Ancient Spoils
At the Bacino waterfront, the entrance to Venice, there stand two enormous columns of granite. On one is a statue, made from parts of various statues, of St Theodore, who had been the patron saint of Venice before St Mark showed up (see post below) and superseded him. On the other column is a winged lion, the symbol of the evangelist Mark. Yet this statue, too, is a collage. Originally it was likely a Hellenistic sculpture, dating from around 300 BCE, from Asia Minor. Eventually, it made its way to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and when the Venetian sacked the city in the Fourth Crusade in 1204 they brought this bronze lion back and welded wings on it to make it the animal symbol of St Mark.
Resting Place
This is a detail of the mosaic in the semi-dome of the portal of San Alipio on the facade of St Marks in Venice. It’s the last survivor of five such mosaics which once graced the famous church. The detail shows the whole reason for the church’s existence, the arrival of the body of St Mark. The story goes that in the 9th century Venetian merchants were in Alexandria–where Mark had been martyred over seven centuries before–and heard of the Sultan’s plan to destroy the cemetery where St Mark’s body was thought to reside. The merchants stole the body, packed it in pork to dissuade diligence on the part of the Muslim customs inspectors, and smuggled the body back to Venice. There, instead of giving the relic to the bishop of the city, they presented it to the Doge, the secular, political leader of the city. Thus St Marks became a sort of extension of the state. Here we see the coffin of St Mark being carried in through the doors of the church. It almost seems like his head is up and taking a look at his new home.
Domes of St Marks
The spiritual heart of Venice is the church of St Mark, one of the world’s most famous and recognizable buildings. Fewer people know what the inside looks like, however, and today they push people through it by the thousands. It’s not very conducive to contemplation. So here’s a picture to ponder. St Marks was modeled on a famous church in Constantinople, the church of the Holy Apostles, which was destroyed by the Ottoman Turks in 1461. A mosque was built in its place. What wonders of art were destroyed with it one can only guess. San Marco gives us a sense, however derivative, of the former church’s splendor.
Two Tintoretto
This is a detail of the mourning figures at the foot of the cross in Tintoretto’s Crucifixion scene in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice (see also post below). San Rocco, or St Roch, was a French plague saint, which meant he protected people, and the city, from the Black Death. Since the plague was a constant threat, especially for seafaring Venetians, San Rocco was a particularly popular saint. He’s often shown as a pilgrim. He contracted the plague, and in his depictions he shows the characteristic festering wound on his thigh. Through his faith, however, he survives and becomes a saintly model. In this detail of Tintoretto’s painting in the Scuola, a pyramid of despair piles up at the foot of the cross, with St John and the two Marys as well as other figures. The women, especially, slump into a heap, inviting the viewers to share their grief.
Tintoretto at San Rocco
One of the great sights in Venice is the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, not only in terms of its monumental and classicizing facade but for the dozens of paintings by Tintoretto that decorate the interior, especially the upper room or sala del capitolo. The most impressive of all, and the largest, is the crucifixion scene. This figure, who pulls on a rope to help raise the cross of the good thief (who is being crucified alongside Christ), is the most dynamic in a field teeming with energetic figures. Tintoretto liked him too, giving him a brighter colour and spotlighting him so he stands out. His pose is complex and dramatic. It feels as if, if the rope were to break, he’d fall right into our space.
San Zaccaria
There are a lot of Venetian altarpieces in museums, and there were a lot of medieval ones broken up into component parts and sold off bit by bit. Both instances take the altarpiece out of the context that is was made for. This past week I finally made it into the church of San Zaccaria in Venice. I’d seen the outside before but had never dropped by when it was open. So I finally got to see Giovanni Bellini’s 1505 San Zaccaria altarpiece in its proper location with its original frame against the walls of the church. San Zaccaria was the most important nunnery in Venice in the renaissance, and they exercised a lot of discretion in their patronage of both art and architecture.
Gold on Gondola
The gondola is perhaps Venice’s most recognizable icon, and the gondoliers take great pride in their individual crafts, even though it may seem at first that they are all the same. In the details they vary greatly. These golden additions caught my eye as their gondola bounced in the wake of a vaporetto near the Bacino waterfront.
Milan Mosaic
As anyone who frequents my blog knows, my favorite medium is mosaic, and there isn’t anywhere I won’t go to find some great ones. This is a detail of a semi-dome in the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore in Milan. In the mosaic Christ is flanked by his apostles, four of whom are shown here looking up to their divine boss with appropriate admiration. The 5th century CE artist has used orange tesserae (that’s what the bits of a mosaic are called; sing. tessera) to indicate light shining from heaven. A brilliant technique.
Magnificent Mall
The Galleria of Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan might be the world’s first shopping mall (though in truth the Romans had them), built by the architect Mengoni and finished in 1877. It’s still magnificent almost a century and a half later and takes it’s place among the iron matrix wonders of the 19th century, of which the Eiffel Tower is the most famous, though it was finished a decade after the Galleria. Frescoes in the corners of the huge dome at the intersection of the barrel vaults show allegorical figures of the four continents as they were then understood: Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. Even though it’s so old, even today it looks like an architecture of the future.
Line of Ladies
This is a detail of a painting by Gentile Bellini called The Miracle of the Relic of the True Cross at the Bridge of San Lorenzo, which dates from 1500. The painting was commissioned by the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, a Venetian lay brotherhood that owned and venerated a fragment of the True Cross. They commissioned a series of paintings by a number of artists to show the history of the relic and the miracles performed by it, especially those in the many processions it was carried in. In this painting the relic has jumped into the canal, and only a virtuous member of the scuola, Andrea Vendramin, can catch it, demonstrating his and his family’s virtue. Witnesses to this miraculous event line the shores of the canal, here, a cortege of noble women, all dressed to the nines and reacting appropriately to the event unfolding before their eyes.
Tintoretto’s Touch
This is a detail, an even closer one, from the painting in the posting below: Tintoretto’s St Mark Saving the Slave of 1548. I wanted to get a shot that showed the painter’s brushwork, how he created a convincing sense of shiny fabric crimping on a bending elbow. It’s a complex series of white and shades of blue all done in a quick zig-zag, and yet from just a few feet it’s entirely convincing and evokes a strong sense of the fabric’s sheen, weight, colour, and texture. Note, too, the foreshortened faces. In this painting almost every figure is either completely or partially foreshortened in some way. The ‘Little Dyer’, Jacopo Comin (Tintoretto’s real name; he was the son of a dyer) showing off.
Saintly in Space
This is a detail from a remarkable 1548 painting by Tintoretto, which was once housed in the Scuola Grande di San Marco in Venice. Now it’s in the Gallery of the Accademia in Venice. The whole painting shows a miracle of St Mark as the saint flies out of the heavens to protect a slave who is being attacked for worshiping relics. It’s a classic Counter-Reformation piece, reconfirming forcefully the Catholic focus on the veneration of relics. I picked out a detail of the nude body of the slave, the broken wooden clubs and loosed rope around him. One of the most difficult techniques for artists of the renaissance was foreshortening, and only the best masters could do it well. Here, Tintoretto shows his mastery not only of the nude male figure but also its foreshortening in space.
Birds of Paradise
In Byzantine decoration the peacock is a common motif. In many cases, a pair of them eat grapes from a vase, often with vines growing from it. The vase shape is a kantharos, a Greek vase that was used for wine. The grapes and wine are a symbol of Christ (the wine signifying his blood), and thus the promise of salvation and the paradise that awaits the blessed. These peacocks are done in mosaic on the floor just inside the main portal of the magnificent church of San Donato on Murano in the Venetian lagoon. They date from the 12th century. All of the pavements of San Donato are done in splendid mosaics. In one scene, a fox is captured by rabbits, while in others knot designs and geometric motifs in coloured stones decorate the floor.
