#funerary monuments

[landscapeandmarine]

Landscape with Ruins

Artist: Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665)

Date: 1642

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain

[charlesreeza]

The Chapel of Notre Dame-Drapiere (Our Lady of the Drapers) at Amiens Cathedral was completely redesigned by the architect Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century.  The painted decoration was one of the first attempts at archeological restoration based on the remains of the Gothic polychrome.  The windows were made by Alfred Gérente, a Parisian artist who championed the reproduction of Gothic stained glass.

Photos by Charles Reeza

[lostprofile]

Andrea Ciccione (da Firenze), Tomb of King Ladislao of Durazzo, after 1414, Napoli, San Giovanni a Carbonara.

Ladislao of Durazzo (1377-1414) was the last Angevin king of Naples. Carrying out his plan for the creation of a royal pantheon in San Giovanni a Carbonara, dedicated to the late Angevin rulers of Naples, his daughter and successor, Joanna II of Durazzo, ordered his tomb to be placed the apse of the church.

Designed by the Florentine sculptor Andrea Ciccione, the multi-tiered monument far surpasses the earlier Angevin tombs elsewhere in Naples in scale and sumptuousness. Framed by a hybrid of Gothic and Renaissance architectural elements, the sculptural program includes allegorical figures of Virtues, images of Ladislao and Joanna enthroned, the funerary effigy of Ladislao, and, at the apex, an equestrian portrait of the King arrayed in full chivalric armor.

[italianartsociety]

The Art of Death was Important in Ancient Roman Life

Funerary imagery permeated Roman culture and riddled the visual landscape. Representations of death in the form of monuments and statuary are the best-known artifacts of Roman Imperial customs surrounding death, but these static glyphs complemented a “lively” practice of parades and processions in honor of the deceased and his or her family. During the city’s Caesarian and Julian centuries, roads leading into the city were lined with tombs, and to walk Roman streets meant encounters with representations of the dead on a daily basis. In Rome, the dead were ever-present.

However the civic perception was by no means entirely morbid. Rather than only mourn the death or commemorate the deceased, the Roman funerary cityscape offered opportunities for the display of familial, political, and personal symbolic capital. The accouterments of the funeral – chariots, triumphal regalia, the garb of magisterial office, and the display of past familial accomplishments – were intended to underscore the accomplishments of the deceased and demonstrable clout of aristocratic, wealthy, and politically connected citizens. In turn, the family could use funerary imagery as an internal yardstick that would present clear goals for its younger members to achieve. The dead offered exempla of past success, and reminders of one’s own place within the generational power structure of the family.

As the empire extended in all directions, Roman visual culture mixed with that of Egypt, Britain, and Byzantium, producing painted shrouds, sarcophagi, and mosaics. Some iconographic meanings are yet lost to us, such as a Roman sarcophagus depicting the Greek myth of Medea. 

“[She] marries a Greek prince, a hero, goes back to Greece with him, they have two kids, but later on, her husband — a hero named Jason — has a mid-life crisis,” Dr. Mont Allen of Southern Illinois University has said. “He wants to jilt his wife, get a hot Ferrari and a hot trophy bride, and he essentially jilts Medea and her two kids there and she’s totally stranded, she’s a foreigner and here she is in Greece.” 

Because Medea was a divorced woman, she had no protection in the ancient world, Allen said. 

“So she has her vengeance by killing her own two kids and then escaping, that’s the story of Medea,” he said. “What would [the sarcophagus] have cost, translated into modern dollars, $600,000? You think, ‘Why would an ancient Roman woman spend roughly $600,000 so that all her future generations of descendants could see the story of Medea on her coffin?’ Like, who on Earth would want to be remembered as a killer of children? The people looking at this are going to be your own family members.”

Reference:  Christopher Johanson. “A Walk with the Dead: A Funerary Cityscape of Ancient Rome.” From A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds, pp.408-430. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

Roman Severan-Era Medea Sarcophagus, front view, c.190-200. Photo: University of California, San Diego

Roman funerary wreath, c. 350. Image © Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.

Funerary shroud of Tasherytwedjahor from Roman Egypt, c. 150. Tempera on linen. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Nr. 54.993

Roman Sarcophagus Depicting a Battle between Soldiers and Amazons, c. 140-170. Photo: Thomas R. DuBrock, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Nr. 2006.35.A,.B.

Funerary Mask of a Woman from Roman Egypt, c. 200. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Greco-Roman Stele with funerary banquet, c. 100 BCE. Crystalline marble. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Nr. 69.1095.

Further Reading: J. C. Edmondson and Alison Keith. Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. 

Jane DeRose Evans. A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic. Hoboken: Wiley, 2013. 

Posted by Jean Marie Carey

[charlesreeza]

Tombs and memorials from the Early Gothic period through the 20th century in the Cathedral of Naples, Italy - Photos by Charles Reeza, April 2022

[charlesreeza]

The Tombs of Pierre and Louis de Brézé - Rouen Cathedral

The late 15th century Flamboyant Gothic niche on the left is the tomb of Pierre de Brézé, and his grandson, Louis, is buried under the mid 16th century Renaissance masterpiece on the right.

Photos by Charles Reeza

[ukdamo]

Today's Flickr photo with the most hits - the north wall of the choir, Whalley Parish Church.

[charlesreeza]

Tomb slab dated1346 - San Lorenzo Maggiore, Naples

Photo by Charles Reeza