Surprising Sofonisha

When we think of the Italian Renassiance we think male artists, right?   

However, there were a few women who spent their time with canvas and paint……Sofonisha Anguissola is one.   She lived from 1532 to 1635 and once she was introduced to Michelangelo he immediately recognized her talent.  Eventually she would serve as a court painter for the Spanish court.

She is known for painting self and family portraits.  Later in life she would use religious themes, but sadly many of those were lost.

Her parents named her after Sophobisba….a Carthaginian noble woman who killed herself rather than falling victim to the Romans during the Punic Wars.

Though she was allowed to paint she was still unable to study anatomy or drawing from life like male painters…she was not allowed to view nudes in order to gain the knowledge she needed.  

Instead of allowing this to be a negative, Sofonisha turned it into a positive and did innovative things including new styles of portraiture, setting subjects informally.

At a time when male artists were creating large-scale religious and historical scenes Sofonisha created self-portraits and scenes with her family depicting everyday life.

For example….The Chess Game shows her sisters playing chess and includes a new element in painting….LAUGHTER!

Sofonisha Anguissola's The Chess Game

Sofonisha Anguissola's Self-Portrait at the Clavichord

Another example, shown above, includes a person in action.  This is a self-portrait at the clavichord.

Famous Art Thefts: The Last Judgment

Historians actually believe the very first art theft occurred when The Last Judgment by Hans Memling in 1473 was taken….not for the last but for the first time.

The Last Judgment is actually a triptych painting which means the painting is actually in three sections hinged together.

The painting was stolen by pirates.   Yes, real pirates.  It was on a ship headed for Florence  when the pirates took the ship, and they ended up with the painting.

The pirates took Memling’s work to a cathedral in Gdansk, Poland and believe it or not…..it’s still there – in the National Museum.

It’s a little surprising anyone would want to keep it.   The painting IS a little scary, isn’t it?

The Museum’s website states Angelo Tani, head of the Bruges branch of Medici’s bank commissioned the painting in 1465 for a church in Florence… Badia Fiesolana, but it never hung there since the painting was taken by pirates and eventually hung in St. Mary’s Church.

Later the painting was connected with the name van Eyck and over the centuries other painters from the Netherlands were thought to have painted The Last Judgement.   It wasn’t finally attributed to Memling until 1843.

From the 1700s forward the painting was caught up in various wars.  During the Northern War (1716-1717) Russian tsar Peter the Great demanded the painting as part of the reparations imposed on Gdansk.   In 1807, Napoleon’s army occupied Gdansk and took the painting to Paris where it was incorrectly identified it as a van Eyck.  

After Napoleon’s fall the Prussians took the painting to Berlin before it was returned to Gdansk where it eventually wound up in St. Reynaud’s Chapel.

Fortunately, The Last Judgment survived World War II though many works of art did not.   Initially the painting was found by the Soviet Army.  They took the painting to Lenningrad’s Hermitage as a war trophy.  On September 22, 1956 The Last Judgment was returned to Gdansk together with other artwork from the Gdansk Musem.

Name the Artist

Recently I stumbled across these paintings.

The young man who created them tried to support his family by selling them, but he wasn’t very successful.   He was turned down twice by The Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.  The directors told him he was unfit and should study architecture instead.'

He turned to politics instead….

What was his name?

Adolph Hitler, of course.

A Little Advice Is a Good Thing

It’s a good thing Mary Cassatt listened to her good friend Edgar Degas.   

While living and painting in Paris Degas and Cassatt met.   Cassatt was painting subjects that included groups of women drinking tea or on outings with friends.  Degas told his friend to begin to paint mothers with their children.   He told her it had only been done in a religious tone up to that point.   She could build a niche.    Mary Cassatt listened and she became known for her mother/child groupings.  

 

The painting I have here…..A Goodnight Hug is her first work after listening to Degas and it’s unique because the facial features are hidden.

Guernica

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

This painting by Pablo Picasso is his response to the horrific bombing by German and Italian forces during the Spanish Civil War in 1937.      

During the occupation of Paris during World War II Picasso kept a large photo of the painting on his studio wall.   At some point a Nazi officer saw it and said to Picasso, “So….you did that?”

Picasso answer, “No, YOU did that.”

Here's a great PBS page with information about this important work of art.

Famous Art Thefts: Mona Lisa

Vicenzo Peruggia, a former Louve employee actually walked out of the museum with the Mona Lisa under his clothes on August 21, 1911. 

How he removed the painting from its frame with no notice is beyond me. 

Officials questioned all sorts of people including Guillaume Apollinaire, a French poet who had at once time called for the Louvre to be “burnt down.”   He was arrested and then had the audacity to implicate his friend Pablo Picasso…….yes, that one.

Picasso was questioned but allowed to go.

Peruggia was fingered for the crime when he contacted a prominent art dealer in Florence in December, 1913 claiming he had a famous painting for sale. 

He had stolen the Mona Lisa because he wanted the painting returned to Itay – its rightful place in his opinion.

Once retrieved from Peruggia, the painting went on a whirlwind tour of Italy before being returned to the Louvre. 

Many of Peruggia’s Italian countrymen hailed him as a hero.   Back in France he was sentenced to a jail term of six months.

$80 Million???? Now That's a Scream!

Seriously.   This painting – Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” will be auctioned at Sotheby’s soon and experts are estimating the painting may fetch $80 million.

Sotheby’s describes the iconic painting as “one of the most instantly recognizable images in art and popular culture, second only perhaps to Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.”

Most paintings have only one original but Munch painted a few versions….using various forms of media.  The Munch Museum holds one of two painted versions and one pastel.  The National Gallery of Norway holds the other painted version…..and there is also a lithograph.     The version that Sotheby’s will auction is a pastel and is owned currently by Norwegian businessman Petter Olsen, which will be offered at auction in May, 2012.

This painting has been stolen twice.  In both cases it was the versions owned by museums that were stolen.

It has been parodied by “The Simpsons”.

…and the frame holding this version of the 1895 work has a handwritten inscription from the artist…the final line of which reads “I felt the great Scream in Nature.”

Edvard Munch explained the painting this way, “I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.”