The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche (1834)

Gad, I love this picture; behold the wonders of 19^th Century Academic Art in all its glory.  Be warned, though: the current art establishment believes The Execution of Lady Jane Grey to be little better than kitsch, and admiration for Delaroche’s technical virtuosity, theatrical sense and incomparable draftsmanship a sign of antiqued and louche taste. 

Paul Delaroche’s (1797-1857) remarkable drawing and sense of composition, the picture’s almost licked finish, and its sense of history tinged with Romanticism is everything that Modernism has rejected.  Delaroche, in fact, was too brilliant too late.  The very earliest proponents of Modernism began to disdain his achievement – Van Gogh called Delaroche one of the “very bad history painters” and affected to hate his work.  If we make a riposte to Van Gough through the mists of time, we must make sure to address his good ear…

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey was bequeathed to the Tate Gallery in the early 20^th Century, and had been banished to storage by 1928.  In 1974, the picture was resurrected for show at the National Gallery.  And there, something quite remarkable happened.  The public, neither interested in, nor gulled by, mainstream art historians discovered the picture and lined up to see it.  Delaroche’s work has proven so popular that the wooden floor before it must be polished far more often than other spots in the gallery.

And no wonder.  Look at everything that Delaroche does in this picture.  There are only five life-size figures, and they are superbly and dramatically placed within the frame.   Lady Jane Grey was the great-grand-daughter of Henry VII, and, at 17, she was named successor to the throne of England by her cousin, Edward VI.  The plan, at least, was that the crowning of Protestant Jane would shore up Protestantism and keep Catholic influence at bay.  However, her claim on the crown was too weak, and she reigned for a scant nine days, after which she was deposed and executed for treason by the rightful monarch, Edward’s half-sister, Mary Tudor.  Delaroche sets his scene in the Tower of London on the morning of the execution, February 12, 1554. 

The girl (little more than a child) is behaving with magnificent poise, which makes the emotional scene more poignant.  She is on the scaffold and dressed only her undergarments.  Her clothes are piled beside her lady-in-waiting, who has collapsed in grief against the left wall.  Her other handmaiden faces the wall, the horror to come too much to bear. 

Grey, blindfolded, reaches out for the chopping block where, moments later, her head will be cleaved from her body.  Sir John Brydges, the lieutenant of the Tower, gently guides her to her death; his heart-breaking solicitude increases the emotional pitch of the picture.  Even the executioner directs his gaze away, awed by the enormity of the sin he is about to commit.  Look at how he shifts his weight to one leg, his right hand almost releasing the axe.  Delaroche manages to depict different emotional reactions from the players of this tragedy, inspiring a multitude of emotional responses from us, the viewer. 

Preparatory Drawing By Delaroche 

If yesterday’s picture, The Children of Edward, fills us with melancholy, Jane Grey is deeply, wrenchingly, viscerally moving.

Wisely, Delaroche keeps the representation of their surroundings to minimal gray-tones and subtle stone carvings.  The bare stage, if you will, maintains focus on the figures and the deeply human connection is never lost.  The one non-human touch of any significance is the straw surrounding the block; this, if nothing else, underscores the horror to come when we realize that it is there to soak up the young girl’s blood.

If we wonder how or why Delaroche was able to connect so viscerally with this particular historical incident, it would do well to remember that only a scant 40 years earlier, Delaroche’s countrymen cut off the heads of their own aristocracy.

By any cultural yardstick, this is a magnificent and moving painting.   

More Delaroche tomorrow.

A Fake Leonardo at the National Gallery?

While my readers are well aware that most of the nonsense, hogwash and jiggery-pokery in the arts today largely revolves around Modernism, Post-Modernist theory and the art ‘business,’ there is sometimes a refreshing bit of unmitigated bleat to liven things up for those of us genuinely interested in the fine arts.  I refer, of course, to the upcoming show at London’s National Gallery (November 11- February 5) featuring their recently discovered painting of Christ by Leonardo.

Let’s take a moment first to think of Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest minds of the Italian Renaissance.  Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1452-1519) was an illegitimate child who grew up to be a painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, scientist, musician, engineer, mathematician – indeed, simply listing his many accomplishments can make lesser men feel woefully inadequate, so I’ll stop here. 

Because da Vinci was both a perfectionist and a tireless tinkerer, not many of his artistic achievements survive to the present day.  His experimental methods sometimes led to the ruination of his own works soon after completion, or, as is more often the case, he seldom moved beyond conception because of technical difficulties or simple lack of follow-through.  His mind was too filled with ideas – for improving our understanding of anatomy, or creating a new varnish or devising a new weapon of war, whatever – for him to have been completely successful at anything.  Indeed, Leonardo was the kind of guy who dreamed of how to finish a project before he had even begun it.

Though there are several hundred surviving pages from Leonardo’s notebooks – including designs, random notes, quick sketches and his shopping lists – there are very few finished Leonardo paintings, and even there some doubt remains on attribution.  So when the National Gallery promised to unleash the lost Leonardo, Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World),the art world took notice.

Perhaps the most depressing facet of this entire debacle has been how willing Dr. Nicholas Penny, Director of the National Gallery, has been to trash his own reputation and his hard-earned expertise.  Dr. Penny was the previous Clore Curator of Renaissance Painting at the National Gallery, with a doctorate from the Courtauld Institute.  He was also an Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.

But it seems that anyone with the necessary £16 ticket fee is as much of an expert as Dr. Penny.  Here is what Dr. Penny said in an October 9 London Times interview comparing Salvator Mundi to The Lady with the Ermine and the Mona Lisa:

They respond, but hold something back. You can’t think about them except in relationship to the viewer. They imply a narrative of which you are a part. That was not true of portraiture before Leonardo. The Salvator Mundi radiates intense presence. But because it’s Leonardo you do wonder if you’re going mad–and you certainly want people whose opinions you respect to look at it.  People can judge for themselves.

Perhaps that radiated presence was something in the ventilation system, for here we have a man who has seriously devoted his life to art and art history, saying to the world that an uninformed opinion is as good as an informed one.  Only in this Post Modernist World, where arguments that are “faith based” hold as much water as those built upon science, experience and knowledge, could such a distinguished scholar so debase himself.

Is it a real Leonardo?  (No … I’m not going to say judge for yourself.)  I do not have the real expertise necessary to make a determination like that, nor have I physically seen the picture.  But, as long as Dr. Penny invites us to make a judgment, let’s open that door and walk right through it.

The face of the Salvator Mundi Christ seems to be familiar to those of us who have looked at Leonardos because of the eyes, which seem both sleepy and knowing, and have that quality of ‘mystery.’  However, I find it extraordinarily unlikely that Leonardo would paint Christ against so dark and empty a background.  Look at Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks or Mona Lisa or even the unfinished St. Jerome, and you’ll see that he was a great believer in some kind of misted background that perhaps commented on the foreground figures.  (Yes, Lady With an Ermine is also against a neutral background, but she is the ringer.)

Also, just what is that in His hand?  A crystal globe?  We know Leonardo was interested in optics, but if he were making some kind of in-joke, wouldn't it perhaps be a little more clear?

Also – I have two perfectly good eyes, and have been using them for many, many years.  No ‘radiated presence’ comes through my optic nerve (whatever the hell a radiated presence may be), and I certainly don’t feel as if I am in contact with an interesting and profound mind, as I do with other of Leonardo’s works.

I also have a perfectly good nose – and it detects the faint, sweet odor of horse puckey.  The National Gallery’s show, Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, is a huge, expensive undertaking for the museum.  It is only natural (too natural!) to want to up the ante a bit with news of a possible new Leonardo.  The ‘discovery’ of this ‘lost’ masterpiece has created considerable coverage for them (evidence: this column) and it shows no signs of stopping.  If you are in London sometime in the next two months and have a spare £16, take a look and feel the radiated presence.  And then, you to, my son, can be an art expert.