Something Beautiful

Wood sculptures

Just discovered this wonderful page on wood sculptures at the Rijksmuseum site.  

Bernini (2 works)

The Google Art Project offers nine works by renowned sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680).   Two of those, it seems to me, carry the main honors: 

• Monsignor Francesco Barberini (c. 1623) - So wise and human an expression.


• Pope Gregory XV (1621) - The designs and texture of the pope's cape are simply marvelous. 

 

 

Holy Kinship

This South German wood sculpture of The Holy Kinship strikes me as absolutely wonderful. The fact that one can get so close to it, via Google AP, adds greatly to one's pleasure.

How to make sense of all the figures? It's actually fairly simple. Try these three steps:

1: Mary and Anne, her mother, are in the center with the infant Jesus. Flanking them are Anne's other two daughters, Mary Salome and Mary Cleophas, born to two subsequent marriages.

2: Behind each woman stands her husband. In Anne's case, there are three husbands.

3: Gathered at their feet are six small boys, the cousins who became Jesus' disciples:
       -  Mary Salome's two sons: St. James the Greater and John the Evangelist;
       -  Mary Cleophas' four sons:  St. James Minor, Judas Thaddeus, Simon, and Joseph     the Just.  The last is riding a hobby horse and reaches up to steady himself with his mother's hand.  

It is wonderful how well the artist's colors have held up over the past seven centuries, such that we can still enjoy them today.

Statues of the Great Florentines

Yesterday and today, this set of inspiring statutes keeps coming to mind -- Uffizi courtyard statues of great Florentines.

Sculptured Altarpiece (Riemenschneider)

Medieval German wood sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider has long been a favorite of mine. Even so, I was unfamiliar with this sculptured altarpiece which Riemenschneider and his workshop carved in, probably, the early 1500s. The main figures are: St. Sebastian, Emperor Henry II, and St. Stephanus. The altarpiece is in Bamberg Cathedral, Germany, where it is seen by thousands of tourists each year.

della Robbia

There's just something about this Virgin adoring the Christ Child, c. 1483, a sculpture in glazed terracotta by Andrea della Robbia. It's at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.

Ghiberti's Doors

I've been doing some research on Florence, Italy, and my attention is naturally drawn again and again to the Baptistery eastern doors fashioned by Lorenzo Ghiberti in the early 1400s. The doors as a whole command one's attention. Only by examining them one by one, though, can we really appreciate their artistry, their sheer mastery.   From top to bottom, and left to right, the ten scenes are as follows:

Adam and Eve;  Cain and Abel;

Noah;               Abraham;

Isaac & sons;    Joseph;

Moses;             Joshua;

David;              Solomon & Queen. 

Two additional sets of photos are at Mary Ann Sullivan's site.  One set provides close-ups of the facsimile doors which are today actually on the Baptistery.   Another set shows the original doors. 

If you become as entranced as I am by the doors, you can download and view the extraordinary 10.8 MB version of these bronze doors at Wikipedia.  It shows not only the bronze plaques, but also all the surrounding figures and other decoration. 

St Gaudens exhibition

The Metropolitan Museum site presents an exhibition of works by Augustus St Gaudens. Many of the images are quite lovely. Don't miss this painting by Kenyon Cox of the sculptor at work. Or, for that matter, this sculpture of the artist by John Flanagan.

Nativity (limewood)

Here's one more set of wood sculptures -- Nativity with Angels and Shepherds, ca. 1485 (limewood, polychromy). It's at the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam.

Arenburg Lamentation (wood sculpture)

The Detroit Institute of Arts site has a wonderful zoom feature that enables you to get quite close to any given work of art. Try it on the excellent Arenburg Lamentation, ca. 1460, by an unknown Flemish master (oak with traces of polychromy).