HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
Dec. 30, 2005 It´s hard to find a more magnificent painting than “The Coronation of Napoleon” by Jacques-Louis David, which can be seen at the URL next below. This is an enormous painting 20 feet high and 33 feet long depicting all the luminaries and dignitaries in attendance at Napoleon’s coronation in 1804. I had the pleasure of seeing this painting in person on two occasions, in 1971 and again in 1991, in the Louvre in Paris. Of course, the Louvre is a vast gallery and I cannot even be sure I saw everything, but among the paintings I did see, I certainly would consider this the most imposing. Jacques-Louis David painted many other famous paintings, the most outstanding of which are the Oath of the Horatii, Napoleon Crossing the Alps, the Death of Marat, the Trial of Socrates and the Rape of the Sabine Women. Note that in the Coronation, Napoleon is crowning himself. He did not condescend to let a mere Pope crown him. http://www.mezzo-mondo.com/arts/mm/france19/david/DJL007.html Another of my favorite painters is Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio). I love most of his paintings, which include a large number of lovely madonnas. Perhaps the most impressive single painting is a fresco found in the Vatican Palace in Rome. I saw this twice also, on my two visits to Italy, in 1974 and 1991. In fact, the murals of Raphael and of course Michelangelo dominate the entire Sistine Chapel, “The School of Athens”, shown at the next URL, being just one of many. http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Miscellaneous/School_of_Athens.html Another most excellent painter was Peter Paul Rubens, of Flanders. In the Louvre, there’s a whole room devoted to his paintings of the life of Marie de Medici. One of the paintings is called “The Apotheosis of Henry IV and the Proclamation of the Regency of Marie de Medicis”, which is at the URL listed below: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/rubens/henry-iv.jpg Another very famous painting that I had a chance to see during my first visit to Italy is Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus”, which probably was censured by the Roman Catholic Church as “pagan”. This painting hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, along with several other Botticellis and hundreds of the paintings that you will see only in art books unless you go to Florence. http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/botticelli/venus/venus.jpg A modern painting that deserves to be compared with some of the paintings that I’ve mentioned above is “The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus”, which was painted by the iconoclastic painter Salvador Dalí. But his particular painting is not in the weird, irreverent style for which he is famous. I have never seen this painting in person, though it is in St. Petersburg, Florida. http://www.revilo-oliver.com/Kevin-Strom-personal/Art/Dali_DreamofChristopherColumbus1959.jpg I suppose someone will say that my tastes are all wrong, and that I’m erratic and know nothing about art. So I accept that judgment beforehand, and list the URL of another of my favorite paintings, “The Swing”, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. http://www.iupui.edu/~histwhs/H114.dir/H114.webslides/e.18th%20c/fragonard.swing.jpg Another Flemish painter that I like is Jan Vermeer. Here is “The Music Lesson”. http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vermeer/i/music-lesson.jpg ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
