Maneaters

The idea of the “maneater” or, as the French would say, femme fatale is one of the oldest tropes in Western civilization, going all the way back to Samson’s Delilah in the Bible and further back into the darkness before recorded time. Much of the look of the modern maneater comes from the brush of the most sensual member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Born May 12, 1828, Rossetti founded the PRB with John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt and followed the religious and moralizing trend of the Brotherhood at the beginning. However, Rossetti drifted more and more to the carnal over the spiritual, especially after the death of his one-time model, fellow-artist, wife, and everlasting muse Elizabeth Siddal. A year after Lizzie’s death, Rossetti began painting Beata Beatrix (above, from 1864-1870), which casts his departed wife as Beatrice Portinari from Dante Alighieri's poem La Vita Nuova. Dante Alighieri held Beatrice up as the epitome of purity, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti seems to follow suit, but there are hints that Siddal as Beatrice isn’t as snow white. The dove that brings flowers isn’t the conventional white of purity but rather the red of passion. Rossetti ostensibly shows the moment when Beatrice dies and experiences the rapture of the divine embrace, but like Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, the difference between an expression of religious thrill and that of sexual orgasm is clearly blurred. As discussed in Jay A. Clarke’s Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety, and Myth (my review here), Edvard Munch recognized this dual nature in Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix and translated it into his Madonna. Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix perfectly embodies the In Freudian idea of the Madonna-whore complex decades before Freud himself coined the term.



After the death of Lizzie Siddal, Rossetti struggled to find firm footing in her personal life, even as his artistic career blossomed. Rossetti careened among a traffic jam of mistresses, experiencing his fair share of total wrecks. One of those mistresses, Fanny Cornforth, served as the model for Lady Lilith (above, from 1868). Mythology paints Lilith as a strong, usually destructive female force and sometimes even as the first wife of the first man, Adam. Rather than mythologize the scene, Rossetti paints his Lilith in contemporary clothing. Fanny’s Lilith lounges in her bedclothes rather than the corseted garb of Victorian days and contemplates her pouty lips in a mirror. Fast forward a century, and Lady Lilith becomes Sharon Stone crossing her legs in Basic Instinct. Rosetti accompanied Lady Lilith with Sonnet LXXVIII, entitled "Body's Beauty," from his book of poetry The House of Life:

Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told
(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)
That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold.

And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

The long hair Lilith dithers with in the painting becomes literally a noose that strangles unfortunate men in the poem. Whereas Beata Beatrix was equal parts Madonna and whore, Lady Lilith is pure harlot of the black widow variety.

It’s easy to see Rossetti as an embittered chauvinist in his portrayals of his maneaters. Just as the dangerous Lilith is also the strong woman of Lilith Fair fame, Rossetti’s femme fatales are also copies in some respect of the highly accomplished Lizzie Siddal, the supermodel of Pre-Raphaelitism that added a sister to the Brotherhood. With Venus Verticordia (above, from 1863-1868), Rossetti maintains the sense of danger while simultaneously exposing the full power of womanhood. As with Lady Lilith, Rossetti appended a sonnet to Venus Verticordia:

She hath the apple in her hand for thee,

Yet almost in her heart would hold it back;

She muses, with her eyes upon the track

Of that which in thy spirit they can see.

Haply, 'Behold, he is at peace,' saith she;'

Alas! the apple for his lips, - the dart

That follows its brief sweetness to his heart,

-The wandering of his feet perpetually.'

A little space her glance is still and coy;

But if she gets the fruit that works her spell,

Those eyes shall flame as for her Phrygian boy.

Then shall her bird's strained throat woe foretell,

And as far seas moan as a single shell,

And her grove glow with love-lit fires of Troy.

Rossetti mixes the message of menace found in the poem by adding natural touches to the painting. The arrow and apple of doom remain in the painting, but the lack of clothes (hence, all trappings of civilization) and addition of flowers portray Venus as Mother Nature, and you don’t fool with Mother Nature. Rossetti painted the face of Venus from one of his model-mistresses, Alexa Wilding, but he painted the body from a tall nanny that he happened to pass in the street. Only a woman who literally stood head and shoulders above the crowd would fit the bill for this painting. Rossetti painted all three of these maneaters around the same time, showing how he moved back and forth in his view of the subject—a complex and complexing concept that consumed him as he created the most unforgettable images and poems of his career.

Up in the Air

For many people, the art of Giovanni Battista Gaulli, also known as Il Baciccio, is a big pain in the neck. Born May 8, 1639, Baciccio thrived during the age of the high-flying, illusionary ceiling frescoes of the High Baroque and early Rococo. Visitors still strain to look up at Baciccio’s The Worship of the Holy Name of Jesus (above, from 1685) in the nave of the Church of the Gesù in Rome. Other artisans helped out with the trickery of the faux architectural touches, but Baciccio is responsible for the breathtaking foreshortening that makes you feel as if the roof has come off and the heavens themselves are putting on a show. Baciccio’s painterly pyrotechnics belong to the armory of the Counter-Reformation as they fought back against the rising tide of the Protestant Reformation by appealing to the eyes and hearts of the still mostly illiterate masses. Where Martin Luther stressed the word, Baciccio and others stressed the image. Seven consecutive popes, from Pope Alexander VII through Pope Clement XI, picked Baciccio to paint their official portrait, demonstrating the trust the top men had in their artistic, not so secret, weapon.

Although Baciccio remains most remembered today for his grand frescoes, he did fine, more terrestrial work as well. His Pieta (above, from 1667) demonstrates what Baciccio could do with radical foreshortening closer to eye level. The drama Baciccio brings to this familiar religious scene shows the influence of Annibale Carracci and the Bolognese Baroque school, who tried to breathe new life into tired old tropes. By the time Baciccio paints this Pieta, the Baroque had begun to give way to the Rococo and the ostentatious displays of the frescoes of palaces and churches. This Pieta, however, shows just how precise and colorful Baciccio’s painting could be, a fact often lost when viewing his works set so high above. Baciccio achieves drama without resorting to deep, Caravaggio-esque chiaroscuro. For all the bombast of the frescoes, these humbler works by Baciccio may actually be his most deeply moving for those who believe. The expressions of sorrow worn by the angels on the left provide a perfect entry for empathy even today.

Baciccio learned the trade of being an artist from Gian Lorenzo Bernini, whom he painted in the portrait above in 1665. Baciccio learned Bernini’s style so well that this painting was originally thought to be a self-portrait by Bernini himself. Painted before the success of the great frescoes, Baciccio’s portrait of his teacher shows the love and respect he held for Bernini. Modern art is so much about the struggle of the individual artist and the development of an individual style, that we fail to appreciate the guild system that was in play for centuries in Europe as techniques were passed down from generation to generation and established artists nurtured younger ones. There were, of course, artists who used and abused the talents of their assistants, but the relationship between Bernini and Baciccio seems to have been a good one. Although Bernini is a fine artist in his own right, the work of Baciccio reflects on his talents as a teacher as well.

Making Assumptions

You could make the bold statement that all Western art since the 15th century has been a reaction to the Renaissance. Correggio came at the tail end of the period known as the High Renaissance, dying on March 5, 1534. Born sometime in August 1489, Correggio began as a painter in the vein of Leonardo da Vinci, especially in works such as The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine (above, from 1520), which recalls mystical group portraits of Leonardo’s such as The Virgin of the Rocks and The Virgin and Child with St. Anne. Correggio never emulates Leonardo’s distinctive sfumato, but he does approach the gentle handling of the genius and the naturalism of his figures. The wondering eyes of the infant Jesus staring at the ring on Saint Catherine’s finger, presumably symbolizing their “mystical marriage,” are familiar to anyone with a young child with a yen for shiny things. Behind the group, a beautifully green woodland landscape extends, similar to the stretches of natural wonder Leonardo would place behind his religious figures.

Correggio soon took his painting in a different direction—literally upwards with frescoes such as his Assumption of the Virgin (above, from 1526-1530) in the Cathedral of Parma. Standing beneath the dome, we see what the Virgin Mary would have seen during her assumption into Heaven. At the center of the swirling mass of figures, Jesus descends in a beautiful display of artistic foreshortening. Seemingly flying around the perimeter of the dome, Correggio gathers various saints and Bible figures (including Adam and Eve) to bear witness to the event. The illusionistic effects of Correggio’s gravity-defying ceiling frescoes blew the minds of spectators, helping creating a market for such effects that led to the excesses of Baroque frescoes, which soon burst out from cathedrals and churches and found new homes in the palaces of kings and queens seeking self-glorification. Correggio didn’t invent such perspective tricks, but he took them to a whole new level that stretched them beyond the bounds of Renaissance taste.

Correggio brought the same bravura brushwork and inventiveness to mythological themes such as Jupiter and Io (above, from 1531). The radiant flesh tones of Io rival that of the finest sculptors of the Baroque. Her pose of ecstacy prefigures similar poses in marble by Bernini a century later. Centuries later, the artists of the Rococo period would adopt Correggio as a forefather for his lavish treatment of the female nude in mythological guise. The excesses of an artist such as Jean-Honoré Fragonard have their root in the relative restraint of Correggio. It’s interesting that Correggio left no students behind to carry on his style, yet had such a wide range of influence centuries later. Working in Parma, outside the hotbed of artistic innovation that was Rome, Correggio stayed clear of the limelight in life and engaged the giants of the Renaissance at a distance. It’s hard to make assumptions about what Correggio’s motivations were in avoiding the artistic center of Rome, but like modern artists today who avoid the bright lights of New York, he most likely would have been a different artist if he had followed the crowd.

The Challenger

When Gian Lorenzo Bernini began sculpting his David (above) in 1623, he must have felt like the Biblical David standing there in the Valley of Elah facing down the Goliaths of the Renaissance. Born December 7, 1598, Bernini and the rest of the Baroque generation worked in the shadow of Michelangelo et al. As Bernini chipped away at the marble, images of Donatello’s David of the 1440s, Verrocchio’s David of 1473-1475, and, standing tallest of all, Michelangelo’s David of 1501-1504 had to have been in his mind. Donatello and Verrocchio chose to show David victorious, standing over the decapitated head of his vanquished foe. Michelangelo showed David measuring up the competition and summoning up the courage to fight. Bernini daringly chooses to show the moment of action itself, when David rears back to sling the fateful stone. David’s mouth tenses in the moment of concentration, a beautifully realistic, natural touch that humanizes the mythic young shepherd. Where his predecessors posed the young hero, Bernini springs him into action. By sculpting his David, Bernini threw down the gauntlet at the feet of the greats of the past and announced himself as a worthy challenger to the title of greatest sculptor of his time.

From the time he came to Rome with his father at the age of seven, Bernini knew he would be a great artist someday. The painter Annibale Carracci first recognized Bernini’s blooming talent and clued Pope Paul V and other potential patrons in on the next great thing. Bernini’s promise soon flowered into realized works of art that revolutionized sculpture with their drama and breathtaking realism. The Ecstasy of St. Theresa (above, from 1647-1652) added a whole new dimension to religious art—sex. The expression on St. Theresa of Avila’s face is purely orgasmic as the presence of God literally pierces her soul. The young angel beside St. Theresa seems more like Cupid with his arrow of love than a messenger of God. It’s truly amazing the level of sensuousness Bernini achieves in the drapery of the saint’s robes and how they ebb and flow around her body, as if they conducted the euphoric electricity emanating from her. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing this sculpture in person, but just judging from photographs of it in place in the Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, the sexiness of the sculpture set in a church might make me blush.

Bernini’s monument to Blessed Ludovica Albertoni (above, from 1671-1674) in the chapel of the San Francesco a Ripa in Rome repeats the ecstasy of St. Theresa years later but actually amplifies the sexual component. The life-size sculpture shows Ludovica Albertoni on her deathbed, simultaneously suffering the final pangs before death and enjoying the first stirrings of divine acceptance. Again, religious ecstasy bears a great resemblance to sexual orgasm. By placing Ludovica on a bed, the implication becomes even clearer. Ludovica looks like any one of several Roman or Greek goddesses enjoying the caresses of another diety. Beneath a mountain of sculpted robes, Bernini reveals naked physical and spiritual pleasure. As with the drapery around St. Theresa, Ludovica’s robes seem vibrantly alive, quivering with the pleasure she is feeling. As with his David, Bernini depicts his figure in a moment of action, a moment of becoming. David throws the stone and is transformed from simple shepherd to prophet and king. St. Theresa and Ludovica accept the hand of God upon them and are transformed into saints. By showing these individuals at the moment of transformation, Bernini transforms sculpture and transformed himself from a prodigy of great promise into an artist who could take on all comers.

Tour Guide

In the eighteenth century, anybody who was anyone took the Grand Tour, traipsing about Europe to see all the “glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.” The best way of capturing those memories pre-photography was to commission a portrait, and the best man for the job was Pompeo Batoni. A Knight in Rome: Charles Cecil Roberts (above, from 1778) shows one of Batoni’s satisfied customers in full regalia against a backdrop of classical props to ensure that everyone who saw it knew that the subject had made the trip and was now “cultured.” Born June 25, 1708, Batoni recently received a wonderful 300th birthday present from the National Gallery in London, whose exhibition may resurrect his once omnipresent reputation. While traveling in Rome in 1760, Benjamin West complained that Italian artists spoke of and imitated no one but Batoni. Starting out as a Rococo painter, Batoni soon embraced the lessons of classical art, helping usher in the age of Neoclassicism that fed the taste for the past whetted by the Grand Tour craze.

Batoni’s portraits won him his largest acclaim, but he began building his reputation with religious works such as The Ecstasy of St. Catherine of Siena (above, from 1743). By this time, Batoni already rejected the showiness of Rococo for a more controlled style aligned with the ancient Greek and Roman works recently rediscovered and studied by the first art historians, especially Johann Winckelmann, who became a friend of Batoni. Compare this ecstasy with the greatest ecstasy of the Baroque age—Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. Side by side, Batoni’s work appears, well, less ecstatic and more controlled. The drama, energy, and tension remain, but Batoni turns the heat down to a low simmer where Bernini burns red hot. Swept up in the rationalizing wave of the Enlightenment, Batoni went with the flow and prioritized head over heart.

The same composure that Nicolas Poussin espoused in the seventeenth century, Batoni preached in the eighteenth. In turn, Batoni passed on the Neoclassical torch to Jacques-Louis David, to whom Batoni reportedly left his palette and brushes when he died. In works such as The Death of Meleager (above, from 1740-1743), Batoni made cool amazingly compelling. Reaching back into the mythology of Greece, Batoni shows Atalanta mourning for the dead Meleager. Batoni bleeds all the passion away, leaving the pathos of the two figures, accompanied by the strikingly attentive dog at the bottom right that steals the scene. Yet, this bloodless bloodletting remains compelling thanks to how wonderfully Batoni renders the different fabrics and actually creates a kind of movement in all the levels of darks and lights, making the body of Atalanta almost glow in contrast to the dimming light of Meleager. The pendulum of all art swings from hot to cool, from Dionysian to Apollonian, but Batoni made that pendulum swing to the cool, classical extreme as compellingly as any artist ever has.

Through the Roof

If Gianlorenzo Bernini can be called the heir to Michelangelo’s style of sculpting, then Giovanni-Battista Gaulli, better known as Il Baciccio, can be called Bernini’s heir in painting, especially high-flying frescoes such as Baciccio's The Worship of the Holy Name of Jesus (above, from 1674-1679) in the Church of the Gesù in Rome. Born May 8, 1639, Baciccio was Bernini’s protégé, following his mentor’s dramatic style and capitalizing on his mentor’s papal connections. The Adoration of the Holy Name of Jesus, represented by the blazing “IHS” at the center of the painting, commemorates the efforts of the Jesuits during the Counter-Reformation. It’s hard not to see the influence of Michelangelo via Bernini in the great tumult of figures surrounding the central symbol. Baciccio, however, outdoes Michelangelo in the power of his illusionary pyrotechnics, which literally blow the roof off of the church and open the gates of Heaven for the believers far below.

Baciccio made a lucrative career out of creating such grand illusions in the service of the Catholic Church. His Apotheosis of the Franciscan Order (above, from 1707) in the Basilica Santi XII Apostoli in Rome praises the good works of the Franciscans, the first monastic reformers of Catholicism. Baciccio’s ceilings, like the Jesuits, fought back against the rising tide of the Protestant Revolution by offering greater and greater spectacles for the masses. Baciccio’s close ties to the papacy won him commissions to paint seven consecutive popes, beginning with Alexander VII and ending with Clement XI. By incorporating the architectural details of the ceilings into his illusionary frescoes, Baciccio bridged the secular and sacred realms and helped bolster the flagging faith of those caught in the upheaval of the Reformation.

It’s fascinating to see the influence of Michelangelo and Bernini on Baciccio in works such as Baciccio’s St. John the Baptist (above, from 1676). Baciccio’s Baptist would fit in nicely with the muscular figures of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. When the young Baciccio followed Michelangelo’s example and painted nude figures in a church commission, they met the same fate as Michelangelo’s nudes in The Last Judgment, namely loincloths painted in later by another hand. As much as I enjoy the soaring aspect of Baciccio’s ceiling frescoes, I’m drawn more to works such as his Baptist, which literally bring religion back down to Earth and impress the corporeality of such figures onto the viewer. Baciccio’s name lacks the resonance of a Michelangelo or a Bernini, but his work carries their signature as much as his own.

Struck by Power

Niccolò Fiorentino, Florentine, 1430–1514. Lorenzo de' Medici, il Magnifico, 1449-1492, obverse, c. 1490; bronze; diameter: 8.7 cm (3 7/16 in.). National Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of The Circle of the National Gallery of Art.

Coins continue to fascinate me. As a young boy, I’d look at the intricacies of United States currency, with all the symbolism of eagles, arrows of war, laurels of peace, etc., and the vaguely ominous Masonic all-seeing eye on one side, yet the proud and, sometimes, even kind faces of historical figures on the other. Movies such as National Treasure tap into this fascination we have for these symbols as a kind of key to unlocking the past and past treasures, real and imaginary. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC recently published a systematic catalogue of the 900-plus Renaissance medals in their collection, the most important collection of its kind in the United States. John Graham Pollard’s Renaissance Medals, Volumes I and II, provides a glimpse onto the way power and influence literally stamped itself for posterity through the talents of contemporary artists and metalworkers. Looking at Niccolò Fiorentino’s portrait of Florentine leader Lorenzo de' Medici, known as “il Magnifico” and part of the powerful Medicis (above, from 1449-1492), you can still feel the power of his sneer.

Pisanello, Veronese, c. 1395—1455. Obverse: Leonello d'Este, 1407-1450, Marquess of Ferrara 1441; Reverse: Lion Being Taught by Cupid to Sing, 1444; bronze; diameter: 10.3 cm (4 1/16 in.). National Gallery of Art, Washington. Samuel H. Kress Collection.

Volume I begins with the Italian Renaissance medal, where the modern commemorative medal began, specifically with the innovations of Pisanello. By the Renaissance, “Heraldry had ossified and was insufficiently expressive,” Pollard writes, leading artists such as Pisanello to revisit the ancient Roman imperial coins. Inspired by those ancient coins of the Caesars, Pisanello combined portraits of living persons on one side with “an illustration of his or her deeds or allusion to his virtues” on the other, refreshing the stale symbolism of heraldry with a new format uniting realism with personalized mythology. “Pisanello’s humanist background, training, and artistic skills enabled him to recreate an antique art form into a perfectly considered contemporary work of sculpture,” Pollard writes in praise of the “father” of the medal. “The form given to the medal by Pisanello in 1439 is still in use today.” Looking at Pisanello’s medal for Leonello d'Este (above, from 1441), we see the powerful man’s profile back to back with a scene showing a lion being taught by Cupid to sing. That strange scene of power commemorated Leonello (the “lion”) marrying Maria of Aragon, whose love tempered his rougher, warlike edges. Pisanello’s medals offer a humanizing glimpse into these historical figures, literally displaying that even the most hardened leader had a softer side.

Benedetto Pistrucci, Italian, 1784–1855. The Waterloo Medallion: The Prince Regent (later George IV) of England, Francis II of Austria, Alexander I of Russia, and Frederick Wilhelm III of Prussia Surrounded by Symbols of Power and Justice, with Day, Night, the Fates, and the Furies, designed 1817-1850, produced 1861; copper; diameter: 13.87 cm (5 7/16 in.). National Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of Lisa and Leonard Baskin.

Volume II traces the expansion of Pisanello’s innovation throughout Europe, specifically Germany, France, the Netherlands, and England. The first dynastic use of medals begins in France in the seventeenth century. Henri IV commissions a series of medals to commemorate his reign, but is assassinated in 1610 before they are realized. Jean Warin carries on his Histoire Metallique to create a tableau of French history in coins that is as much diplomacy as propaganda, literally coining the visual language of French historical memory. In England, transplanted Italian Benedetto Pistrucci designed the Waterloo Medallion (above and below, from 1816) at the request of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV, to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon. On the front (above), the Prince Regent poses with Francis II of Austria, Alexander I of Russia, and Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia–the royal leaders “responsible” for the victory. On the reverse (below), military leaders Wellington and Blucher appear in a mythological stage setting involving Jupiter’s conquest of the giants, who number nineteen to represent the number of years it took to finally stop Napoleon’s forces. With such a medal, the trappings of power simply ooze from every detail, down to the connection to the ancient Greek gods. You really have to admire the hutspa of the Prince Regent to put his face and name out there in connection with a winner after the fact.

Benedetto Pistrucci, Italian, 1784—1855. The Waterloo Medallion: The Victorious Generals Wellington and Blücher, with Jupiter's Conquest of the Giants, 1861; copper; diameter: 13.9 cm (5 1/2 in.). National Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of Lisa and Leonard Baskin.

Pollard’s mammoth text (it’s actually physically exhausting to lift) provides an amazing panoramic view of the role of the medal in Renaissance art and culture. Artists such as Giorgio Vasari and Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini lent their considerable drafting skills to the medal in Italy. The medal served a valuable role in terms of promoting and maintaining the often unstable political families holding power. These medals began as the calling cards of the rich and powerful, but eventually evolved into a tribute to other worthies, some of whom were artists themselves. When Leone Leoni wanted to thank Michelangelo for sending a sculpture commission his way, Leoni had a medal of Michelangelo made. When Albrecht Durer wanted to memorialize his own fame in Germany, he commemorated a medal from Hans Schwarz, the “father” of the German Renaissance medal. Within the context of the humanist spirit of the Renaissance, it seems fitting that giants such as Michelangelo and Durer get their due alongside the kings and queens of the times.

Niccolò Fiorentino, Florentine, 1430—1514. Florence under a Laurel(?) Tree, Holding Three Lilies, c. 1490; bronze; diameter: 8.7 cm (3 7/16 in.). National Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of The Circle of the National Gallery of Art.

Pollard provides an invaluable primer on the history of the Renaissance medal and the world it inhabited. He even explains the difficulties of establishing ages for different coins and the added complication for today of fakes that flooded the market at the time. What I find most endearing about Pollard’s catalogue is it’s ability to take even the most feared name and face, such as that of Lorenzo de' Medici (top of post) and marry it with a gentler side such as the figure beneath a laurel tree holding three lilies (above). How accurate that marriage of mean and merciful may have actually been is up for debate, but the fact that someone cared enough to at least promote that appearance, and even stamp it into metal, should establish that it was as true then as it is today—image is everything.


[Many thanks to the National Gallery of Art for providing me with a review copy of John Graham Pollard’s Renaissance Medals, Volumes I and II and for the images above.]

More Than Just a Beard

I’ve never succeeded at growing facial hair resembling anything respectable, but if I could, no Maynard G. Krebs soul patch for me. I want a Van Dyck. Born March 22, 1599, Anthony Van Dyck is far, far more than a snazzy beard. The star pupil of Peter Paul Rubens, Van Dyck found his greatest subject and patron in Charles I of England, shown above in a triple portrait (from 1635-1636) painted to be sent to Italy instead of Charles I himself for a portrait bust by Bernini. (That royal head would fall from those shoulders a decade later in the English Civil War, beginning the English Interregnum.) Van Dyck painted Charles I from literally every angle—wearing the trappings of power, on horseback, etc.—all with the same stylish facial hair that the Flemish artist himself sported so eponymously.

Although he’s most famous for his portraits of the powerful, Van Dyck also painted religious and mythological scenes. In Susanna and the Elders (above, from 1621-1622) Van Dyck shows his mastery of the Rubenesque nude he learned at the feet of the master. It’s fascinating to look at these non-portraits of Van Dyck’s and see a dramatic flair completely missing from the almost aloof depictions of royalty. Van Dyck certainly knew his audience, whether it was a royal patron desiring a portrayal as a fearless leader or the buyer of a ostensibly religious yet still salacious work such as Susanna, a common excuse for a “religious” nude in the same vein as the “acceptable” nudes posing as Aphrodite or other goddesses.

In addition to Rubens, Titian, Veronese, and the Italian masters Van Dyck studied firsthand in Italy for six years left a lasting impression on his art. The two young men shown in Van Dyck’s Lord John Stuart and His Brother Lord Bernard Stuart (above, from 1638) could be taken for young mythological gods if not for their seventeenth century dress. The same disdain the Olympians showed for the common people appears on the faces of these young noblemen in Van Dyck’s double portrait. It’s not a pretty picture in terms of showing the humanity of the upper class, as few portraits of that time aimed to do, but Van Dyck is masterful in his painting of the rich textures and fabrics of their clothing. The soft leather of their riding boots is beautifully modeled. The gloves hanging from the grasp of the boy on the right fall perfectly. In many ways, the storied history of English portraiture—Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Lawrence, and others—begins with Van Dyck, a Flemish import.

Battle of the Pictures

“There are no documents of civilization that are not equally documents of barbarism,” Walter Benjamin once said. In The Abu Ghraib Effect, Steven F. Eisenman not only quotes Benjamin’s appraisal of how “civilized” Western civilization truly is, but also demonstrates how visual cultural artifacts beginning with the ancient Greeks reflect a tolerance for torture that stretches through history all the way up to the photographs of the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib. How could George W. Bush have won reelection after such revelations?, Eisenman asks. “Given this history, it is reasonable to assume that a majority of U.S. citizens are not much bothered by the fact of U.S. torture,” he concludes. Analyzing this embedded indifference, Eisenman discovers several figures in art history swimming against the prevailing currents. In his The Battle of the Pictures (above, from 1744-1745), William Hogarth pits older paintings of martyrs, saints, and other suffering souls against his contemporary eighteenth-century images of healthy middle-class life. Hogarth saw most religious, political, and even cultural imagery, especially "benign" renderings of cruelty to animals, as desensitizing individuals to larger acts of violence. (Lynndie England, infamous “star” of many of the Abu Ghraib photos, before joining the service, worked in a chicken-processing plant singled out by PETA for its excessive cruelty.) Eisenman pits the works of Hogarth and others against the larger corpus of torture-tolerant art to get at the real answer why Abu Ghraib happened and why it has not become an agent for change.

Eisenman makes it clear that he doesn’t consider the Abu Ghraib photos to be art. However, “the materials and tools of art history are essential,” he contents, “to understand them and counter their effect.” Eisenman sees the “Abu Ghraib effect” as a modern manifestation of the ancient “pathos formula” that depicts “the body as something willingly alienated by the victim (even to the point of death) for the sake of the pleasure and aggrandizement of the oppressor.” The Greeks believed women, children, slaves, and non-Greeks to be incapable of telling the truth without some physical coercion. At the same time, they felt that the tortured individual even welcomed the abuse, with all the obvious sadomasochistic sexual overtones. Michelangelo’s The Dying Slave (above, from 1513-1516) copied the classical idea of the oppressed figure accepting and perhaps even enjoying pain and death at the hands of a master. The Dying Slave, Eisenman writes, “manifests the pathos formula in the highest degree, eliding in a single marble body imperial conquest, physical constraint, ravishment and death.” From Michelangelo’s The Dying Slave to Bernini’s The Ecstacy of St. Theresa is a short cognitive leap, as the imperialism of the state merged with Christianity to create a whole new rationale for torture. “Now the victim is shown welcoming his torment because it is in emulation of Christ’s own suffering,” Eisenman shows. “Pain is a testament of the sufferer’s devotion to God. The torturer becomes a divine instrument in the miracle of salvation.” Truth in the service of the state gives way to truth in the pursuit of salvation, yet always in support of those in power at the expense of the weak.

By the eighteenth century, however, artists such as Hogarth begin to question the dynamic of a visual culture supporting such torture. In addition to The Battle of the Pictures, Hogarth’s series The Four Stages of Cruelty (1751) demonstrates the continuous cycle of violence that begets more violence, often beginning in animal cruelty then leading to cruelty to human beings. Later, Goya’s Disasters of War, The Third of May, 1808, and images of the Spanish Inquisition revealed the madness of torture with clear-eyed, cold precision. During the French Revolution, Jaques-Louis David’s The Death of Marat serves as a “transformation of the Hellenistic pathos formula from a sign of subservience to autocratic power to a token of emancipation.” By the time Daumier, Courbet, and Manet rise to prominence, “the art and rhetoric of the classical past could not be seen without irony or even open mockery.” Manet’s The Mocking of Christ (1865) clearly shows how torture “degrade[s] both torturer and victim and hold[s] no promise of revelation.” But, just as the long history of visual buttressing of the establishment seems to be nearing the end as the twentieth century approached, the tables turned again.


The imperialism on the rise in the late nineteenth century bloomed into the sick rose of authoritarianism in the twentieth century, marked by what Eisenman sees as “the complete subordination of the body to doctrine, and the willing surrender of the autonomous, critical subject to the dictates of state authority and power.” Picasso’s Guernica stands as a lonely, futile blow against the wall of fascism built in Europe and the “patriotic” authoritarianism fostered in America. Modern mass culture soon exclusively serves its establishment masters, “project[ing] and monumentaliz[ing] the willing subordination of the weak to the strong, and sanction[ing] the enactment of torture for the expression of power and domination. The December 26, 2005 issue of The Nation examining America’s torture “problem” featured a cover copying Ben Shahn’s This Is Nazi Brutality (above, from 1943), directly linking America’s crime with that of the Third Reich. In a country in which the television show 24 is discussed more like fact than fiction and in which radio personality Rush Limbaugh can dismiss the Abu Ghraib atrocities as fraternity pranks or soft-core pornography, the realization that those acts were not about truth or security but rather about control and superiority forces us to consider, if not accept, such comparisons.


Eisenman ties together many ideas across centuries in a very small book, yet does so with troubling success. Looking at the Abu Ghraib photographs again disturbed me, as it will anyone reading the book. Seeing them in the context of fine art, however, disturbed me on a different level. History, of course, is written by the winners, so its art will be commissioned by the winners as well. As problematic as the concept of a monolithic “Western art” can be (and Eisenman acknowledges this problem in an afterword), the fact that we operate under the concept of a Western civilization is undeniable. Eisenman concentrates on the Abu Ghraib photographs, but they serve as just one piece of the larger mosaic of the Bush Administration’s actions over the last seven years. Comparisons between the current administration and Hitler’s regime always rankle, as they should, but that doesn’t make them any less apt. Leon Golub painted Interrogation II (above, from 1981) during the Reagan years, when torture in the name of anti-Communism earned you the label of “Freedom Fighter.” In Golub’s painting, Eisenman writes, we see “the emotional insensibility of the torturers, and the complete physical vulnerability of the victim.” It is this “emotional insensibility” that bothers me the most. If fascism and authoritarianism drenched the twentieth century in blood, will even more extreme versions flood the twenty-first? Only emotional sensibility—the Goya-esque courage or Hogarthian honesty of the past—can save our future. As another election looms over America, chock full of many of the same choices faced in 2004, The Abu Ghraib Effect provides a valuable perspective on selecting leaders with your eyes wide open, rather than based on who cries or who doesn't. Even in the most depressing sections of Eisenman’s recounting of the crimes of the past, he seeks out the rays of hope such as Picasso that existed in the past, making us believe that such individuals will exist once again. The blinders of Western civilization’s past will only continue to benefit the oppressors of the present if we continue to accept wearing them.

[Many thanks to the University of Chicago Press for providing me with a review copy of this book.]

Pressing the Flesh

Did anyone ever make marble look more convincingly like warm flesh than Gian Lorenzo Bernini? Born December 7, 1598, Bernini sculpted the magnificent Rape of Proserpina (above) from 1620 to 1621. As Proserpine resists Pluto, pushing his shaggy head away, Pluto’s fierce fingers press into the flesh of her leg and leave indentations. Touching sculptures in museums, especially something almost four centuries old, is verboten, but I always wondered what it would be like to touch this sculpture and feel the chill of the marble when my eyes clearly register the warmth of human flesh. With such works, Bernini announced his claim to Michelangelo’s title as the greatest sculptor of the human form.


Bernini took on Michelangelo directly in creating his version of David (above, from 1623-1624). Whereas Michelangelo’s David assumes a pose of complete classical composure as the confident future king, Bernini’s David sweats and strains in a gesture of pure torque and tension. Bernini’s David captures a sense of movement and effort that Michelangelo’s figure lacks in its effortless cool. Both Davids capture different aspects of the Biblical figure and represent their creators and their times equally well. Michelangelo’s David stood for a Florence and Italy that needed a symbol of pride to rally around. Bernini’s David stood for a nation and a church that knew it had some work to do.


With The Ecstasy of St. Theresa (above, from 1647-1652), Bernini made a cosmic leap in the world of religious sculpture. Religious and sexual ecstasy blur together in the expression of the saint as the rays of glory penetrate her soul. Simon Schama’s The Power of Art looked long and hard at St. Theresa’s moment of ecstasy, which marks a high point of the Counter-Reformation re-selling of Catholicism to the masses, now with the added element of sex to spice up the story. Schama does a good job of acting coy about the sexuality of this figure, but that eroticism is as obvious to us today as it was to the uneducated masses of the seventeenth century. Bernini worked hard to obtain the favor of the rich and powerful, which meant in most cases the Catholic Church hierarchy and those surrounding it. The fact that sex sells was as true then as it is today.

Counter-Offer

In works such as the fresco of The Glory of St. Dominic in the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna, Italy, Guido Reni painted the grandeur of Christianity in a high Baroque style like few others. Born November 4, 1575, Reni epitomized the state of Italian art in early seventeenth century with his knowledge of ancient statuary, beautiful draftsmanship, and almost erotic sensuality in a religious context. Faced with the threat of the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church launched its own Counter-reformation, enlisting artists such as Reni as their secret weapon to reach the masses. Standing beneath the grand fresco of St. Dominic high above in the dome of San Domenico, they reasoned, who could not be convinced that the church was right?



Today, many of Reni’s works appear in museums, far from their intended setting, which takes away from their functional aspect. Reni sold the Catholic point of view well, humanizing his saints yet making them stunningly appealing at the same time. The blood and gore of the grotesquely arrow-ridden versions of St. Sebastian disappear in Reni’s version (above), replaced with a fresh-faced, nearly nude youth, bound and vulnerable. St. Sebastian brings the ancient statuary of Greece and Rome to life, reimagining the classical ideal within a Christian setting, an ideal that the illiterate people choosing between Martin Luther and the Catholic Church could find persuasive. Reni’s saints look like 1950s movie stars—humble in some ways, yet quietly sexual in others. Bernini’s blatantly orgasmic Ecstasy of Saint Theresa is still a few decades away, but Reni’s portrayals lay the groundwork for that leap of faith.


The Old Testament, of course, provided more than enough situations for sex in the choristers. Reni painted Susanna and the Elders (above, 1620-1625), one of the favorite sexually charged scenes of the Bible, knowing full well what he was doing. Using the Bible the way many used mythology—as a license to thrill—Reni shows the voyeuristic elders interrupting the voluptuous Susanna while bathing. Such scenes comprised the pictorial Bible of the illiterate, “teaching” them about morality while drawing in the crowds at the same time. Reni’s paintings stand above the rest of his Counter-reformation cohorts for their great draftsmanship and beautiful modeling. Although they were created for propaganda as much as for praise, Reni’s works today show the aesthetic aftershocks of the Renaissance earthquake that redefined art and humanism forever after.