vince’s ear

Death stares us in the face- as is evident in the above detail of an anonymous French painting. It is around every corner, with the threat to show up in an instant to breathe its icy breath down our necks and snatch our frail lives in its bony fingers. There is nothing we can do to stop it, and sooner or later it will consume each and every one of us.

This image is an example of vanitas, coming from the Latin for “emptiness,” and was a popular theme for painters particularly in Northern Europe during the 17th century. This was a time when the still life was becoming a favorite genre and was no longer considered a low art. Caravaggio said that a well portrayed bowl of fruit is as difficult to paint as a person. This was also a time when many painters preferred to depict scenes of pleasure and leisure. Hence the reaction of the rise of vanitas still lifes.

Vanitas paintings show how vain humanity is. A typical object is the skull, frequently juxtaposed against symbols of human pleasures such as musical instruments. The skull above is a particularly powerful statement as it looks in the mirror with black sockets, searching for meaning- searching for anything. It is a warning of the transience of all life.

It is surrounded by games such as chess and cards. Isn’t life a game or a gamble? We see objects of worldly pursuits such as the sword and money purse with coins, books to represent our thirst for knowledge, tulips to show some hint of our vitality. And yet, no viewer can escape the ominous skull. It is a motionless and unforgiving reminder that all human aspirations, hopes, and dreams eventually lead to the grave. We will all end up as dust. The orange will rot, the tulips will wilt.

Memento mori- Remember that you are mortal.

See also Death and Art, Triumph of Death, and Anamorphic Perspective

I wanted to quick show you this picture that I really liked that I first saw on Lines and Colors, where Charley Parker gives us a good commentary. It is called Barge Haulers on the Volga or The Volga Boatmen and was painted in 1873 by Ilya Repin.

Born in the Ukraine, Repin became an important Russian Realist painter and sculptor with artworks usually making a statement on tensions in the social order. After his death a Repin cult was established which praised the artist for being a progressive. His works were painted in shocking detail which seem to put you in the scene much like a good descriptive book. His were the kinds of paintings which make you feel the heat or shade your eyes from the sun.

He was considered not just a Realist because he could portray a landscape as if you were seeing the actual situation with your own eyes, but because he depicted a real situation in terms of social reality- i.e. the differences in class amongst the subjects. Take Religious Procession in the Region of Kursk, for instance. Here we see all social classes- the raggedy poor and infirm juxtaposed against the finely dressed elite, with the State helping to separate the classes in the form of mounted policemen high and mighty on their “high horses.” The policeman on horseback about to strike the woman is as unnoticed in this painting as any police brutality is. All this while they all can agree on this form of religious worship.

The picture above (click for full resolution) can be seen as commentary on the plight of the peasant class. In amazing detail we see this group of laborers with a lack of supervision- the only hint is the sailors barely visible on the barge itself, who stand and wait.

Clear emphasis is placed on the young one in the center. Though his hands are “working man’s hands,” his spirit has not yet callused as the other men’s have. While the much older workers have a quietness and a just-get-it-done work ethic which comes from a lifetime of hard work, the young lad gazes off open-mouthed and wishes he could be absolutely anywhere else. Meanwhile the old man next to him has learned to mentally escape as he jots down some lines of poetry ignoring the sweltering heat and back-breaking work.

These men are most likely the sailors from the barge or for hire to help tug the ships, but it is not totally clear. They could be prisoners or on a work detail akin to community service. Regardless their situations would be similar. If they are prisoners, no guards’ portraits appear. Either way it reminds me of Van Gogh’s Prison Courtyard where the bourgeois guards in their top hats stand tall and look on at the inmates in their “sunshine call” exercise. The sight of the butterflies fluttering off is similar to the boy’s gaze in the Barge Haulers. It’s the idea of “so close but so far” in both situations.

If Repin had included the top hat elite with the women with their parasols present to enjoy the entertainment, this would indeed have been a more biting social statement. This happened at the battle of the First Bull Run a few years earlier in the states when the rich were delighted to view the battle and watch the lower class young men get slaughtered.

The elite, the wealthy statesmen, and the “haves and have mores” are indeed very much detached from the reality of the lower classes. “Send them all a $600 check and a sack of potatoes,” they say, and everything will be fine. Let them eat cakes.

None of that will ever change. But on the bright side we will always have things to make fun of in our paintings and editorials.

Fiery Pit of the Damned

On the mystical island of the ABC series Lost, one of the characters raises the question that the survivors of the plane crash were indeed not survivors at all but have found themselves in hell. “A little hot for heaven, isn’t it?” asks one to the other after it was clear he didn’t get his meaning at first. If it were me, however, the idea of a tropical island for the rest of eternity doesn’t sound half bad.

The ability to ponder our existence is what sets us apart from our close primate relatives. Some of us may smell just as bad as chimps and are almost as hairy, but to question the meaning of life is truly a human capability. For as long as we have had this ability, we have gazed into the heavens and questioned our place in the cosmos, and wondered “Why are we here,” and “What in the hell happens to us when we die?”

Of course, regardless of our religious and spiritual beliefs, we can only make guesses in this lifetime. But leave it to our amazing imaginations and fears to conjure up all kinds of mythical fairy tales, as well as cautionary tales, of what could be waiting for us on the other side. And unless you can bring 2 million SPF sunblock, you’d better not mind roasting a bit if you haven’t lived your life minding your Christian P’s and Q’s. And roasting is only the start of it- then you have harpies, demons, and other hellions ready to have their torturous way with you. Sounds like fun.

With as entertaining an idea like this, it is no surprise that the subject of Hell has been a favorite one amongst artists throughout history, religious or secular.

Hieronymus Bosch and The Garden of Earthly Delights

One of the foremost painters of Hell who comes to mind is the Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch. In his Garden of Earthly Delights, Bosch uses a triptych to portray the Creation on the left, the world partaking in Earthly sin in the center, and the ultimate demise of mankind on the right: Hell. His hell is a unique and gruesome one, filled with demons sodomizing victims with musical instruments, bird/human hybrids eating people only to defecate them into a pit, and hellions taking a break in a saloon made out of the gut of a giant tree man. This is not my type of tourist destination. Joseph Bonaparte in Goya’s Ghosts, while examining the panels, “This is not my type of garden, and certainly not my idea of ‘delights.’”

The River of Styx by Joachim Patinir

Part of the mythology of Hell is that the damned are ferried over the River Styx to Hell by a character called Charon. Charon is shown by Michelangelo in the Last Judgment as arriving at the mouth of hell and forcing his passengers off in a non-negotiable and frightening way. Here Joachim Patinir portrays Charon in a wide-angled landscape with both the land of the living and the land of the doomed visible. You can barely see an unfortunate soul cowering and looking up at his devilish escort.

Dante’s Inferno

Probably the most important and well known pieces of literature on Hell is the Divine Comedy by Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy is broken down into three parts- Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Hell is separated into nine circles leading to the center of Earth where Satan is. Each circle is worse with sinners and their appropriate punishments. Above is Dante and His Poem, by Domenico di Michelino, which shows the poet in front of the gates to Hell.

Seen above is The Barque of Dante by Eugène Delacroix.

Above is quite possibly the darkest and most disturbing paintings by an artist who usually painted pretty girls and angels. It is Dante and Virgil in Hell, by William Adolphe Bougeureau and shows Dante with his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, as they witness some demon’s punishment of the damned.

The Last Judgment

What better place to warn the impending doom of sinners than on the back wall of the most important chapel in Rome? Some years after he painted the ceiling, Michelangelo painted the Last Judgment in the Sistene Chapel. This was the subject of heated debate amongst the cardinals who called the fresco obscene and immoral on account of the naked flesh. One of the painting’s fiercest critics begged the pope to let him tear it down, calling it worthy of bathhouses, and not the Sistene. In response Michelangelo painted the cardinal’s image as Minos, judge of the underworld. When the cardinal complained, the Pope replied that his jurisdiction did not reach Hell, therefore he could do nothing but allow the portrait to remain.

The Prince of Darkness

No article on Hell would be complete without showcasing the star of the show, the Fallen Angel, the Serpent, the Beast, Lucifer, Satan, Great Red Dragon, the Devil. He is a trickster, some say, convincing the world he does not exist. It lies, it coerces, it endlessly wars with Good, Heaven, and God. Artists have rendered the Beast in numerous ways, usually showing it with horns, scales, and red flesh. Above are the Great Red Dragon watercolor paintings by William Blake.

This is Saint Wolfgang and the Devil by Michael Pacher, showing not so much of a monstrous beast but as a slithering and frail Satan, who can be beaten by the strong will of a saint.

Here Michelangelo portrays the devil as a serpent in the garden of Eden on the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel.

Hell on Earth

No one says hell is confined to the afterlife, as Bruegel points out in Triumph of Death.

All of these show a wide variety of the Devil and the fiery afterlife which can only come from our imaginations creating myths and legends as any other tale has been developed. Of course, it being almost May, the summer heat here is humid Pennsylvania would lead to believe that the idea of hell is not that far fetched.

See also The 10 Scariest Paintings

I love Pieter Bruegel. He was one of the most original and imaginative painters of the late Netherlandish Renaissance. His paintings are so full of interesting little scenes and characters with so much detail you can stare at them for hours. Okay maybe you have better things to do but I can stare at them for hours.

He was nicknamed “Peasant Bruegel” to distinguish him from the rest of the Brueghel artist dynasty (Pieter the Younger, Jan, Jan The Younger, etc.), of which he was the patriarch. “Peasant” comes from his landscapes and town settings being filled with the daily activities of the peasantry, both at work and play. One of the largest influences on his art was the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, which is most evident in Bruegel’s more gruesome allegories such as Mad Meg and the Triumph of Death. Though his scenery was usually filled with characters and stories, he was considered a master of landscapes, getting most of his inspiration from nature. Some of his notable landscapes are Hunters in the Snow, The Tower of Babel, and Landscape With The Fall of Icarus.

Some of the most interesting paintings he’s done are Children’s Games, in which at least 50 recognizable games are played in the streets of a village by children dressed in adult clothing (to show adult daily affairs are akin to the games of children), and Netherlandish Proverbs (aka The Blue Cloak, detail above), in which 100 adages and witticisms are creatively portrayed all around a village. You may remember the first post about Netherlandish Proverbs where several proverbs were listed along with their meanings. But these are just too much fun for only one post!

Some More Proverbs

To hang one’s cloak according to the wind- To adapt one’s viewpoint to the current popular opinion.

To toss feathers to the wind- To work fruitlessly.

It is ill to swim against the stream- It is difficult to oppose the general opinion. A similar to this is “Ride a horse in the direction it is going”- Abraham Lincoln.

To not care whose house is on fire as long as one can warm oneself at the blaze- To take every opportunity regardless of the consequences to others.

He who has spilled his porridge can not get all of it up again- Once something is done it cannot be undone again; though a mistake can be mostly fixed, some damage/loss will remain.

To cast roses before swine- To waste effort on the unworthy (pearls before swine).

To shave the fool without lather- To trick somebody.

To shit on the world- To despise everything.

To play on the pillory- To attract attention to one’s shameful acts.

To fall from the ox onto the ass- To fall on hard times. One I like which is somewhat similar to this is “To jump from the frying pan into the fire” - To go from one bad situation to a worser one.

To gaze at the stork- To waste time.

To keep one’s eye on the sail- To be alert.

To fall through the basket- To be rejected.

To fry the whole herring for the sake of the roe- To do much to achieve a little.

One shears sheep, the other shears pigs- One has all the advantages, the other has none.

The whole list at wikipedia.

See also Proverb Packed Painting Portrays Pandemonium.

A large painting of a large woman is expected to bring in large amounts of moolah at an auction next month. The painting is by none other than Lucien Freud, the British painter who paints people as they are, with no sign of idealism whatsoever. So what if a few rolls of fat make their way onto the portrait, or you just don’t look as beautiful as you thought? This painter is a painter of reality how he sees it.

Freud is known for his impasto paintings with neutral tones often depicting nudes and sleeping people. His unforgiving portraits make no effort to hide physical features or unsightliness, and his realistic portrayals will leave no wart or blemish undepicted. In fact, you might say his paintings are borderline exaggerated, and may resemble caricatures. His portrait of the queen was met with a little hostility for not making her more beautiful. Is that a five o’clock shadow?

The painting above is called Benefits Supervisor Sleeping and is expected to be bring in $36 million at Christie’s Auction House in New York. This would be a record for the largest sum paid for a painting by a living artist, beating the previous record of $23.5 million for a Jeff Koons painting last year. The model is a London civil worker named Sue Tilley, who Freud affectionately calls “Big Sue.” She represents his propensity for painting people of odd proportions and big figures. She claims Freud chose her as a model because he could get the highest value for his money- more pounds of model for his pounds sterling.

You can’t begin to describe Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his amazing art in one or two posts. The posts The Wintry Scenes of Pieter Bruegel and The Triumph of Death described two of the painter’s masterpieces. But there is so much more to Bruegel, with so many interesting stories being played out across towns, villages, and countrysides of the Netherlands during the Renaissance.

One of the few times my high school art teacher gave us any freedom was when we had to use linear perspective to draw a street with houses on either side and a horseman in the center. Everyone else copied the original to the t, but when my teacher allowed me to add characters to the scene, it was time to unleash the Bruegel fury. I had always admired the packed peasant streets of Bruegel’s towns such as Children’s Games, and Netherlandish Proverbs (above), so I drew all kinds of people hanging out of windows, playing tricks one each other, playing games or fighting, etc. You know, the kind of things that make an ordinarily plain and simple landscape entertaining and full of life.

Pieter Bruegel painted Netherlandish Proverbs early in his career and shows a highly imaginative composition illustrating the foolishness of life with 100 identifiable proverbs. He does this in such a way as to show each proverb as part of a larger scene, which read literally would be quite the chaotic landscape. Each adage, many of which are still used today, blends right into the next. If you didn’t know it was a painting full of metaphors and folk wisdoms, you might just think it was a crazy, topsy-turvy world unfolding before your eyes, not dissimilar to many of Bruegel’s other paintings.

Some Proverbs

The sow pulls the bung- Negligence will be rewarded with disaster.

It depends on the fall of the cards- It is up to chance.

The world is turned upside down- Everything is the opposite of what it should be.

Leave at least one egg in the nest- Always have something in reserve.

The roof has lathes/ the walls have ears- Someone could be listening.

To have the roof tiled with tarts- To be living in the lap of luxury/ abundance. (The Land of Cockaigne)

To be a hen feeler- To count one’s chickens before they hatch.

They both shit in the same hole- They are in agreement.

To throw one’s money in the water- To waste one’s money.

Big fish eat the little fish.

To have fire in one hand, water in the other- To be two-faced and stir up trouble.

Many parts have more than one meaning:

To Bang one’s head against a brick wall - To try to achieve something impossible. One foot shod, the other bare- Balance is paramount.

To bell the cat- To be indiscreet about plans that should be secret. Armed to the teeth- Heavily armed. To be an iron biter- To be indiscreet/boastful.

To have a toothache behind the ears- To be a malingerer. To be pissing against the moon- To waste one’s time on a futile endeavor. Here hangs the pot- It is the opposite of what it should be.

Where the gate is open, the pigs will run to the corn- Carelessness breeds disaster. When the corn is less, the pigs are more- If one person gains, then another must lose (no free lunch). To run like one’s backside is on fire- To be in great distress. He who eats fire, shits sparks- Do not be surprised of the outcome of a dangerous venture.

Technorati Tags: proverbs, renaissance, painting, witticisms, sayings, folklore

The full list at wikipedia.

Look at the painting- beasts in profile, perhaps a hunt- painted with pigments from the earth mixed with the fat of the animals it portrays. I see remnants of another era. I see a mural painted by people like you and I- more so than we might want to believe. As you look, feel the experience of this painting. Can’t you see the light from the fire flickering? Smell the cave. Close your eyes and feel the damp air around you? You are in a cave, painting on the walls the essence of the daily lives of you and your community. Imagine it.

Imagine what it would be like to live in 15,000 B.C.E. when the painting above was painted. This is long before any of the comforts we know has even remotely been thought of. This is long before transportation and communication was even possible, save for between your immediate surroundings. It’s long before supermarkets and specialists- so you have to make your own clothes, catch and prepare your own food- with a limited diet, and completely take care of yourself, without dentists, doctors, or anybody else because you barely even understand your own body and how it works. Your life expectancy is about thirty, you will die of a common cold- if you survive through the winter at all, and danger lurks around every corner. How does it feel?

The Hall of the Bulls

The painting above is prehistoric, meaning it was painted before human history. That is- before history could have been kept- long before in fact. This particular cave painting was found in Lascaux, France, in 1940, and is called the Rotunda, or Hall of the Bulls. It is placed about ten feet above floor level and depicts a procession of horses and bulls. It is part of a group of paintings of Upper Paleolithic art found in French caves and is some of the earliest examples of art in history. Some other caves, however, have been found with paintings which date back some 25,000 years.

The Lascaux caves are currently off limits to the public, following a restoration period which is now under observation. Some 2,000 images were found to decorate the walls of the caves, many of which are deteriorating, or difficult to discern. Of the images that are easily recognizable, over 900 are made out to be animals, with 600 having been identified. Of these animals, the majority are horses, then stags, cattle and bison. Several images are of a cat, a bird, a bear, a rhinoceros, and a human.

What do these paintings tell us? First and foremost we see a dominant animal theme. We can clearly see the importance of the animals to prehistoric man. This was before animals were domesticated for agriculture, meat, or pets, which means all animals were wild in the eyes of our cave friends. Beasts were both prey and predator.

Sounds pretty scary doesn’t it? Nonetheless, animals were an important part in the preserving of their lives. A successful hunt meant the difference between thriving and living through the winter and an end to their existence. With a limited diet of fish, nuts, berries, and meat, they could use all the food they could get, and they couldn’t take a ride to the supermarket to get it. There lives were in their own hands. On the other hand, the landscape was nowhere near a safe place to venture in terms of animal threats. Larger and more ferocious animals lurked around and hunted you. They had to eat too.

So it’s no surprise that we see animals taking center stage in cave art, having so much importance. A lack of animals meant a lack of meat, and an overabundance of predator beasts such as tigers meant impending danger. The animals painted on the walls are not glorified, rather painted realistically from nature. The vary in size, from small, almost pictograph representations to extremely large, namely the seventeen foot long bull in the Hall of the Bulls- the largest animal discovered in cave art. The beasts were always in profile, and usually in motion.

Who Were The Painters?

Archaeologists have used everything they could from around the caves as clues for understanding the lives of these people. They conjecture that these folk didn’t actually live inside these caves, but rather in shelters just in and around the cave openings. To be able to paint on the cave walls, they used lamps made from plant materials and animal fat. They used paints made from pigment mixed with animal fat, usually combined in small cups or with flat stones. The colors were mostly red and black, but sometimes yellow, maroon, and violet. Pigments were found naturally such as iron oxide for red, ocher for brown and yellow, and chalk for white as well as for lightening colors. Black was derived from manganese.

It’s hard to say exactly what was going on in their lives judging simply from the artwork. Many of the symbols found on the walls remain enigmatic. For instance, hand prints have been found which lack one or more fingers. Some historians believe this could have been some kind of hunter’s code. Others think the fingers could have been removed in some sort of primitive religious ritual. Other symbols are hard to make head or tails of, including basic shapes often filled in, arrangements of dots, arrows and bars. Could these symbols be just for decoration? At this point it is almost impossible to say.

What can be said, however, is that these prehistoric artists were crafty. Besides simply painting, they were sculptors as well as engravers. Some paintings show reliefs of figures, in whole or in part. Eyes and muzzles were sometimes cut into the wall before paint was applied. In some instances natural bumps and grooves from the stone were taken advantage of to portray parts of the animals and other figures.

The actual painting was accomplished mostly by using hands- fingers to trace thick lines. But besides their hands, some sorts of makeshift primitive paintbrushes were used from branches, twigs, and even bristles of hair or animal fur. These early artists used color contrast, shading, cross hatching, and varied line thickness to portray their subjects with an amazing accuracy. Primitive as they were, talentless they were not.

It goes without saying that we can’t pinpoint who the individual artists must have been. Writing was not invented for tens of thousands of years so the painter could hardly leave his or her signature. Interestingly, though, specialists have noticed certain styles among the caves and how they have evolved. The styles range from three different periods- the first being a crude portrayal of animals, barely formed and hardly realistic looking. The second is a bit more evolved, showing more recognizable animals with rounded bellies, snouts, muzzles, eyes and horns, yet the legs remained crude. The third stage shows animals which can be identified by species, and whose movement has been portrayed. At this stage, art was becoming much more realistic. The Lascaux cave paintings, seen above, belong to this period.

It’s interesting to wonder who the actual artists were who created these cave masterpieces. Was there a single artist responsible or did the community contribute? Could the whole theme of showing the hunt be the result of a holy man or religious figure praying for success? Since people are found to have not lived in these caves, were they used for special rituals or ceremonies, which the paintings are meant to complement?

No one can say for sure, only hypothesize and take educated guesses. But we can say these cave people’s lives are fascinating. Before society as whole began to take care of itself and make leaps and bounds in science and technology to make life easier, these people were etching an existence on their own, with only the help of nature, which is often cruel and unforgiving. Their art gives a glimpse of who they were, yet leave us to question what they were thinking. What we know is they were early Man, some of the first thinking humans, whose slow and steady evolution brought us where we are today. We can thank them for not letting the elements, the odds, and Mother Nature get the best of them. Otherwise we wouldn’t have anything, let alone art. But this where art began, the whole shebang started right there in those dark caverns. If they could only see where it’s gotten to. While we ponder at abstract paintings, minimalism, hyperrealism, and any other new form of expression, just remember one thing-

Let’s not forget where we came from.

Technorati Tags: cave paintings, primitive, prehistoric, art, painting, history, civilization

Take a look at this picture. What do you see? A couple of stately gentlemen, probably fifteenth or early sixteenth century continental European, some instruments, globes, a gigantic four foot long skull, some books, a lute.

Wait, a gigantic skull?!

Look closely at the painting again, maybe you didn’t see it the first time. Did you catch that? Be honest. Don’t worry if you didn’t. Although you may think a humongous skull would be conspicuous, in this case the artist has shown it anamorphically. That’s right, he used anamorphic perspective, a perspective technique requiring the viewer to either use special instruments to see the object correctly, or in this case one must approach the canvas from the left to be able to see the perfect rendering of a large human skull.

Yesterday we saw some Trompe l’oeil examples and how paintings can fool the eye into believing what is seen is real. The term comes from Baroque times, but the use of perspective tricks is known since ancient times. With the advances of the Renaissance came better understandings of perspective, which brought back techniques such as Trompe l’oeil.

This particular painting is called The Ambassadors, and is by Hans Holbein the Younger, the same German artist who gave us the most famous Henry VIII portrait. It is a very interesting painting and has been studied intensely for its meanings. The sitters have been identified as Jean de Dinteville, French Ambassador to England on the left, and Georges de Selve, Bishop of Levaur, on the right. But recently de Selve seems out of the picture, and his elder brother Francois is thought to be the subject. This is still up for debate. What we do know is the inscription on the book by the subject on the right reads, “His age is 25,” while the inscription on the dagger of the subject on the left reads, “His age is 29.”

The painting is loaded with still life. They include items that reference the “Age of Exploration”- two globes (one the world and one the stars), astronomical tools, and a sundial. The symbolism and the whole composition with a secular man and a religious man can possibly mean a unification of capitalism and the Church.

Then there’s that skull. Let’s see it undistorted:

Including a skull in a painting is a Northern European style called vanitas, or “emptiness” meant to symbolize the transient nature of vanity- no matter who you are you will eventually become a pile of bones. Some believe this painting shows the three stages of existence- the heavens (astrolabe and celestial globe), the living world (books, musical instruments), and death (the creepy skewed skull).

While the exact meaning of Holbein’s work The Ambassadors leaves speculation, no one is unsure that this is the finest example of anamorphic perspective.

Technorati Tags: perspective, anamorphosis, holbein, renaissance

Ever see a painting where you thought you could just reach out and grab something out of it? Some paintings are so lifelike, look so real, it’s hard to tell yourself you’re looking at a canvas when you’re brain is sure it’s looking at a real situation.

This is called Trompe l’oeil. It’s a French phrase meaning “to fool the eye,” and involves painting in such high detail that the finished product is an optical illusion, making the viewer think the painting is really three dimensional.

Tricks of perspective are used and crafty painting is employed to make something look real. You might see a piece of paper seem as if it is stuck to a surface, or a fly appear to have landed on the painting. Sometimes the subject of the painting even comes out of the frame! One of my favorites is the huge painting by Frans Snyders, Still Life With Terms and a Bust of Ceres which hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. No matter what it is, it is sure to look very realistic.

The photorealists of the 1960s, and the recent hyperrealist painters know Trompe l’oeil all too well, but the perspectival illusion technique has been around since antiquity. It is found in ancient Greek and Roman murals, where you might find a doorway painted on a wall, intended to show a larger room beyond. Advances in understanding perspective opened a new door for illusion painting, and artist playfully used Trompe l’oeil to achieve all kinds of affects to trick the spectator.

Ceiling Illusions

A whole genre in Trompe l’oeil is dedicated to creating illusions in ceilings. Sotto in su is the Italian term meaning “seen from below” and makes the viewer see real perspective in the painting, as if the surface is actually a receding area. A person below could look up at a flat ceiling and perceive a dome. Further yet, the dome could have an opening and beyond a vast blue sky showing us a beautiful day, rain or shine in reality.

Seen above is the ceiling of the Camera degli Sposi painted by Italian painter Andrea Mantegna in 1473. This is probably the first known use of Sotto in su and a fantastic example of the style. It was painted for his patron, the Duke of Mantua, and all across the walls are depicted scenes from the Duke’s life.

Visitors to this reception room would look up to see the illusion on an oculus, or round opening. Clever use of foreshortening allows us to look up and beyond the ceiling into the sky. Several women of the court are seen peering down into the room below while cherubim playfully cling to the railing. It’s a good thing they have wings, because it looks as if any moment they could slip. Also on the ledge is a pot with a small tree in it, which seems to be supported in part by a pole going across- not very sturdy. A peacock perches and watches the whole scene. This painted oculus was no doubt the most popular item in the whole room.

Trompe l’oeil has always fooled and amused everybody who has come across it. There’s a story of two Ancient Greek painters in a contest. One produced a painting so real birds flew down and attempted to eat the grapes in the picture. Laughing, he told the other he couldn’t win now, and just remove the curtains to see his painting. But it turns out the curtains were the painting, and the first painter promptly conceded defeat. Another story is of George Washington entering a room and bowing down to a person at the far end coming down a staircase, only to realize it was only a painting.

Trompe l’oeil- I can’t believe it’s not real!

A serene and amusing group of musicians, is it not?

These practicing performers and many other portraits of melodic musicians was the result of the Church’s revival of music at the time of it’s execution. Cardinal Del Monte, in particular, was an avid music fan. So it’s no surprise when Caravaggio moved into this wealthy and important art patron’s house, that many subsequent commissions would involve music. Inspired by the musical mood of the Del Monte house, the artist was interested especially in the performance of the music itself, using instruments found from the house.

Caravaggio himself was interested in music and included the subject several times in his work, sometimes as part of a background, others as the main theme. He always made his scores easily readable, putting in notes from actual scores which can be read and played. These notes, in Rest on the Flight Into Egypt are easily recognizable as the Song of Songs, which Joseph holds up for the angel as Mary rests.

So why then, are the notes in this canvas indecipherable?  Good question. While we at it, we can ask more questions about the composition. Although paintings are often reworked by artists, rarely are the pieces of four different paintings put together to form one whole. That’s right- four paintings, one for each of the players in this band.

Recognize the center figure? He is undoubtedly the player in Lute Player, a painting which actually has two versions already. The figure on the left looks remarkably like Boy Peeling Fruit. The figure in the back looking at the spectator is definitely a self-portrait, reworked from earlier paintings. And the figure with his back to the viewer is also a reworking from several earlier compositions.

So the indecipherable notes, and all four of the figures having appeared in earlier paintings all point to the possibility of this canvas actually being a collage of authentic Caravaggio paintings.

Could this be a fake? Some art historians believe it is, and for good reason.