Post 43 of my favorite works of art

A striking blend of physical tension and contemplative removal. Like the battle friezes from the pediments of the Parthenon, this sculpture portrays the triumph of cool rational detachment over the impulses and flurry of nature. Artemis, goddess of the hunt, is an atheletic and very physical presence here, yet she bears her head with the placid calm the High Classic Athenians attributed to the immortals. The Roman copyist certainly possessed virtuosity in getting the folds of her chifton down. This work has rightly been prized as one of the Renaissance’s most important rediscoveries from the treasures of the ancients.

This graceful bust is from a series portraying the elements. I find something very evocative in this head; it suggests somehow the magic and charm you would expect of a water-nymph, from the scalloped headpiece to the lush set of the chin. Its calm mystery makes you want to plunge into the briskly chilled waters of some fast-flowing stream to find out if these deities are real . . .

This is from a series of “Character Thieves” photo-portraits by Sieber, documenting various individuals who engage in “cosplay” conventions, donning the garb of various superheroes and sci-fi protagonists. The young woman here is portraying Ulala, who (wikipedia tells me) is the heroine of the dance-video game “Space Channel 5.” The juxtaposition of fantasy extravagance and the familiar makes for a whimsical frisson, as does the model’s abstract gaze in this juxtaposition of escapism and everydayism.

This portrait dates from the post-Napoleonic period of David’s exile in Belgium, when his sitters too were obviously somewhat ‘out of favor.’ The daughters of Joseph, Napoleon’s brother and sometime King of Spain, clasp each other while reading a letter from their father, then in exile in Philadelphia (!). Its the mixture of imperiousness and fragility in the sitters that really impresses me, along of course with David’s masterful use of line and iconic minimalism. This painting is also remarkable as one of relatively few in which David renders women exclusive of the masculine presence, though of course these as Bonapartes, so they’re still sitting in the context of imperial power (note the Bonaparte bees on that Empire sofa)! I’m curious as to whether David has exaggerated their resemblance to their uncle or not—these Bonaparte princesses could be in training for global rule.

No, I am NOT a Rembrandt fan, thank you very much people!: to me, there are any number of candidates for the “world’s greatest painter” gig more qualified than him, and I’m not going to concede beauty and brilliance in the many paintings of his that seem to me about as glowing as a side of rotting beef (thanks to Ayn Rand for the inspiration for THAT insult!).

But there are some Rembrandts I can take, and he’s often at his best when portraying events on or about a body of water. Here both water, air, and shore are all luminous and full of mystery. His Europa herself isn’t much to look at, unless you consider that he was going for the psychology of terror (which does seem to be the case) rather than any kind of Titianesque erotic ecstasy, but she’s also just one small component of the overall canvas, which is impressive and haunting considered as a whole.

The period of the Antonines, the last of Rome’s series of “Five Good Emperors”, has been hailed as one of ideal government. The period contributed little to the riches of Latin literature, but we can see that in the plastic arts there was still a strong tradition of craftsmanship and the living spirit of classicism. This is a beautifully graceful bust that honors those symmetrical ideals while giving a vivid portrait of an individual character. This young woman’s face seems, in fact, more richly personable than those of many portrait-statues of the Augustan period. The more one looks at her, the more animate she becomes! The bored-in pupils may take a little getting used to, giving her a druggy, distant look (perhaps suggesting mystical tendencies?), but the corners of the mouth, for instance, are exceptional.

Though most famous for his many scenes of Venice, Canaletto got around, doing some fine works in other European metropolises. The lines of the Belvedere’s park give this painting a strong geometrical slant, akin to what one enjoys in such films as Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” or Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon.” The lighting gives a sweet variety to the scene displayed in the foreground, from the shadowy glow of the pool on the left, through the shadowed line in the center, to the very crisply lit space on the right. One can imagine joining these strolling aristocrats in savoring the variations of scene laid out on this pinkly glowing afternoon. We can fairly call this landscape “Mozartean.”

Vermeer’s paintings usually have covert moral or spiritual meanings. Many of his paintings of solitary woman are meant to suggest, interpreters argue, the dangers of vanity. Here a woman is engrossed in a letter, an indication of perhaps illicit intentions. She is possibly pregnant (though fashionable bulges in women’s dresses during the period make this debateable), which would indicate her married status and thus, plausibly, that she is engaged in adulterous thoughts. But then, so much in Vermeer is ambiguous. The map on the wall, for instance, is a marker of wealth and privilege: the 17th Cent. Dutch revered maps and treated them like valuable art objects. So one could consider it either as conspicuous consumption, or as a herald of knowledge and exploration. The bright light pouring in from the left through an unseen window bathes the painting in clarity. But is this the cheerful light of optimism and love, or the light of a God who sees and judges? Yet, leaving all these heavy thoughts aside, one surely looks upon the picture today and appreciates its pleasant radiance and contemplative grace and hopes, at least, that all here is well.

Botticelli is the painter who most completely elaborated an alternate, higher Platonic world of perfection through his art. Whatever Simonetta Vespucci’s charms in the flesh (and certainly Botticelli took her for his ideal!), she is envisioned by the maestro as a heavenly visitant, a gleaming emblem of perfected virtue and beauty. There is, as ever in Botticelli, an intense stillness that transfixes the viewer. Yet it is as though the face is about to surge with some inexpressible emotion: one thinks that eyelid, for instance, will flutter just . . . now. Utterly removed from the dramas of the mundane, it is impossible to impose a “story” or a “character” upon this painting—if one can relate it to anything at all, it would have to be Plato’s Symposium, or the Gospel of John. What matters is Botticelli’s dream of her, now the eternal thing.

“My soul doth magnify the Lord”: thus might Raphael boast along with the Madonna, for his intensely sublime serenity has made him understandably hailed as a master of perfection. As, in poetry, Alexander Pope asserted that Homer and Nature were the same, so might one argue Raphael is painting’s Homer. Even the atheist Schopenhauer found these Madonnas of Raphael ineffably moving and full of cosmic truth, and this one is as perfect as any. Amid a pastoral scene filled with the breath of divine repose, the Virgin Mary looks on in otherworldly serenity at the infants Christ and John the Baptist. Less overtly dreamy than Botticelli’s Madonnas, she has a touch of the massy solidity of Michelangelo’s figures and her face has an extraordinary balance of gravity and sweetness. It is as though eternity has imposed itself in time, or liberated a moment in time into the celestial beyond. Raphael is our ambassador from paradise.