#guernico

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Guercino 'Giovanni Francesco Barbieri' (Italian, 1591-1666) Assumption of the Virgin, Detail, 1650 Detroit Institute of Arts

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

(Guercino) Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Italian, 1591-1666) The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, 1621 National Gallery, London “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

[agatesansh]

#Guernico #GiovanniFrancescoBarbieri "Personification of Astrology", 1650-55 @blantonmuseum (à The Blanton Museum of Art)

[philokales]

"It comes as something of a shock to find that, with a single exception, the great artists of the [early/mid 17th century] were all sincere, conforming Christians. Guernico spent much of his mornings in prayer; Bernini frequently went into retreats and practised the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius; Rubens attended Mass every morning before beginning work. The exception was Caravaggio, who was like the hero of a modern play, except that he happened to paint very well.

This conformism was not based on fear of the Inquisition, but on the perfectly simple belief that the faith which had inspired the great saints of the preceding generation was something by which a man should regulate his life. The mid-sixteenth century was a period of sanctity in the Roman Church almost equal to the twelfth. St John of the Cross, the great poet of mysticism; St Ignatius Loyola, the visionary soldier turned psychologist; St Teresa of Avila, the great headmistress, with her irresistible combination of mystical experience and common sense; and St Carlo Borromeo, the austere administrator—one does not need to be a practising Catholic to feel respect for a half-century that could produce these great spirits. Ignatius, Teresa, Filipo Neri and Francis Xavier were all canonised on the same day, 22 May 1622. It was like the baptism of a regenerated Rome."

Lord Kenneth Clark: Civilisation (Harper & Row: 1969) pp 174-175

Painting: Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598 - 1680), Self-Portrait

[tradicaoaurora]

#Guernico and Agostino Tassi. Aurora. 1621-1623. Ceiling fresco. Villa Ludovisi, Rome

It is the opposite of Reni Guido's Aurora. Here we have an architectural illusionistic framework, known as Quadratura combined with the pictorial illusionism of Correggio and the intense light of Titian, converts the entire surface into one limitless space. With this work, we are clearly below, looking up, seeing the underbelly of the horses as they gallop through our heads. Guernico expanded and continued the tradition of Correggio and started what became a flood of alike visions characteristics of the dynamic fulfillment of the High Baroque style, after 1630.