Ancora imparo

Location: Private collection

Location: Basel Kunstmuseum (Switzerland)

Location: Private Collection

Location: National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (USA)

Location: Georges Pompidou Center, Paris (France)

Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (USA)

Location: Private collection

Location: The National Trust, the Saint Oswald Collection, Nostell Priory (UK)

With this painting we annaunce the changing of this tumblr’s point of view, before it was (like our education in Art’s History had taugh us) an exhibition of art made by “the Great Masters” or “Geniuses” aka male artists. “Why have there been no great women artists?” (1978) the article written by Linda Nochlin has inspired us to start to reflect our feminist ideals in this blog and to give a place where women artists are valued as much as male have always been.

Named after the violet in her cleavage, Titian’s Violante is a classic example of the “belle donne” portraits so popular in 16th century Venice. The sensual physical beauty - the skin that seems to breathe, the silkily shimmering hair - is enhanced by the splendid dress with its richly nuanced material. Characteristics of Titian’s early style are evident here: the partially very delicate brush-work, the tracery of the details,  as well as the colours made intensely luminous by the us of wood as the picture’s surface.

Location: Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna

Born into a noble family from Cremona, Sophonisba was active as an internationally-renowned portrait painter until the end of her long life. She spent the years between 1560 and 1572 at the Spanish court as a lady-in-waiting and drawing teacher of Queen Isabelle de Valois. Unassuming yet self-assured, the artist is pointing at her name in the book she is holding. Despite its miniature-like format this self-portrait reflects the seriousness and ethos of her art: the faithful - unvarnished - rendering of Nature.

Overwhelmed by her helplessness and pain, Mary holds her dead son in her lap. Pale colours and the pothos of marbles by Michelangelo and from antiquity one concentrated into a scene suffused with the silence of death. A crown of thorns and bloody nails in the gloom of the tomb point to the agonies suffered; at the same time, they offer the devout believer reference points for prayers and spiritual immersion, as befitted the intentions of the Counter-Reformation.

The young, pale woman with the sad, tired eyes is a daughter from the marriage of Archduke Ferdinand Charles of Tyrol to Anna de’ Medici, who was a daughter of Cosimo II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Archduchess Maria Magdalena. Claudia Felicitas (1653-1676), here aged nineteen, became the second wife of Emperor Leopold I in 1673.

Bellotto depicts the palace designed by Fischer von Erlach for Emperor Joseph I in 1693/94 after it was remodelled by Pacassi 1744-1749. At that time the central exterior stairway over the carriage entrance was built, and the adjacent building with the Parade Court was connected with the main building. At the same time, the painting also records an actual historical event: on 16 August 1759, during the Seven Years’ War, Empress Maria Theresa received news of the victory of the Austrian army over the Prussians at Kunersdorf.

Bellotto was the nephew and pupil of Antonio Canal, and during his long career as Europ’s most sought-after painter of vedut (Italian for views), he called himself “Canaletto” like his uncle. During his two-year stay in Vienna, Bellotto painted views of Vienna and imperial palaces in the surrounding area for Empress Maria Theresa. This view of Hof palace towards the west makes the once-famous gardens the principal motif of the picture.