Tag: Italian Masterpieces

What are you looking at? | John Weretka on Music and Italian Masterpieces from Spain’s Royal Court, Museo del Prado

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Master S.B. active, Rome 1633–1655 Kitchen still life (Natura morta di cucina) 1640s oil on canvas 78.0 x 151.0 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P01990) Spanish Royal Collection Museo Nacional del Prado

John Weretka on a musical mystery in a painting by Master S.B. in the Museo del Prado Masterpieces exhibition at the NGV Amigoni’s group portrait of Farinelli, Teresea Castellini, Metastasio and Amigoni himself and Master S.B.’s Kitchen still life are both currently on display in the Museo del Prado exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. Music features reasonably often in paintings and other art works and, as someone who works between musicology and art history, my eye is often drawn to these kinds of representations. Artists often take real care with the depiction of music. One of the most startling examples of this is the magnificently detailed Annunciation to the Shepherds (1587) by Jan Sadeler I (1550-1660) (fig. 1). Conforming to the normal tropes of the Annunciation type, it shows a choir of nine angels who hold the parts…

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Lecture | 2014 Duldig Lecture – Matthew Martin on Spanish Sculpture | NGV International

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Guido Reni Italian 1575–1642 Saint Sebastian (San Sebastiano) 1615–20 oil on canvas 170.5 x 133.0 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P00211) Spanish Royal Collection

Blood and Tears: Seventeenth-century Spanish sculpture Dr Matthew Martin, Curator, Decorative Arts & Antiquities at the NGV The Counter-reformation saw the rise of a new, more intense kind of realism in seventeenth-century Spanish art. Painters and sculptors sought to create images of Christ, the Virgin, and saints which were as lifelike and accessible as possible. This realism was starkly austere, emotionally gripping, and even gory, intended to shock the senses and stir the soul. While the painters of this period, like Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán, are ranked amongst the great masters of European art, the sculptors who were their contemporaries are largely unknown outside Spain. This lecture will explore the place of these artists and the masterpieces they created in art history. Join us for this annual lecture on sculpture jointly presented with The Duldig Studio. Free, no…

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What are you looking at? | Giuseppe Bonito’s The Turkish Embassy to the Court of Naples in 1741

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What are you looking at? | Giuseppe Bonito’s The Turkish Embassy to the Court of Naples in 1741 John Weretka The Turkish Embassy to the Court of Naples in 1741 currently on display at the Museo del Prado exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. Giuseppe Bonito’s name is not one that anyone other than the most enthusiastic lover of late Baroque art is likely to know. This Neapolitan painter was born in 1707 and was a student of Solimena. From the 1740s, he was engaged as a portraitist to the Neapolitan court. Wider professional recognition followed in the 1750s with nomination as a pittore di camera, election to the Accademia di S. Luca in Rome, and promotion to the directorship of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples. Bonito’s output included religious works, such as the now-destroyed vault fresco…

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