Napoli: the Certosa di San Martino

 My second visit to the extraordinary Certosa di San Martino, which looks down across the Bay of Naples, was made last month in the company of my now grown-up nephew. We had decided to meet in Sicily, at Catania, and to then see Napoli together; I was particularly keen for him to experience the Certosa and so we went there one fine morning and passed several hours happily taking-in the wealth of visual stimulation housed in this de facto museum.

The Certosa di San Martino, as intimated, occupies the top of a high hill and, at certain points provides the unsuspecting visitor with a spectacular vista, in particular from the ex-Prior’s apartments. A massive, not quite 360 degree-view of the Bay, the city, the waterfront and Vesuvius takes one’s breath away and provides a much needed break from the Certosa's extensive collection of Baroque architecture, painting and sculpture; all of which is the result of the renewal of different areas of this Carthusian monastery, initiated towards the end of the 16th century.

The spectacular view from the Prior's quarters in the Certosa di San Martino, Naples

Hoping not to exaggerate, I would say that probably the majority of the pictures is from the Baroque period even if the renovation of the structures began in the preceding Mannerist style and indeed continued into the subsequent Rococo period, with  beautiful paintings by Francesco De Mura for example. But the original stimulus for visiting this place was its renowned collection of Baroque paintings, a personal late appreciation of which has developed over recent years, and especially after visiting Sicily and Naples (not to mention Rome, the undisputed centre of the Baroque).

Taking only one section of one room in one part of this very large complex, what we are going to consider today is some fresco work (around 1624) on the vault of this room - the Sala Capitolare - and some oil pictures in the lunettes below. The frescos were painted by the Greek-Italian artist Belisario Corenzio (1558-1646), a student of Tintoretto and the master of Massimo Stanzione (another important Baroque painter, see Note 2). In the section visible in the photograph below there are four frescos, each representing or personifying a ‘virtue’: Prudence, Merit, Obedience and Honour. Leaving aside any discussion of these virtues as ethical or moral attributes, what appealed to me as a painter is the, I think, fairly obvious use of portraiture for the Merit and Honour images. Remembering that this is a Certosa, a kind of monastery, and at the time, the 16th and 17th centuries, full of monks of all ages, the ready supply of men willing to sit for a painting - or, at least a drawing - could hardly have been ignored.

Frescos of the Virtues by Belisario Corenzio; oil pictures of Founding Fathers in the lunettes by Paolo Finoglio. Sala Capitolare, Certosa di San Martino, Naples

Whereas the female figures in this group could have required models, which the painter might have found anywhere in the city, their somewhat more generic appearance, particularly of the figure of Obedience, suggests that, as in many religious paintings, certain faces were adapted from a repertoire of pre-existing sketches and drawings. This fact is interesting because the habit and necessity of working from drawings, especially for frescos, meant that certain ‘types’ evolved within a given artist’s oeuvre, particularly for ‘minor’ actors in large compositions; as remarked elsewhere, the existence of a true portrait in such images is immediately apparent as it differs noticeably from the more generic ‘types’ surrounding it. Here, the male faces on the other hand, especially as they represent members of the community’s order, would seem to be portraits, the more successful of the pair being that of Merit although, that said, both faces appear to be from the same model. Thus, as portrait studies, in fresco, in the Baroque period, they are a little unusual and, in this case, remarkably bright, straightforward and ‘modern’!

Now let's consider the lunette pictures (1624-25?) painted in oil on canvas below the frescos just described (a ‘lunette’ is a crescent moon-shape lying horizontally, often situated above doors and windows or filling-in that shape created, as here, by the architecture of the ceiling). These wonderful pictures were painted by Paolo Finoglio (?1590-1645) and exemplify the strong influence of Caravaggio (d. 1610) on many painters in both Naples and Rome, and elsewhere. The strong contrast of light and dark, or perhaps better, the powerful complimentary rapport between areas of strong light and deep vague and dark space, virtually throws the subject out of the fictive world of the painted image into our own physical one. This characteristic of much Baroque painting is most obvious in the left-hand lunette in our photo above, the one with the saint wearing the white habit of his order (this series is made up of images of founding fathers of religious orders), cradling and contemplating the book in his right hand (detail below).

A slightly fuzzy detail of the San Romualdo (?) oil on canvas lunette by Paolo Finoglio

Sala Capitolare, Certosa di San Martino, Naples

Unlike the female virtues in the frescos above whom we seem to be regarding from below 1, Finoglio’s saints are seen as though we were looking at them from directly in front. These views, that is, an illusionistic one from below, looking up (dal sotto-in-su in Italian) and one as if seen from directly in front (‘quadri riportati’ if on ceilings) are commonly seen in Baroque painting - and in other periods; however, during the Baroque, the view from below, painted as if real, became very common, both in churches and in wealthy private homes (palazzi). Even though here we must look up to see these oil paintings on the walls (above eye level), the images are, as said, painted as though we were in front of the subject.

Needless to say I suppose, the drawing of these figures is completely confident and masterful, the poses appropriate to the confined area of the canvases and the expressiveness vibrant if contemplative, as would seem suitable for a religious house. In the image of this father in white (possibly San Romualdo), the light coming from the left fully illuminates the saint, specifically his white habit (and his accompanying cherub), as it glances across the objects on the table slightly further back - that is to say, a typically Caravaggesque treatment of the elements in a composition. Superfluous detail, even that describing the environment in which the action occurs - the setting - is reduced to a minimum, if suggested at all 2.

A detail showing both Corenzio's fresco 'portrait' of Merit (Meritum) and below, in the lunette, Finoglio's supposed San Romauldo oil on canvas.

Incidentally, we might notice the tonal difference between the fresco parts of the image above and the parts painted in oil. One of the beauties of 'buon fresco', or 'affresco' as it is known in Italian, is its clean light and pale colour: by its nature it makes use of the wet plaster (hence: fresco or 'fresh') which is white, and the water pigments which are absorbed into that plaster therefore have a relatively pale complexion. Oil colours on the other hand have a much greater tonal range, moving from pure white to deep black. The image above shows this difference very well; not simply because Finoglio has deliberately used dark colours in his picture is it darker than the frescos above it: the coloured pigments mixed with oil simply do have more depth. The resulting contrast between the two mediums produces, to my mind, two independent yet (here) complementary mental 'spaces' so to speak; the frescos offer clear 'factual' information; the oils a more inward, mediative model; keeping in mind that these images were to be seen principally by members of a religious house: the Certosa itself. That is, they were not made for 21st century tourists!

1 Looking at the first photo and the female Virtues, we notice that the corbels and the other architecture which surrounds them (their thrones) are seen from below; note also the 'carved' grotesque faces on the undersides of those corbels. Close scrutiny of the male Virtues also reveals that we are looking at them from below: notice for instance that we can see the underside of the book held by Meritum.

2 Just to point-up the importance of and interest in the colour white on the part of painters working at the Certosa, here is another painting in which white is a dominant theme: it was painted by Massimo Stanzione around 1633-37, as mentioned, a student of Finoglio. Of course, white seems to have been the colour of the habit of the Certosini, that is the members of that community and so it is natural, in paintings retelling the crucial events in the Order's history, that white would appear quite often; but the interest for a painter, or a student of painting, is the way that artists handled the white in their pictures.

The Appearance of the Virgin and St. Peter to the Certosini of Grenoble by Massimo Stanzione; oil on canvas. A difficult picture to photograph thus the unfortunate angle. Note the brilliant dispositions and gradations of the whites in this large painting making them, as in the Finoglio discussed above, almost abstract studies of 'still-life' form.

Describe or Express?

 

 Sant'Andrea della Valle, Rome; a large Baroque basilica whose façade was designed by Carlo Rainaldi; it was completed in 1667. The building itself was designed by several architects including Carlo Maderno and Giacomo della Porta. The interior decoration was completed in 1650 with frescos by Giovanni Lanfranco, Domenichino and Mattia Preti among others. 

 What we are going to look at now is the slow but clear translation, in painting particularly, of an illustrative conception of representation into an expressive one. Beginning with some late medieval examples, we will move through the Renaissance to the period of the Baroque. First though, what do we mean by these terms 'illustrative' and 'expressive'? In an earlier article, Painting versus Illustration, I attempted to illucidate what I meant by this term 'illustrative' but, in short, it is a formal approach in Western art (painting especially) which is based primarily on the use of line which itself implies a heavy reliance on drawing independently of colour. Naturally, as it happens, many types of illustration do make use of colour of course but, in fine art painting, line is, so to say the guide, the controlling element and colour has more the role of decoration. Illustrative work in fine art painting is drawn pictures, which are then coloured, and which have as their scope the clear visual explication or narration of a story or event, or even of a concept. I hope it's obvious that here we are not concerned with prints and drawings per se but rather, in the main, with painted fine art pictures; that said, line is used in sculpture as well and we will see some examples in this essay.

Expressive work on the other hand, in the periods under discussion, while still being fully capable of telling a story - and required by patrons to do so - has as its principal 'art' focus the emotional import of the image and, in painting, this means the at least equally important function or role of colour: often applied 'expressively', that is, robustly and with some force (as opposed to 'colouring-in' a  drawing). The application itself of the colour is an expression of the painter's emotional involvement in the representation of the given subject (not necessarily in the subject per se however). This is not to say that line-dependent work is not expressive but, from a formal point of view, the expression is not in particular related to the colour nor its physical application.

The Annunciation, a large fresco, whose author unfortunately is unknown to me, in an area under the present cathedral of Siena in Italy.

This photo shows the remains of a wonderful medieval fresco, obviously extremely degraded, so much so that parts of the brick wall on which it sits are clearly visible. For our purposes though, it remains a good example of the importance of line - the original line drawing on the plaster - and the 'addition' of colour to complete the image. The colours are still beautiful despite their age and general condition but the narrative function of the image is not dependent on the colour. In some areas, for example the angel's left leg, the colour works to define the form of the thigh and to indicate the direction of the light; however, this is fundamentally a coloured-in drawing, especially if compared with pictures made in the Baroque period. In relation to the Donatello work below, we might notice here that the two figures, the angel and the Virgin Mary, are not so much in an environment, as they are rather placed on top of a symbolic suggestion  of one.

It is believed that certain of the large frescos illustrating the life of Saint Francis in the upper church of the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi were painted by an artist known as the 'Saint Cecilia Master'; this is because the style of those two or three frescos - somewhat different from those thought to be by Giotto - resembles his style quite closely. In the Uffizi Gallery in Florence is a very beautiful work illustrating the life of Saint Cecilia; at present, the real name of the painter of that work is unknown so he is referred to as the Saint Cecilia Master. And, as just said, the style of some of the Life of Saint Francis frescos - for example, the Cure of the Man from Lerida - is so similar to the style of the Uffizi work that they have been attributed to that same master.

Stories of the Life of Saint Cecilia (detail) by the Saint Cecilia Master, c. 1300.

 Tempera and gold leaf on wooden panels.  Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence.

In the detail of the multi-panelled work shown in the photo above we see different episodes of the life of the early Christian martyr Saint Cecilia who was born and died in Rome (d.230 AD). At the period in which these small pictures were painted, around 1300, artists were expected to represent the stories and legends of the Christian faith in an easily comprehensible and attractive way, partly because illiteracy was common and uneducated people relied, in part, on the clarity of such representations for their knowledge of the lives of Christ and the saints. The story in the top section of the photo apparently represents both Saint Cecilia and her spouse, a certain Valerian, agreeing to respect her virginity! In 1300 the faithful would already have known the story from listening to the teachings of their priests and, in all probability - although perhaps obscure to us - would have recognised the particular event as part of the life of Saint Cecilia. These exquisite little paintings fulfil the brief as it were, very well and relate the events clearly and colourfully; that said, and as beautiful as the colour is, these pictures are essentially linear in character and could in fact function  - certainly not as delightfully - without the colour. It might be observed incidentally that this master has made an attempt at 'correct' perspective in the drawing of the environments in which the events take place; as well, he has respected the relative sizes of the people vis-à-vis the buildings. This is a break from the norm of the time which very often had the human figures completely out of scale in relation to the buildings, that is, too large. 

The Crucifixion, 1255-60, by Nicola Pisano; marble

The Pulpit of the Baptistry of Pisa 

Piazza dei Miracoli, Pisa, Italy

I have included this extraordinary work by Nicola Pisano as it demonstrates several things. It predates the Saint Cecilia work by about 40 years; this is relevant because, in art historical terms, it is actually more advanced (1) than the Saint Cecilia work in three specific ways: first, it is clear that Nicola has looked very closely at classical Roman sculpture - an uncommon approach until much later - traits of which may be seen for instance in the figures of the two women on the extreme left, those supporting the fainting Madonna; secondly, and related very much to the first point, the crowding or massing of figures, possibly also derived from certain Roman works including sarcophagi, anticipates by about 240 years a very similar and characteristic development in Mannerist painting (see below). Thirdly, his debt to classical sculpture is manifest also in his rendering of the naked human figure, particularly, in this case, the physique of Christ; other panels on the same pulpit show this knowledge even more clearly. And, importantly, while the linear qualities of this image are relatively pronounced, so too is the expression of sentiment and emotion (pathos), even if some of the means are typical of the time (gestures and facial expressions). (2)

The next art history period we might consider is the Renaissance. By this time much had changed, both in art and in the general philosophical climate. With the renewed interest in and continual rediscovery of the 'classical' culture of the ancient Greco-Roman periods - in literature as well as in painting, sculpture and architecture - art moved away from the often simplistic story-telling of the medieval eras and became, gradually, more intellectual in tone and therefore more sophisticated in its representations. Although the fundamental dependence on line - or drawing - persisted, the manner of its use and the complexity of picture composition and content began to change. In early 15th century Florence, artists and theorists brought the pictorial rendering of space to a new level with their understanding and systemisation of linear perspective. In the little scene just referred to, painted by the Saint Cecilia Master, the artist has made a commendable attempt to represent the room in which the event occurs as a 'real' space, even if the effect is fanciful in various ways; roughly a century later, the associated problems valiantly but intuitively confronted by late-medieval artists have been overcome; artists, both painters and sculptors, now had a clear mathematical procedure with which to compose their images, and the coherent illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface became commonplace.

The Banquet of Herod, 1423-27 by Donatello; low- and high-relief bronze panel, 60 x 60 cm

Baptistry of Siena.

The photo above shows one of the many masterpieces of the great Renaissance sculptor Donatello (Donato di Nicolò di Betto Bardi, 1386?-1466); the panel is obviously not a painting but it demonstrates how the newly re-discovered knowledge of perspective was used not only in painting but in sculpture as well. Looking at this scene, we are very clear about the space in which the events occur and the thoroughly convincing way the different areas recede deeper into the image. In addition, the figures, whether in the foreground (where Herod is shown the decapitated head of John the Baptist) or in the different background spaces (musicians and, further back, where the Baptist's head is presented to Herod's wife), are of an entirely new 'realism' compared with the somewhat puppet-like ones of the Saint Cecilia Master. We know that Donatello studied (in Rome) ancient Roman sculpture, signs of which are visible not only in the figures - most obviously in those in the middle-ground - but patently in the architectural environment in which the story unfolds. We should also note the 'movement' of the foreground figures, varied and expressive of differing reactions and emotions, again quite at odds (in their 'realism') with the restrained if often elegant mode of the medieval period. Interestingly, a close look at this Banquet panel reveals, together with what has already been noticed, the critical use of line to define the perspective and the building materials of the various rooms that make up its environment (actually containing three separate scenes). And, like Nicola Pisano, Donatello anticipates some later developments.

The Senigallia Madonna, 1474, by Piero della Francesca, oil and tempera on panel, 61 x 53.5 cm

Galleria Nazionale delle Marche at Urbino

This painting is exhibited behind glass creating the unfortunate reflections visible in this photograph.

Piero della Francesca is what might be called an archetypal Renaissance painter since his work exemplifies many of the concerns of Renaissance artists and thinkers. He was a master of perspective, writing books on the subject as well as mathematical texts; his paintings demonstrate his profound knowledge of perspective, and classical Roman architecture; his immobile and quiet figures and his major paintings are hierarchical in structure and portray a mystical sensibility, one also seen in medieval art, but 'modernised' in keeping with the prevalent humanist outlook among intellectuals of the time; in other words, preserving certain aspects of earlier christological thought but much tempered by a re-acquaintance with classical art and literature, contrasting (or imposing) a physical, science-centred world with the previously deity- and dogma-centred one.

The painting above uses a composition in which the viewer is, so to speak 'confronted with' a formalised religious statement, normally symmetrically balanced around a central axis, with at least one of the principal actors - in this case the Christ-child - looking directly at us. Piero has here placed the iconic group of the Mother and Child squarely in the centre of the image, but also right up against the picture-plane, that is, as close to us as is possible. The two 'spirit' attendants, two angels, stand quietly but attentively 'on guard' as it were, one of them also focused deliberately on us. The scene however recedes by degrees into another room, on our left, which more-or-less dramatically increases the 'space' we are observing. The high realism of the physical environment in which this scene is placed - especially as the Madonna's proximity to us pushes it into our space in a way - makes this representation completely different from that of the Saint Cecilia Master, increasing the sense that the sacred events and personages are, in a certain way, more 'real', closer to us as human beings. Piero della Francesca though was a particularly 'restrained' master and, with the exception of his main battle-piece in the cycle of frescos at Arezzo (the Legend of the True Cross) - and even there -  would not normally be described as emotionally expressive even though his 'restraint' permits a strong appeal to the intellect.

These remarks apply largely to religious images of a certain type and the centrally-placed main actor is not an invention of the Renaissance, as can be seen in Byzantine and Gothic images of Christ Pantocrator; the difference lies in the 'humanity' of the divine beings and their proximity to us, their coming down to earth so to say, as opposed to their previous 'regal' distance. Another mark of this quasi-humanity is the size itself of the actors in religious art. Very often but not always, the main figures, be they Christ, the Madonna or saints, were shown as significantly larger than minor actors and especially so if there were any actual (human) person included in the image. This gradation continued into the Renaissance period but the relative sizes of, for instance Christ compared with a saint, began to be equalised. Given these considerations, Renaissance painters still relied upon line as a defining formal principle, that is, as an initial delineation of a figure's form and, with perspective, its position in the composition's space. Within this period however, in Italy, there were differences depending on whether or not the particular 'school' of painting was more or less influenced by Tuscan ideas (3); painters in Venice for instance tended over time to blur the edges of their figures, particularly as the paint itself became a more active element of the finished image (4).

A detail of The Battle of the Centaurs, 1491-92 by Michelangelo, marble

Casa Buonarotti, Florence

This unfinished marble relief was begun by Michelangelo when he was about 16 years old. What is interesting, amongst much else, is this very early indication of where he would go much later when he began work on the Last Judgement fresco (1535) in the Sistine Chapel: that is, in the highly expressive, nude figures crowded into a sometimes very shallow space. 

This process of increasing realism stimulated, strangely enough, a compositional revolution in the succeeding period, that known as Mannerism. This revolution began in Florence under the influence of the never-ending researches of Michelangelo (1475-1564): notable, in relation to the remarked high realism of Piero della Francesca's spaces, because of his (Michelangelo's) almost total lack of interest in perspective - and by implication, buildings of any sort - or landscape. Michelangelo's 'events', at least in painting, are almost always devoid of a setting, in the usual sense; his focus was always on the human body as the vehicle of his ideas, the body as a locus of the divine, a focus which by implication increased the importance of the spiritual by removing the earthly from the equation (buildings, rooms, landscape). These omissions and Michelangelo's piling-up of figures, particularly in the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, had earlier encouraged his admirers in Florence to do the same; in a way, this manner refocused the spiritual in religious pictures (by omitting an earthly context) even while the formal considerations - drawing, colour and especially the physically expressive human body - remained important. Still maintaining the dominance of Tuscan line, expressiveness appeared via the concentrated, even contorted, movement and crowding of human bodies - whether representing gods or men.

The Descent of Christ into Limbo (detail) by Agnolo Bronzino, 1552

Oil on panel, Museo dell'Opera di Santa Croce, Firenze.

The photo above shows a detail of a very large picture by the Florentine Mannerist painter known as Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano Torri, 1503-72), a disciple of Pontormo, another early Mannerist. The detail shows quite clearly the crowding of figures which almost completely fills the entire composition and, as such, makes this wonderful picture a typical Mannerist creation: beautiful drawing, absolute control of the rendering of the human body - even if somewhat stylised in Bronzino's work - and a wilful disregard for space as conceived of in the Renaissance proper. The sometimes unsubtle implied eroticism of much Mannerist painting (especially in Bronzino) tends to distract from, if not actually negate, the supposed religious or moral message! As in Michelangelo, Bronzino creates 'space' by the overlapping and, in this case, the 'interpenetration' of many figures; here as well, a fairly pronounced eroticism is at play, obvious in the so-to-say sensually luxuriating female figure in this detail, but expressed as well in some of the male figures, the one behind her for instance.

Implied or outright eroticism were common enough in the period which developed out of both the Renaissance and Mannerism and which is known as Baroque (Barocco in Italian). Even if this period had two branches, the classically-inspired and the, we might say, anti-classical, both have in common a quite robust sensuality, bordering from time-to-time on overt eroticism, and this eroticism could be expressed just as easily in sacred as in profane subjects; the same sacred subjects treated by many artists over previous centuries and not eroticised. It is possible to see the beginnings of this tendency again in the later work of Michelangelo, and here we might call to mind some of his Crucifixion drawings, made in Rome: the still-living Christ is, so to say, contorted into a kind of sensuous spasm, a spasm just as easily transferable to a figure on a bed! And if we go further back, to the Sistine Ceiling frescos, the image of Adam itself is one of languorous unabashed sensuality. In the 17th century Rome of the Barberini - Pope Urban VIII - the Borghese, the Del Monte and so on, sensuality as a 'lived experience' was the order of the day.

A major example of this sensual proclivity is Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculptural group,  the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, 1647-52, by Bernini, marble (the two figures)

Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome.

The sculpture, with its essential strong natural light and fictive bronze rays, portrays the moment when the Spanish saint Teresa of Avila (1515-82) is visited by an angel who, according to her own account, pierces her with a painful yet ecstatically pleasurable arrow. The ecstatic part is the element Bernini has sought and very successfully managed to convey, better photos showing clearly the beautiful saint's seemingly erotically-charged reaction to the presence and activity of the equally beautiful boy-angel! The whole drama takes place in a theatrical mis-en-scene composed of coloured marble columns and walls, with, on either side, 'stalls' containing the half-figures of members of the Cornaro family to whom the chapel belonged. Many of Bernini's religious figures are without doubt charged with a type of ecstatic sensuality and some, like his Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, and even the Angel of the Superscription, as well as his free-standing mythological sculptures, such as the Apollo and Daphne, are, like the Saint Teresa, more-or-less obviously erotic. And whereas eroticism is normally associated with some degree of undress, Bernini has here conveyed this sensation using one figure (Teresa) who is fully clothed and another (the angel) who is at least  modestly so; the eroticism stems from the facial expressions of both the angel and particularly the saint - Teresa's open mouth and closed eyes clearly at the height of stimulation - and also from her ecstatic pose with its fundamentally 'abstractly' convulsing clothing.

Although not regarded as a Baroque artist, Caravaggio may be seen as a forerunner of some of this latent (and often explicit) erotic propensity, again, to a marked degree in some of his religious or, at least, biblically-inspired pictures. The titular subject of some of these, his David with the Head of Goliath (in the Borghese collection, Rome) and his various Saint John the Baptists, without the biblical connotation of their titles and attributes, would simply be more-or-less erotic studies of boys! And it seems that some of his patrons, cardinals though they may have been, had, let's say, leanings towards homo-erotic subjects. Whether or not, Caravaggio - who is known to have had various girlfriends - or Bernini - who was married but had at least one mistress whose portrait he sculpted (Costanza Bonarelli, Bargello, Florence) - were responsible for the choice of subject depended on the circumstances of the moment. Both artists it would appear made works for themselves, off their own bats as it were, that is, independently of commissions and patronage. Other pieces, in fact most in the case of Bernini at least, were determined by those who commissioned them but who, at the same time, allowed a remarkable degree of creative freedom to these two masters - although on a couple of occasions initial works by Caravaggio were rejected (for instance, the first version of Saint Matthew and the Angel for the Roman church of San Luigi dei Francesi)!

But clearly, there was something in the air of Rome at that time, the early and middle part of the 1600s, which permitted if not actually encouraged the overt sensuality (not necessarily always erotic), not only in painting and sculpture, but also in architecture. Sensuality per se did not suddenly appear in Rome, or elsewhere, because it had existed, perhaps always, in various guises - particularly in literature - but, in the visual arts, in sublimated or disguised form. And naturally, we are here referring mainly to religious images, possibly the vast majority of the art produced in Italy at that time and in the preceding centuries; but even in profane subjects, especially mythological ones with some sexual content, given the dominant influence of the Church, the eroticism was by-and-large suggested rather than stated.

But the nominal religious, historical or mythological content of images was obvious even if sometimes one had to be 'in-the-know' to understand the recondite references; but at the same time, in Rome and Naples, sensuality was expressed in the drawing and the colour of paintings; or rather, the actual application of the paint. More and more, the paint was not only the colour added to a drawing to complete the effect, it became the vehicle of expression itself. Oddly, in some cases, because of the influence of Caravaggio's strong discrimination of light and dark, colours per se were few, as large areas of black or nearly-black often reduced the number of colours necessary to make a composition 'work'. This frequently resulted in only one major colour note (often red) with shades of white serving as the substantive foil to the infinite space of black (as often in Caravaggio). 

Saint Sebastian's Wounds Tended by Saint Irena (detail) c.1653 by  Luca Giordano (1634-1705)

Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Victoria.

This image of Saint Sebastian - twice the victim of an emperor's displeasure, here after the first attempt at execution, with Saint Irena removing the arrows from his body - is a case in point. The implied eroticism is not only in the 'display' pose of the young man's body, but also in the application of the paint; this is not the illustrative manner of a painter 'filling-in' his or her drawing - beautiful as it may be - but the moulding of the figure, almost as though the painter were a sculptor working the clay of a figure with his or her bare hands. The expressiveness is therefore three-fold: in the pose itself; in the drawing, here without the clear, clean outline of 'Tuscan' heritage; and in the moulding application of the paint. None of these three is exclusive to Baroque art, nor did they originate then, but they do seem to have come together in a particular co-incidence of time and place, and with a particular coherence, resulting in an expressiveness which became characteristic of that same time-and-place.

The Lamentation over the Body of Christ, by Andrea Vaccaro (1604-70)

Oil on canvas. Museo Diocesano Donnaregina, Napoli

Both Giordano and Vaccaro - respectively the authors of the two pictures above - were born in Napoli and were important masters of the Baroque in that city although Giordano also worked in Rome, Florence, Venice and Madrid. In this painting of the Lamentation by Vaccaro we have another example of an almost nude male body, in all probability the de facto subject of the painting, with the three (clothed) female figures helping to turn this study of the nude into a part of Christ's Passion. Like the Giordano Saint Sebastian, the figure of Christ is beautifully made but decidedly less, shall we say, sensuous. The contours of His body are soft, as are those of all the figures; this, as in the Giordano, has two causes: first, the figures are made to, as it were, emerge from the surrounding darkness - in Caravaggio's late manner - and secondly, the emotional sensuality of such pictures - independently of the subjects - required it. 

Saint Sebastian, after 1490 by Perugino

Oil on panel. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

Above is a photo of another, earlier Saint Sebastian, a large panel by the Renaissance painter Pietro Vannucci (c.1450-1524) known as Perugino, after his birthplace Perugia. The differences between this painting and the two Baroque examples above are fairly stark: firstly, we have what has been referred to here as 'Tuscan' drawing, a clear, well-defined outline of the figure; secondly, a permeating daylight which illumines not only the hapless saint but also the extensive background countryside; thirdly, small but important elements - for the Renaissance artist - of perspective drawing which help to establish not only the setting but also levels of space within the image (as well as a contrast between the man-made and the natural). Although quite restrained in terms of its colour, there are no deep blacks nor any bright whites; the tonal range is more-or-less from the middle of the scale down to well before we get to black. The subtle sensuality of this Saint Sebastian is that of spiritual transport, hardly comparable to 17th century eroticism. Rather, Perugino has invested this beautiful picture in his typically mystical mood, guided by the Renaissance models of nature and classical sculpture. The deep shadows, the indecipherable space, the physical mystery of Baroque painting are not to be found here.

It seems that some Baroque painters might conceivably trace their artistic heritage, their artistic sensitivity, back to Venice rather than to Florence. Paintings in Renaissance Florence tended to be light in tone with, like the Perugino above, a strong linear guiding principle. As mentioned in other places, while Venice also had its masters who clearly 'controlled' their paintings with line, relatively early-on they gradually began to favour a more sensuous use of the paint and therefore of colour. Venetian colour and the freer, more spontaneous brushwork appear to have migrated south, to Rome and Naples - partly through the powerful influence of Titian who was widely collected; his bravura use of the brush and his colour, when combined with the aesthetics of Caravaggio, produced what might be regarded as the formal visual characteristics of much of - not all however - Baroque easel painting.

Lucretia (detail), c.1630-35 by Artemisia Gentileschi

Oil on canvas. Private collection.

To finish this discussion we might look at this detail from a painting by the Baroque master Artemisia Gentileschi (1593- post 1654). This wonderful painter, famous in her own lifetime in Florence, Naples,  Rome and Madrid, has chosen a story from ancient Rome concerning the married woman Lucretia who committed suicide rather than live in undeserved shame; it was a popular subject painted several times by Artemisia herself. What is of interest here however is her confidently powerful manipulation of the paintbrush; a close look at the way she has applied the shades of the golden yellow-ochre of the subject's dress is typical of the expressive manner of much Baroque painting; in this case, unhurried, precise and still full of the sensual expression of the physical world. In fact, Artemisia's work is far from any false prudishness and reflects as much as any other artist her participation, at least at the easel, in the sensuous world of the Baroque. In this detail however, the relative clarity of some of the edges of the clothing - compared to the two pictures by Giordano and Vaccaro above - may be indicative of Artemisia having been her father's pupil: he, Orazio Gentileschi, originally a Tuscan painter.

1 'More advanced' here refers to advanced in time, ahead of its time; it does not refer to the quality of the work in question. None of the general comments in this article is to be taken as an opinion about the relative quality or appeal of any of the works discussed. 

2 A very interesting question arises from one of the figures in this Crucifixion panel, the man immediately to our right of the Cross, the one holding his garment across his body while gesturing towards Christ; in the upper basilica of Saint Francis at Assisi Cimabue painted a well-known Crucifixion: in his painting there is a very similar man in the same position relative to the Cross, performing a very similar gesture and quite clearly holding his garment across his body! Nicola Pisano lived between 1210 circa and 1287 circa, his dates are not at all certain; Cimabue lived between circa 1240 and 1302. It seems that the elder of the two masters was Nicola and the date of the pulpit is put at between 1255 and 1260; Cimabue's fresco in Saint Francis is obviously before 1302 (when he died) so it would appear that Cimabue may have borrowed this gesturing figure, holding his cloak across his body, from Nicola's pulpit! This said, that same figure, or versions of him, appear in other contemporary pictures so who borrowed what from whom is an interesting question.

The detail of the gesturing man in Cimabue's Crucifixion fresco in the upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. In passing, the remaining 'true' colour of the original fresco is seen here in the lower legs of the figure behind our subject, to our left; Cimabue's use of the incorrect white pigment has resulted in a kind of extraordinary x-ray image, which is the overall effect of this very large fresco.

3 By the terms 'Tuscan ideas' and 'Tuscan line' or '-Drawing' I am referring in part to the concepts found in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, published in 1568. For Vasari, drawing was the basis of all three arts and line was the fundamental aspect or attribute of drawing; in essence, the outline - of figures, particularly the human body - was the element which defined the form. Tuscan painting, and in fact other north-Italian schools, relied on clearly-defined outlines, not only when planning a picture, the initial drawing on the panel, canvas or wall, but also in the final, painted version. As time passed, this dominance began to give way to much less-well-defined outlines and eventually, as in much Baroque painting, clear outlines per se virtually disappeared.

4 Venetian artists such as Giovanni Bellini (d. 1516) and Vittore Carpaccio (d. 1525/6) were obviously 'linear' painters in so far as their pictures are initially dependent on line, a dependence which co-exists with the colour in the finished pictures. These painters may be compared to their much less linear compatriots Titian and Tintoretto: a telling comparison may be made by putting side-by-side a typical Botticelli (Tuscan) and a late Titian (Venetian). Mention should also be made of the fact that Bernini, although born in Naples to a Neapolitan mother and a Florentine father, referred to himself as Florentine; his great patron, Maffeo Barberini, later Pope Urban VIII, was also from a Florentine family.

Andare a spasso per spazio e tempo

                                                      

                                                            Wandering around space and time   

For me at least, one of the literally wonderful things about the study of art history - which implies as well as looking at pictures, reading about them - is the consequent ability to travel through space and time. Let's begin our trip in Italy at Assisi, a small and beautiful town sitting on top of a hill - like many other medieval, and older, cities in Europe - and famous for the advent of Saint Francis of Assisi as much as for the extraordinary cycle of frescos decorating both the upper and lower levels of the large church, the Basilica of Saint Francis. 

                                                                              

The spectacular Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi - constructed initially very quickly as a Romanesque building with later additions in the Gothic style - has been the subject of numerous attempts to stabilise the structure, in part due to its having been the victim of damaging earthquakes. 

The lower church has work by people such as Pietro Lorenzetti (? - 1345) and Cimabue (c.1240-1332), who, according to the Renaissance historian Giorgio Vasari (1511-74), was the master of Giotto (c.1267-1337); in this marvellous place there are many paintings about the authors of which historians continue to debate. Perhaps the sorer point however is the question of the authorship of the various fresco cycles in the upper church; some hold the view that the main cycle, the Legend of Saint Francis - the very large images along the lower part of the nave walls - is mostly by Giotto himself (c.1290-96?); others maintain that all or most of that group, as with some in the lower church, were painted by Giotto's followers or students, based on his designs. There are as well sections of both the lower and upper nave walls in the upper church which were clearly painted by other masters, including possibly one or two from Rome: possibly Pietro Cavallini and Jacopo Torriti, both responsible for various important works in late medieval Rome (Torriti for the apse mosaic in Santa Maria Maggiore, in which there is incidentally, on the extreme left, an image of Saint Francis); as well as Tuscans such as Cimabue in the transept and the so-called 'Master of Saint Cecilia' for some panels of the Legend.

Three panels in the nave of the upper Basilica, the higher image attributed to a painter from Rome, possibly Cavallini, or possibly to early Giotto (di Bondone); the two lower ones are attributed to Giotto and/or his school (assistants, followers).

Vasari said that 'modern' painting began in Italy with Cimabue's move away from the dominant style at the time, known to us as Byzantine; Vasari himself referred to that style as the 'goffa maniera greca', that is, the clumsy Greek manner. Naturally he wasn't referring to ancient Greek art which, then as now, was seen as a completely different form - and by him as superior; one in fact to be emulated, as indeed it was for the next two or three hundred years, in fact, at least up to Picasso.

Saint Francis Preaching before Pope Honorius III by Giotto (?) and assistants. All of these scenes, known as The Legend of Saint Francis Cycle, are very large and, because of recent restoration, very beautiful and bright. (The paintings are of course rectangular, not slanted upwards as here, distorted by the camera.) To note here is the, so to say, proto-Renaissance grappling with a quasi-accurate perspective rendering of the building, despite the odd drawing of the Pope's throne!

Relevant to our theme is particularly one of the frescos called The Homage of a Simple Man, a scene set in then-contemporary Assisi in front of a 1st century BC Roman temple dedicated to the goddess Minerva; Assisi is apparently of Etruscan foundation and like many such, was eventually taken over by the Romans. As is obvious from the photo below, that temple is the largest single 'object' in the whole composition and it and the building to the viewer's left still exist in the centre of Assisi; the temple today is largely intact apart from the interior having been converted into a small Catholic church although, at one time, Giotto's time I think, it also served as the town jail. So, not only did Giotto - or those for him - make a clear and obvious reference to a previous era of that city, but today we too can visit Assisi and see (and touch) that same temple, a building once worshipped at by people enjoying the protection and rights of Roman citizens; the same temple obviously observed by Giotto and considered a suitable backdrop for a scene in one of Western art's most important fresco cycles. When reading about that fresco cycle, not to mention actually visiting it, but even just reading about it, we encounter different and sometimes unexpected spaces in time: an ancient Roman temple in a medieval city - but at that time a contemporary city - transposed onto the flat walls of a Christian basilica: the one - Roman - a people knowing nothing of, and unable to even dream of the other; and the other - medieval Assisi - knowing of but, as part of Christendom, studiously ignoring for several hundred years the former; at the same time however when precisely that late medieval culture, in central Italy at least, was beginning to appreciate once more that very same rejected one, the classical Roman. 

The Homage of a Simple Man (detail) by Giotto and/or assistants set before the Assisi Temple of Minerva.

Upper Basilica, Basilica of Saint Francis, Assisi.

Note that, although the Temple existed in the very place where Giotto was painting these frescos, he did not hold himself to a literal description of that building as can be demonstrated by the fact that, in the fresco, it has five columns whereas in reality it has six; nor does it have a rose window!

The Temple of Minerva, 1st century BC Roman, Assisi

As can be seen from a comparison between the real building and its painted image, the Temple now has a door opening in the centre of the area of the 'cella' whereas in the painting there is no doorway at all and instead there are two small grated openings, suggesting that at that time, circa 1296, it was indeed being used as a prison. Archeologists think that, in fact, originally the 'cella' did have a central large rectangular opening and that the whole building was a free-standing structure.

To point-up the space-time movement, albeit mentally, so far induced by our reading, we have moved from ancient Greece and Rome to medieval Assisi and medieval Rome, from there across to Constantinople, the centre of Byzantine culture; then to the generally-recognised birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence, where we find Giorgio Vasari publishing his Lives, twice, roughly two-and-a-half centuries after Giotto; and finally, thus far, to the early twentieth century in Paris with Picasso making a sort of modernist revision or revival of certain Greco-Roman classical imagery (for example, various figure paintings of the 1920s).

Reading about, or, better still, visiting the sites of the activity of different Renaissance masters will lead us to other parts of Italy: to Sansepolcro if we are looking at Piero della Francesca for instance; then to Rome, Urbino, Rimini, Florence, Arezzo - birthplace of our friend Giorgio Vasari - Perugia and Milano; but to see more of Piero's work we may also need to visit London and Lisbon as well as one or two places in the USA (New York, Boston and Williamstown). If then we want to know why there are works by this great master in certain collections in the USA for example, we will find ourselves dealing with the sometimes shady world of late 19th and early 20th century art collecting by American millionaires. Their necessary engagement with occasionally unscrupulous Italian art dealers might lead us into various libraries and archives to examine the correspondence between such wealthy people, their agents and the art dealers; such correspondence might then take us back to, apart from different cities in Italy itself, other European centres such as Paris and, again, London.

An interesting instance of this type of peregrination, that is, wandering around in space-time, is the Banquet of Cleopatra, a large canvas by the Italian Rococo master Tiepolo (1696 Venice -1770 Spain). It seems that Tiepolo was working on this picture as a commission from the English consul to Venice (1744) - Joseph Smith - when another visitor to his studio, and friend, Francesco Algarotti (born in Venice, 1712, died Pisa 1764), saw the painting and purchased it for his employer, Augustus II, Elector of Saxony (in Germany) and King of Poland. Some time later, this same painting was acquired by Catherine the Great of Russia and was hung, I understand, on the ceiling of a palace in Saint Petersburg by her son, Paul I. Some time later still, in the first part of the twentieth century, Stalin and the USSR were in such dire need of funds that the picture was put up for sale in London and bought (1932) by its British representative for the National Gallery of Victoria (Australia), where it now resides. Thus we begin in Rococo Venice in an artist's studio, that of Giambattista Tiepolo, a famous man with important friends, receiving commissions from high-ranking foreigners as well as from similar local patrons; our picture, whose theme takes us back to Ptolemaic Egypt, then moves to Germany, at the time still a collection of small principalities. Next, we and the picture move to even colder climes in Czarist Russia, to Saint Petersburg, and one of the most famous of its sovereigns, Catherine the Great. Already, contemplating the pomp and wealth of both Venice and the court of Saint Petersburg, we have much to work with; nevertheless, our painting keeps moving, this time, via  a London sale, the Banquet arrives in a country not even known to Europeans in Tiepolo's time, to take up residence in the southern-most state of mainland Australia, that is Victoria, that is to say, literally at the antipodes relative to both Italy and especially Saint Petersburg.

The Banquet of Cleopatra, c.1744 by Giambattista Tiepolo

Oil on canvas. The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Recent philosophical-scientific studies posit the idea that time is a relative phenomenon quite different from the functional linear one - and from Einstein's concept - which we use for our day-to-day lives; time exists in our minds, as both linear sequence and autonomous subjective perception, which one being closer to objective 'reality' is still a matter of debate; I think it's something like that! The point for us is however that both time and space may be traversed and conceived-of within our cerebral experience (the life of our minds) and it is for this reason that often, when we are engrossed in a passage of reading - or in the contemplation of a work of art - that we may be, when called from the 'outside' as it were, shocked out of our inner space-and-time, back into the mundane here-and-now. On some occasions, this shock experience is similar to suddenly awaking from a bad dream, so violent is the translation from one condition of space-time circumstances to another.

Let us now take the fast train from somewhere in central Italy south to Naples, below Rome. The same art historical periods occurred in Naples as occurred elsewhere in Italy although, in a general sense, perhaps more as provincial imitation rather than owing to her as genetrix! Having said that though, both Giotto and Vasari are known to have worked there. Naples - or better, Napoli, or Parthenope - did eventually come into its own as a powerful centre of 'modern' painting: this was during the period known as the Baroque. Partly self-generated, partly as the result of 'foreign' Italian painters, from Rome or elsewhere, going to work there, Naples under Spanish dominion became, with Rome itself, a hub of the new style; a style with two faces however, as, beside the robust, let's say liberal sensuality of a Bernini or Pietro da Cortona, there was contemporaneously the Carracci-inspired 'classicism', evolving perhaps in a more direct line from the Renaissance itself. The former though, in painting, had taken its lead, as a reaction against Mannerism, in part from the anti- or non-classical Milanese Caravaggio, himself travelling along a winding road leading back as well to the Renaissance but without its 'classical' composition or way of seeing - or its light.

As is clear, we are now once again, while enjoying the warm noise and hurly-burly of Napoli, occasionally nipping across the water to Spain (Velazquez, Ribera, etc.) with a long detour, before or after, to Milan. Having mentioned Caravaggio, it's worth pointing out as it pertains to our discussion, that he was himself a notable traveller, although as much forced as chosen. Caravaggio was born in Milan, perhaps visited Venice but definitely moved to Rome; having committed various crimes there due to his hot-headedness, he escaped to Napoli, whence to Sicily after which to Malta. Again, seemingly because of his temper, he returned - or escaped - to Sicily once more and from there a final brief period in Napoli; hoping for a Papal pardon of his earlier crime (murder) he died on his way from Napoli to Rome. In all of these places, excluding Milan and Venice, he left paintings; even while fleeing both Rome and Malta, he continued to paint and to receive commissions from important clients.

The Flagellation of Christ (1607, detail) by Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), 1571-1610

Oil on canvas, Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Napoli

This photo was taken however in 2024 in a church (Donnaregina) in the centre of Napoli where the painting was temporarily (?) exhibited. For us, being aware of his travails, it is permitted to hypothesise that Caravaggio saw in this tragic image perhaps a reflection of his own life, that is, a kind of psychological self-portrait.

Caravaggio's pictures, like those of many other Italian artists, have travelled not only within Italy but also abroad, finishing up in such far-flung places as Australia - although there are no Caravaggios in Oz! Having noted that he was born in Milan, his family coming from the nearby Caravaggio, he left no known works there; that said, there is, in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, founded in 1609 by Cardinal Federico Borromeo (1564 - 1631), arch-bishop of Milan, his independent still-life masterpiece, the Basket of Fruit. This exquisite picture found its way to Milan due to being part of the collection of Cardinal Borromeo; the Cardinal presented the Ambrosiana with a collection of pictures in 1618 as part of a gift to found the Quadreria Ambrosiana (now the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana).

Moving from one city to another, or even to another country, was not unusual for Italian artists in this general period. As far back as the mid-fifteenth century Piero della Francesca was moving from court to court, painting pictures for the local lords as well as for churches and convents; early sixteenth century painters of the calibre of Rosso Fiorentino - a Mannerist - had packed-up and transferred their activity to the French court, in his case to Fontainebleau, as had, perhaps the most famous of all, Leonardo da Vinci, in 1516 (a guest of Francis I); and as already mentioned, both Giotto and later Vasari had visited and worked in Napoli. In the Baroque period, both Rome - as the seat of Papal power and consequently full of wealthy patrons for paintings, sculpture and churches - and Napoli - seat of the Viceroy of Spain in its southern Italian kingdom and similarly conspicuous for the wealth of its nobility - were 'meccas' for Italian, Spanish and Netherlandish artists, amongst others, all attracted, and sometimes actually called to these centres of wealth and power, and therefore of lucrative commissions for all manner of both fine and decorative arts. Giovanni Lanfranco (d.1647) and Domenico Zampieri (called il Domenichino, d.1641) were two such who moved from Rome to Napoli as Caravaggio had done some years before; Ribera from Spain to Napoli and, also from Spain, Velazquez to Rome, albeit only briefly.

Saint Jerome and the Angel of Judgement, by Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652)

Oil on canvas. Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Napoli

The study of pictures (read: artwork generally) produces mental journeys, whether done objectively, that is, analytically, or so to say emotionally. The contemplation of a painting, allowing oneself to identify with or participate in whatever is going on in the painting, particularly if one knows the narrative of or the stimulus behind the image, inevitably leads to transitions of or in space-time. Taking the painting by Ribera (above) as an example, to begin we are assumed by the painter to be acquainted with this early Doctor of the Church, a man who translated the Bible into Latin and is therefore normally shown with books, and a lion, two of his attributes or symbols. Ribera has set the saint in his desert retirement at the moment when he is visited by an angel; Jerome by now is an aged sage and, due to his ascetic life, very thin. His age and weighty human body contrast with the ageless youthful spirit incarnated as the trumpet-blowing angel; in the distance is what appears to be a cloud-filled mobile sky, the dramatic blue-grey light supporting the intensity of this meeting of the earthly and the divine. The one colour accent is the powerful red of the saint's garment, possibly fallen from his shoulders because of the cruciform arm-gesture of surprise, this most forcefully conveyed by his facial expression. 

Each one of the details just indicated in Ribera's picture is a stimulus to thought and therefore to movement, albeit that it occurs in our minds; but that movement involves two aspects of thought: thought about space - or place if you prefer - and thought about when things were or are happening. In looking at this photograph now, thinking about what was happening in my physical life, I am transported back to my visit to Napoli and that wonderful museum of Capodimonte and my pleasure at meeting Signor Ribera, by chance, in one of the galleries. I can speak of meeting the man Ribera in this way because, when engrossed in his work, I feel almost as though I were involved in a more-or-less direct communication with the painter himself - in much the same way that one is able to 'relate to' the author of a book. This of course, is a different meditation from the 'historical' one of thoughts about Jerome, about dessert fathers, about the importance of the written word for Christianity, and so on and so on, considerations regarding the transmission of thought via translation, etc.

The object in both cases, that is, a work of art or a work of literature (including history), is in a way also the creator of that work him- or herself; the physical object is so imbued with the spirit or, if preferred, the character of its creator, that one sometimes feels as though one were actually in dialogue, mentally and visually, with that artist. This clearly is a wholly cerebral and personal activity but one nevertheless 'real' in so far as it is experienced by us as lookers and readers. It is perhaps obvious that here there is a major difference of experience, a discrepancy of depth and breadth, between those who can look at pictures and those who merely glance at them as they abstractedly walk past in an art gallery. Not all people respond to visual stimuli in the same way nor to the same degree, and factors such as cultural differences, personal beliefs - and prejudices - previous experience, education and open- or closed-mindedness all contribute to, or inhibit, these experiences. Negativity naturally will inhibit and limit substantially any form of space-time movement which an artwork, of any kind, might induce.

This exquisite detail of a Roman fresco I have included merely as an illustration of despite how things have changed they remain the same: time as illusion.

Fresco of Ares and Aphrodite, detail, artist unknown; from Pompeii, the House of Love Punished,

1-25AD. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN)

Personally, I often find that leaving an art gallery can provoke a feeling of regret or disappointment, particularly if I have been fortunate enough to have come into 'sentimental' contact with one or two of the artists whose works are housed in that place. We may suppose that the extent or 'flux' of that contact depends in part upon how each individual author speaks to us, and that occurring while keeping in mind all the various preoccupations we might have in our thoughts even as we enter the gallery: as we enter the gallery or museum we naturally bring with us the whole world of our selves and our immediate concerns. And, as just suggested, not so immediate ones as well, as seeing again an already familiar painting can cause us to move very quickly through space-time back to our original encounter. So, following these mental meetings in an art gallery - or in a museum or when reading a book - stepping into the open air of physical reality, after having spent quite some time occupying our own cerebral space-time, is occasionally, as said earlier, a decidedly disorientating experience. It may be argued however that the life passed in our cerebral space-time - an experience possible in other circumstances of course - is in fact a place where 'in reality' we indeed spend most of our time. 

Notes: 

Except for the image of the Banquet of Cleopatra and that of the Homage of a Simple Man, all other images (photos) were taken by the author of this article who reserves copyright.

Saint Francis of Assisi, 1181/2 - 1226.

Rosso Fiorentino (Giovanni Battista di Jacopo), a Mannerist painter, was born in 1494 in Florence and died in 1540 in Fontainebleau, France.

Giambattista Passeri, painter and poet, wrote a book called Vite de pittori scultori ed architetti che anno lavorato in Roma morti dal 1641 fino al 1673 (Lives of painters sculptors and architects who have worked in Rome and died between 1641 and 1673). It was published in 1772.

Passeri was born in Rome in 1610 and died there in 1679.

Giovanni Lanfranco was born in Parma in 1580 and died in Rome in 1647 (according to Giambattista Passeri).

Domenico Zampieri, known as Domenichino, was born in 1581 in Bologna and died in Napoli in 1641 (again according to Giambattista Passeri).

Jusepe de Ribera was born in Xàtiva in Spain in 1591 and died in 1652 in Naples.

Diego de Velazquez was born in Seville in Spain in 1599 and died in Madrid in 1660.

Quadreria  

                   } mean 'picture gallery'

Pinacoteca

Caravaggio's Basket of Fruit is known in Italian as La canestra di frutta, and was probably painted between 1597 and 1600.

In relation to Australia, Dutch explorers had actually landed on the west coast in the 17th century but there was no resulting settlement or colonisation. Captain James Cook claimed Australia for Britain in 1770.