Piero di Cosimo,
The Discovery of Honey, c. 1499,
oil on panel, 31.2” x 50.6”,
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Don’t miss the retrospective exhibition of works by Piero di Cosimo, Florentine Renaissance master, at the National Gallery of Art. The last time there was an exhibition of Piero di Cosimo’s work in the United States was 1938. Piero di … Continue reading
Albrecht Dürer, Self-portrait, 1500, oil on panel, 26.4” x 19.3”, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Albrecht Dürer Northern Renaissance Artist Albrecht Dürer, German painter, printmaker and theorist, was born on May 21, 1471 in Nuremberg, where he lived for most of his life. His father, Albrecht Dürer the Elder, was a goldsmith; most likely, the … Continue reading
Michelangelo, David, 1501-1504, Carrara marble, 17’, Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, Photo by Rico Heil via Wikimedia Commons, GNU Free Documentation License.
This week, Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported that Michelangelo’s 17-foot tall, marble sculpture of the Old Testament figure David has weak ankles and is on the verge of collapsing. The National Research Council found cracks in the marble on the … Continue reading
Michelangelo, Jonah from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508-12, fresco painting, The Vatican, Rome, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Prefiguration (Noun) The representation of an Old Testament figure as a type or foreshadowing of a New Testament figure. Michelangelo painted an image of Jonah just above the high altar on the Sistine Chapel ceiling because he prefigures Jesus in … Continue reading
Detail, Interior, Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1480-1515, oil on panel, center 7’ 2½” x 6’ 4½”, wings, each 7’ 2½” x 3’ 2”, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Late one night, a young woman named Amelia, a college student at Oklahoma Christian University, noticed that Hieronymus Bosch painted music on the rear end of a figure in the scene of Hell in his Garden of Earthly Delights, and so … Continue reading
Albrecht Dürer, The Adoration of the Shepherds, from The Life of the Virgin, circa 1503, woodcut, 11 3/4 x 8 5/16 in., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Albrecht Dürer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Albrect Dürer created this lovely woodcut of the shepherds adoring the baby Jesus on the night he was born as part of a series that illustrates the Life of the Virgin. The print demonstrates Dürer’s German sensibilities with the expressive … Continue reading
Jacques Daret, The Visitation, 1434-35, oil on oak panel, 22.44” x 20.47”, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Mitre (noun) A mitre is a pointed hat worn by bishops and certain abbots in the Roman Catholic Church. In Jacques Daret’s painting of the Visitation, the moment when Mary, pregnant with Jesus meets her relative Elizabeth, who is pregnant … Continue reading
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
What’s going on in this painting? The artist didn’t want it to be easy to figure out. An Italian Renaissance painter would have made the subject clear and provided easily identifiable figures in a clearly defined space. Jacopo Pontormo, a … Continue reading
Leonardo da Vinci, The Annunciation, c. 1472, oil on panel, 38.6
“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” Leonardo da Vinci
Hans Holbein the Younger, Anne of Cleaves, c. 1539, oil on parchment mounted on canvas, 25.6" x 18.9", Louvre Museum, Photo in the Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
English King Henry VIII to Thomas Cromwell, regarding the reason he ended his fourth marriage to Anne of Cleaves from Flanders with an annulment: “You have sent me a Flanders mare!”
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
This large and impressive painting by Gerard David stops nearly all visitors to the Groeningemuseum in Bruges, Belgium in their tracks. Viewers look upon the two large panels with a mixture of abhorrence and fascination while they wonder what is … Continue reading
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
It looks like this refined watercolor of a clump of turf was done on the spot – the artist, German Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer, sitting outside in a meadow; however, Dürer painted it in his studio probably after arranging the … Continue reading