Agnolo Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Maiano), Monticelli bei Florenz 1503 - Florenz 1572
Heiliger Sebastian - Saint Sebastian (1528 - 30)
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

St Sebastian here is portrayed not bleeding from his wounds, but more in the manner of a god of classical mythology or a young, slender Apollo. He is identified by the arrow which he holds in his hand and by the second arrow which cleanly penetrates his side without drawing blood.
Source:Web Gallery of Art
_____

Agnolo Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Maiano), wurde in Monticelli bei Florenz 1503 geboren und starb in Florenz 1572. Bronzino, ein sehr gebildeter und belesener Mann, gilt als einer der berühmtesten Vertreter des Florentiner Manierismus und als hervorragender Porträtmaler. Er war Schüler von Raffaellino del Garbo und Jacopo Pontormo und während einer Rom-Reise lernt er die Werke Michelangelos kennen und schätzen. Ab 1540 war er Hofmaler der Medici. Seinen Gemälden ist durch die eigenwillige Verwendung der Farben ein kühler Charakter eigen, aber zugleich auch eine körperlich-plastische Darstellung.

Tags:   Manierismus Mannerism Frankfurt Städel Ausstellung Maniera Exhibition Maniera Agnolo Bronzino Heiliger Sebastian Saint Sebastian Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid Hessen Hesse Deutschland Germany Frankfurt am Main

© All Rights Reserved

Albrecht Dürer, Nürnberg 1471 - 1528
Jesus unter den Schriftgelehrten - Jesus among the Doctors (1506)
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Dürer depicts six rabbis forming a circle in which the central figure is that of the young Christ. The hands of one of the rabbis and those of Christ create the visual focus of the composition due to their position and their highly dynamic and volumetric nature. The half-figures and the location of the heads against an almost non-existent background relate this work to 15th-century Italian painting, but the caricatural distortions of the face of the rabbi with the white cap on the right suggest Leonardo and even Bosch and it could be said that Dürer combined Italian and northern elements in this work with great originality. Beauty and ugliness, youth and old age are contrasted in a striking and unusual manner. The panel is dated and signed on the painted slip of paper in the foreground which also has the Latin phrase “work executed in five days”, the time that Dürer may have taken to produce this composition, not including the preparatory studies for the hands, books and Christ’s face now in the Albertina, Vienna, and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg and which probably took the artist longer. Two copies of the composition (one of them a drawing in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection) have the words “Fecit Romae” on this slip of paper. This additional phrase on two faithful copies of the present work has been used to support the controversial suggestion that the Dürer was in Rome at the end of 1506 and the start of 1507, a period in which nothing is known of his activities.

Extract from www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/durer-albrecht...

Tags:   Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid Spanien Spain Espagna Albrecht Dürer Jesus unter den Schriftgelehrten Jesus among the Doctors

© All Rights Reserved

Antonis van Dyck / Sir Anthony van Dyck, Antwerpen 1599 - London 1641
Jacques Le Roy (1631)
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

The present portrait dates from the period when Van Dyck was based in Antwerp from 1627 to 1632, between his trip to Italy and his second, final trip to England. Among all the genres in which the artist worked, it was portraiture that brought Van Dyck the most esteem and in which he produced his greatest achievements. Van Dyck’s formulas in this genre were already fully developed in his Genoese period, and in his portraits of Genoese aristocrats he replaced the spontaneity of his earlier images of Flemish clients with a presentation in which the elegance, refinement and slim carriage of his sitters established a model that Van Dyck would take to its extremes of perfection during his second period in England. Depicted individually or as pairs, these images, which are extremely carefully devised with regard to the composition and poses, are based on the artist’s skilled draughtsmanship. They use long, elegant proportions for the figures that convey an air of refinement and delicacy. Van Dyck was able to depict even his least attractive sitters with beauty and grace while retaining a physical lifelikeness, an ability that was highly appreciated in the court circles in which he worked. This aspect of his style on occasions led to the criticism of flattery on the artist’s part towards his distinguished clients, although it is also true that some of his patrons complained that he did not make them look attractive enough.

Jacques Le Roy was a high-ranking official in the Spanish government of the Netherlands. He occupied an important position in military administration and was a member of the Brabant Chamber of Commerce, first as a councillor then as president in 1632. One year prior to the execution of this portrait Le Roy obtained the title and estate of Herbaix.

The sitter in the present painting was identified on the basis of a print after the portrait by Adriaen Lommelin. The print has an inscription at the bottom edge that provides the name of the sitter, enumerates some of his virtues and gives the date of Van Dyck’s painting. It was published by Gillis Hendricx in 1654 and again in 1759. In the print, the figure of the sitter is reversed, the background simplified and a coat-of-arms added at the upper left corner. In addition, the head is presented more frontally in the print while it is also possible to see the breeches of the suit and one stocking, elements that are difficult to discern in the painting due to the tonality of this area and the fact that the pigments have darkened over time.

The present portrait has features characteristic of Van Dyck’s second Antwerp period in which his art reflected the influence of his trip to Italy. The manner in which the sitter is located and the distinguished pose that places all the emphasis on the head and hands recall Genoese works by the artist. The ample red curtain on the left that acts as a backdrop and contrasts with the strong red of the chair on which Le Roy is seated was also a device used by the painter during his Italian period.

Source: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Tags:   Anthonis van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck Anton van Dyck Antoon van Dyck Antoine van Dyck Antonis van Dyck Jacques Le Roy Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid

© All Rights Reserved

Antonello da Messina, (Antonio di Giovanni de Antonio), Messina um 1430 - 1479
Bildnis eines Mannes - Portrait of a Man (1472 - 86)
Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

This portrait of an unknown sitter is one of around a dozen surviving autograph portraits by Antonello da Messina and its format and typology conform to other known works. The sitter is located against a dark background, his face emerging forcefully. He is arranged in three-quarter profile and looks at the viewer with a penetrating gaze. The solidity of the head, in which the details such as the hair and stubble are rendered with great precision, are softened by delicate outlines and a modelling that gives the features a gentler air and suggests Italian art. The portrait is signed at the lower edge on the parapet that leads into the composition. This device was used by Antonello in other portraits such as the ones in the Museo Civico in Turin and in the Louvre. The artist also favoured the parapet for the location of a cartellino with his name and the date of the work (as found in the above-mentioned panels in Turin and the Louvre) or to include his name in the manner of an inscription (as in the present panel).With regard to the date of the work, two suggestions have been made: slightly prior to the artist’s trip to Venice, around 1472–73, or during his time in Venice between 1475 and 1476. Rosenbaum compared the bust of this young man with two others by the artist: one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and another in the Johnson collection in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The panel was cut down at the lower edge in the past and transferred to its present support.

Extrarct from www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/messina-antone...

Tags:   Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid Spanien Spain Espana Antonello da Messina Bildnis eines Mannes Portrait of a man

© All Rights Reserved

August Macke, Meschede 1887 - Perthes-les-Hurlus 1914
Ausreitende Husaren - Hussars on a sortie (1913)
Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Hussars on a Sortie displays the powerful influence of Futurist simultaneity on August Macke’s painting. The German translation of the 1910 Technical Manifesto of Futurist Paintingwas published by Herwarth Walden in the magazine Der Sturm in March 1912 while his Berlin gallery was showing an exhibition of the Italians’ works.

According to Vriesen, the work was painted in the artist’s Bonn studio in 1913 and the subject matter, so uncommon in his oeuvre, may stem from his enlistment as a voluntary in the 160th Infantry Regiment in 1908. The sketch-like nature of the composition is no doubt due to the fact that Macke was essentially concerned with capturing movement. The image of horsemen in action was a motif that was especially appreciated by the Futurists, who referred to the galloping of horses as follows in their manifesto: “On account of the persistency of an image upon the retina, moving objects constantly multiply themselves; their form changes like rapid vibrations, in their mad career. Thus a running horse has not four legs, but twenty, and their movements are triangular.”

Source: Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Tags:   Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid Spanien Spain Espagna August Macke Ausreitende Husaren Hussars on a sortie Expressionismus Expressionism

© All Rights Reserved