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Goya: Caprichos Nr. 55 (Hasta la muerte)

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Goya: Caprichos Nr. 23 (Aquellos polvos)

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Ausschnitt, August Sander: Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts

Bricklayer, 1928

August Sander was a photographer who used a certain formula for all his photographs. By presenting businessmen, farmers, actors, and beggars all with the same stark directness, the German-born Sander made everyone the everyman. Sander thought we can learn from everyone and every class in society, saying “We can tell from appearance the work someone does or does not do; we can read in his face whether he is happy or troubled, for life unavoidably leaves its trace there.”

This particular portrait is Sander’s most famous. Photographing a bricklayer in Cologne, Germany, Sander turned a sweaty, backbreaking job into dignity and bearing. The classical framing and quiet stateliness was especially poignant for Germany, a country still reeling from the impact of losing World War I.

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Gerrit Rietveld: Rot-Blauer Stuhl

The red and blue chair, Gerrit Rietveld 1924.

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Gerrit Rietveld: Rot-Blauer Stuh

“Red/Blue chair” 1918 by Gerrit Rietveld.

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Dreikönigsschrein im Kölner Dom

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Alberto Giacometti: Schreitender Mann

Alberto Giacometti

L’Homme qui marche II (Walking Man II), 1960

Bronze

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Gianlorenzo Bernini: Apollo und Daphne (Rom, Villa Borghese)

Apollo and Daphne is a sculpture made by the Italian Gian Lorenzo Bernini between 1622 and 1625. It belongs to the Baroque style. It is a sculptural group of marble and life size exhibited in the Borghese Gallery (Rome).

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Michelangelo: Pietà in St. Peter in Rom

Michelangelo, The Pietà, c.1496

As told by Vasari in his Life of Michelangelo, 1568:

Michelangelo put into this work so much love and effort that (something he never did again) he left his name written across the sash over Our Lady’s chest. The reason for this was that one day he went along to where the statue was and found a crowd of strangers from Lombardy singing its praises; then one of them asked another who made it, only to be told: ‘Our Gobbo from Milan’.

Michelangelo stood there not saying a word, but thinking it very odd to have all his efforts attributed to someone else. Then one night, taking his chisels, he shut himself in with a light and carved his name on the statue.

He was 21 years old when he carved this masterpiece from the marble block. An astounding achievement. And divinely inspired.

Description of the Pieta by Vasari:

…the Pietà was a revelation of all the potentialities and force of the art of sculpture… it staggers belief that the hand of an artist could have executed this inspired and admirable work so perfectly and in so short a time. It is certainly a miracle that a formless block of stone could ever have been reduced to a perfection that nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh. Michelangelo put into this work so much love and effort…

The youthfulness of the Virgin Mary was much criticised and his biographer Condivi brought up the subject with Michelangelo:

Some complain that the Mother is too young compared to the son. One day I was talking to Michelangelo of this objection, who replied:

‘Do you know that chaste women retain their fresh looks much longer than those who are not chaste? …And I tell you, moreover, that such freshness and flower of youth besides being maintained in her by natural causes, it may possibly be that it was ordained by the divine power to prove to the world virginity and perpetual purity of the Mother… Do not wonder then that I have, for all these reasons, made the most Holy Virgin, Mother of God, a great deal younger in comparison with her Son than she is usually represented…’

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Das Tympanon von Saint-Lazare in Autun

Le tympan du Jugement dernier de la Cathédrale Saint-Lazare d'Autan, attribué à Gislebert, ou Gislebertus, vers 1130

The tympanon of Judgment day on the Cathédrale Saint-Lazare, Autun, France, attributed to Gislebert, or Gislebertus, circa 1130

Photo Q. Scouflair / Wikimedia Commons

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Die Bronzetüren des Hildesheimer Doms

Bernward’s bronze doors, Hildesheim Cathedral, Germany. c 1015. These enormous doors - 16 feet tall - are single casts! Check out the hinge pin and the back. They were cast by Bishop Bernward (really, all the sources say he directed the work himself) for the monastery of St Michael’s in Hildesheim and later moved down to the cathedral in the town. The Cathedral was recently restored within an inch of its life, and the narthex in which the doors stand seems very frigid and museum-like rather than the entrance to a church. Oh, well - they’ve lasted a thousand years, so in another thousand things will be different again.

And how do you get a photo MONTAGE to work, as opposed to a straight column of pictures? That used to be an option, but I can’t find it any more.

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Jackson Pollock: Out of the Web: No. 7c (Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Inv. Nr. 2668)

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Claude Monet: L’impression

Claude Monet. Impression, Sunrise. 1872

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Pieter Paul Rubens: Die Geißblattlaube

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Totale, Jan van Eyck: Der Genter Altar

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Detail, Jan van Eyck: Der Genter Altar

detail from the Ghent altarpiece Jan van Eyck (early 15th century)

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Giotto: Die Fresken der Arenakapelle in Padua

La Cappella Scrovegni (The Scrovegni Chapel) in Padua, Italy

Frescoes by Giotto