Pompeii No.19: Finding the Muse

In my last three postings, we looked at the trophy as an ornament, as well as my interpretations of the trophy, which now decorate both sides of the dining room window.

Now it's time to decorate the three panels that are x'd above. My thought all along was that these areas should have figures, as so many Pompeian murals did.

Italian Frescoes: The Flowering of the Renaissance  |  Roettgen

Originally, I was planning on three figures posed heroically, like this image by Domenico Ghirlandaio. If I used centurions, it would be a nice continuation of the trophy theme.

www.bythegods.net   |   Antiques in Italian Interiors, Verbavolant

I also considered using statues of Roman gods, like this one of Jupiter with his lightning bolts, and maybe putting them in alcoves like the image on the right. There were certainly a lot of Roman gods from which to choose!

Pompeii, Riverside

Another thought was to paint what I would call vignettes, figures on plain backgrounds. The painting on the right you might call a celebrity portrait; it's of the Greek playwright Menander, who authored more than a hundred comedies.

Karl Friedrich Schinkel: An Architecture for Prussia  |  Rizzoli

In Pompeian decoration — and its numerous revivals — such figures often float in the center of a panel, but in the back of my mind . . .

. . . I really liked the look of the grounded figures shown above. This is a screen-save from a video on British royal palaces. Fiona Bruce is walking through the Venitian lodging of the 18th-century British consul, Joseph Smith. (If you are like I am, you're always admiring the wallpaper at the very moment in a movie when someone gets killed!) I like those pedestals, and if I had figures at the bottom of the panels, there would still be room for ornamentation between the figures and the garlands.

click to enlarge  |  academicnudes19thcentury.blogspot.com

In my wanderings through the Internet, I came upon these engravings by a 19th-century German illustrator named Hugo Bürkner (1818-1897). What struck me about these images is that Bürkner obviously studied Michelangelo. You can see that especially in the central engraving, in the musculature and draping of cloth. I would make some changes, but I think these muses of painting, sculpture and architecture would make dandy Pompeian motifs.

100swallows.files.wordpress.com  |  photo by Wkinght94

And it would also be a nice nod to Michelangelo, whose tomb coincidentally bears the three muses of painting, sculpture and architecture. Michelangelo's tomb, by the way, was designed by Vasari, remembered today primarily for his biographies of other artists.

So it's settled.

Next week I'll unveil the first panel figure,

the Muse of Painting!

.

Botticelli's Master

Sandro Botticelli

Sandro Botticelli (1444-1510), whom the great biographer Giorgio Vasari referred to as "Botticello," attained a style we've come to recognize as all his own. But that's a disservice to his teacher, Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469), who is now less well remembered.

Botticelli was apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi while still a restless young boy. Fra Filippo Lippi became very fond of his apprentice because Sandro threw himself into learning and imitated the master closely. And if we make some comparisons, we can see that works by the mature Botticelli retain the influence of his master.

Above are two Madonnas, on the left by Fra Filippo Lippi, and on the right by Botticelli. A trademark of both artists is that they tended to define flesh in soft gradations, somewhat denying skeletal underpinnings. Features were often outlined, and we can see that especially in their treatment of hands.

At the top are hands by Fra Filippo Lippo, and below are hands by Botticelli. You're not very conscious of knuckles in these, and you'll notice that both artists extended the length of the fingers. Such lengthened features made Botticelli's women particularly graceful, and it's no mistake that when we think of Botticelli, we are bound to think of Venus rising from the water.

Botticelli is also remembered for his exquisite delineation of hair, and here again, one has only to look to his master to see the influence. On the left, hair by Fra Filippo Lippi, and on the right, by Botticelli.

Botticelli of course established his own studio, and went on to work for Pope Sixtus IV and the great Lorenzo de Medici. If we look at what I would consider to be Fra Filippo Lippi's masterpiece, The Adoration of the Magi, it looks quite different from anything by his pupil.

Click to enlarge

And yet if one looks at La Primavera, Botticelli's famous painting of love and spring, one still sees the influence of Fra Filippo Lippi in the tapestry-like painting of the flora.

According to Vasari, Botticelli was generous to other artists, and was famous for his practical jokes. Unfortunately, he became a follower of the priest Girolamo Savonarola, and according to Vasari, even destroyed some of his own work in the infamous Bonfire of the Vanities. Botticelli, having given up painting, died destitute.