Saint Michael, by Luca Giordano (1663)

We return to our look at some of the work by one of history’s most prolific painters, Luca Giordano (1634-1705). 

During his 10 year period in Spain (1692-1702), Giordano carried out major decorative commissions in Madrid, Toledo and the Escorial.  He grew to greatly admire the Spanish painter Velázquez, and painted A Homage to Velázquez (circa 1692, now in the National Gallery London).  Giordano had an incredible ability to mimic the work of other artists, and for some time his Homage was attributed to Velázquez himself.  Indeed, after a trip to Venice he painted an Annunciation (now in the collection at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art) in the manner of Titian, and Giordano’s ability as a mimic are clearly apparent.

Giordano was an incredibly active painter, prolific until the end of his life, and is currently credited with some 2000 paintings.  As such, some are quite wonderful and others, less so.  One of the great challenges with prolific genius is to separate the great from the near-great from the best-left-forgotten.

Giordano painted St. Michael several times.  One depiction, dating roughly to 1660-65, clearly owes its inspiration to the painter Raphael; and while that is certainly a beautiful picture (showing a profound understanding of the color blue), I much prefer the one here, from 1663, as it owes its greatest debt to Giordano’s first master and mentor, the painter Ribera.

St. Michael, along with Gabriel and Raphael, is one of only three angels liturgically venerated by the Church.  He appears twice in the Old Testament as a helper to the early Christian peoples; he appears twice in the New Testament, once first arguing Satan over Moses’ body, and again when he and his angels fought Satan and his dragons and hurled him and his followers from heaven. 

He appears repeatedly in apocryphal literature and was regarded by the early Church as the captain of the heavenly host, the protector of Christians against the devil (especially at the time of death, when the soul is most vulnerable), and the leader of Christian armies against the heathen. 

The cult of St. Michael started in Phrygia, but soon spread to the West, where it gained traction when it was recorded that Michael appeared at Mt. Garganus during the rein of Pope Gelasius.  He is always depicted with a sword or lance, and often standing over conquered devils and dragons.  He is the ultimate conception of the warrior angel in all his glamor and strength, valor and might.

Like much of Ribera’s work, there are hints of the dark, brooding genius of Caravaggio, as well as the influence of Spanish and Venetian masters.  The work is heavily reliant on the dramatic use of shadow, and a moody sense of coloration.  The picture is both … unsettling and startling; despite the heroic visitation of Michael, the overall image is somewhat horrific.

The triumphant Michael is perhaps somewhat fleshy and feminine to the contemporary eye, but the manly torso and powerful legs indicate the strength of a warrior of Christ.  The golden tresses of the angel, along with the girlish face perhaps still owe something to Raphael, as do the draping of his cape behind him. 

Curious about the cape: its pinkish color reflecting the lights of Hell seems as if the brighter, pinker side should be on the viewer’s right, rather than the left.  Also odd, too, is that on Michael’s left hip (or on the right side, to the viewer) the dragon-headed hilt of a sword is clearly visible, but the corresponding blade seems no where in evidence behind the angel.

No, the real triumphs here are the wonderfully bestial devils and the hellish landscape.  The fingers of our devils taper into wonderfully pointy fingernails, and the eyes register as dead black.  Also wonderful is the devil’s cavernous mouth, which seems genuinely otherworldly with its snake-like note of two teeth visible at the bottom.  His leathery, bat-like wings are in marked contrast to the feathery white clouds provided for Michael.  Curiously, the spear of St. Michael pieces the side of the devil almost exactly where the Roman spear pierced the side of the dying Christ.

The background has a sulfuric quality; one could almost choke on the red and brown mists.  Between the serpent wrapped around one unfortunate’s arm, a howling beast and the foot of a plummeting body, Giordano’s hell is truly a fearsome creation.

More Luca Giordano tomorrow.

An Old Woman Cooking Eggs, by Diego Velázquez (1618)

We continue to work our way through the fabulous exhibition at The Frick Collection, showcasing 10 masterworks from the Scottish National Gallery, with a fascinating picture by Diego Velázquez (1599-1660).

Though certainly not my favorite picture in this exhibition, An Old Woman Cooking Eggs has perhaps caught the greatest public scrutiny, including an in-depth (and largely worthless) analysis from the Wall Street Journal.  It was the source of much lively discussion when we visited the exhibition, and such animation is well-warranted. 

Velázquez was about 18 or 19 years old when he painted it.  He was living in his native Seville, where he was born in 1599.  His family, Portuguese Jews, moved to Spain from their native Porto, Portugal.  Velázquez was raised devoutly Christian, and received a good education.  A facility for drawing got him a year-long apprenticeship under Francisco de Herrera when he was 12; the young artist then moved on to apprentice under Francisco Pacheco.  Though not a great master, Pacheco seemed to understand the stark chiaroscuro of painters like Caravaggio, and taught young Velázquez for five years.

Young Velázquez also learned more than painting under Pacheco – he would marry the master’s daughter, Juana Pacheco (1602-1660), who would bear him two daughters.  (Oddly enough, the oldest daughter, Francisca de Silva Velázquez y Pacheco [1619–1658], married a painter herself.) 

Velázquez painted many notable works during this period, including An Old Woman Cooking Eggs, along with several religious pictures of considerable emotional depth.  Significant was his dramatic sense of light – as if every subject was a tableau with each key player under an individual spotlight. 

Velázquez moved to Madrid, where he became court painter to Philip IV.  The gig was extremely high-paying, and offered considerable benefits (including room and board and medical coverage – which seems to be a consistent wish in any age).  He would remain there – aside from significant trips to Italy, for the rest of his life.

The picture currently on view at the Frick is a remarkable example of his early work.  At first glance, it would seem the most fascinating thing about the picture is that neither the old woman nor the young boy are looking directly at one-another.  The shared distracted gaze is what gives the picture something of its unique tension, and certainly much of its other-worldliness.

Like much of his work, both figures seem to emerge into (or out of) a well-placed spotlight, which leaves the surroundings in a dramatic shadowland.  The boy, in particular, almost looks as if he were visiting from another painting (if not another world).  It is a curiously old face for a boy so young – and he carries a glass beaker, which is an interesting implement for the cooking of some eggs.  In a picture of virtuosic grace-notes, this beaker is probably the most notable. Depicting glass in oil paint is a particularly difficult (and perilous!) undertaking, and Velázquez effortlessly paints a transparent beaker with both weight and depth.

Note, too, the hands of both figures, which are rendered with extreme sensitivity.  These are hands that are capable of actual work, and their versatility and dexterity is evident.  Wonderful, too, are the components that make up the design – the red peppers, the onion, ceramic pitchers and the knife draped wonderfully over a bowl to cast a shadow.  For an artist so young (or at any age) this is a splendid show of control over the medium and of his art.

His sense of composition is flawless; note how your gaze goes from the boy’s head, to his hand, to her hand holding the spoon, to her hand holding the egg, up to her face, and then back to the boy.  The strategic use of white – from collar to egg to egg to shawl – underscores the flow.  The eye is in constant motion, and the picture has no ‘dead’ space.

For your correspondent, though, it still remains a curiously … cold work.  It is certainly striking, but hardly beautiful.  It is a picture that is all intellect and no heart; the work of a young artist who has not yet learned that the most important thing to give is one’s self.