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The strange world of Giorgione. No one can work out what this painting is about. #giorgione #venetianrenaissance #arthistory #historyofart #renaissanceart #renaissancepainting (at National Gallery) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9pNPf_lsbf/?igshid=3ved0a0d8esj

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Controversial opinion: Perugino at his best often trumps often trumps the work of his better known apprentice (Raphael). Perugino Details from an altarpiece 1496-1500 National Gallery London #perugino #raphael #historyofart #arthistory #italianrenaissance #renaissanceart #renaissancepainting (at National Gallery) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9m7zE0FHJK/?igshid=5pl4gtnkupxc

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Michelangelo's crucifix. Created at the age of 17. What a genius!! #michelangelo #italiansculpture #renaissancesculpture #historyofart #arthistory #highrenaissance (at Firenze, Tuscany, Italy) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9kGh2QFE60/?igshid=4enq4aczuaho

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A lesser known Michelangelo unfinished Michelangelo here but a good one none the less. The harsh articulation of facial features seem appropriate for the subject of 'Brutus', (1539-1540). #michelangelo #brutus #renaissancesculpture #italianrenaissance #historyofart #arthistory #highrenaissance (at Museo nazionale del Bargello) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9XmsRQleqW/?igshid=1eqvnjzti80n7

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Giovanni Bellini, 'Lamentation over the Dead Christ', 1485-1495 #lamentation #christ #renaissance #renaissancedrawing #giovannibellini #historyofart #arthistory #venetianrenaissance (at The Ufizzi Florence) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9QFa-alFtY/?igshid=z45t73vi3hwe

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Some Modigliani details from his recent exhibition in Livorno. Just started the writing for my up coming video on this very strange and very beautiful artist. #modigliani #amadeomodigliani #modernart #modernpainter #italianart #historyofart #arthistory (at Livorno, Italy) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9Kp4f8lTlb/?igshid=1qvden6ik8msn

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(Top) Peter Bruegel the Elder, Peasant Wedding (1567)

(Bottom) Peter Bruegel the Younger, Peasant  Wedding (1623)

Peter Bruegel the Younger depicts what he imagines to be going on outside of the barn in which his fathers celebrated ‘Peasant Wedding’ is set. We can see the barn from the outside, in the top left of the painting

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Raphael cartoons in the V&A 

In the Victoria and Albert museum in London, there is a Raphael room that houses 8 huge Raphael cartoons (a sketch by the artist that is not the finished product). These cartoons were commissioned by Pope Leo X. They depict the acts of St Peter and St Paul and were transferred into tapestries. The top two pictures is an example of this transformation. The final tapestries are hung on the lower wall of the Sistine chapel in Rome. 

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‘Swinging’ by Wassily Kandinsky (1925).

Kandinsky writes in his book (concerning the spiritual in art) that colours and forms should be arranged on a canvas purely for aesthetic means. He frequently compares artists to musical composers. In the same way that we do not question weather a note in a piece of music represents something from the real world or means anything specific, we should not question painting in this way. His view was that the job of the painter was to use form and colour as though they were musical notes to be arranged to please the viewer in the same way that a composer pleases the listener. 

This particular work by Kandinsky is titled ‘Swinging’. Clearly his aim here was to produce the visual equivalent to swing (jazz) music. It is my view that he has succeeded. The painting has a vibrancy to it and the variety in colour giving the painting a similar energy that is so prominent in swing music. Some of the shapes in the painting are bold with a clear outline whilst there are shapes that appear vague and transparent. For me this conveys vividly the bold and loud sounds of a trumpet over the clarity of a note from a piano. The three yellow waves in the navy rectangle in the top left corner of the painting has the same feeling as the deep sound of a saxophone, playing notes up and down a scale. 

This clearly exemplifies Kandinsky’s belief that music and art should have the same function, only that one should please the ear and one should please the eye.  

I recommend that you listen to some jazz music to better understand what I have written.

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The Mark Rothko room at the Tate Modern in London.

The Tate Modern is a very bright gallery for the most part.The Mark Rothko room is an outstanding exception to this to fit the mood of Rothko’s bleak murals. They are an interesting window in which to see the strained mind that is the artist’s. Mark Rothko would commit suicide around 10 years after the execution of these paintings.

However, as the individual that enters the room this is not the most striking experience. When I was there I felt a strange sensation of being trapped inside a room without the concept of time. The paintings give off an artificial sense of warmth and for some reason the room seems hazy. The product is the perfect room for solitary contemplation. I found that my thoughts really wondered whilst in this room. 

The murals were originally commissioned to decorate the walls of the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram building in New York. Once he had completed the murals he was invited to eat at the Four Seasons restaurant. Seeing the prices of the food that was being served at the restaurant, he identified it as an immoral institution. As a result he turned down the commission. After his death it was agreed that the Tate Modern would house the murals in there permanent collection.

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David and Goliath by Caravaggio (1610)

After Caravaggio murdered a man named Ranuccio, the authorities in Rome placed a bounty on his head. For his own safety, he left Rome and travelled to Naples and Malta. After sometime he wished to return to Rome and so executed numerous paintings that were to be presented to the Pope. He thought that these paintings might convince the pope to remove his bounty. 

This was one of the paintings that Caravaggio produced for this purpose. It depicts the story of David and Goliath at the moment where David has cut off the head of Goliath. However the head that David holds is in fact Caravaggio’s. 

Given that the bounty stated that the person that presented the head of Caravaggio to the authorities would be rewarded financial, this may well have been Caravaggio’s way of saying “here is my head, now you can remove my bounty”. 

Unfortunately Caravaggio died before the pope had a chance to see these works and assess whether too order his arrest or remove the bounty. 

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Michelangelo’s grave in the Santa Croce. The tomb was arranged by his friend and biographer Giorgio Vasari that describes him (in his book ‘The Lives of the Artists” first published in 1550) as being “divine”. 

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Tio Paquete (c.1820) by Francisco de Goya  

Goya painted the black paintings between 1819 and 1823. These were effectively visual illustration of Goya’s strained mind as he begun to go insane. As the name suggests the black paintings were very dark and its subject matter often included creatures of Goya’s own invention and humans that appear to be insane. They were murals, painted on the walls of Goya’s house. 

The above is not considered to be one of the black paintings however it was painted at the same time as the black paintings. On the back of the painting Goya had written on the canvas “the famous blind man” in Spanish. It is largely considered that this was a well known beggar that was also a musician and was (on one occasion) called upon to play in the House of Members Court in Madrid. In style it is very similar to the black paintings and the characters sickening expression and seeming insanity may also be a reflection of Goya’s own insanity. Perhaps he also chose this subject because he could relate to the beggar. Although Goya was not blind at the time, he was deaf. As a result he must rely on his sight more then an ordinary man and so he turned to painting in the same way that blind man must rely on hearing more then an ordinary man and so turned to music. 

Seeing this man play music without being able to hear it must have depressed Goya, which might explain why his interpretation of the subject contains an expression that seems to mock and haunt the viewer. 

These are just some ideas of my own so please feel free to offer alternative ones.

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The ‘Vasari Corridor’ (1565) by Giorgio Vasari. 

Giorgio Vasari was an architect and painter of the high Renaissance. He famously painted the roof of the Duomo in Florence and wrote the ‘The Lives of the Artists’ witch contains biographies of many of the most famous artists and architects of the Renaissance including his friend Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Brunelleschi e.c.t.    

Cosimo de Medici (Duke of Florence) commissioned this ‘corridor’ to go from his palace (The Piti Palace) to the Palazzo Vecchio (the town hall of Florence). This way Cosimo did not have to walk amongst the common citizens of Florence to run the city from the Palazzo Vecchio. This is a clear example of the immense power that Cosimo had. 

Today the corridor is the worlds only self-portrait gallery.  

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‘Monet working in his boat’ by Edouard Manet (1874)

Manet frequently denied claims that he was an impressionist despite the execution of broken brush strokes in an impressionist style (in some of his paintings) and the fact that many impressionists considered him to be there inspiration. He also would have denied the title ‘the father of modern art’, as he is sometimes referred to today. As Sir Ernst Gombrich states in his book ‘The Story of Art’ “Manet violently denied that he wanted to be a revolutionary”. In fact saw his style as being no more radical then Goya’s or Delacroix’s in the generation or two before. 

However he clearly did not dismiss the impressionist style as quickly as the public and art critiques of France were at the time. He became friends with many of the impressionists. In particular Claude Monet who he paints whilst in his studio boat here. Monet had explained the principles and methods of the impressionists to Manet and Manet chose to execute them in this painting that is in the impressionist style. 

This proves that despite Manet’s refusal to be a radical impressionist he did so some sympathy for what the impressionists were doing despite the hostility of the public. 

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Autumn Cannibalism by Salvador Dali (1936). 

His visual metaphor to illustrate the way in which the Spanish civil war is effectively Spain carving itself up. 

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This arch is the entrance to the Etruscan town of Volterra. It is considered to have been built before 400 BC. This means that the arch (or Roman arch) was not invented by the Romans as was previously thought for they came to use the arch in around 350 BC In fact it was invented by the Etruscans and the Romans probably only came to use the arch in aqueducts, coliseums, triumphal arches e.c.t because they had discovered the arch when they invaded Etruscan towns like Volterra in 298 BC.