Posted on 05/02/2021 6:25:21 AM PDT by Hebrews 11:6
The Bible in Paintings LINKS TO ALL PAST EPISODES |
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Preview of
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SNEAK PEEK: Next time,
HEROD KILLS
THE BABIES. .
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Please see Image #67, at long last in its proper context. Thank you for directing my attention to this wonderful work.
ORAZIO GENTILESCHI, 1628, my favorite.
#60. Joe looks pooped!
Superb compilation. Love all the stained glass windows.
#65, a different work from a young Caravaggio, a painting with luminous colors that allow a clear vision of the scene. The scene is divided in two by the angel, on one side we have Joseph, savior and protector of Mary and Jesus; the other side a sleeping mother and child surrounded by rich vegetation. Joseph is obviously tired but, eyes on the angel, holds a musical score. The music has been identified as a 16th c. motet, “Quam Pulchra es” dedicated to the Virgin Mary and based on the Canticle of the Canticles. One of the violin’s chords is broken, allegory of the fragility of human life.
Interesting details: the flask of wine with a cloth plug; the plants around Mary, the laurel which is a symbol of her purity, the rose thorns and the thistle symbol of the Passion of the Christ while the mullein (I think) speaks of the Resurrection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnVf347zkBQ
Thank you for blessing us with this artwork.
This is in Italian but at starting at 3.10 minutes is the beautiful “Quam pulchra es” by members of the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbX3p5rZxP4
I’m so glad you favored us with your explanation of this unique work, because it is my favorite. Joseph gives himself up to serve his wife and child, as he surely did on innumerable occasions: what an inspiring vision by Caravaggio!
You are very welcome. Thank you for participating!
Hi Dan!
Thanks for posting these. :-)
Great! But get ready for the sequel....
Gorgeous. Thanks immensely, Alba! it appears the donkey is a music lover.
Funny story on the effect of music on animals. My kitty liked Mozart, she would be sleeping on my lap and, little by little, the music relaxed her so much that her head would fall down from my knee. Doing computer work with one hand while supporting her head with the other was a little too much, but I obliged her, as every good pet servant would do.
Hi.
I apologize.
Holy sh!t, how did St. Joseph clean all those diapers? With holy water?
And yes, I’ll go to confession next week.
5.56mm
What makes you think they had diapers?
Hey, everyone back then had a loin cloth.
It was big business.
So, gird your loins and keep up the excellent work.
5.56mm
Consider me girded.
Here is my list of puzzling or amusing anachronisms in many of the paintings:
1) The clothing, made of luxurious fabrics, with textures, sheen, patterning, brocading or volume, as opposed to the vegetable-dyed homespun linen, hemp or woolen more likely to have been available to a rural couple…I love that so many included an angel to escort the couple or lead the donkey. And I’m very fond of the styized, icon-like qualities of the da Fabriano #52 and the Fra Angelico #53. Got a chuckle from the bird poop adorning Gaudí’s Sagrada sculpture #59.2) The styles of many of the articles of clothing, such as the men’s hats, hosiery or pointed felt slippers or the women’s wimples of the Middle Ages, or the corseting and bodices of the Renaissance…
3) Time-traveling accoutrements, such as the brand-new-to-the-16th-century violin and sheet music in the otherwise beautifully composed and illuminated Caravaggio #65, or the basketry fishing creel and nearby European medieval villages with gothic windows in the Patinir #42, or the wooden cradle being carried in #50 by Joseph with the baby in it—on a donkey. Some car safety seat!
4) Mary as a mature woman, when she would normally in Jewish culture have been married off not long after puberty; since she was a virgin, she was probably between 12 and 16…
5) Joseph as an old man; this would mean either he never married young as was the Jewish custom, didn’t cat around because that behavior was not likely to have been accepted in a rural community under Judaism, or somehow would have remained celebate until he was bald or white haired as in so many of these depictions. To me, it seems unlikely that God would have chosen him for the caregiver of a young bride and, until adulthood, His very own Son. God specified the cleanest, purest and most spotless lambs and calves for His sacrifices in the tabernacle and Temple—why would His choice of a husband for Mary be an old dude who had weathered the injuries of farm life and the illnesses that inevitably come the longer you live? Seems unlikely he was older than 16 to 24 himself.
The most authentic costuming and age depiction would seem to be the illustration #66 attributed to Munir Alawi, who is selling “wall art”—how did a muslim name get in there? Perhaps he saw the Light! Hallelujah! Or maybe he just recognizes a market. Given that there are so many and varied techniques and images with his name at that link, Alawi would appear to be the aggregator of images that he will then print up digitally when you submit payment, including on phone cases, beach towels and coffee mugs; but not the original artist. I could be wrong.
Thank you for the heads up to the Luc Olivier Merson #67. Merson reduced the size of the Sphinx (which would have been over 1,000 years old during the Holy Family’s flight), yet using it as a symbol for a resting place in the Egyptian desert seems strangely believable. The scene is stunning in the way that classical symphonic orchestral music scored for a 20th- or 21st-century epic film like Star Wars is stunning—a May-December marriage of two outstanding eras of cultural expression.
Thanks, Hebrews 11:6, for all your hours curating and assembling these images that bring the scriptures to life in so many imaginative ways.
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