Today I have decided to write about two pictures which are to be found in the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), which is in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Australia where I live. The first is a large painting which I have loved since I was a child, when I first saw it.
I
It is called The Banquet of Cleopatra and was painted in Venice by Giambattista Tiepolo in 1744, at which time it was purchased directly from his studio and sent to Dresden. In 1764, it was bought by Catherine the Great of Russia, in which country it remained, in various palaces and museums, until its ultimate sale in 1932 and subsequent purchase (in London) in 1933 by the NGV. Apparently, in the late 1920s the USSR was in need of foreign currency and had put a number of its pictures and other treasures up for sale. The painting is a large oil on canvas (250 x 370cm) and this is interesting because Tiepolo painted several versions of this subject, at least one of which is in fresco (Palazzo Labia in Venice); several other versions, both large and small, are known and are kept in various European collections, as well as in Russia.
The Banquet of Cleopatra (NGV) is a typically large Venetian bravura piece, that is, a suitably serious subject from history, mythology or the Bible, usually crowded with all sorts of figures, including dwarfs and African servants, all wearing beautiful clothes, and set, where appropriate, in grand pseudo-classical loggias or palaces. Our painting is set in a loggia of a type reflecting classical Roman influence, even though the legendary event of the wager between Marc Antony and Cleopatra may have occurred in Egypt!1 In niches set into the pale wall which substantially separates the loggia area from the arched wall in the background, are two very Romano-Greek looking 'Egyptian' statues, both however very half-hearted attempts at setting an Egyptian scene. Further disinterest in historical 'fact' is demonstrated by those same beautiful clothes which are at the height of contemporary Venetian fashion, amongst the aristocracy at least, despite the historical period of the event, that is, the latter part of the 1st century BC. The only concession to historical accuracy, apart from elements of the architecture derived from Greco-Roman models (not Egyptian), is the very elaborate helmet worn by Marc Antony, the figure wearing the red cloak, with his back to us.
Naturally, the patrons of such images were the aristocracy and the rich of Venice - which was very rich at that time - which traded with the Levant in all sorts of commodities, from spices and cloth to coffee! This wealth is here on display as it was even in religious images of the period: the servants, the dogs of various breeds, the fine stuffs such as the damask table cloth (possibly, as the name suggests, from Damascus), the beautiful scenographic settings, the elegantly-dressed courtiers in the background. But the most expensive thing in the whole image is the legendary priceless pearl which, holding between her fingers, Cleopatra is about to drop into a glass of vinegar - which she drinks - thereby winning her bet with Marc Antony about who could host the most expensive banquet.
Without going into detailed analysis of the numerous formal elements of this master-work, I would like to concentrate on one particular curiosity, namely, the ubiquitousness of decorative heads: be they human, animal or fantastical! In this case, I am not referring to the brilliant heads of the human actors - nor those of the numerous pet dogs - but instead, to the small heads and figures adorning many objects within the image, from Marc Antony's helmet, to the handles of pitchers.
This photo, a detail of The Banquet by Tiepolo (NGV) shows the silver bowl of fruit which is sitting in the middle of the banqueting table, in the centre of the composition; to note are the winged mermaid-like figures and the vaguely Egyptian face directing its gaze out of the painting. (Photo: the author)
This photo shows the two pitchers situated on the floor in front of the table: note here the scene containing two figures engraved on or set into the larger pitcher; on the side of the smaller pitcher is a laughing satyr's head, a sort of human face with a beard and goat's horns, possible a symbol of lust. (Photo: the author)
A close-up detail of the smaller pitcher (Photo:the author)
This detail is of a decorative element on Cleopatra's chair and can be seen to the left of her right wrist; it appears to be a kind of Egyptian-like head, perhaps attached to a snake's body. (Photo: the author)
Of similar heads and figures there are many placed throughout the painting, including on a suspended pitcher on the extreme right and the harpy figure of the small fountain in the extreme lower left corner; but perhaps the most elaborate example is in fact that helmet worn by Marc Antony. This helmet, a parade helmet rather than one to be worn in battle, has a winged dragon supporting its beautiful magenta-plumed crest, as well as what appears to be a lion above the ear and, below that, an old man's bearded face with its moustache hanging over Marc Antony's cheek. Indeed, the helmet is one of the most striking features in the whole painting, a painting containing many beautiful and elaborate details.
The reason these small decorative heads attracted my attention was their similarity to those used ubiquitously by Michelangelo in his sculpture and architecture. They appear for instance on the armour worn by one of his figures of the dukes in the New Sacristy (Sagrestia Nuova) of San Lorenzo in Florence: on both the back and the front of the cuirass worn by the figure of Giuliano de' Medici; similar motifs are the lion skin headdress worn by the figure of Lorenzo de' Medici, as well as a kind of bat-like head on the arm of his chair. Likewise, the figure of Night on the tomb of Giuliano is adorned, apart from the realistic owl, with a very odd mask. Bat-like and anthropomorphic heads reappear time and time again, both in the New Sacristy - for example on the candlesticks on the altar and on the friezes along the walls - and in the Laurentian Library; there still exist some of his original sketches for these strange faces (and figures), all of an astounding variety.2
This small detail of Michelangelo's enormous output was taken-up by both his contemporaries and by many artists who came later as, in the present example, we see in Tiepolo. While Michelangelo may not have actually invented these grotesque 'masks' as the Italians call them, he certainly developed and 'popularised' them among artists.
Before moving on to discuss another picture in the NGV, I would like to comment on one more thing in Tiepolo's great painting and that is a particular element of its structure, and this because it is similarly used in that next picture. From the point of view of its colour, Tiepolo has 'constructed' The Banquet of Cleopatra on this basis: in general, the brightest and purist colours are closest to the viewer, the less strong are in the middle-ground and the weakest or most dilute are in the backgound. The visual effect is that we experience the figures 'in front' as closest to us (they are also the largest), the less brightly-coloured as somewhere in the middle distance, and the least strong as further back (for instance, on the background parapet); a simple comparison of the central table and its diners with the arched wall in the background should make the difference in colour brightness and purity clear. Tiepolo was by no means the first to utilise colour in this formal, constructive way but he does use it! As mentioned earlier, this is not an exhaustive analysis of this painting but I hope it will stimulate a closer look next time.3
II
The second painting is by the very important French artist, Nicolas Poussin, who painted it in Rome for an Italian art collector in Turin. The Crossing of the Red Sea is in oil on canvas and measures 156 x 215 cm; it dates from 1632-34. Poussin was deeply affected by the strong contemporary interest in classical art and so went to Rome to study, a common pilgrimage for artists from all over Europe at the time; he died there in 1665. As we can see, both the subject and its handling are very different from Tiepolo's somewhat later, and in theme more aristocratic, picture.
To begin with, the three principal actors in the immediate foreground are possibly derived from some ancient Roman sculptural example; although Roman statuary was not generally coloured, the basically nude figures are clothed in loin cloths which happen to be in the three primary colours, namely red, yellow and blue. This is no accidental or casual decision: the three primaries are so called because they cannot be made any stronger or brighter (by the admixture of other colours) than they already are. This means from a formal point of view, that they stand out more strongly than any other colour, whether it be a pure colour - straight from the tube so to speak4 - or a mixture. In fact, mixing any colour with any other colour will reduce the individual power or strength of all of the colours in the new mixture.
Painters use both 'straight from the tube' colours and mixtures of them to produce different effects; as we saw with the Tiepolo painting, painters can 'construct' space or depth with the relative strength of their colours. In Tiepolo's picture and in this one by Poussin, depth in space has been created, that is the illusion of depth, through the manipulation of the colours, some stronger, others less so. Of course, there are other means with which to create space, such as receding perspective lines (as in the floor of Tiepolo's painting) and making things and people smaller as they are fictively 'further away' from the viewer. In Poussin's painting, the major figures are both larger and more strongly coloured than are the other figures; this can be seen for example, in the red worn by the foreground figure, a 'pure' red in his case but, as it is used on the clothes of other figures further back, it becomes gradually weaker and weaker, eventually being a kind of 'grey' version of its original pure, unadulterated condition. The fictive light source, very important in this painting, also adds to the sense of depth as well as to the drama: the main 'natural' light is falling more or less only on the lower left quarter or so of the image, thereby drawing our attention particularly to those parts, and especially so to the three main foreground figures.
Poussin's painting is to my eyes now somewhat rhetorical; many of the figures have a 'wooden' quality and the whole thing has a sort of overblown feeling, albeit that it represents a quite dramatic event. From a personal point of view, the lower foreground 'strip' containing the three major figures, with its beautiful drawing and colour, is the only part of this painting that appeals to me in any way; I have no objection to pictures about Old or New Testament stories, about religious matters generally, but, given Poussin's acknowledged love of Classical art, the lower strip of this picture could just as easily - and more successfully - be a painting of or from an ancient Roman relief sculpture.
A detail of the man in blue demonstrating Poussin's drawing and colouring skills. In this kind of 'academic' painting, the figures would be first modelled in a monochrome reddish brown onto which the lights and darks would be added; in essence, the 'in shadow' areas of this figure have hardly been touched, whereas the lighter areas have been modulated to indicate the shapes of the muscles and the fall of light - here clearly from the left. (Photo: the author)
When the NGV is open and you feel like spending a little time with just a couple of works (actually the best way to visit a museum), I hope these comments may add something to your experience.
1 Egypt by this time had been a Hellenistic culture for about two hundred and seventy years, a culture set in train by the conquests of Alexander the Great; the lover of both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, Cleopatra VII belonged to the Ptolemaic Dynasty (305-30 BC) and was the last of several historical queens with this name. Also, by this time Egypt had declined enormously from the days of the powerful Pharaohs and, from 30 BC, was no more than a client state of the Romans. It is therefore reasonable to expect that there would have been some Greco-Roman buildings in different parts of Egypt, especially one supposes near the coast. In one of the sources of the Cleopatra story, Plutarch's Life of Antony, it seems that the first meeting between the two occurred in Cilicia (today, southern Turkey), but that they then retired to Alexandria in Egypt; it is unclear exactly where the famous banquet actually took place. In any case, the architecture in Tiepolo's painting is an amalgam of Renaissance elaboration of classical models, some archeological knowledge and fantasy.
Two further comments concerning the setting: Tiepolo was enamoured of the very large and wonderful paintings of his 16th century Venetian predecessor, Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), many of whose pictures also relied on fantastic classically-inspired architectural settings. An even earlier predecessor was the famous and influential architect, Palladio, whose neo-classical villas and palaces could be seen all over the Veneto and whose compositions may have had some influence on the architectural themes of Tiepolo. Incidentally, it is known that Tiepolo was often assisted by a colleague who specialised in the painting of architectural settings, Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna, although it is not established as far as I know that Mengozzi Colonna had a hand in our Banquet.
2 Such bat-like faces and other dragon-like inventions of Michelangelo's can be seen in Florence in the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Laurenziana), again at San Lorenzo, both in the floor designs and on the ends of the study benches. They can be seen in Rome on the Porta Pia, on the Tomb of Julius II in San Pietro in Vincoli, on capitals at the Campidoglio and on the Palazzo Farnese, the so-called 'fregio con maschere' or, frieze with masks. It would seem that Michelangelo amused himself with this endless invention, no doubt occasionally taking some inspiration from the faces of the real people around him! Similar bizarre and fantastic creations however, which had a wide diffusion in the Middle Ages as well, go back at least to ancient Rome where contemporary fresco examples can be seen in the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. Mannerists too made use of such devices, for instance in Bronzino's Portrait of a Young Man with a Book (c. 1530), in the Met, NY.
3 One other curiosity in Tiepolo's Banquet is the positioning of the tall figure wearing a blue cape and hat, situated in the foreground to the left: a casual glance at this figure would lead us to assume that it was he who was carrying the large platter of food with his left arm. On closer inspection however, it becomes clearer that behind him is a smaller figure, the back of whose head is only just visible, who in fact is carrying the charger - although he appears to have no feet! The tall man in blue does have a left arm which, again on closer inspection, we can see he has brought around behind his back. And finally, what seems to be a small head growing out of his right shoulder in fact belongs to another attendant actually placed behind Cleopatra. Why is this interesting? Because, normally, figures are placed in paintings so that they are clearly seen, sometimes partly obscured by buildings, trees or other figures but, nevertheless, their 'action' or role is clear. In this instance, although the figure in blue is apparently clear enough, in fact his position and that of the figures he obscures is to say the least, ambiguous.
4 Tube colours did not come into use until the mid-nineteenth century; prior to that, artists bought the coloured powders or pigments from their artists' colour-man and mixed them with a binder (oil or egg or other) at their studios. Oil colours could be kept for some time, before they started to dry and become hard, in small pig's bladder pouches or bags as is sometimes seen in self-portraits. The advent of commercially-prepared colours in metal tubes revolutionised the ability of artists to keep their paints workable, almost indefinitely, and to go out into the landscape, that is, to work away from the studio. This invention was acknowledged as such by some of the Impressionists. Neither Tiepolo nor Poussin, nor Veronese or Michelangelo had tube colours!
Timeline: Michelangelo, Florentine sculptor, painter, architect and poet: 1475-1564
Palladio, (from Padua) Venetian Republic architect: 1508-1580
Veronese, (from Verona) Venetian painter: 1528-1588
Poussin, French painter: 1594-1665
Tiepolo, Venetian painter: 1696-1770
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