Posted by Susan Benford
An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.
With one of the most renowned Cezanne paintings, The Large Bathers, on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, I was curious which were considered to be his most famous paintings.
Born in 1839, Paul Cezanne was one of the most significant pioneers of Modernism. Throughout his life, he sought to portray the "simple beauty" found in the south of France; this approach is best exemplified by Cezanne paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire, which he painted some 60 times!
Paul Cezanne, The Large Bathers. Oil on canvas, 1906. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The legacy of Paul Cezanne is both profound and lasting; he inspired generations of famous painters including artists as diverse as:
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Georges Braque
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Jasper Johns
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Ellsworth Kelly
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Claude Monet
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Edgar Degas
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Max Beckmann, and
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Picasso.
And he was highly productive - there are more than 200 Cezanne paintings of male and female nudes in the landscape, for example.
To obtain a quantifiable, art historical opinion on which Cezanne paintings are best, I plowed through scores of art history books to determine which were most often cited by art history pros.
The results are 20 must-see Cezanne paintings from US and European art museums:
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Still Life with Basket of Apples. Oil on canvas, 1890-94. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Right.
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Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from the Quarry at Bibémus. Oil on canvas, ca. 1898-06. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore.
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The Large Bathers (Grandes Baigneuses). Oil on canvas, 1900-05. Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA. Learn about all three Cezanne paintings of Bathers.
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Temptation of Saint Anthony. Oil on canvas, ca. 1870. Musee d'Orsay, Paris.Bottommost image.
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Paul Cezanne. Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1902-06. Oil on canvas, 25 1/2 by 32". Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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Boy with a Red Waistcoat. Oil on canvas, 1888-89. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Right.
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Still Life with Plaster Cast. Oil on paper on board, ca. 1894. Courtauld Institute Galleries, London.
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Mont Sainte-Victoire with Viaduct. Oil on canvas, 1885-87. Metropolitan Museum, New York.
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The Card Players. Oil on canvas, 1890-92. Metropolitan Museum, New York.
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The Bather (Le grand baigneur). Oil on canvas, 1885-87. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
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The Card Players (Les joueurs des cartes). Oil on canvas, ca. 1885-90. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
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A Modern Olympia. Oil on canvas, 1874. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
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The Hanged Man's House. Oil on canvas, 1873. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
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Woman with Coffeepot. Oil on canvas, ca. 1895. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
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Apples and Oranges. Oil on canvas, ca. 1895-00. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
16. 
Madame Cézanne in a Red Armchair (Madame Cézanne in a Striped Skirt). Oil on canvas, 1877. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Right.
17. The Large Bathers. Oil on canvas, 1900-05. National Gallery, London.
18. Mont Sainte-Victoire. Oil on canvas, 1902-06. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.
19. Madame Cezanne in a Red Armchair, 1877. Oil on canvas, 28 1/2 by 22". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
20. The Large Bathers (Grandes Baigneuses). Oil on canvas, 1898-05. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Uppermost image. Read about and see three Cezanne paintings of bathers.
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Posted by Susan Benford
An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.
The fame of Caravaggio paintings is particularly astonishing given the brevity of his life, a mere 38 years (1571-1610). Equally awe-inspiring are the accomplishments of this pioneer of Baroque paintings:
- Caravaggio revolutionized contemporary Roman painting by
rejecting classicism and portraying ordinary people rather than models;
- He perfected chiaroscuro (the modelling of volume by strongly contrasting light and shadow), a technique long used but never so skillfully;
- His innovative, naturalistic depictions of anguish, guilt and lust spawned a school of followers, the Caravaggisti, in France, the Netherlands, and Spain.
Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio. The Cardsharps, 1595-96. Oil on canvas, 37 1/8" x 51 5/8". Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.
Born Michelangelo Merisi in the Lombard town called Caravaggio, he traveled in 1592 to Rome - the artistic hub of Italy - during the Counter Reformation. The Catholic Church was attempting to win back Protestant converts by re-building and renovating Rome's churches and institutions; there were plentiful opportunities for Italian Baroque painters, especially those skilled in the naturalistic art the Church sought.
Naturalistic paintings, the Church supposed, would stress the human-ness in Biblical events and the lives of the saints. This Counter Reformation theology, for instance, rendered Peter's repentance after his denial a more compelling subject than the denial itself. With its emphasis on naturalism, the Church sanctioned depiction of emotional distress or physical violence.
Enter Caravaggio.
Although Caravaggio's early years in Rome were difficult, he arrived as the numbers of wealthy collectors were on the uptick. Also, his luck changed when he befriended a prominent Cardinal, Francesco del Monte, who recognized Caravaggio's talents and took him into his household.
Some art historians contend that Cardinal del Monte resembles the saint in one of the earliest Caravaggio paintings, St. Francis 
of Assisi in Ecstasy. Here, the saint's body has recoiled from divine intervention, with one hand limp and the other clenched while one eye peers half-open and the other is closed.
Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio. Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, ca. 1594. Oil on canvas, 36 3/8" by 50 1/4". Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT.
Critics were shocked by the portrayal of an unshaven saint with dirty feet.
Caravaggio shows only St. Francis' heart wound. He is cradled by a rosy-cheeked angel, (whose face, or a similar one, appears in other Caravaggio paintings including Boy Peeling Fruit of 1592-93, below, the earliest known Caravaggio painting, and the youth being cheated in The Cardsharps, 1595-1596, above).
Through del Monte's circles, Caravaggio received a breakthrough commission at age 24, a triptych of St. Matthew for the Contarelli Chapel in the Rome church of San Luigi del Francesci. These three Caravaggio paintings revealled his skill with scenes of confrontation and heightened drama. Their exacting naturalism and intense chiaroscuro made the Caravaggio paintings controversial... while cementing his reputation for brilliance.
Caravaggio not only painted scenes of confrontation but lived them. Known as tempetous 
and volatile, he had in 1606 an argument with a young man - variously reported as over a tennis match, a woman or a bet - that led to a swordfight and the man's subsequent death. Caravaggio fled Rome.
Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio. Boy Peeling Fruit, 1592-1593. Oil on canvas, approximately 30" by 25". Longhi Collection, Rome.
The remainder of Caravaggio's life consisted primarily of painting and brawling. He died in 1610 at the age of 36, en route to Rome to receive a Papal pardon.
Despite his short life, the legacy of Caravaggio is enduring, as expressed by the art critic Roberto Longhi:
Ribera, Vermeer, La Tour and Rembrandt could never have existed without him [Caravaggio]. And the art of Delacroix, Courbet and Manet would have been utterly different".
What an astonishing legacy given that there are 34 recognized Caravaggio paintings!
Question: Look at all three of these Caravaggio paintings. Do you believe the young boy - whose name isn't known, to the best of my knowledge - is the same in each? Do chime in!
Explore more Caravaggio paintings including Conversion of St. Paul and the only known still life by Caravaggio, Basket of Fruit.
Posted by Susan Benford
An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.
Thomas Gainsborough (c. 1727-1788), the youngest son of a maker of woolen goods, convinced his father to allow him to study painting in London - a remarkable feat (and undertaking) for a 13 year old. He apprenticed with the French illustrator and draftsman, 
Hubert Gravelot, whose involvement with Rococo art and design would influence his young apprentice.
By 1770, Thomas Gainsborough resided in Bath, England, where he had forged a reputation as one of the foremost portrait painters. His portraits were
Thomas Gainsborough. The Blue Boy, ca. 1770. Oil on canvas, 5' 10" by 4'. Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
in demand by wealthy patrons who came to the Bath spa (and soaked, fully clothed, in its allegedly healing waters).
Problematically, though, Thomas Gainsborough disliked portraiture, preferring landscapes.
He allegedly commented:
"I paint portraits to live, landscapes because I love them, and music because I cannot leave it alone".
His solution, as evidenced in one of his most famous paintings, The Blue Boy, was the creation of a "landscape portrait".
When The Blue Boy was first exhibited in 1770, Gainsborough was striving to cement his reputation in London. He showed The Blue Boy at the Royal Academy, a celebrated venue that had opened the prior year. The portrait was quite well received, and remains one of the most famous paintings Gainsborough created.
Because it's a show-stopper.
Gainsborough handles paint so brilliantly that The Blue Boy has the volume of a Renaissance sculpture. The delicate, feathery brushstrokes of the glistening blue costume are echoed at his feet and in the storm clouds and sunset. Thomas Gainsborough shows his hand as a Rococco painter while eschewing contemporary taste for a smooth, flat finish.
The Blue Boy exudes complete confidence and poise, and dons an outfit similar
Donatello's first version of David, 1408-1409. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.
to those in van Dyck paintings. Given that Gainsborough copied and restored Flemish paintings during the onset of his career, it's not surprising that Thomas Gainsborough borrowed stylistic elements from van Dyck.
Although the identity of The Blue Boy was unknown for nearly two centuries, art historians now know him as Jonathan Buttall, the son of a hardware merchant and friend of the artist. It's unlikely this work was commissioned -- The Blue Boy was painted on a used canvas and covers another portrait -- but it solidified Thomas Gainsborough's reputation in London. And in art history.
I don't know of evidence that Thomas Gainsborough saw Donatello's David, but does anyone else see hints of it in The Blue Boy? Let me know, please.
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Posted by Susan Benford
An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.
How is it that Anders Zorn (1860-1920), one of the most acclaimed portrait painters of his era, has been all but forgotten? That will likely be changed by a new show at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America.
Born in Mora, Sweden, Anders Zorn was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 
Stockholm at the age of 15. He exclusively pursued watercolor until switching to oil painting in 1887. One of his earliest oil paintings, Fisherman in St. Ives, was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1889 where it was purchased by the French state. Shortly thereafter, Zorn has awarded the Legion of Honour.
When Anders Zorn travelled to the United States in 1893 to exhibit in Chicago's World Columbian Exposition, his submission, Omnibus Paris, was bought by Isabella Stewart Gardner. The first Zorn painting to be purchased in the U.S., Omnibus Paris shows a day-dreaming young woman clasping a hatbox as she rides a Parisian omnibus, a rail-based horse car. Zorn's power is immediately apparent - whatever transfixes this woman engages the viewer, too.
Anders Zorn. Omnibus Paris, 1892, second version. Oil on canvas. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA.
The livliness of Zorn's thick, energetic brushwork captivated audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, making Zorn one of the most sought after portrait painters at the turn of the 20th century. Between 1890 and 1914, for example, Anders Zorn had works included in 70 shows within the German Empire.
He competed for society portrait commissions with John Singer Sargent, who also was
championed by Isabella Stewart Gardner. Both Sargent and Zorn were commissioned for portaits of her, with wildly different results.
Ander Zorn's Portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner captures her in a Venice palazzo where she seems ready to embrace the viewer with her outstretched arms. She is both ageless and vital, radiating congeniality. Sargent's Portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner wasn't so well received, and has shielded from public display.
Anders Zorn painted numerous industrialists, politicians, and bankers as well as two sitting presidents, Grover Cleveland, whose portrait is at the National Portrait Gallery,and William Taft, whose portrait hangs in the White House.
Anders Zorn. Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice, 1894. Oil on canvas, approximately 36" by 30". Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
Oliver Tostmann, the curator of Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America, notes that Anders Zorn was "too young to be an Impressionist, too old to be a Modernist".
True enough. But the real question is how one of the best known portrait painters could've been forgotten... especially in light of these captivating works.
Posted by Susan Benford
An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.
Helen Frankenthaler not only pioneered color field painting but also enjoyed critical acclaim during her lifetime. That's phenomal for any painter, let alone a woman at a time when female artists were still rare.
Clement Greenberg (1909-1994), one of the most influential art critic in the 1940s-1960s, first recognized the genius of Jackson Pollock while he was still misunderstood and scorned (and inexpensive). During the 1940s, Greenberg began championing art that was completely abstract and in which the "hand" of the artist was unapparent.
Such formalist painting arose in the 1950s in reaction to Abstract Expressionism, and was an attempt, promoted by Greenberg, to create "unemotional" art. The painterly, gestural brushwork and thick impasto of abstract expressionism were supplanted by smooth canvases on which the paint was united with the surface.
Helen Frankenthaler. Mountains and Sea, 1952. Oil and charcoal on canvas, 7' 2 3/4" by 9' 8 1/8". Collection of the artist on extended loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.
After returning from a trip to Nova Scotia in summer of 1952, Helen Frankenthaler (1928 - 2011) tacked a 7' by 10' unprimed canvas onto her studio floor (note to non-painters: a canvas is "primed" by covering it with a base layer that prevents paint from soaking into the canvas).
Frankenthaler then blocked in some areas with charcoal, and poured diluted, thinned oil paint onto this canvas. She allowed the paint to run by tilting the canvas angle; she rubbed and blotted the paint.
The thinned paint absorbed into the canvas, garnering Greenberg's exorbitant praise for the flatness, shape of field, and color in Mountains and Sea -- and creating a new style called color field painting. Frankenthaler had joined nonobjective figure and ground in a novel, breathtaking manner.
Jackson Pollock paintings were also created by working on the floor, but Pollock used enamel paint that stood on top of the canvas rather than absorb; his paintings were based on his bodily movements and gestures (hence the label action painter).
Helen Frankenthaler pouring paint (right).
While any analysis of Mountains and Sea is personal, one readily imagines the topography of the Cape Breton coastline, with a pyramidal shape dominating the center and meeting a sea of blue at center right. The whiteness of the unprimed canvas evokes brilliant sunshine. The pallette of blues and pale greens hints of sky, water, forest and trees, suggesting an infinite image just partially captured on canvas.
Helen Frankenthaler remembered that Mountains and Sea looked
"to many people like a large paint rag, casually accidental and incomplete."
Mountains and Sea was exhibited in 1953 and received scant attention until the painters Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland visited Frankenthaler's studio. Both found in Mountains and Sea a new direction for modern art, away from Abstract Expressionism. Louis commented that Mountains and Sea was "the bridge between Pollock and what was possible." Both Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland explored color field painting themselves.
Clement Greenberg touted Frankenthaler's stain painting, a new way of painting which became the foundation of color field painting. But she contributed far more - Helen Frankenthaler reinstated the supremacy of color, and altered the direction of abstract art.
And by the way... she pioneered color field painting with Mountains and Sea when she was 23 years old!
Posted by Susan Benford
An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.
Boston's love affair with John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) stems in part from one of Sargent's most famous paintings, El Jaleo, housed in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Boston.
Sargent was born in Florence, Italy, and received little traditional schooling. After his artistic skills became apparent, John Singer Sargent joined the atelier, or teaching studio, of Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran (1837–1917). Although little known presently, 
John Singer Sargent. El Jaleo, 1882. Oil on canvas, 7' 7" by 11' 5". Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
Carolus-Duran was one of the most highly regarded portrait painters and teachers in the latter half of the 19th century. The fame of his atelier, where he trained 81 American painters as well as European ones, owed its fame to Carolus-Duran's unorthodox teaching methodology:
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he encouraged students to paint immediately without making preliminary drawings, defying academic traditionalists; and
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he required students to familiarize themselves with the famous paintings and painterly traditions of Venetian and Spanish artwork, especially Diego Velazquez paintings.
Sargent travelled to Spain in 1879, just four years after Paris was scandalized by Bizet's opera, Carmen. In it, the sensous, exotic Gypsy, Carmen, seduces a young soldier, Don 
Jose, but then falls in love with a toreador instead; mad with jealously and rage, Don Jose murders Carmen.
This depiction of lower class life and the death of the opera's protagonist were new,
John Singer Sargent. Portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1888. Oil on canvas, 6' 3" by 2' 7". Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
controversial and memorable. The "loose morals" of Carmen reinforced public sentiment about Gypsies, who were widely shunned in the 19th century.
Enter Sargent. Like many artists, Sargent admired the spontaneity and freedom of nomadic Gypsies, despite the public perception that they were amoral. Think Carmen and the two-timing woman. Nonetheless, Sargent wanted to memorialize his fondness for Gypsy music and dance, and began work on an enormous canvas.
El Jaleo was born.
Sargent named the painting after a dance called jaleo de jerez, well aware that jaleo also meant "hubbub" or "to-do". When it was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1882 with the title Sargent El Jaleo: Danse des gitanes (or Dance of the Gypies), it was purchased by the Bostonian T. Jefferson Coolidge.
Six years later in 1888, El Jaleo was exhibited alongside Sargent's newly finished Portrait of 
Isabella Stewart Gardner (left). When we look at this portrait, Mrs. Gardner seems starched, and nearly haloed by the wallpaper. Sargent's brushwork is tight and controlled, lacking spontaneity (Isabella Stewart Gardner reported he repainted her face 8 times).
What Mr. Jack Gardner saw, though, was scandalous decolletage, too much exposed skin, and a reminder of the jaleo four years earlier with Sargent's Portrait of
John Singer Sargent. Madame X. Oil on canvas, 1883-84. 82 1/8" x 43 1/4". Arthur Hoppock Hearn Fund, 1916 (16.53). Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Madame X (right). This portrait scandalized the Paris Salon and the family of Madame X, prompting Sargent's sudden departure from Paris.
Remarkably, Isabella Stewart Gardner, a wildly independent woman, ceded to her husband's wish - Portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner was never publicly exhibited again during Mr. Gardner's lifetime.
But the pairing of the two Sargent paintings led Isabella Gardner to ask T. Jefferson Coolidge to bequeath El Jaleo to her. In 1914 she expanded her collection of Spanish art into several new rooms, and built a Spanish cloister, complete with Moorish arch, in which to display El Jaleo. According to the Gardner museum, Coolidge was so impressed with the installation that he donated El Jaleo to the museum immediately.
El Jaleo is a beguiling work, exploding with energy, sensuality and drama. In the dim light, the gypsy commands the painting, her blindingly white dress crackling with energy as her feet stomp and carve the beat. The musicians are frenetically playing while other Gypsies 
pound the beat behind the center dancer.
How odd that Jack Gardner wasn't offended by El Jaleo - given the public opinion of Gypsies and the inarguable
Detail. El Jaleo.
endorsement of them by John Singer Sargent - but was horrified by the exposed flesh in Portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner.
Yet another reminder that one needs to understand the social context in which famous paintings were made!
Posted by Susan Benford
An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.
Of all Japanese woodblock prints, none is more identified with Japanese art than the iconic Great Wave, created by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849).
During the Edo period or Tokugawa era of 1603 to 1868, Japanese society was marked by:
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widespread peace and prosperity;
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growth of popular culture and the art of ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world);
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the increasingly repressive and rigid rule of the Tokugawa family; and
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a highly stratified social order, with four classes: samurai (the highest ranking), followed by farmers, artisans, and merchants.
In the late 1630s, Japan closed most all of its ports, declared Catholicism illegal,
expelled missionaries and traders, and forbade citizens from travel abroad. All foreigners
Katsushika Hokusai. Great Wave, ca. 1831. Polychrome woodblock print on paper, 9 7/8 by 14 5/8". The British Museum, London.
were ousted except for those in small Dutch and Chinese trading communities in the port city of Nagasaki. With disobedience punishable by death, isolation (and compliance) were nearly absolute.
Although merchants were relegated to the lowest class, growth in the mercantile economy granted them disposable income which they used for diversions such as kabuki theater and courtesans. Japanese woodblock prints were an inexpensive medium with which artisans created images of these pastimes, changing art from an upper class privilege to the realm of the populance.
The Great Wave is part of Hokusai's series, Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. In the ukiyo-e prints of the 18th century, nature was the backdrop for human activity; in The Great Wave (and other Japanese woodblock prints of the early 19th century), landscape becomes the topic.
In The Great Wave, the overpowering force of nature threatens to engulf miniscule figures in three boats, while the threatening sky behind Mt. Fiji portends more inclement weather. Mt. Fiji is a distant, unreachable shore, illustrating the vulnerability of human existence in the face of nature.
At the far left, the cartouche reads "Hokusai aratame litsu hitsu", or "by the brush of litsu, formerly Hokusai". It is known that Hokausai signed his works with up to thirty different names during his lengthy career.
Although The Great Wave may appear to portray a quintessially Japanese scene printed on mulberry paper, foreign influences are apparent with closer inspection:
Right: Katsushika Hokusai. Self-portrait, 1839.
So The Great Wave is a hybrid, incorporating elements of the Japanese pictorial tradition while also subtly nodding to European influences.
Despite the isolationism imposed by the Tokugawa shoguns, Europe learned of Japanese woodblock prints in a bizarre way - some of Hokusai's prints were used as packing material for china sent in 1856 to the French artist, Felix Bracquemond! This ignited awareness and enthusiasm for Japanese woodblock prints, especially from the Impressionists... and made these Japanese prints far more valuable than packing paper.
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Posted by Susan Benford
An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.
Mona Lisa is both the most influential and mocked of all famous paintings in Western art history, even more than 500 years after her creation by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).
So how could Mona Lisa be generating headlines again? Turns out that there may be an earlier version of Mona Lisa, painted when the fabled beauty was in her 20s.
The Mona Lisa Foundation is dedicated to authenticating this earlier version of Mona Lisa, known also as the Isleworth Mona Lisa, as a Leonardo painting. The Foundation has marshalled historical evidence, scientific testing and hordes of art historians in its efforts, and claims no financial affiliation to the work.
Here are some of the Foundation's and critics' arguments:
Age of the Earlier Version of Mona Lisa
While some critics contend Isleworth Mona Lisa is from the 17th century, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology used carbon 14 dating to peg a date of 1410 to 1455 for the canvas support (with a 95.4% probability). Within the timeframe of 1425 to 1450, the probability is 68.2%.
It's reasonable to conclude that this painting - whether or not by Leonardo da Vinci - predates the Louvre version of Mona Lisa, dated circa 1505. To my mind, this eliminates any conjecture that the Isleworth Mona Lisa is a copy of the Louvre version (and that's without considering all the immediate differences in the two works: sitting angle of Mona Lisa; size of the work; and age of Mona Lisa herself for starters).
Isleworth Mona Lisa, ca. 1505. Right. Leonardo da Vinci. Mona Lisa, ca. 1505. Oil on panel, 30" by 21" Louvre, Paris.
Digitization of Brushstrokes
The Mona Lisa Foundation consulted Professor John Asmus, a master of the science of art diagnostics (you may recall him from his mid 1908s assertion that Mona Lisa was intitially
wearing a necklace that was later painted over by Leonardo. The Louvre resisted... but confirmed Asmus' conclusion 15 years later).
Asmus digitized the brushstrokes in both the Louvre and alleged older version of Mona Lisa, and concluded that they were executed by the same painter. According to Asmus, the digitization techique is akin to DNA testing or fingerprint identification -- with a miniscule probability of error.
Eyewitness and Other Accounts
From Giorgio Vasari:
The architect, painter and writer Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) published his landmark series of essays, "The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects", in 1550. Until earlier in the 20th century, Vasari was the leading source of information on Leonardo and Mona Lisa (and dozens of other famous paintings and artists).
Vasari recounts:
Leonardo undertook to execute, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa his wife, and after he had lingered over it for four years, he left it unfinished; and the work is today in the possession of King Francis of France, at Fontainebleau.
So here is the challenge of Vasari: art historians believe it's the Louvre Mona Lisa that was at Fontainebleau.
Yet it's hard to dispute that Vasari did see an unfinished version of Mona Lisa: his detailed, passionate description is one of the most eloquent tributes ever written about a painting. Vasari gushed,
Seeing that the eyes had that lustre and moistness which are always seen in the living 
creature, and around them were the lashes and all those rosy and pearly tints that demand the greatest delicacy of execution. The eyebrows, through his having shown the manner in which the hairs spring from the flesh, here more close and here more scanty, and curve according to the pores of the flesh, could not be more natural.
Vasari's comment that Mona Lisa was unfinished is hugely important; in 1506, Leonardo was summoned by the King of France to come to Milan, and he abandoned his activities in Florence. It is plausible that before his departure, Leonardo gave the unfinished commission to Franceso del Giocondo.
From Agostino Vespucci
Vespucci is the sole known eyewitness to Leonardo painting the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, as discovered in the 2005 Heidelburg document. Vespucci reported in 1503:
Leonardo painted all the details of the face – subsequently the hands and other parts also; and typically left to his assistants other sections, such as the background, which even today remains unfinished, exactly as Vasari wrote over 460 years ago!
Again, a document of an unfinished version of Mona Lisa, clearly not the Louvre version.
Canvas versus Panel
Some critics suggest that the earlier version of Mona Lisa isn's by Leonardo because it is painted on canvas, and Leonardo preferred working on wood.
Fair objection. But Benois Madonna, another of Leonardo's famous paintings, is on canvas. As the Mona Lisa Foundation notes, the turn of the 16th century was a transition time in materials, with both wood and canvas in use by the same painters.
Other Issues
Testing has showed that some elements were painted with different pigments from the rest of the work, proving that the Isleworth Mona Lisa isn't solely by Leonardo.
Given this, how much of a painting has to be executed by Leonardo da Vinci for a meaningful attribution to him? If the conception of the work is by Leonardo, is that sufficient?
Perhaps those questions are moot.
Other critics dismiss outright any attribution to Leonardo, with none other than the venerable Martin Kemp rejecting the xrays and infra-red reflectograms used as substantiation by the Foundation. Kemp concludes:
The images of the Isleworth canvas have the dull monotony that would be expected of a copy.
The Isleworth Mona Lisa is out of the vault for the first time in forty years as her owners, an international consortium, prepare for exhibitions starting this year in Asia. The only certainty about the Isleworth Mona Lisa is that debate is far from over.
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Posted by Susan Benford
An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.
Few famous painters ever created a religious painting as masterful and awe-insiring as El Greco's Burial of Count Orgaz.
And even fewer famous painters can claim their commissions resulted from a lawsuit!
Burial of Count Orgaz commemorates the life and death of the Lord of Orgaz, Don Gonzalo Ruiz, who died in 1323 after years of supporting the small, simple church of Santo Tome in Toledo, Spain.
The inscription at the lower edge of Burial of Count Orgaz reveals its story:
When the priests were preparing to bury him [Count Orgaz]... St. Stephen and St. Augustine descended from heaven and buried him there with their own hands. WHY? They said Orgaz bequeathed 2 sheep, 16 hens, 2 skins of wine, 2 wagon loads of wood and 800 coins... all to fall each year from the inhabitants of the domain of Orgaz.
Problem was that "the inhabitants of the domain of Orgaz" - or Orgaz's heirs - refused to honor this bequeathal to the church. Its priest, Andre de Nunez, sued and won a lawsuit in 1570, leaving this tiny church awash in unfathomable wealth.
Enter one of the most famous painters of his time, Domenikos Theotocopoulos (1541-1614), known as "El Greco". Born in Crete, which was then a Venetian possession, El Greco went to Venice where he worked in the studio of Titian but was more impressed by Tintoretto's artwork. He also absorbed the art of other famous painters including the Italian Mannerists, Michelangelo and Raphael; he left for Spain in 1576/77, where he spent the rest of his life.
The Burial of Count Orgaz was commissioned in 1586, more than 2/12 centuries after the Count's demise.
First note the size of Burial of Count Orgaz -- 15' 1" by 11' 10" -- and try to imagine it on site (image, top). It's 6 feet off the floor in a chapel only 18 feet deep, so viewers have to crane their necks to see the uppermost part of the painting.
The stone plaque is at eye level and becomes the front of the sarcophagus into which the Count is being placed by St. Stephen, in the ornately embroidered robe on the left, and St. Augustine, who wears a robe embroidered with images of saints and is recognized by his bishop's miter.
The bottom half of the painting is remarkably realistic; El Greco's Venetian training comes
Domenikos Theotocopoulos (El Greco). The Burial of Count Orgaz, 1586. Oil on canvas, 15' 1" by 11' 10". Church of Santo Tome, Toledo, Spain.
through in the sensuous colors and textures of the clothing.
His talents as a portraitist are readily apparent in the array of men featured here, all prominent Spaniards of the 1580s.
Here are the characters identified in this portion of Burial of Count Orgaz:
- In the left foreground is a son of El Greco, who is gazing directly at the viewer like his father, who is directly above the head of St. Stephen (detail, lower right);
- Andres Nunez, who devoted two years to winning the Count's bequest, is the priest in the gauzy, diaphonous surplice in the far right foreground;
- To the right of Nunez is another religious official whose crucifix unites the terrestial and celestial scenes;
- the soul of Count Orgaz, which looks like like a quasi-child swaddled in gauze, is transported to heaven by a winged angel in the center, and
- the Virgin Mother, who is dressed in red and blue, sits at the feet of Christ with St. John the Baptist across from her.
The exacting and static realism of the bottom portion of Burial is replaced in the upper half by frenetic energy, swirling masses of fabric, and ethereal lighting as all are entranced by 
the commanding figure of Christ.
Among those seated in the crowd of men behind John the Baptist is none other than the King. Ironically, King Phillip II wasn't partial to El Greco paintings, despite El Greco's status as one of the most famous painters in 16th century Spain. (1).
El Greco paintings fell out of favor until they were "discovered", like the works of other famous painters including Vermeer, Botticelli and Piero della Francesca, by collectors, painters and critics in the 19th century. It's hard to fathom how anyone wouldn't be moved by the expressiveness of El Greco paintings.
For Discussion: How does the power and awe inspired by Burial of Count Orgaz compare to other religious works like van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece? Or Fra Angelico's Annunciation? Or the Isenheim Altarpiece?
Please send your comments (all of which must be moderated, so they won't appear immediately). And thanks!
1. Penelope J. E. Davies et al, Janson's History of Art: Western Tradition, 7th edition, (c) 2007. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, page 630.
Posted by Susan Benford
An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.
How remarkable that one of the most famous paintings in Renaissance art was created by an artist who had limited output, never had a school of followers, and left only a few personal details. Such is the history of Matthias Grunewald, born Mathias Neithardt, and his renowned Isenheim Altarpiece.
Matthias Grunewald (c. 1455-1528), with his contemporary Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), were the two leading German painters of the 16th century. That is their sole similarity. Durer was heavily influenced by classical sources from Italian Renaissance art, while Grunewald paintings were informed by Gothic religious art.
To understand the historical and social context in which the Isenheim Altarpiece was made, we must explore the history of ... leprosy.
The earliest description of this disease appears in an Egyptian papyrus document from approximately 1550 BC. In the ensuing centuries until the 1870s - when a Norwegian doctor determined that the disease is caused by a germ - leprosy was deemed a punishment from God, a branding by
Photo credit: Charles Davis. Photo courtesy of the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
"hellfire", or a hereditary disease. Those afflicted were shunned and outcast. During the Middle Ages in Europe, for instance, leprosy sufferers were forced to wear bells signalling their presence; don special clothes; travel on a specified side of the road depending on wind conditions; and live in isolation as they awaited death.
The French town of Isenheim was home to a hospice run by the monastery of St. Anthony, the patron saint of lepers. Those at the hospital suffered primarily leprosy but also included those afflicted with syphilis or "Saint Anthony's Fire", or ergotism, a disease caused by a fungus found in rye. 
The Abbot in charge of the Isenheim hospice, Guido Guersi, commissioned the Isenheim Altarpiece to portray Christ's suffering and redemption, believing his
Detail. Matthias Grunewald. Isenheim Altarpiece, ca. 1510-1515.
life could ease the misery of those in hospice care. The Isenheim Altarpiece remained in the Isenheim monastery until it was disbanded after the French Revolution.
The Isenheim Altarpiece has one set of fixed wings and two sets of movable ones so that it could adapt to public or hospice audiences and seasons in the church (this quick video of a model Isenheim Altarpiece demonstrates its structure).
In all positions, the Isenheim Altarpiece is about terminal illness, salvation and Redemption.
Isenheim Altarpiece with wings closed
Matthias Grunewald. Isenheim Altarpiece. Oil on wood, 9' 9 1/2" by 10'9" (center panel); 8' 2 1/2" by 3' 1/2" (each wing), 2' 5 1/2" by 11' 2" (predella). Musee d'Unterlinden, Colmar.
During the week, the altarpiece was closed and showed a powerful Crucifixion emphasizing the suffering and anguish of Christ and his mother's angst. With intense colors and dramatic lighting throughout, Grunewald included a Lamentation in the predella and Saints Sebastian and Anthony on the fixed wings.
The figure of Christ, which dominates the closed altarpiece, is striated with lacerations evoking the sores of the sick. On the left, Mary swoons at the sight of her son and is kept upright by St. John, whose red robe magnifies her ashen face. Mary Magdalen, identified by her jar of ointment, kneels at their feet in grief while John the Baptist, on the right, points toward Christ saying,
"He must increase and I must decrease".
The bleeding lamb, intended to invoke the Eucharist, is bleeding into a chalice (similar to the Ghent Altarpiece).
In the predella, a tomb is prepared for Christ. Note that the predella slides apart just below Christ's knees, giving the appearance of amputation that often afflicted those with ergotism. Similarly, the off-center placement of the cross makes it appears as if Christ's arm is amputated.
Isenheim Altarpiece with outer wings open
On Sundays and feastdays, the outer sets of moveable wings were opened and the Isenheim Altarpiece was transformed into a trio of joyous scenes. All three panels - the Annunciation, the Madonna and Child with Angels, and The Resurrection - remind viewers of the allure and promise of heaven and redemption.
In the Annunciation on the far left, the archangel Gabriel informs Mary that she will give birth to the son of God. The modest Gothic chapel of the Annunciation becomes an ornate tabernacle in the Madonna and Child with Angels. There, an angel plays the cello in front of an ornate baldachino, or canopy of fabric or stone over an altar, throne or shrine in a Christian church. Curiously, on the far left is a feathered creature - perhaps the devil - who also sings to the Virgin and Child.
The Resurrection panel shows a lily-white Christ engulfed by a brilliant halo and floating above blinded guards. Although it appears that his lacerations have healed and his skin is disease-free, Christ exposes his palms to reveal their stigmata.
Isenheim Altarpiece with inner wings open
Matthias Grunewald. Isenheim Altarpiece. Oil on wood, 9' 9 1/2" by 10'9" (center panel); 8' 2 1/2" by 3' 1/2" (each wing), 2' 5 1/2" by 11' 2" (predella). Shrine carved by Nikolaus Hagenauer in 1490. Painted and gilt limewood, 9' 9 1/2" by 10' 9". Musee d'Unterlinden, Colmar.
In the third view of the Isenheim Altarpiece, the inner wings are opened to reveal the wooden carvings of the original 
altarpiece made by Nicolas Hagenauer in 1490. In the center is St. Anthony at whose feet nestles a pig,
Detail, right: From Temptation of St. Anthony
symbol of the Antonite order. Surrounding St. Anthony are Saints Jerome and Augustine. Grunewald added two painted panels, The Hermit Saints Anthony and Paul in the Desert and The Temptation of St. Anthony (bottom left and bottom right, respectively).
The Temptation of St. Anthony is a fantastical, terrifying scene of St. Anthony being mauled by an array of imaginary but frightening creatures. At the bottom left in the foreground is a contorted man whose disfigured, maimed body shows the signs of ergotism: active boils, a shriveled arm,
Detail. The Temptation of St. Anthony.
and a distended stomach. It's as if Grunewald is saying that Christian redemption is possible regardless of the sins of the flesh.
The patients, nuns and monks who prayed daily in front of the Isenheim Altarpiece were presented with two stark choices in Grunewald's iconography: accepting Christian salvation, miraculous healing and redemption, or enduring a life (and afterlife) of nothing but pain, misery and suffering.
QUESTION: Although Grunewald is far less known than his peer, Albrecht Durer, Grunewald's influence 
may have been more persuasive than Durer's.
Look at this Crucifixion by the 20th century German Expressionist painter, Emil Nolde, some 400 years later.
Anyone else see a bit of Grunewald here? Let me know!
Emil Nolde. Crucifixion from the Life of Christ polyptych. Stiftung, Seebull.
Addendum: An astute reader and art historian let me know that Jasper Johns' Perilous Night was also inspired by the Isenheim Altarpiece.
According to the National Gallery of Art, which owns Perilous Night, "Johns revealed the source for this half of Perilous Night because even the most astute art historian would have 
been hard-pressed to discover it." That source is none other than the Isenheim Altarpiece's writhing soldier thrown to the ground by Christ's blinding light, as seen in the open right outer wing.
At the left is the section of Perilous Night showing this.
Jasper Johns, Perilous Night (detail of left side), 1982, encaustic on canvas with objects, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection 1995.79.1
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