My Favorite Artworks in San Pietro in Vincoli (Saint Peter in Chains), Roma

The last Roman institution in the list of those I visited in 2000 is another church - San Pietro in Vincoli, or Saint Peter in Chains.  The main draw there were the relic of the chains that bound Saint Peter when he was imprisoned in Jerusalem - the true chains.  It was a delicate thing in the Reliquary.  It had historical or fantastical values, depending your value on its authenticity.

For the indisputable artistic masterpiece, there was Michelangelo Buonarroti's marble sculpture Moses, the centerpiece of the unfinished tomb design for Pope Julius II, commissioned in 1505, depicting the Biblical character Moses, seated, with two templates under right arm, looking sharply towards afar, with horns on his head, based on a description in the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible used at that time.

The character was alert, intelligent, and sinuous.  An utterly unforgettable image.  Despite the fact that Michelangelo didn't finish his whole design, this finished Moses was finished in every details and though I regretted that I couldn't see the whole project in its entirety, I could not think of any improvement of this monumental statue.  Mountain like immobile, this Moses was a rich mine of wisdom and strength.



The other piece there left me a strong impression was the fresco by Paris Nogari - Freeing St Peter From Prison.  It had marvelous dynamic composition, full of light and dark contrast and the ensuring mystique.  This, naturally, paled comparing to the more famous one in the Vatican by Raphael, which had an additional otherworldly nightmarish feelings.  But this lack of that particular weight did not rob the beauty of this minor masterpiece and the poignancy of seeing it in the church which also contained the relic of those chains.  Particularly interesting were the expressions and gestures of those guards in the foreground, while the Raphael's piece had clearly focus on the central characters - the Angel and St Peter.





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My Favorite Artworks at Basilica Sancti Petri (Papal Basilica of Saint Peter)

After some internal debate, I decided to include some major cathedrals I've visited in this My Favorite Museum Collection Series, though they usually don't hold as many important and/or iconic artworks in history, they still have much artistic values, and some boast very important works, such as the Pietà by Michelangelo Buonarroti in Basilica Sancti Petri (Papal Basilica of Saint Peter).

The image here is not an overwrought melodramatic gesture, rather a sad resignation.  The very young Mary lowering her covered head, as if nodding to the command higher up.  Her face was sweet, delicate and not a day older than the Annunciation.  The body of Jesus was pathetic yet elegant, devoid of the insistent signs of mutilation so rampant in the medieval time.  The interaction between the Virgin Mary and Jesus was tender, intimate and also theatrical.  Mary, holding Jesus on her lap, as if presenting Jesus as offering for the world and to the world.  This was a completely humanistic approach and it was a truly Renaissance product, yet its pyramidal composition was an obvious connection to the classical period, so was the restraint.  The sculpturing of this marble statue was truly masterly - facial expressions true, body molding correct and draperies wonderfully realistic.  This is a drama of sublimity.


Michelangelo's Pietà 
Source: Wikipedia, Author
Stanislav Traykov

There were many wonderful statues in countless niches in the basilica but none commanded attention as the baldacchino designed by the great sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. 


The altar with Bernini's baldacchino
Author Ricardo André Frantz (User:Tetraktys)

A baldachin, or baldaquin is a canopy of state over an altar or throne.  Bernini's baldacchino was massive and imposing.  The elaborate twisted pillars and the crown of it were of black and gold colors - rich, deep and sumptuous, in perfect harmony of the earthly splendor the Catholic church had adopted, which naturally would have caused awe and inevitably, feeling of great excess.

However, I'm not here to evaluate the social impact of this piece - rather, I see it as a masterpiece of decorative or architectural art.

It achieved its goal to inspire and awe perfectly.  Its imposing size ensured that it would not be lost in the cavernous apse of Saint Peter's, rather, it became the centerpiece of it.

In great contrast to the smooth and economic surface of Michelangelo's Pietà, with great classical restraint, here its shapes and details were ever-more elaborate, full of endless variations, full of grace notes.

If Pietà invoked the music of Haydn, then this baldacchino invoked the music of Bellini or even Rossini.  This is an artwork created by a virtuosic artist to celebrate a flamboyant era.  The pillars of Baroque.



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List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

My Favorite Sculptures at Museo Nazionale Romano, Roma

The last museum I visited in Roma is Museo Nazionale Romano (Roman National Museum), which hosted an array of wonderful, even spectacular sculptures, including a version of a marble Discobolus (Disc Thrower), which is as iconic as Leonardo's Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo.  However, despite my love for this famous image, I found this particular version of Discobolus, discovered in 1906 in the ruins of a Roman villa at Tor Paterno in the former royal estate of Castel Porziano, a bit still and plastic. It was heroic and beautiful for sure, but somewhat meaningless.

Instead, my favorites were two sculptures with understated grandeur, relative static poses belied the hidden tension.

The first was a marble statue of the Roman emperor, August as Pontifex Maximus.  It was a full length sculpture, capturing the emperor, in flowing robe, walking quietly, as if weighing something of considerable importance.  It's a fleeting moment, unguarded, without officious pomposity.  A high-born nobleman for sure, but also intensely human.  Pensive, and a bit sad.


August as Pontifex Maximus, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (Museo Nazionale Romano), Rome, Italy

However, that sadness would be eclipsed easily by the grand tragedy of the Dying Niobid, another marble sculpture, capturing one of the queen Niobe's fourteen children being shot to death by the vengeful arrows of the slighted Apollo and Artemis, when Niobe boasted that she had much greater number of children than those of Leto, Mother of Apollo and Artemis.

The Dying Niobid, fleeing, was shot on her back, faltered to be on her knee, bent backwards, both hands reached to the killing tool on her back.  Her frontal torso and one leg exposed, revealing the beauty and the vulnerability of this tragic figure.  Her face was peaceful, almost like asleep, without obvious pain, though she did have a questioning look upon closer inspection.  Even her pose, though unbalanced, was not in painful twist.  The sculptor did not want to shock the viewer, rather, he wanted to present this moment in restrained dignity.  The more peaceful she seemed, the greater the sense of tragedy.


Dying Niobid, Palazzo Massimo, Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome
Source: diffendale



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List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

My Favorite Artworks at Galleria Borghese, Rome

After the miracle of the Musei Vaticani (Vatican Museums), it might be tempting to say that I was saturated and couldn't take in any.  But my greediness knew no bound, therefore, my pilgrimage continued, in the eternal city itself.

The other major art museum in Rome, besides the Vatican and the Musei Capitolini, is Galleria Borghese - the Borghese Gallery, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. "The Galleria Borghese houses a substantial part of the Borghese collection of paintings, sculpture and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (reign 1605–1621)." [Wikipedia]

I remembered that during my visit to Roma, in late September, it was very still quite hot and I was very grateful to be inside the cool villa after long trek in the endless garden ground.  The museum's arrangement was like that in someone's own home - a supremely rich person's home.  I saw the art collections as the residents or guests would have seen, only need to remind myself that they ought not to be touched.

The scale of the villa, though big, was not as big as a palace, therefore deeply deceptive.  I was constantly amazed at how many treasures it had held.  It had a hugely important sculpture collections and some very important paintings.  Flipping through the materials I collected and browse online, I zoom in for these two my favorites:


Apollo and Daphne Carrara's marble cm. 243 | Gian Lorenzo Bernini

This tall marble sculpture by the great sculpture Gian Lorenzo Bernini, was a marvel, vividly captured the moment Daphne, fleeing from the passion of Apollo, transformed into a laurel tree.  Look at how the barks started to encase her lithe body and how her flowing hair and the tips of her hands were turning into leafy branches, therefore the obvious characteristics of Baroque epoch. 

The official website of the Galleria provided further details on this masterpiece: "This life-size marble sculpture, begun by Bernini at the age of twenty-four and executed between 1622 and 1625, has always been housed in the same villa, but originally stood on a lower and narrower base set against the wall near the stairs. Consequently anyone entering the room first saw Apollo from behind, then the fleeing nymph appeared in the process of metamorphosis: bark covers most of her body, but according to Ovid's lines, Apollo's hand can still feel her heart beating beneath it. In 1785, when Marcantonio IV Borghese decided to place the work in the centre of the room, Vincenzo Pacetti designed the present base by using the original pieces, adding plaster to the plinth and another cartouche bearing the Borghese eagle, sculpted by Lorenzo Cardelli."

The second piece of my favorite in this Gelleria is an enigmatic painting by the great Titian (Tiziano), Sacred and Profane Love:


Sacred and Profane Love (1514 ca.) oil on canvas cm. 118x279 | Titian

This painting, made when Titian was about twenty-five to celebrate the marriage of the Venetian Nicolò Aurelio (coat of arms on the sarcophagus) and Laura Bagarotto in 1514, was actually a celebration of beauty of perfection and the chaste and stern woman in white was the bride herself, accompanied by Cupid and Venus, in her most alluring pose and attire. The strong contrast of these two evocative and provocative figures, the wonderful Arcadian landscape, and the playful putto, constituted an enchanting lyrical poetry.

According to the Galleria's description, the current allegorical title "is the result of a late 18th-century interpretation of the painting, which gives a moralistic reading of the nude figure, whereas the artist intended this to be an exaltation of both earthly and heavenly love. Titian's Sacred and Profane Love has virtually become the symbol of the Borghese Gallery itself."


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List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

My Favorite Art Collections at Musei Vaticani (Vatican Museums)

Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0"

My first European trip consisted the visits to Italy and France in the jubilee year 2000.  We arrived in Rome and the first museums we visited were the Musei Vaticani (Vatican Museums).  I definitely started from the top.

There were too many treasures to mention there, including the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo's greatest masterpiece - the Creation and the Last Judgement.  Yet, two sculptures edged them out in my book.  The first is the so-called Belvedere Apollo.  To me, this classical sculpture was the embodiment of perfection.  This young god, with his beautifully proportioned limbs, wonderfully shaped torso, and finely chiseled face and curly locks, displayed himself without hesitation and discomfort.  This sculpture is the ode to an era which valued human and humanity the most and rightly so it became the symbol of the ideal.  Only Michelangelo's David in Florence, Italy, came close to the radiant humanity, confidence and beauty.


Belvedere Apollo (2nd century Roman copy of 4th century BC bronze sculpture of artist from Attica) (Cortile ottagonale del Belvedere, Octagonal Court of Belvedere)
Source: Cambridge 2000 Gallery

The second choice of mine is the opposite in mood and movement.  It was a group sculpture -Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being strangled by sea serpents, as depicted by Homer in Iliad.   This much-admired Laocoön and his Sons has been attributed by Pliny the Elder to the Rhodian sculptors Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydorus.

Here, they were in fear, agony and terror.  They struggled and fought, helplessly. Yet, they were not an entangled mess.  They were clearly delineated, beautifully illustrated and as if even horrible death could not destroy the humanness of these three, however pitiful they were.

This sculpture is full of movements and dynamic poses.  Highly dramatic and effective yet never betrayed the economy of classics.  An absolute masterpiece.


U.S. public domain, source: Wikipedia




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My Favorite Collections at Musei Capitolini, Roma

Source: Legion of Honor

Originally, I was planning to describe my two favorite collections from each museums I've visited, more or less in the order of my visits. However, the current exhibit of Bernini's Medusa at Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco, made me think more of the museum it belongs to, therefore, I'll make another exception and talk about this museum ahead of its planned schedule.

Medusa is a wonderful 1640s marble sculpture on loan from Musei Capitolini (Capitoline Museums), Rome.  It is incredibly horrifying yet sensual.  A masterpiece.  Yet, when I visited Rome in 2000, other two sculptures in the courtyard of the museum impressed me more.

One is the Colossus of Constantine.  Wikipedia described this work vividly: "The Colossus of Constantine was a colossal acrolithic statue of the late Roman emperor Constantine the Great (c. 280–337) that once occupied the west apse of the Basilica of Maxentius near the Forum Romanum in Rome. Portions of the Colossus now reside in the Courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori of the Musei Capitolini, on the Capitoline Hill, above the west end of the Forum."

"The great head, arms and legs of the Colossus were carved from white marble, while the rest of the body consisted of a brick core and wooden framework, possibly covered with gilded bronze. (“Acrolithic” means “stone at the extremities”.) Judging by the size of the remaining pieces, the seated, enthroned figure would have been about 12 m (40 ft) high. The head is about 2 ½ m high and each foot is over 2 m long."

They are incredibly huge.  Powerful.  Stern.  In humane.  If anyone has any doubt of the grandiosity of the Roman Empire, these fragments would rid them once for all.

Colossal statue of Constantine: head

313-324 AD

Marble

cm 260

In the same grandiose scale, the marble sculpture Oceanus framed the plaza with his powerful body.  Yet, this water god was nothing but menacing.  He was a indulgent father figure, brought bounty to the people.  Solid and comforting.

Besides the Olympian scales, this god also echoes the emperor in the somewhat stiff contour and pose, less polished and with less curvature, than that of Bernini's fine piece.  More primitive.  And that was precisely what made these two pieces most impressive.

Colossal statue restored as Oceanus: “Marforio”
(Ocean god or River god)

1rst - 2nd century AD

Marble

cm 242

My Favorite Museum Collection Series

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<< My Favorite Museum Collection Series 7: An Exception - Another Favorite Work from De Young Museum, San Francisco

List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

Traveling the World - Video Presentation of Painting Inspired by Wonderful Cities

Traveling is a sure way to stimulate one's mind and for me, it often means a lot of materials to work with.

Just over one decade, I have completed several paintings inspired by wonderful cities. My progression was rather clear that I was less and less eager to represent the cities as a journalistic reports, rather through more personal lenses:



For more fish or animal related paintings, please visit my Flickr photo set: Cityscape

>> Video presentations of paintings and drawings, Part V: Flower Paintings in Video
<< Video presentations of paintings and drawings, Part III: "Sibyls" - Portraits of Old Women

List of Video Presentation of My Artworks

Travel Inspired Paintings

I'm about to travel for a while. While making preparations, I remembered many trips I took before, particularly with the purpose of sightseeing, and the works I produced afterwards:





















Rape Fields (Yangtze Delta, China, 1991)























Street Scene, Roma (Rome, Italy - Italy, France 2000)























Venice (Venice, Italy - Italy, France 2000)























Via Italia (Italy - Italy, France 2000)























Woods (Italy - Italy, France 2000)



















La Seine, I (Paris, France - Italy, France 2000)






















La Seine, II (Paris, France - Italy, France 2000)






















A Young Frenchman (Paris, France - Italy, France 2000)






















Winter Flowers (Shenyang, China - 2003)



















Bruges, Impression (Bruges, Belgium - UK, Belgium and the Netherlands, 2004)


















Sediment (Beijing, China - 2005)













Beyond (Chengdu, China - Chengdu, Three Gorges, Xi'an and Xianyang 2007)






















Orange Parisian (Paris, France - 2008)