In ictu oculi (1672).
Having castigated Somerset Maugham yesterday for a novel that even he professed to dislike, thanks can be offered for the passage in The Magician which draws attention to a painter I hadn’t come across before. With a scythe-wielding skeleton snuffing a candle flame, and a bishop rotting in his casket, these are a very Spanish take on the vanitas genre. Some of the subsequent works of Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel are less surprising when you see art that’s this grotesque.
Finis gloria mundi (1672).
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Alfred Rethel’s Totentanz
• The art of Jacopo Ligozzi, 1547–1627
• Massachusetts memento mori
• Skull cameras
• Walmor Corrêa’s Memento Mori
• The skull beneath the skin
• Vanitas paintings
• Very Hungry God
• History of the skull as symbol
God said to Abraham “KIll me a son,
Abe said “Man you must be puttting me on…” – Robert Zimmerman
http://www.friendsofart.net/en/art/juan-de-valdes-leal/the-sacrifice-of-isaac
or do you prefer Caravaggio’s version? :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice_of_Isaac_(Caravaggio)
Caravaggio almost always wins any comparison, especially when the chiaroscuro is as striking as it is in that first example.
In that great period of spanich painting, even lesser artists made astounding works.This is another vanitas from that time:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pereda.jpg
That’s a great painting as well, thanks.
Catholic terror propaganda at its finest.