Thursday, December 27, 2012

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2004. This was Mattie's third Christmas and this photo was featured on the front of our holiday card that year. By that age (2 1/2 years old), Mattie understood the art of sitting still for a photo  and he particularly understood that this photo was going to be seen by all our family and friends.

Quote of the day: Yet the story of Orpheus, it occurs to me, is not just about the desire of the living to resuscitate the dead but about the ways in which the dead drag us along into their shadowy realm because we cannot let them go. So we follow them into the Underworld, descending, descending, until one day we turn and make our way back. ~ Meghan O'Rourke


Today we ventured to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to see a special collection of Caravaggio's works. In fact this is the largest exhibit of his work in this Country EVER! Mind you the sum total of Caravaggio's pieces on display were EIGHT paintings. That's not many, but it's more than most American museums have had together in 25 years. Even New York's mighty Metropolitan Museum of Art couldn't get a lot of the greatest works for 1985's landmark "The Age of Caravaggio," because such loans are very difficult to secure (especially from Italy). The remaining 50+ paintings on display in this exhibit were created by contemporaries of Caravaggio. Artists influenced by Caravaggio's self taught style. It was very unusual back then for an artist to be self taught, but in many ways Caravaggio was a head of his time. Which may explain why his art is so understood and considered poignant today. Caravaggio strayed away from painting landscapes and practically all of his paintings have NO backdrops at all. The majority of his backgrounds on his canvases are black. However, two things in my mind define Caravaggio. The first one was his incredible use of lighting. I am not sure how his subjects within the painting look illuminated, but this feature is stunning. As if a light is shining on them and creating light and shadow! The second feature that defines Caravaggio was his use of facial expressions and capturing the emotions of a situation. His paintings evoke feelings, and these feelings inspire you to chat about the piece. I have no doubt his art was designed for this purpose in mind. The reason why Caravaggio's works stand the test of time is because his works capture real human emotions..... emotions we can all relate to such as fear, jealousy, betrayal, desire, guilt, and sadness.

Here is a description about today's exhibit written by the LA County Museum of Art..............Bodies and Shadows: Caravaggio and His Legacy introduces the work of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), one of the most popular artists of the past, rivaling in fame both Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The stories of Caravaggio's life are legend, more myth than history, describing traits of personality, including passion and brutality, that came to describe the unique qualities of his work. The exhibition, made up of 56 works in all, including a record eight works by Caravaggio himself, covers the evolution of his style. Caravaggio's legacy is expressed in work by about twenty artists from Italy, Spain, France and the Netherlands who carried into the late 17th century the strangeness, beauty and raw emotion of his work. The fame of Caravaggio (1571–1610) is a relatively recent one. One hundred years ago, a list of the greatest painters of the Italian school would not have included his name. Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo, or Titian were considered then to be the pillars of Italian painting. Yet today Caravaggio has become an artist whose works appeal to a large public. In Rome, where many of his greatest paintings are kept in churches, tourists line up to admire them, as they do the Sistine Chapel or the great Baroque sculptures of Bernini. His paintings captivate and engage us in a way few others from that period do. Suddenly, a painter of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries seems to speak our language, share our passions. Even if the subjects he represents do not stray from the classical canon of religious iconography, his models are clearly made of our flesh and of our blood. He is, in other words, a painter of our time. Born in a small town near Milan, Caravaggio brought the earthy but refined naturalism of his Lombard training to Rome, where the Catholic Church was driving its powerful Counter-Reformation engines. Art had a job to do in corralling the faithful — not to mention seducing wealthy patrons — and Caravaggio, who arrived in the extravagant city in 1592 at age 21, meant to oblige.

 

Caravaggio had a colorful past which involved many brawls and even a murder. Clearly a volatile person, filled with great emotion. Such emotion comes through in his paintings. I was unable to photograph anything I saw today, but I did download three paintings from the Museum's website. Unfortunately, the photos do not do the works justice. This painting is entitled, St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness. It was unheard of at the time to portray St. John as a young man, and certainly as a young man barely dressed! In many ways this young man looks like a mere mortal, not a saint, but Caravaggio integrated his wearing of a red robe in the painting to indicate his connection with Christ.

 

This is entitled, "Portrait of Maffeo Barberini" and it is a painting recently recognized as an original work of art (and previously exhibited only twice, in 1861 and 2011) and displays some characteristics of Caravaggio’s early work, such as the delicate still life in the foreground, a decorative element that Caravaggio used on several occasions but that disappeared from later, more mature works. Unfortunately the photo doesn't do this still life justice. In person, these flowers have depth, light, and life!

 

This painting is entitled, "St. Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy." Here the face of St. Francis was thought to be a self-portrait of Caravaggio himself. The angel was granting St. Francis his wish, which was to experience the suffering of Christ on the cross. Regardless of the content, the tenderness of this angel holding and caring for St. Francis was captivating.

After the exhibit we all went out to lunch together, walked around, and shopped in different stores in an outside town center. The beauty of Southern California is that outdoor shopping areas are indeed possible. This could never happen in Washington, DC, where it is cold during the winter and broiling in the summer months. It is fascinating to see how climate impacts how we live our lives and how warmer weather motivates people to spend more time outside. The lack of winter greyness here is a definite plus to see during the month of December!