Fine Canvas Art Blog

Raphael’s Transfiguration of Christ

Paintings (Reproductions) / Raphael / Vatican - 2 years ago - troycapc

Raphael’s Transfiguration of Christ, 1520

This “Transfiguration of Christ” of 1520 was the last work of the great master of the late Renaissance, Raphael.  Guilio de Medici, bishop of Noyon and future Pope Clement VII, commissioned Raphael to create this masterpiece in 1516.  It was not finished when the artist died in 1520 and was probably completed by his pupil Giulio Romano shortly thereafter.  It is housed in the Pinacoteca Vaticana in Rome.

Medici’s bishopric was in France when the painting was completed but instead of shipping it there, Guilio donated the painting to the church of San Pietro in Rome.  French troops took the painting to Paris in 1797 but it was brought to the Vatican in 1816 where it has remained.

This masterpiece is very important in the development of Mannerism and the Baroque period.  Mannerist stylists were sophisticated, restrained and balanced – qualities which can be seen here.  The Baroque period is foreshadowed in this work as Raphael depicts the very moment of transfiguration.  This is in contrast to the Renaissance preference of depicting scenes just prior to the action taking place.  The high drama of the scene is also a characteristic of Baroque art and a third characteristic of Baroque style is the use of Chiaroscuro, the close juxtaposition of light and dark areas for dramatic effect.

The ascension of Christ and the transfiguration are often confused: this scene is of the transfiguration, as recorded in the Gospel according to Matthew, in which Jesus was seen on a mountain in the company of Moses and Elijah.  The upper part of the painting is of the transfiguration itself, while the lower part depicts the efforts of the apostles to drive demons out of a possessed boy.

Most commentators have drawn attention to the dichotomy of the glory of Christ and the impotence of his Apostles.  Nietzsche referred to the painting in his “Birth of Tragedy” in which he saw a conflict between the Apollonian principles of Christ and the Dionysian principles of his Disciples.

About the artist:

Raphael was born in Urbino, to the north of Rome, where his father was count painter to the ruler.  Though orphaned at the age of eleven, he had probably helped in his father’s workshop.  Completing his training by 1501 when he was eighteen years old, Raphael was soon completing art for churches in Urbino and Perugia.  Within three years he was working in Florence, Sienna, Perugia, Urbino and appears to come under the influence of the work of Leonardo da Vinci.

By 1508 Raphael settled in Rome at the invitation of Pope Julius II and where he was disliked by Michelangelo, who probably viewed the younger man as a rival for Papal commissions.  Raphael began working on the Stanze which included the School of Athens, the Parnassus and the Disputation of the Eucharist.  Michelangelo ungraciously accused Raphael of plagiarism of his Sistine Chapel work, particularly after Raphael’s death.

Raphael created the largest workshop in Italy and many later masters apprenticed there.  In his personal life, he never married but was apparently closely attached to a mistress.  He fell into a mysterious illness at the age of thirty-seven and died after lingering for fifteen days.  His funeral was grand and he was buried by his own wish in the Pantheon.

We are pleased to offer a large framed canvas print of Raphael’s Transfiguration of Jesus Christ at our online store.

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Invictus, by William Ernest Henley, 1875

American / British / Caperton / Inspirational prints / Paintings (Reproductions) - 2 years ago - troycapc

Invictus inspirational print

This inspiring poem was written in 1875 by English poet William Ernest Henley. Henley was ravaged by tuberculosis at a young age and overcame severe disabilities to emerge as one of the most notable English poets of his era. Invictus is his most celebrated work.

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When he was nineteen years old, Henley’s father died; around this time, his left leg was also amputated below the knee, sacrificed to tuberculosis. Henley faced myriad physical and financial difficulties, but soldiered onward, ultimately passing the difficult Oxford Local Schools’ Examination in 1867. In the early 1870’s he received a diagnosis that an amputation of his right leg was also necessary to save his life. Henley contested this and placed himself under the care of the radical surgeon Joseph Lister; by 1875 Henley was discharged with his right leg intact. It was in that year that he wrote and published Invictus.

The poem has often been cited as a source of inspiration for various figures: from Nelson Mandela in his imprisonment from 1962 to 1980, to Franklin Roosevelt during his bout with polio in 1921. It was featured in the 1942 film classic King’s Row and has recently become the title of a new film.

While the popular image of the poem has been inspirational, many have seen it as the epitome of Stoicism. At the time of its publication, there was a movement among Victorian literati to cast off the traditional reliance on Christianity to meet the vicissitudes of life. They aimed instead at the type of hard-won self-reliance that this poem celebrates. Henley dismisses divine help as irrelevant in the line “whatever gods may be,” and declares his determination to stand solidly against the “bludgeoning of chance.”

After the publication of Invictus, Henley continued to write and publish and in 1889 became editor of the Scots Observer, a literary journal in Edinburgh. He moved to London two years later and was widely known through literary circles. His daughter Margaret became an inspiration for J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan before her death at the age of five years. Henley himself died in 1903.

Valid criticisms, however, have been made of the text and thrust of the poem. Some have complained that the sentiments are anti-Christian, as they seem to renounce a reliance on God. In stating “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul” Henley may have been attributing to himself divine powers, in that “I am” in Hebrew is the basic word for the deity himself. The poem can be interpreted as an early cry of secular humanism which seeks to answer the eternal questions of life without recourse to traditional religious sources.

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The Crucifixion by Thomas Eakins, 1880

Eakins / Paintings (Reproductions) - 2 years ago - troycapc

Thomas Eakins' breathtaking depiction of the Christ

In this masterpiece of 19^th century American Realism, Eakins dramatically portrays the Christ as awkwardly suspended between two realms: the elevated and perfect spiritual realm and the dirty, mundane physical realm. Below the Son of God is the grime of the world, which has soiled his feet. But above the waist the body of Christ is almost serene in its pose, the head delicately bowed in submission to the inevitable.

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In many ways, The Crucifixion has a deliberately unresolved quality. Eakins starkly contrasts the dirt and grit of the bottom of the painting with the divine calm expressed by the upper body and bowed head. Additionally, Eakins positions the viewer at the center of the body rather than at the traditional perspective from the feet. In fact, Eakins appears to demystify the traditional subject purposefully, infusing the scene with an earthly reality: this is an essentially human Jesus being executed by the Romans.

About the Artist:

Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins remains one of the most important of all American artists. Born and raised in Philadelphia, he began at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1861 at the age of seventeen years. In 1866 he left to study in Europe for four years where he studied in Paris under Jean-Leon Gerome and in Spain attempted his first large paintings.

Returning to Philadelphia at twenty-six, he began producing paintings which garnered him some acclaim. In 1876, he volunteered to teach at the Pennsylvania Academy and within six years he was director of the academy. His progressive teaching methods earned the Academy a reputation as one of the most advanced in the world by the 1880s. His liberal views, however, caused a split with the Academy in 1886, inspiring the creation of the alternative Art Students’ League of Philadelphia, where Eakins taught until 1898. He died in 1916.

The Crucifixion:

The Crucifixion is yet another of example of a hallmark of all of Eakins’ work: realistic depictions of the imperfections that exist in the real world. Eakins’ preoccupation with depicting the gritty reality of the crucifixion flew in the face of traditional images, which prior depicted the scene in a more ethereal manner. When the painting was first unveiled, women are said to have fainted at the sight.

Yet despite the gritty realism, Christ’s body is depicted as calm in the midst of agony and pain. This can be seen in the contrast between the smooth lines of the corpus and the jagged writing of the superscription above Jesus’ head. In this way, Eakins has successfully depicted Christ as both more human and more transcendent.

Many consider this to be Eakins’ greatest work, and we are proud to offer reproductions of this American masterpiece by one of the most important of American artists.

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Guardian of Paradise by Franz von Stuck, 1889

Paintings (Reproductions) / Von Stuck - 2 years ago - troycapc

From the King James Version of the Old Testament Book of Genesis:

“And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

Purchase our fine reproduction of this masterpiece by clicking here.

In this, his first renowned painting, Von Stuck portrays the “Guardian of Paradise” who bears the flaming sword described in the above biblical passage. Von Stuck ignored the Ezekiel tradition: portraying a cherub as having four faces (lion, ox, eagle, man), four wings, the hands of a human and the feet of an ox. Instead he maintains the Symbolist reliance on dream images and imagination to portray a sexually ambivalent yet intriguingly powerful figure guarding the garden. The original is in the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich.

The Artist:

Franz von Stuck began attending the Munich Academy in 1881 at the age of eighteen, having been born the son of a miller in the Bavarian countryside. Leaving the academy four years later, he attracted attention with his cartoons in Fliegende Blatter, a humorously illustrated German weekly. He exhibited his first paintings in 1889 at the Munich Glass Palace and won a gold medal for this piece, Guardian of Paradise.

In 1893 he was one of the founders of the Munich Secession, a group of Munich artists who protested against the predominant artist association. They issued their catalog on July 15 and their secession was followed by the secession of artists in Vienna, Berlin and other cities. Von Stuck gained further fame with his first sculpture, Athlete, and earned a gold medal for painting in Chicago. He was appointed to a royal professorship and gained yet more recognition with his most famous painting, The Sin, in 1894. Three years later he married an American widow and began to build the “Villa Stuck.”  The furniture he designed for this house and studio later won a Gold Medal at the 1900 Paris World Exposition. He was ennobled in 1905 and continued to win honors and provide leadership as a professor at the Munich Academy until his death in 1928.

Symbolism:

Guardian of Paradise is a brilliant example of the Symbolist movement. Symbolism, as applied to the visual arts, is related to the literary movement of the same name, which began in the mid-nineteenth century and was influenced by the works of Edgar Allen Poe. In the visual arts, it began as a more esoteric and lurid outgrowth of Romanticism. Symbolists reacted against naturalism and realism, which they thought devalued spirituality, imagination and dreams. They continued the mystical tendencies of some of the Romantics such as Caspar David Friedrich and John Henry Fuseli, concentrating on religious, philosophical and mythical subjects. They portrayed these subjects in paintings that utilized personal and often ambiguous symbols, frequently borrowing from dream imagery.

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The Rapture of Psyche by William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1895

Bouguereau / Paintings (Reproductions) - 2 years ago - troycapc

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In Greek myth, Psyche is the soul; psychology, therefore, is the study of the soul. In this wonderful masterpiece, La Ravissement de Psyche, Bouguereau portrays the Greek myth which asserts that the soul is most complete when it is in love. It is therefore one of the master’s most romantic of his over 800 paintings.

The myth:

The Greeks tell of the tale in which Aphrodite (“Sex”) grew jealous of the beauty of Psyche (“the Soul”). She ordered her son Eros (“Love”) to make Psyche fall in love with a monster. But Eros was so stricken with Psyche’s beauty that he himself fell in love with her. He took her to a hideaway where he visited her every night and left as soon as the day began to dawn. Eros told Psyche never to give way to her curiosity, or to inquire who he was. But her jealous sisters made her believe that in the darkness of night she was actually embracing some kind of hideous monster.

Unable to restrain her curiosity and distrust, Psyche approached Eros with a lamp one night while he slept, and to her amazement beheld not a monster but rather the most handsome and lovely of all the gods. In her excitement, she grew careless and a drop of hot oil fell from the lamp upon Eros’s shoulder. Startled and feeling betrayed by Psyche’s mistrust, Eros chastised her and left.

Having thus lost her true love, Psyche was miserable. She wandered about from temple to temple, inquiring after her beloved, and at length came to the palace of Aphrodite. There her real sufferings began, for Aphrodite imposed upon her the hardest and most humiliating labors imaginable.  Psyche likely would have perished under the weight of them, had not Eros, who still loved her in secret, invisibly comforted and aided her. With his help she at last succeeded in overcoming the jealousy and hatred of Aphrodite, was made immortal, and was united with him forever.

In this painting, Bouguereau has captured the moment of the rapture of Psyche, finally in the arms of her lover ascending into the heavens. The subtle use of color is truly astonishing. The light and dark purples of the cloth surrounding Eros and Psyche play beautifully against the purple gray clouds and mountains.

The Artist:

Bouguereau was born into a merchant family in 1825 in La Rochelle, France. Through the influence of an uncle, he was exposed to Classical studies and attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux. He began painting portraits and went to Paris, enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts there and won the Prix de Rome at the age of twenty-five. Bouguereau completely immersed himself in the Academic Style and was inspired by such masters as Raphael. His joy in his work is exemplified in his saying, “Each day I go to my studio full of joy; in the evening when obliged to stop because of darkness I can scarcely wait for the next morning to come …if I cannot give myself to my dear painting I am miserable.” He died in 1905 in La Rochelle.

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