy concerning the painter's
importance, enabled him to transform the social standing of the German artist. Diirer

remains the greatest and most influential of the Northern painters.

149
 BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISTS

Artemisia gentileschi ( i 5 9 3" i 65 2 / 3 )

A student of her father, the painter Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia was also
strongly

influenced by Caravaggio's work, with its strong contrasts of light and shadow and rich
Agostino Tassi, which led
colours. When she was nineteen she was raped by a fellow artist,

to a notorious trial in Rome. She married a Florentine after the trial but her reputation

never totally recovered because of the incident. The marriage was brief and she led an

independent life, unusual for women at that time, and travelled extensively. Between about
she mainly lived in
1638 and 1 64 1 she was in London, where her father was working, but
Naples for about the last twenty' years of her life. She remains the one undoubtedly major

talent among women artists of the Renaissance and Baroque.

GIORGIONE (c. I 477-1 5 I 0)

Cjriorgio da Castelfranco was

important figure in the evolution of Western painting but there are very few hicts known
Giorgione
about his life, except that he died young of the 'plague'. It seems he was called
dns, ot course, is
('Big George') because of the greatness of both his spirit and his size, but
sheer guesswork. It seems somehow appropriate that this most curious ot painters should
elude our biographical curiosit)'.

150
.•-Sir-
 BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISTS

Vincent van gogh (1853-1890)

Van Ciogh was a Dutchman, the son of a Protestant pastor. Not until iSSo, having worked
in art galleries in England and Holland, and after making an abortive attempt at becoming
a pastor himself, did he decide to become a painter. He was helped by his vounger brother
Theo, whom he joined m Paris in icS86, but his pictures did not sell and in iSSS he moved
to Aries. His mental balance was never assured: the most tamous incident being when he
cut ort' his ear in a moment of wild unhappiness. Harassed by the ]c)cal inhabitants he
entered the sanatorium at St Remy as a voluntary patient, where Theo wrote
to him that

he had at last sold a picture. In May 1890 he moved to Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, where
the doctor was an artistic sympathiser. But van Gogh was too ill to be helped: on 27 July
he borrowed a revolver and shot himself in the stomach. He died two ciays later, aged
thirty-seven. Theo died six months later.

Francisco de goya (1746-1828)

IJorn in a poor village in Aragon, Goya grew up in Saragossa, where his father had a

gilder's shop. In 1774, now married, he was called to Madrid to make cartoons for the

Royal Manufcictory of Tapestries, moving eventually to become Painter ot the Royal

Household, the startling truthfulness of his loyal portraiture apparently accepted without
dismay. When he was forr\'-three he fell ill and became totally deaf. Isolated and despondent,
he nevertheless began a brilliant period of work. He lived through the Napoleonic invasion
of Spain, emerging battered but indomitable at the end. Finally, old and weak, w4th failing
sight, he went to Bordeaux, where he stayed until his death. Reading his letters and the
accounts left by his friends, we still cannot fathom the nature of this strange and wonderful
artist.

151
 BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISTS

El GRECO ( I54I-16 I 4)

Born in Crete, Donienikos Theotokopoulos, El Greco ('the Greek') was mainly active in

Spain. He trained m Crete, then a Venetian possession, as an icon pamter and always showed
the influence of Titian. El Greco came into his own when he settled in Toledo, Spam, in
quahrv' and began giving him regular
1 577 and the Spanish intelligentsia soon recognized his
commissions. The violent upheavals and intense spiritualit\' of the C^ounter-Reformation
fused with Greco's own affinity with Mannerist innovation to create his extraordinary style

characterized by its distorted figures and strange, almost mystical, colours. As times changed,

his circle of admirers diminished but there were alwavs those

who responded to his

singularity ot vision.

Hans HOiBti.N the Younger (i497/^-i543)

The son of a painter also called Hans, Holbein the Younger left Germany m i S 14 to study

in Basle, and there he stayed until he travelled through the Netherlands to

England, armed

with a recommendation to Sir Thomas More from Erasmus. He finally settled in London

and became one of Henry VIITs official court painters. iromcalK. this most civilized ot

men died of the plague.

J e a n - Au gu s t e - Do 111 i n i q u e 1 n c. u 1 s ( i 7 S - I S 6 7 )

The son t)f a jobbing sculptor in south-west I r.uu e. Ingres studied under David in i'.iris.

There were always those who appreciated tlie purity of a his graphic line, but he liad

tempestuous career; sometimes admired, sometimes reviled. He turned away fn>m con-

temporary Cl.issicism and became a radical painter, witli a p.issioii for Kaphael. He ended
his days with great prestige, a supporter of the orthodo.xy he had earlier rebelled against,
but It mav be doubted whether his later works have the power of his earlv masterpieces.

IS2
 BRIET LIVES OP THE ARTISTS

Ja C ob JORDAENS (1593-1678)

Jordaens was the son of a wcaltliy merchant and lived all his life in Antwerp, a successful

member of the bourgeoisie, who were his main patrons. He had a long, productive career,
though royal patrons only commissioned him after the death of Rubens (in 1640). His work
has the 'feel' we associate with the Flemish: robust, good-humoured, rather stolid. We tend,
therefore, to think of Jordaens himself as thus, but we may be completely mistaken.

Vassily kandinsky (1866-1944)

ften regarded as the 'founder' of abstract painting, Kandinsky was born in Moscow but
mostly worked outside Russia, mainly because of lack of appreciation there. Initially a

teacher of law, it was only when he was thirt\' that he decided to be a painter and moved
to Munich to study and then teach (he was a natural teacher). Kandinsky wrote a great deal

about his theories of art and explored the parallels between art and music, much influenced

by theosophy. He became a professor at the Bauhaus, sharing a house with his friend Paul

Klee, but after the Nazis closed the Bauhaus in 1933 he moved to Pans where he lived for
the rest of his life. An instinctive aristocrat in Hfe as well as in art, he was always hugely self

confident.

Lorenzo lotto (1480-1556)

Lotto's strange and distinctive st^de attracted commissions from all over Italy. He may have

trained with Giorgione and Titian under Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, but few details of
his hfe are certain. Most of Lotto's work is rehgious in subject but always with a unique
slant. He is not exactly subversive, but his interpretations are amongst the most personal in

art history. This is perhaps most evident in his portraits. Towards the end of his life. Lotto

became a lay brother in a monastery near Loreto, where he later died.

153
 BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISTS

Edouard MANET (1832-1883)

Manet came from a Parisian family of well-to-do, high-minded public servants. He

became a naval cadet, but after faiUng his exammations 1849 he surprised his family by m
decidmg to become a painter. In 1 863 his submissions to the Salon were rejected; all the

rejected works were exhibited elsewhere, and particular abuse was directed at The Picnic.

The ridicule he received at the 1865 Salon made him briefly flee to Spain. Filled with self-

doubt, though he hid this beneath a charming, well-bred manner, he was helped by his
admirers, particularly Berthe Morisot. In 1873 he at last had a success at the Salon, and he

was awarded the Legion d'houneur in 1881. He has been described as both a 'revolutionary'

and as a "sale bourgeois", underlining the dichotomy in his own character: at the same time a

conformist and an ardent left-winger.

ip--

Andrea MANTEGNA ( i 43 o / i - i 5 06 )

Born in the Paduan countryside, the son of a carpenter, Mantegna was apprenticed as a

boy to Francesco Squarcione, a mediocre talent. In Padua Mantegna developed a love tor

the classical past of Italy Squarcione used to adopt his most talented pupils so as not to pay

for their work; Mantegna managed to free himself after a court case. When he was in his

early twenties he married the sister of Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, and so joined a great

Venetian dynasty- of painters. At the age of thirty he moved with his family to Mantua
where he remained for the rest of his life as a court artist to the Gonzaga tamilv 1 here he

acquired land and a tide and built a house modelled on an ancient Roman \illa. w huh he
filled with antiquities. He had a passion for stone, a meticulous eye for detail and was one

of the first to practise the technique of engraving. The secuntv of his material c hl unistances

set him free to develop his strange and personal artistic \ision, at once vulnerable and
fiercely protected.

.S4
 BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISIS

Henri matisse (1869-1954)

Initially. Matisse studied law in Paris, and it was only the chance intervention of an illness

and the need to convalesce that made him realize that he wanted to paint, in his early years

there were financial problems and his father took a dim view of his 'unrespectable'

occupation as a painter, but from 1904 his careerwas more assured. Light always affected

Matisse profoundly and it was his visits to Morocco and a prolonged stay in Nice in the

South of France that inspired some of his most beautiful paintings. Like Titian, he grew
greater as he grew older, and, when he could no longer lift a brush, he created cut outs

from coloured paper which have been of enormous and lasting influence.

'"^iW

MICHELANGELO (1475-I564)

Michelagniolo Buonarroti came from an old Florentine family. He was the second ot five

boys and was put to nurse with a marble-worker's wife. His mother died when he was six

and his father remarried. Michelangelo was determined to be an artist from an early age,

despite his father's opposition. At thirteen he began his studies under the painter Ghirlandaio,
but he left to study sculpture in the Medici Garden. The papal court recognized his quality

very early on and the rest of his life was divided between Rome and Florence, depending
on the turbulent political cHmate or the commissions he received. He had a fiery relationship
with Pope Julius II, and successive popes, not to mention the Medici. Very much against

his will he accepted the commission to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in 1508-12,

designing the scaffolding himself and the Last Jmi^ancut there from 1536 to 1541. He was
sculptor, painter and poet, and in his last years he w^as active as an architect and was Chief
Architect to St Peter's.

155
 BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISTS

Bartolonie Esteban murillo (1617-82)

The youngest of fourteen children, Murillo was born in Seville. He was orphaned early

in hfe, which perhaps explains the pathos that suffuses much of his work. His professional
career, however, was very successful and long-lasting, although his reputation has been
increasingly diminished, and only now are we beginning to realize that he must not be
judged by the emotional nature of his themes. We know litde about him as a person, but

the marvellous truthfulness of his response to material reality' suggests - in the highly

religious context of his work - a complex nature.

Nicolas poussiN (1594-1665)

Poussin, one of the verv greatest of painters and certainly the most important French
painter of the seventeenth century, actually spent his most productive years in Italy As his
reputation grew, he began to get important commissions, such as painting an altarpiece tor

St Peter's in Rome, and in 1640 he was summoned back to France by Louis XI 11 and

Cardinal Richelieu. Although he was made Superintendent of the Academy Foussin found

the artistic climate in Paris stifling and returned to his beloved Rome m 1642 where he

remained for the rest of his life. His vision of the landscape, profoundly intellectual while

at the same time profoundly romantic, does not always have immediate
appeal but there is

no painter who more repays close study.

RAPHAEL ( I 483- 520)

I

Raffaello Santi, or Sanzio, was born m Urbino, i>ne of the leading cultural centres in Italy

At the surprisingly young age of seventeen he was already a Master, increasing his artistic
scope as he moved through Florence and on to Rome. Pope Julius 11 immediately recognized
his supreme quality and there was general grief at his early and untimelv death.
Raphael

had a unique gift for absorbing influences and going beyond them. 1 lis work is almost too

perfect and is best appreciated m small doses.

156
 BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISTS

REMBRANDT (1606-1669)

IRenibrandt was a miller's son who left his home in Leydeii to settle in Anisterdam. His
personal life seems not to have been particularly happy or successtul, and he died poor and
lonely, but still richly creative to the end. Rembrandt's poverty was largely of his own
making: he was wikily extravagant in buying art. The details of his life - all well-known -
aresomehow unimportant in comparison to the immense integrity and visual beauty of his
work. He transcends fact in every respect, literally and artistically.

Sir Peter Paul rubens (1577-1640)

JKubens' career was an uninterrupted success from the time he left his birthplace, Siegen

in Westphalia, Antwerp in 1 589. Like many painters of the day, he subsequently

and moved to

went to Italy where the power and beauty of his work was fully recognized and in 1608 he
was invited by the Spanish Governors of the Netherlands to return to Antwerp as court
painter. Here, Rubens ran a vast studio and employed many assistants - including van

Dyck - which meant that his engravings, and so his fame, spread across Europe. He won
nearly all the prestigious commissions of his day, including painting the ceiling of Charles I's

Banqueting House in Whitehall in London. He was also called upon by the government

to act as a diplomat and negotiate treaties, which he did with great success. Rubens was a

man of courtly demeanour, tact and great integrity who also had the bUss of an extremely
happy private life. Four years after the death of his beloved first wife in 1626 he fell

passionately in love with the 16-year-old Helene Fourment and devoted much of his later

life to her. Apart from gout, he seems to have died as happily as he lived, one of the rare

instances of a completely blessed lite.

157
 BRIEF LIVES OF THE ARTISTS,

TITIAN (C. I487-I576)

Born Tiziano Vecellio in Pieve di Cadore in the Italian Dolomites, Titian most likely

served an apprentice to both Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, but was perhaps most
as

profoundly influenced by Giorgione. He was the only artist of the day who can be compared
Michelangelo but whereas Michelangelo drew his strength from his association
in stature to

with the Papacy Titian - a much more worldly man - was the court painter to the Holy
Roman Emperors. In 1532, Emperor Charles V commissioned him to paint his portrait
and unique relationship developed which continued into the reign of Charles's successor,
a

Philip II of Spain. Titian died of the plague claiming to be 99 but scholars have continually
revised his date of birth, assuming that he added a few years to his age in order to boost his

prestige. Whatever his age, he constantly grew in artistic power. 'Late Titian' is an aston-

ishingly beautiful period still not fully appreciated.

Diego velAzquez (1599-1660)

Velazquez was born in Seville, but was early summoned to Madrid to paint a portrait ot

Philip IV, then eighteen. It was so successful that he was appointed Painter to the King and
for the rest of his life worked in the King's service. It was said he was the only one allowed
to paint Philip, and the two spent hours in conversation, which aroused some envy. He
seems to have harboured dual ambitions: to become a great painter and to be publically

acknowledged as a great gentleman. With the constant support of his royal friend, he finally

succeeded in obtaining his knighthood, but it seems surprising that he sought this sort of

social recognition when his success as a painter was so great. His personality eludes us.

rather as does his art. No painter has ever surpassed him.

15S
 BRIEF LIVES OF 1 II E ARTISTS

Johannes (Jan) vermeer (1632-16 75)

JLittle is kiunvn t>f Vcrnicer of Delft except that he was a C'.athoHc, fatlier of eleven children
and strangely unsuccessful m his chosen profession as a painter. There were constant financial
difficulties and his early death left his family destitute. He seems to have kept an inn,
and perhaps the haunted and silent beauty of his work represents a necessary personal
counterbalance to the hated noise c)f much of his existence.

Paolo VERONESE (I528-I588)

iVnown as Veronese because he was born in Verona, Paolo's family name was Spezapreda,
hterally 'stonecutter'. He spent nearly all his professional career in Venice and seems to have
run a huge and productive workshop. He was a highly successful painter, his reputation
known beyond the Alps, though not achieving the same kind of international status as
Titian. Despite trouble with the Inquisition because of his freedom when handhng reUgious
themes, Veronese was a devout believer and a hard-working professional.

Antoine watteau (1684-1721)

Watteau was the son of a roofer. He had little education and less money, and, what
mattered more, very poor health. Yet despite suffering from tuberculosis, he painted visions
of an enchanted world which impressed even the Academie Royale. When they accepted
him, they paid him the great compliment of creating a new genre: fetes galantes. He died

too young to develop his theme, but what he has left us suffices. No other artist has ever

captured his note of wistful gaiety, suffused with the yearning of a natural 'outsider' as it is.

159
 PICTURE CREDITS
BBC Books would like to thank the following tor SCALA/Scuola di S. Giorgio degli Schiavom. Venice;
providing photographs and for permission to reproduce 61, 63 SCALA/Accaderma, Venice; 67, 69, 71, 73, 73,
copyright material. While every etfort has been made to 76, 77, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; 81, 83, 85,

trace and acknowledge all copyright holders, we would 87, 89, SCALA/ The Hermitage Museum, St.

like to apologise should there have been any errors or Petersburg; 91, © ADAGP, Pans and DACS, London
omissions. 1994; 95' 97' 99' loi, 103, Gemaldegalerie, Staathche
Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, BerUn; 107, 109, ©
Page 17, 19, SCALA/Museo Nacional del Prado, photo R.M.N./Musee d'Orsay, Paris; in, 113, 115, ©
Madrid; 21, © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid; 23, photo R.M.N./Louvre, Paris; 117, SCALA/The
25, 27, SCALA/Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid; Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg/© Succession H.

31, SCALA/Museo del I'Opera del Duomo, Florence; Matisse/DACS 1994; 121, 123, 125, Koninklijk

33, SCALA/Museo di San Marco, Florence; 35, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp; 127, 129.

SCALA/Galleria Palatina, Palozzo Pitti, Florence; 37, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp; 133, Vincent

39, SCALA/Galleria degli UfFizi, Florence; 43, 45, 47, Van Gogh Foundation, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam;
SCALA/Galleria Borghese, Rome; 49, SCALA/S. 135, 137, © Rijksmuseum-Stichting, Amsterdam; 139,

Rome; 51, SCALA/S. Luigi dei

Pietro, Vatican, Photograph © Mauritshuis, The Hague, Inv. No: 92;
Rome; 53, SCALA/S. Maria del Popolo,
Francesci, 141. Photograph © Mauritshuis, The Hague, Inv. No:
Rome; 57, SCALA/Accademia, Venice; 59, 621.
 1 1 1

Page numbers in ilalic refer to the illustrations Bellini brothers, 1 1, 55

Beriin, 11, 93-103
Bermejo, 1

Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo, 41, 44-6, 43, 47, 145

Birth of Venus (Botticelli), 36, j/
Borch, Gerard ter, 131, 136, j ;/, 145
Accademia Gallery, Venice, 55, 57, 61-3
Borghese Gallery, Rome, 1 1, 43-7
Allct;orY (Altdorter), 102, loj
Bosch, Hieronymus, 15
Allori, Cristofano, 34, ?.s, 142
Botticelli, Sandro, 36-8, 37, jg, 146
Altdorfer, Albrecht, 102, loj, 142
Bruegel, Pieter the Elder, 72, /j, 126, 127, 146
Altman, Natan, 12
Bruegel, Pieter the Younger, 128
Amsterdam, 11, 13 1-7
Burgkmair, Hans, 100, 101, 147
Angelica and the Hermit (Rubens), 70, 71

Angelico, Fra, 32, ?j, 144

Annunciation (Fra Angelico), 32. _;?

Antwerp, 11, 119-29

Apollo and Daphne (Bernini), 46, 47
Apostles Peter and Paul (El Greco), 88, 59
Calling of St Matthew (Caravaggio), 50, .5;
Ariosto, Ludovico, 70
Canaletto, 9, 55
Artist's Bedroom (Van Gogh), 132, ; jj
Caravaggio, 41, 50-2, 51, 5j, 147
Tlie Assassin (Titian), 74, 73
Carpaccio, Vittore, 55, 58, 39, 148
Atalanta and Mealeager Qordaens), 120, 121
Carracci family, 1

Cezanne, Paul, 105, 106, 107, 148

Chagall, Marc, 12

Christ Child and the Infant St John (Murillo), 20, 21

Christus, Petrus, 119

Bacon, Francis, 41 Cima da Coneghano, 1

Bakst, Leon, 12 Claude Lorraine, 79

Tlte Balcony (Manet), 108, 109 Claus, Fanny, 108

Baldung, Hans, 98, 99, 144 Tlte Colossus (Goya), 26, 27

Tlie Bathers (Cezanne), 106, 107 Composition VI (Kandinsky), 90, gi

Batoni, Pompeo, 9 The Conversation (Matisse), 116, 117

163
 1 1 1 1

SISTER WENDY S GRAND TOUR

Conversion of Si Paul (Caravaggio), 52, 5j Georg Gisze (Holbein), 96, 97

Corot, Jean Baptiste Camille, 105 Gesuiti, Venice, 55

Correggio, 82, 8^, 148 Gilles (Watteau), no, Jii

Courbet, Gustave, 105 Giorgione, 55. 62, 6j, 65, 150

Giotto, 1 1 , 29
Gisze, George, 96, g?

Gogh, Vincent van, 132. i y, 15'

Goya, Francisco de, 11. 15, 22-6, 23, 23, 27, 151

El Greco, 11, is, 88. cfp, 152

Dahlem Museum, Berlin, 93, 95-103
Guardi, Francesco, 55
Degas, Edgar, 105
Guercino, 1
Doge's Palace, Venice. 55
Guillemet, Antoine. 108
Domenico Veneziano, 1

Gyp'sy Madonna (Titian), 74-5. 77

Donatello, 30, ?j, 149
Doria family, 41

Dossi, Dosso, 1

Duccio
Tlie
di Buoninsegna,
Duke and Duchess
1

of Osuna and ihcir Family (Goya),

H
22, 2J
The Hague. 11, 131
Dulle Griet (Bruegel), 126, 127
Heinrich of Constance, Master, 128, 129
Durer, Albrecht, 94, 95, 98, 149
Hcnrv Vill, King of England, 96
Dyck, Sir Anthony van, 119
Hercules. Dcianeira and Nessus (Veronese), 68, 69
Hermitage Museum. St Petersburg, 10, 12, 79, 81-91,

117
E Hieronymus Hohschuher (Diirer), 94. 95
Holbein, Hans the Younger. 96, 97, 1 52
Eliot, T.S.. 36 Holzschuher, Hieronymus, 94, g^
Entombment (Titian), 60, 61
Homer. 82
Everdingen, Caesar van, 131
Exter, Alexandra. 12

Eyck, Jan van, 11, 1 19

Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique. 114. 115. 153

Inspiration of the Poet (Poussin). 1 12, m

Florence, 29-39

G
Gambara. Veronica, 82 Jcunsh Brule (Rembrandt), 134. us
Gauguin, Paul. 105 Jordacns, Jacob, 1 ly, 120, ui. 153

y5-'03 Jiidilh iJhJ her .\/.iiJ.(fn«nf (Gcnulcschi). 34. «5

Gcmalde Gallery, Berlin, 93.

Gcntilcschi. Artemisia, 34. ,?3, 150 Judith unihlhc Head i^Hololrrne^iMUHi). u. i<

164
 11 91 7 11 1

INDEX

N
Kandinskv', Vassily, 12, 90, gi, 153 Napoleon I, Emperor, 11, 26
Klimt, Gustav, 12, 65 Nashe, Thomas, 60
Kokoschka, Oskar, 12, 65

Koninklijk Museum, Antwerp, 119—25

Kruger, Christine, 96
Kunsthistorische Museum. Vienna. 11, 12, 65, 67—77
Oedipus and the Sphinx (Ingres), 114, 115
Osuna, Duke and Duchess of, 22, 2j

L
Lady with a Unicorn (Raphael), 42, ^j
The Lance (Rubens), 124, 125

Leonardo da Vinci, 10, 11, 12, 29, 79, 105 The Parasol (Goya), 22, 23

Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, 1 Parental Admonition (terBorch), 136, ij7

Lorenzetti, Pietro, 1 Paris, II, 105-17

Lotto, Lorenzo, 56, 57 Patinir, Joachim, 119
Louvre Museum, Paris, 11, iii— 15 Peasant Wedding (Bruegel), 72, 73
Perugino, 10
Picasso, Pablo, 15, 116

M Piero deUa Francesca, 11, 93

Pieta (Michelangelo), 48, 49

Pintoricchio, 1
Mademoiselle Rii'iere (Ingres), 114, 113
Pitti Palace, Florence, 10, 35
Madrid, 15-26
Popova, Liubov Sergeevna, 12
Malevich, Kasimir, 12
Portrait of a Lady (Correggio), 82, 83
Manet Edouard, 105, 108, log, 154
Poussin, Nicolas, 79, 84, 85, 112, 113. 156
Mantegna, Andrea, 66, 67, 154
Prado, Madrid, 11, 15-27
Marlowe, Christopher, 131
Primavera (Spring) (Botticelli), 38, 39
Mars (Velazquez), 18, i

Pyramus and Tltisbe (Baldung), 98, gg

Martini, Simone, 1

Masaccio, 29
Matisse, Henri, 10, 116, 117, 155

Mauritshuis, The Hague, 131, 139-41 R

Mayer van den Bergh Museum, Antwerp, 127-9
Mengs, Anton Raphael, 9 Rape of Proserpina (Bernim), 44, 45

Las Meninas (Velazquez), 16, j Raphael, 41, 42, 43, 156

Metsys, Quintin, 119 Reina Sofia museum, Madrid, 11,15

Michelangelo, 29, 41, 48, 4g, 155 Rembrandt, 11, 79, 80, 81, 131, 134. J35, 140. 141. 157

Morisot, Berthe, 108 Reni, Guido, 1

MuriUo, Bartolome Esteban, 1 1 , 20, 2J , 156 Return of the Prodigal Son (Rembrandt). 80, Si

Musee d'Orsay, Paris, 105, 107—9 Ribera, Jusepe de, 1

Museo deU'Opera del Duomo, Florence, 31 Riemenschneider, Tilman, 93

165
 1 1 1 1

SISTER WENDY S GRAND TOUR

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 131. 13 5-7 Tiepolo, Gianibattista. 1 1-12, SS, 93

Rijksmuseum Vincent Van Gogh, Amsterdam, 131, 133 Tintoretto, 55

Riviere, Mademoiselle, 114, 113 Titian, 10, 55. 60, 61. 74-5, 73, 158

Rome, 41-53
Rubens, Sir Peter Paul, 65, 70, 71, 79, 86, 87, 119, I30,

122-4, J-'.?- '-'5. 157

Uccello, Paolo, 1

Utfizi, Florence, 29, 37-9

Union of Earth and Water (Rubens), 86, S7

St Barbara (Baldung), 100, 10

Si George and the Dragon (Carpaccio), sS, ^g

St John Resting on the Bosom of Christ (Master Hemrich),

128, I2g

St Mary Magdalene (Donatello), 30, jl Velazquez, Diego, 11, IS. 16-18, )/, 19, 41, 158

St Peter's, Rome, 49 Venice, SS— 63

St Petersburg, 12, 79-91 I lints and Adonis (Veronese), 68, 6g

St Sebastian (Mantegna), 66, 67 \enus Frigida (Rubens), 122, I2j

St Ulrich (Baldung), loo, 101 Vermeer, Johannes ()an), lo-ii, 65, 131, 138, ijg, 159

San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, 5 Veronese, Paolo, SS, 68, 6g, 159

San Marco Museum, Florence, 33 Verrocchio, 29

Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, 53 Vienna, 12, 65-77

Sanl and Dai'id (P^emhnndt), 140, 1^1 View of Delft (Vermeer), 138, ijg
Schiele, Egon, 12, 65 I'iohmte (Titian), 74, 76

Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice, 59

Shakespeare, William, 98,
Sint Hans, Geertgen
Sistine Chapel, Rome,
tot,
1

93
29, 41
12

w
Stein, Leo, 10 Watteau, Antoine. 1 10, 111. 159

Suicide of Lucretia (Titian), 74, 75 Weydeii, Rogier van der, 1

19

Sweerts, Michiel, 1 ]\'oiiian in BLhh (Titian), 74, 76

T Y
Tancred and Erminia (Poussin). 84, S3 '^bniig \hin in liis Study (Lotto), 56, 37

Tasso, Torquato, 84

Tlie Tempest (Giorgione), 62, 6?

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 68 z

Tliird of May 1808 (Goya), 24, 23
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid, Zurbaran, Francisco. 1 1
 .)Y 13EC:KETT was born
in JohaiiiK^uri!; in 1930 but as a child

spent five years of her Ufe in Edinburgh.

At the age of sixteen she left South Africa
to come to Britain and join the Notre
Dame order of nuns. After her novitiate,
the order sent her to St. Anne's College,
Oxford where she- was awarded a

Congratulatory First in English, in 1954,

Sister Wendy returned to South Africa to

teach and, later, to lecture at the

University of the Witwatersrand. She

returned to Britain in 1970 to live a fully

contemplative life under the protection of

a Carmelite monastery in Norfolk, where
she lives in seclusion to this day.
Although a lifelong art lover. Sister

Wendy began to devote herself to the sub-

ject in 1980. She writes regularly for art

magazines like Modern Painters, the Royal

Academy Maiiazinc and Apollo, as well as

contributes to the arts pages of national

newspapers like the Guardian, the

Independent and the Sunday Times. Her

previous books include Contemporary
Women Artists, Art and the Sacred and Sister
Wendy's Odyssey which accompanied her
first, highly acclaimed, PBS television

L)tot;r.iphcd in Re

ii'i.v/i Liiidc by Rcnibraiidt, Rijksnuisi.ii

Riiksniuscum-Sticlitiiig. Amsterdam

ISBN: l-5.S(.7(l-5llV-3

Stew.irt.Tabori & Chang,

a division of U.S. Media Holdmgs. Inc.

573 Broad\v.iy. New York. NY l(lll12

, soul off/.

'ART, T.^BORI & CHANG

 "

.Mi

Jewish liriih; i<.cmbraiidt

"/ look j'omwrd to the ihiy irhai it will iLiwii upon a'cryhoily ilhii tiny <<»; /(.»<• odyssiys .»/</

CjMihI Tours mid share the fruits of the uvrld.Vie aipacily to see, lo open up the vision of

reality that an artist offers, is innate in us all.

SiSlIU WbNIlY UtrKtTT