Pintura barroca - History Lab

Saint Agnes, by Francisco de Zurbarán

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:18 +0000

Between 1598 and 1664 Francisco de Zurbarán produced a series of paintings of virgin saints and martyrs following his own pictorial model which, under an apparent simplicity and direct portrait intention, allows for numerous interpretations. While these depictions show the saints with the appearance of being immaculate, they are not enveloped in the symbolism typical of saints and martyrs, such as the ecstatic posture gazing towards heaven, nor are they set in a pure environment that would indicate the sacred environment to which they belong. Furthermore, as they are not completely static figures, they cannot be classified as religious icons either.
Another characteristic feature of the series to which Saint Agatha belongs (Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France) is that they are not narrative paintings, but only refer to the events of their protagonists through their attributes, such as in this case the fact that they hold their own severed breasts on a tray. Zurbarán distances the figures from their sacred representation by isolating them against a neutral background and shows them directly in front of the viewer.

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The fortune teller of Buenaventura

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:31:28 +0000

Jan Cossiers (1600-1671), a painter of Flemish origin, produced several versions of the same subject of the gypsy fortune-teller. The present situation can be traced back to the two paintings on the same theme by Caravaggio (1571-1610) at the end of the 16th century, but with a more complex scheme involving various figures. In this image, a languid, confident-looking boy has allowed himself to be persuaded to be read by a gypsy woman with two children in tow, who uses a second to steal his hand. The exuberant and even luxurious costumes of the gypsies of Nicolas Regnier (1591-1667) or Georges de la Tour (1593-1652) have been dispelled here, leaving room for ragged clothes at the ends, this gives them a ragged appearance that can be explained by the demographic reality and the poverty that plagued much of Europe in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), but which also finds its raison d’être in the implementation of harsh anti-Gypsy legislation, which classified them as marginalised and even criminal beings. Despite this, such circumstances do not prevent the women in Cossiers’s work from wearing one of the most striking and unique elements of their clothing, the bern, that circular hat with a wicker frame made by interweaving different coloured fabrics. The scene is completed by two other figures, namely a girl with her hand held out in a gesture of silence and a large-mustached gypsy wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a sword in his hand. This leaves open the possibility that we are dealing with a group in which everyone, through their gestures and movements, is linked to the action.

The post The fortune teller of Buenaventura first appeared on History Lab.

The Bonaventure

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:31:21 +0000

Caravaggio (1571-1610) executed around 1595 a forerunner of genre painting, The Bonaventure. Painted for Alessandro Vittrice and now in the Musée du Louvre (Paris), it depicts two half-length figures in an indeterminate location. There is no indication of where the action is taking place, the scene being illuminated only by a light from the left that falls on the figures: a young man of distinguished appearance wearing a feathered hat and a gypsy woman, recognisable as such by her coppery skin, turban knotted under her chin, black hair and cape draped over one of her shoulders, as well as by the fact that she is engaged in the activity that gives the painting its title. Good fortune was a widespread practice in royal courts during the 16th and 17th centuries and was often complemented by astrology, which had been in vogue along with horoscopes since the late Middle Ages. It was also reinforced by the use of the tarot, a deck of 78 cards depicting various figures, which originated in northern Italy in the first half of the 15th century. In 1781, Antoine Court de Gébelin reasoned that the tarot came from Egypt, which quickly led people to associate card prediction with the Gypsies, as the Egyptian origin of this ethnic group had been a widespread and accepted belief until well into the 18th century. Gébelin’s theory was exposed to various distortions in the following centuries by authors such as Boiteau d’Ambly, Vaillant and Taylor, who still maintained that the Gypsies were the first connoisseurs and therefore disseminators of cartomancy.

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