Like many museums in Europe, most of Rome’s most famous museums don’t allow photography.  (Or, if they do, I’m sorry to say I was unable to take pictures because I was in class while visiting them!)  As a result, most of the images in this installment of Art in Real Life are of famous Italian places, rather than paintings–which, to be honest, I sometimes find more immediately exciting than canvases on a wall in a museum.  These structures are almost all still exactly where they were hundreds of years ago when they were first built, and their size and age is mesmerizing.  Rome is one of the best places in the world to be wonderfully overwhelmed by how old everything is, to wander and lose yourself on the same cobblestones Renaissance greats did. As always, nothing can top actually being there, but hopefully these tourist-y glimpses into Rome will help you feel more like you’re in the city than an art history class’ slides or PowerPoints do.

Click on any of the pictures below to open the gallery; click next (or type “n” on your keyboard) to view the next photo.

TAHB’s Art in Real Life series: Paris | Brussels | Rome

What’s an artist to do when he’s bursting onto the scene just after greats like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael recently left it? This was the dilemma faced by the Italian Mannerists, artists who had to figure out a way to emerge from the shadows of Renaissance greats and define their own style.

One look at Parmagianino’s most famous painting, The Madonna with the Long Neck, tells us he was trying to do exactly that.  Unlike the muscular Madonna by Michelangelo or the graceful, grounded Madonnas of Raphael, Parmagianino elongates the figure of the Madonna, and every other person in the painting.  The Christ Child seems to slip dangerously off of her lap; bones seem rubbery within legs and fingers.  To add to the effect, the painting is larger than life–really emphasizing the length of her limbs. 

Things to think about How does your eye travel through this painting?  What kinds of tricks does Parmagianino use to help your eye along this path?

The first installment of Art in Real Life is in Paris, home to countless masterworks of art. I was lucky enough to go to Paris when I was abroad, and annoyed many of my friends by insisting they stand in front of artwork so I could get shots of how large the piece actually was.  Have you, too, wondered just how big David’s Oath of the Horatii is or whether you’re taller than the Mona Lisa?  Read on for highlights at the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay.

	Musée du Louvre A view of the central courtyard from the Richelieu Wing (much quieter than the famous Denon Wing, where the Mona Lisa is housed), and the famous I. M. Pei designed pyramid. Want to take a different sort of virtual tour of the Louvre? Check out their website.
	Venus de Milo Contrapposto, classical beauty, Greek drapery… it’s all there.  The statue is really quite big, and there are always at least 35 tourists around snapping pictures of her. Konica Minolta has reconstructed the Venus de Milo digitally, and it’s pretty stunning.  Check it out here.
	Nike or Winged Victory As you enter the famous Denon Wing, where all the greats of Renaissance art are housed, you’re greeted with the huge Winged Victory.  Another larger than life statue; you can feel the wind that blows her toga and wings back.
	Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa She’s actually really small, and you can barely get close enough to see her elusive smile.  Right around the corner, though, is Giorgione’s Pastoral Symphony…which you could breathe on, if you like. My professor had warned us she was really dirty, but I found the painting pretty bright (maybe that’s because my expectations were so low. True story: my English teacher in high school touched the Mona Lisa before it was under glass. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that anecdote.
	Jacques-Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know this is one of my favorite paintings.  Check out what I wrote about it last year.  You can only imagine how much I freaked out when walking through this room… It was smaller than I’d imagined, but still quite formidable.
	Theodore Gericault, Raft of the Medusa Really big!  At least life size, if not larger.  The figure on the bottom right, which Gericault added on hanging day for the Paris Salon, literally tumbles out towards you as if it’s going to fall onto your lap. Fittingly creepy, as it’s a corpse.
	Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People The famous French Revolution picture is a lot smaller than I’d imagined — not quite the monumental size of, say, Raft of the Medusa — but the smoky haziness really emerges as you go past.
	Johannes Vermeer, The Lacemaker Again, if you’re a longtime TAHB reader, you probably know how much I love Vermeer — a whole lot.  This painting, probably a later work, is tiny and precious, and even though it doesn’t have that special quality that Vermeer’s works in the Rijksmuseum possess, any work by Vermeer can take your breath away. Want to see all of Vermeer’s paintings, in scale, side by side? Click here.
	Musée d’Orsay The d’Orsay is huge, has basically every important 19th century and 20th century masterpiece, and is housed in a former train station.
	Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral series We started at the top and worked our way down — thus also going backwards, but cleverly beating the crowds (I highly recommend that tactic!). Monet’s paintings were small, but not surprisingly so: big enough to immerse yourself in, but small enough to feel as if the scene is all yours.
	Claude Monet, Ladies in a Garden Meanwhile, downstairs, Monet’s earlier work hangs downstairs — much larger than his later works.
	Eduoard Manet, Olympia The famous courtesan follows in a long history — from Giorgione to Titian — and Manet’s “muddy” style, as critics like to say, is astounding in person.

Let me know what you think of this series — helpful? Useful? Cool? Lame? I’d love to hear your opinions as I keep working on other posts for it!

TAHB’s Art in Real Life series: Paris | Brussels | Rome

Continuing with our theme of art infiltrating everyday culture, spotted on Fifth Avenue in New York City earlier this week was this display.  Henri Bendell’s jewelry window features Renaissance beauties decked out in necklaces and earrings… but not painted ones.  Rather, the jewelry poked into the “canvases” of the Lady with an Erimine and Maddalena Doni are, naturally, for sale in the high-end department store.  Clever or tacky?  I wonder if Leonardo and Raphael would approve…

Caravaggio was not always a ‘trendy’ artist.  Before museums dedicated exhibitions solely to him, before monographs were written by art historians, indeed before a bestselling non-fiction art-crime book was published about his lost painting, Caravaggio was reluctantly accepted by collectors in the US as an artist primarily associated with genre painting, and nothing much more.  (Genre painting is the depiction of every day life).

What they didn’t really bother to collect were his religious works, which most art historians today agree are really the best of his works.  In his religious works, the young, controversial, forward-thinking artist of the 17th century combines his observations of every day life, stark experimentations with light sources, and clever use of what seem to be dank, monochromatic compositions into beautifully subtle and “realistic” religious paintings.  I’ve seen a few pretty amazing Caravaggios in Italy (particularly in the Galleria Borghese, if you have the luck to visit!), but the Met went out of its way to acquire this very late Caravaggio in 1997 when it came on the auction market, and it’s a good thing they did, because it’s pretty awesome.

The Met’s curator of European Paintings, Keith Christiansen, suspects is one of the very last paintings the artist did.  My favorite part about this painting is the light source and how cleverly Caravaggio uses it.  Caravaggio is known for being the founder of those “Baroque” light effects, inspiring a league of “Caravaggiesque” painters to follow in his footsteps.  Here, as often in Caravaggio’s religious works, the light acts as a religious signifier.

Caravaggio, Detail of The Denial of St. Peter, late 1590s-early 1600s, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (Credit)

In the painting, St. Peter denies that he is a follower of Jesus to a Roman soldier as a servant girl, who suspects Peter’s true identity, looks on.  The Roman soldier is completely in the dark, showing that he has no idea of Peter’s belief in Christ; the servant girl, in partial light, is beginning to recognize Peter; and meanwhile Peter, an apostle, is in full, direct light.  This light shows who knows, who doesn’t, who believes — an amazingly revolutionary but clever and subtle way to enhance the story and the intimate image.

And a fun fact: the helmet in the painting is actually in the collection of the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, Italy (for those of you who’ve read this blog before, you know that’s one of my favorite museums in Italy!).  Unfortunately I couldn’t find a picture of the helmet itself, but it’s in there, somewhere, whether in the galleries or in storage!  Caravaggio was known to use props in his works and this one is, clearly, no exception.  Could it be that Caravaggio’s own prop helmet is, at this moment, sitting in the galleries of the Bargello?  Guess I’ll just have to go back to Florence to find out… in the meantime, visit the almost-real-thing in one of Caravaggio’s masterful last works in the Met.

Visit this Caravaggio in the European Paintings gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd St., New York, NY.
Visit (or at least look for) the helmet in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Via del Proconsolo 4, Florence, Italy.