The Croatian Literary Baroque

Bartol Kašić (1575-1650)

On my island of olive growers and fisherman I feel as far away from the baroque as is possible. The landscape is dotted with tiny café latte tinted stone chapels, perfectly contrasted with the pine green forests and iron rich soil. These appear to have sprung out of the earth, so sympathetic are they with their natural, yet cultivated surroundings. Human in scale and spiritual in content, they are reminders of a simple, aesthetic and pure faith. This seems to be what the architects of the baroque were trying to bulldoze in their efforts to appeal to the emotions and senses of the wavering congregations. Revision here is quite entertaining, and what follows is a fleshing out of the notes that I'm working through - it is inevitable that an art style which I really don't like has produced so many posts!
 

The Tradition of Bosnian Catholic Tattoos

There was a spell in the not so distant past where I did a module on exhibiting the body as part of my MA in History of Art. It was one of the more challenging subjects because of the sheer newness of the subject to me; basically I was pinging around like an over enthusiastic firework because every lecture we had presented a new idea which I wanted to pursue. Did I want to stay in the renaissance where the body was emerging as a machine, or head into enlightenment with wax modelling, Victorian health and death, or be in the present with bodies and taboos? This also coincided with some interesting events at London's RAI, where I wrote up a film about bodily suspension. Body modification and using the body as a canvas still really intrigues me, which is why a talk given by one of my fellow students in the Croatian Civilisation and Culture class today made me dash here and blog about it. The research is all hers but where I was unsure, I've added, clarified, and interjected because I'm annoying like that.

Revelations in glass

Eleanor Morgan

It's been my intention to write and record something about glass for a while now, primarily looking at it from a combined scientific and contemporary art point of view. For instance, Luke Jerram's mysterious shapes of viruses - ebola, MRSA and swine flu - crafted from glass, or the sculpture made from glass laboratory implements recently exhibited in the Wellcome windows. Then recently there was the stunning Glass Delusions at the Grant Museum which was partly inspired by nature's foray into silica based organisms. The inexplicable and unique scientific nature of glass makes it a perfect material of artistic endeavour, able to capture fragility, a human moment of stillness in a medium of movement.

The Sounds of Dubrovnik

I don't usually write about music because I find it extraordinarily difficult to articulate, unless in poetry. When I have talked about sounds, it's usually in the context of sound art, which is an entirely different thing. However music and musical inspiration has been unavoidable since I arrived in one of my favourite cities. 

I've forsaken my usual podcasts or music, and left off the headphones which are usually worn to protect my sanity. However the usual London assault on my hearing and consciousness is conspicuous by its absence. The last intelligible commotion was on the plane where a rowdy group were commencing their holidays. Since then it's been a babble of many languages, the frantic cry of swifts, the gentle burble of boats on water, and the clack of feet on marble.

All cities have their percussive chant; London is probably best described as a continuous high octane techno-trance-electonica, pumping out its noise like the recent illegal rave held on my street. The contrast to London, this other ancient city still feels like it moves to the creak and roll of the ships; or the beat of the Roman trireme. Yes there is a pulse but felt in the stillness of the upbeat. So to lose this anticipation of a different song would be most churlish. So the headphones remain unworn.

Introduction: From Politics to 'boozing and praying princes'

The Wettin rulers’ journey from margraves to kings was not an easy one. The most serious period of instability occurred in the years prior to August, and it was only through the political astuteness of his immediate successors that the House continued and he was able to establish a peaceful rule. The importance of religion in their struggle for power and land cannot be understated, and much of the instability experienced in the 1520's was exacerbated by the Protestant reformation. 

For instance, the devious side-changing Protestant Mauritz fought for Catholic Charles V against the collection of Protestant rulers within the Schmalkaldic League which was defeated in 1547. For this service, Charles V awarded him the title ‘Elector’ and the fortunes of the House of Wettin were further improved. Under Mauritz’s brother, August, peace within the Holy Roman Empire was fostered and he was instrumental in negotiating the 1555 compromise treaty which emerged out of the Imperial Diet of Augsburg. Modern commentators such as Jochen Votsch recognise that August was a skilled politician, achieving considerable territorial gains in a peaceful manner.[1] He was able to create a state which was ‘a model of successful internal development…known for financial stability, support of mining, science and technology, and reforms in the domains of justice and administration’.[2]

From Stigmata to Golf: Praying through the ages

This was an interesting start to Birkbeck Arts Week. Given the MA Catholic reformation module, I thought it would be a on topic diversion. As the blurb said, 'in our secular world, prayer has become unfamiliar, and past cultures where prayer was more central are harder to understand. Dr Isabel Davis (Birkbeck), Revd Dr Jessica Martin and Dr Nicola Bown (Birkbeck) discuss representations of prayer in literature and art in the Middle Ages, the seventeenth century and the Victorian period. Technique of prayer; what it is and what it is like'.

Dr Isabel Davis and her band of pilgrims set out from the late Middle Ages. For the church going population kneeling was a natural, obvious, submissive posture. And yet, where did this invented and culturally specific idea come from?

Islam in an Age of Confessionalisation

Suleiman the Magnificent

I hadn't been to one of the Birkbeck EMPHASIS seminars in ages. Every time I go to one, I leave with my head bursting with knowledge, usually in several types of dead language. So one a year is probably my max. This one on Islam and Christianity in the Early Modern World, presented by Jan Loop caught my eye, as this topic has been on my study to-do list for a while. Hoping for a break from my wiredrawing bench, I inevitably came away with a few ideas of new areas to pursue regarding the Lutheran polemic which forms part of its decoration. It was bound to be relevant because that is how connections work...

The Language Of Sculpture: Bernini Canova Rodin

Finally we reach specific sculptors and a review of three in chronological order. Given that we end with Rilke writing a poem in response to Rodin, it seems appropriate to begin with a few poetic observations.

In my experience, occasionally you discover a piece of art which speaks directly to you, and only poetry gives you the freedom to put words into the 'mouth' of the sculpture. This connection between the two art forms for me goes to the heart of understanding both.

Bernini

Bernini was all about bringing art forms together and breaking boundaries in what is known as bel composto. His church creations are a theatrical installations with a combination of the sculptural, pictorial and architectural. St Teresa is the perfect example. She is in mid transverberation and is sculptural, however the viewer has to step back to see the bel composto, the pictorial effect, essentially a scene from a tableau. Mirrors, lights, and candles all contribute to a theatrical event with viewer as spectator.

Eyes of Gods: The Interiority of Sculpture

Reconstruction of Zeus

These notes continue on from the lecture on idols. The boundaries between gods and idols are rather blurred; both have a persuasive presence and share the same kind of sacred space. They are not just representations, but for the people who worship them, they are real. This reality demonstrated in the art of the sculptor through application of colour, surface articulation, movement etc. This is the art of hidden depths (real or implied). All idol elements, dressing them etc, are at one level designed to create an inner life/have inner power for the statue. They are containers of something non-physical. 

This inner power is conveyed through their 'voice' as well as through the eyes. The Egyptian Colossi of Memnon started to make a noise after being damaged by an earthquake. They became famous because they realised the possibility of an interior voice. The skill of a sculptor is to make a figure look like it is on verge of speaking, making them articulate in both physical and spiritual form.

The Montalto Madonna and the intellectual and spiritual life of Cardinal Peretti di Montalto

My thought soars not so high ; though duly bent
In reverence, and awe, and long attent,
To study Nature and the works and ways,
So wondrous, that surround us : but no mind,
Whom earthly fetters bind,
Though led to truth, and swift to utter praise,
Can pierce the crystal that enshrines above
The Flower of endless Love ; …1

Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) 'The Nativity' Rome, December 1588

The poetic extract above precisely demonstrates the ease with which the sixteenth-century patron moved between the intellectual and religious; for them, there was little distinction. With this in mind this essay sets out to explore how a private devotional image can provide an insight into the mind and life of the commissioning patron. Although we cannot be certain how individual spiritual or even intellectual experience manifested itself in relation to small devotional images, Burt Treffer offers a useful line of thought. His method applies a mix of pictorial analysis and iconography, investigation into the purpose of the painting and who it was for, as well as a close reading of the associated literature.2 

A recently rediscovered devotional image by Annibale Carracci The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist, or the Montalto Madonna (National Gallery, London) (c1600) is perfectly placed to demonstrate and reflect the pursuits of its first owner, the Roman Cardinal Deacon Alessandro Damasceni Peretti di Montalto (1571–1623). Taken in its wider context, this small painting on copper enables the art historian to explore reformation church politics, familial ambition as well as flourishing city wide intellectual pursuits. 

An excursion into Baroque music

It turns out that few art historians make excursions into music history, mainly because music can be rather technical. I am the first to admit some music articles are unfathomable without a degree in composition, maths or some such, and are rather off putting. It depends on what the musicologist is trying to convey. Are they talking about how the music is actually made; or are they describing the effects of certain musical combinations; or are they writing about theory? There are as many ways of writing about music as there are about art. When an analyst of paint does a technical report, someone of limited experience in this area would struggle to read it. So art can be just as technical as music in some respects.

I've spent a little time in choirs, and one of them concentrated on motets, masses and madrigals by well known early modern/Baroque composers such as Byrd, Tallis, Palastrina, Lotti etc. The sound, textures and rhythms of these pieces are relatively familiar; who has not felt the internal pulse of Tallis's 40 part motet Spem in Alium? Therefore I feel relatively well placed to apply a certain level of thought to how music like this works, and its effect on an audience and performer.

The Nativity by Torquato Tasso

Nativity of Christ, Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome

I looked everywhere for this poem online but it seems to be only in a fragile pamphlet 1907; I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

I was very much struck with the mention of the study of nature. I enjoyed the allusions to truth and light, and the chasing away of pagan and pre Christian gods. But above all it was the 'flower of endless love' when all the imagery and 16th century language falls away, leaving nothing but warmth and sincerity. A stunning piece.

My Love Affair with Cardinal Alessandro Peretti Montalto Begins

Although the intellectual life of the artist is crucial, my focus this weekend has been on the patron and his concerns. I'm coming round full circle to my initial essay idea which focused purely on the Montalto Madonna - this would embrace all the thoughts I was having regarding the renewal of the church, private devotion, poetry, music, innovations in the creation of art and so on. The other paintings are interesting but I think I will end up using them as guest appearances to support the main feature. One of the reasons for this is we can only be certain of one of the commissions - I have been unable to find out who commissioned the other paintings and this would lead to a very unbalanced essay. These are my musings about the man who commissioned the Holy Family so far.

Visions, Families and Torments: Carracci and Saints

Perhaps it's just me, or the pernicious influence of academia but sometimes the actual paintings can get lost in the amount of theory whirring around. To clarify my thoughts, I've started by going to the paintings and looking at them carefully to see what is in them. The paintings I'm talking about are the ones mentioned in my previous post. They were all painted around the same time, using the same materials and have been well known, even when thought lost, through the written descriptions of Giovan Pietro Bellori and Carlo Cesare Malvasia from the 1600s.

Bellori was aware of the limitations of pictorial description, as he says, 'the delight of painting resides in sight, which has little to do with hearing', and I would add reading to that observation. However, he offers a brief overview of these works on copper and we are able to identify the three works of interest from his remarks,

Carracci on Copper: Initial essay ramblings

This post arises out of my initial essay ramblings about the artist Annibale Carracci (November 3, 1560 – July 15, 1609). I am setting out to investigate what his small paintings on copper tell us about religion and intellectual ideas of the period. 'The Montalto Madonna', the 'Temptation of St Antony Abbot' and the 'Vision of St Francis' are all dated to when he had been in Rome a few years, from 1597-1598. I shall be looking at the different subject matter of each painting and connecting it with a number of interesting issues. For example, St Francis and the renewed interest in the spiritual, possibly touching on St Teresa of Avila. I remain fascinated by the monsters in the St Antony Abbot piece so what can this tell us about real and psychological demons of the late 1500s. Finally how had the role of the Virgin Mary changed over the latter part of the century - what does his depiction of the Holy Family say about her?

Please Relics Me, Let Me Go....

Here, have some kittehs instead

This lecture was on relics and the cults of the saints and I was presenting – hence the post on propaganda. We have already touched on many of the topics related to saints and relics because they are so central to Catholic worship. Reaffirmed by the Council of Trent, in that particular session they discussed relics at the same time as images, so there is a mingling of ideas with many clerics not making a distinction between the two. 

On reflection and in my current state of mind – you try reading 20+books about Annibale Carracci in two days – the point our tutor made about Mary being the most miraculous was key. This is something I am going to revisit for my essay, however suffice to say that many icons of the Virgin were reframed and repositioned in Renaissance because of their perceived miraculous nature. For my real feeling on this entire subject, please see my concluding paragraph!

Relics: Ideological Messengers of the Church?

True Cross, Santo Toribio de Liébana, Spain.
(photo by F. J. Díez Martín).

This post has come out of a preparation for a class presentation on relics. The module name is 'the art of persuasion' and yet it seems that we have launched straight into the art without actually thinking consciously about the persuasion. Preparation for this course took place in July 2013 at the British Library with the 'Propaganda: Power and Persuasion' exhibition and so finally I was able to draw on prior knowledge to apply to an area in which I am becoming increasingly familiar.[1] To see how relics were used by the king and state, I also read recent books and articles.[2] When I talk about 'relics' I'm referring to the bodily fragments and associated paraphernalia associated with the saint in question which are usually kept in reliquaries or altars in Catholic churches the world over. Given that my tutor will be talking about them specifically, I don't want to cover the same ground as her.

Lecture 5: Altar pieces

It seems timely that Monday’s class was about altar pieces. Given that Hasan Niyazi spent so much of his time investigating and writing about these hugely important paintings, it was soothing to connect with his memory and contemplate some of the wider issues of church art. Hasan concentrated on the pre-Trent period when, it might be argued, the images had a gloriously balanced aesthetic and an aura of beautiful unreality. You only have to look at The Madonna di Foligno to see the difference between Raphael’s abilities and some of the less than average artists we've seen this term.

The focus this week was the way that the altar pieces interacted with the rest of the church; that is to say everything from the liturgy, the architecture, iconographic program, saints patron as well as the wider community. After the Council of Trent, the Eucharistic became of central importance and the altar piece usually reflected this. Our tutor stated that they were more likely to have symbolism in them after Trent than before, a statement which has had me puzzling since I returned to my notes. I would heavily dispute this given the amount of iconographical studies of some difficult altar pieces pre-1563. However what I think the lecturer meant was that symbols were used in a different, more unsubtle way and became easier for the congregation to 'read'.

Book Review: The Sensuous in the Counter-Reformation Church

This book review is dedicated to the memory of my good friend, Hasan Niyazi. I just wish it had been a book on Raphael, about whom who he knew so much. Thank you for your help my dear...

With every new papal regime the Catholic Church undergoes a subtle change with attempts to re-engage and invigorate the hearts and minds of the faithful. For me, it seems that every fresh endeavour is nothing more than a manifestation of the ripple effect of sixteenth-century reformation Rome, where all means were employed to win back those tempted by the inflammatory protestant sects. A combination of enthusiastic new saints to venerate and an immersive theatrical experience to rival any playhouse would have given the average Catholic quite a jolt, if not a complete sensory overload.

Editors Marcia Hall and Tracy E Cooper bring together a collection of essays which explore ideas of sensuousness in the Catholic reformation church. Each author is a specialist in late sixteenth century religious subjects and well known for scholarly articles and/or monographs. The introduction makes it quite clear that the editors have defined ‘“sensuous” as related to, or derived from the senses, usually the senses involved in aesthetic enjoyment’ (p1). Some essays make reference to sexual pleasure, however they stress that is not their primary focus.

Lecture 4: The one in which Catholic churches justify their decor

Il Gesu

The title of this fourth lecture held a lot of promise: 'Space, Function and Decoration in a Catholic Church'. In it we examined the church's decoration and design and looked at what these implied in terms of how the space was used. We compared the use of church space pre- and post- catholic reformation and the changes this entailed in the light of new ways of worship. The case study revolved around the most Catholic of post-Trent organisation's churches, the Jesuit 'Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus at the "Argentina"', or Il Gesù for short.

However this lecture was vaguely unsatisfactory and I was pleased that I had supplemented it with a lot of reading - there is too much to cover in depth in an hours lecture. I'd read Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque which clearly sets out the subtle differences between rhetoric, persuasion and propaganda. It also discusses and dismisses the notion of 'the Jesuit style', a label which should definitely be avoided. I've also been reading the truly excellent The Sensuous in the counter-reformation church which covers in depth a number of issues that we merely touched upon in class. Art historians like to use the Jesuits as examples for various things so lecture and reading all tied in well.