Bite 159: Leonardo da Vinci - The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the Infant St. John the Baptist ('The Burlington House Cartoon'), c. 1499-1500

The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the Infant St. John the Baptist ('The Burlington House Cartoon'), c. 1499-1500, charcoal on canvas, 141.5 x 104.6 cm, National Gallery, London

In this daringly monumental drawing the entangled figures of St. Mary and St. Anne with Jesus and St. John the Baptist dissolve into the canvas, the drawing unfinished.

St. Anne points upwards, a reference to Jesus’ destiny, while St. John the Baptist gestures a blessing, indicating his future role in the life of Christ. Improved with age the scene now appears like a mysterious vision, incomplete in places, a strange landscape looming behind the figures, lifelike in their rendering.

The technical term cartoon refers to the intention with such large drawings to transfer the image to another canvas for the purpose of painting a final image. The survival of this work however can be attributed to there being no final painting resulting from it, and it stands as the only surviving large-scale drawing by Leonardo.

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Bite 158: Leonardo da Vinci - Drapery Study for an Angel, c. 1495-8

 Drapery Study for an Angel, c. 1495-8, ink on paper, 21.3 x 15.9 cm, Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, UK.

Skin beneath cloth, finely detailed in the grandmother of artistic technique: drawing with pencil on paper. 

Leonardo da Vinci had an uncanny attention to detail and this is demonstrated best perhaps in the huge number of drawings he left behind, many of which are in the collection of the Queens Gallery in London, and a selection of which were shown as part of the unprecedented exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan at The National Gallery until 5 February 2012.

Created to apparently solve a compositional problem in the London version of Virgin of the Rocks, the pose of the figure is very similar to that of the angel on the right of the altarpiece. With the aid of fabric dipped in clay and laid over a clay figure, the resulting still-life has been studied from different angles and under different lighting conditions giving the piece an intriguing sculptural quality.

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Bite 151: Antonio & Piero del Pollaiuolo - Tobias and the Angel, c. 1469

Tobias and the Angel, c. 1469

Tobias and the Archangel Raphael are depicted as finely-garbed travellers, a vast landscape stretching behind them. The story is taken from the early Biblical Book of Tobit, written around 100 BC, in which the angel is sent to protect Tobias, the son of the blind Tobit on his trip with his dog to a distant city to collect a sum of money.

After a perilous journey - in which they sieze a fish which attacks them and save a young girl named Sarah from a demon who has killed seven men whom she wished to marry - they return home, with Sarah as Tobias' wife, money in hand, and heal Tobit of his blindness. In a narrative popular among wealthy Florentines the young Tobias is rewarded for his courage and piety and becomes a man.  

Painting as prayer, the work was likely commissioned by a family on the release of their son to travel abroad, wishing him a safe journey and protection from a guardian angel.

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Bite 132: Caravaggio - David with the Head of Goliath, 1609-10

David with the Head of Goliath, 1609-10, oil on canvas, 125 × 101 cm, Galleria Borghese

In one of Caravaggio's last works before his mysterious disappearance and death, the artist paints himself as the dead Goliath, having been defeated by David. It is said that the young David was modelled on "his own little Caravaggio." This may refer to previous studio assistant - and lover - Cecco del Caravaggio. The diagonal sword - inscribed with an abbreviation of the phrase  "humility kills death" - mirrors David's gaze and has been seen as sexually suggestive. Or rather David may depict a younger version of the artist himself, who, in a double self-portrait, looks upon the head of his adult counterpart with sadness and compassion, in sharp contrast to the jubilant expression typical of other portrayals of this Biblical subject.

Carvaggio is on the run from the authorities, having murdered a man. He paints in desperation - his patron, Cardinal Borgese, maintained the power to grant him pardon. The result is a self-portrait alive with turmoil, his face contorted in hopelessness, mouth gaping as if about to utter his last words. 

A devastating explication on the human condition, the painting itself becomes the artist's own monumental elegy, the bold and mysterious Caravaggio having the final word.

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Bite 131: Caravaggio - St. Jerome, 1605-06

St. Jerome, 1605-06, oil on canvas, 112 × 157 cm, Galleria Borghese

In the act of writing St. Jerome gives himself completely to his task. Pen and books become an extension of his body. Furrowed brow, head bowed, this is scholarship as an act of worship. 

The simplicity of the composition, as with the saint's attire, testify to Jerome's ascetic penance, seen as a requirement for an absolute dedication to study, writing and translation. A skull sits with him as a humble reminder of mortality and recognition of the greater purpose of his work.

St. Jerome is recognised as the patron saint of translators, librarians and encyclopedists.

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Bite 130: Caravaggio - Bacchus, c. 1595

Bacchus, c. 1595, oil on canvas, 95 x 85 cm, Uffizi, Florence

With the healthy glow of youth and the rosy cheeks of liquor, Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and ecstasy, garlanded with vine leaves, reclines before a still-life of fruit and wine. 

Endowed equally with mythical symbolism and realism, the adolescent Bacchus regards the viewer with a quizzical, tipsy expression. His fingers are dirty as one hand delicately holds a glass of wine out to us. 

Like many of Caravaggio's paintings it can be seen in overtly homoerotic terms, the other hand seeming about to invitingly pull the ribbon holding his robe closed. The passive tilt of the head and sideways glance appears equally inviting.

Yet the decision to include rotting fruit complicates this reading, hinting at themes of mortality and the inevitable loss of youthful vigour. With this in mind Bacchus' look takes on an altered significance, simultaneously teasing, and mournful.

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Bite 114: Jan van Eyck - The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434

Portrait of Giovanni (?) Arnolfini and his Wife (The Arnolfini Portrait), 1434,
oil on oak, 82 x 60 cm, National Gallery, London

Redolent in symbolism, this mysterious painting has been the subject of much conjecture among art historians.

The woman, thought to be Giovanna Cenami, is not believed to be pregnant here, despite appearances. This, along with the dog, fruit and bed, can be seen instead as indicative of fertility, in what many scholars believe to be a marriage or betrothal portrait. Whether this be the case or not, an oath is none-the-less seen to be taking place - Giovanni raising his hand and Giovanna lowering and opening hers. Extravagantly attired in highly expensive winter clothing the couple stands in the front room of their house, on the second story, with cherry blossoms outside suggesting early spring - further adding to the confusion surrounding this Early-Netherlandish work (a very early example of oil on wood instead of tempura).

Thoroughly justifying the extraordinarily fame of this work, however, more even than its remarkable realism and painstaking illusionistic technique, is the convex mirror and inscription in the centre of the painting, on the far wall behind the couple. In the round glass can be seen the backs of the Arnolfinis and a man in front of them holding up his hand, widely accepted to be the artist himself. Above this is transcribed (some even believe legally notorised): "Jan van Eyck has been here." This gesture of authorship attests to the role of the artist as witness, while also being a bold statement on consciousness and the human ego. 

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Bite 56: Lucio Fontana - Spatial Concept: Expectations, 1959



Spatial Concept: Expectations, 1959, synthetic polymer paint on slashed burlap, 100 x 82 cm



Q: By slashing the canvas does the artist turn this painting into a sculpture?


In the collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York

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Bite 29: Caravaggio - The Calling of St. Matthew, 1599-1600

The Calling of St. Matthew, 1599-1600, oil on canvas

"The Calling of St. Matthew depicts five men sitting round their usual table, telling stories, gossiping, boasting of what one day they will do, counting money. The room is dimly lit. Suddenly the door is flung open. The two figures who enter are still part of the violent noise and light of the invasion. (Berenson wrote that Christ comes in like a police inspector to make an arrest.)

Two of Matthew's colleagues refuse to look up, the other two younger ones stare at the strangers with a mixture of curiosity and condescension. Why is he proposing something so mad? Who's protecting him, the thin one who does all the talking? And Matthew, the tax-collector with a shifty conscience which has made him more unreasonable than most of his colleagues, points at himself and asks: is it really I who must go? Is it really I?

How many thousands of decisions to leave have resembled Christ's hand here! The hand is held out towards the one who has to decide, yet it is ungraspable because so fluid. It orders the way, yet offers no direct support. Matthew will get up and follow the thin stranger from the room, down the narrow streets, out of the district. He will write his gospel, he will travel to Ethiopia and the South Caspian and Persia. Probably he will be murdered.

And behind the drama of this moment of decision is a window, giving onto the outside world. In painting, up to then, windows were treated either as sources of light, or as frames framing nature or an exemplary event outside. Not so this window. No light enters. The window is opaque. We see nothing. Mercifully we see nothing because what is outside is threatening. It is a window through which only the worst news can come; distance and solitude."

                                                                                      - John Berger

Source:
John Berger,  And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos, Pantheon Books, 1984, p. p. 81-82.

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