ART SUNDAY - FEDE GALIZIA

“Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.” - Charlotte Whitton

Happy International Women’s Day! To celebrate, Art Sunday today is dedicated to a woman artist, Fede Galizia (1578–1630), who was an Italian Renaissance painter, a pioneer of the still life genre.

Fede Galizia, was born in Milan in 1578. Her father, Nunzio Galizia, also a painter of miniatures, had moved to Milan from Trento. Fede (whose name means “Faith”) learned to paint from him. By the age of twelve, she was sufficiently accomplished as an artist to be mentioned by Gian Paolo Lomazzo, a painter and art theorist friend of her father, who wrote: “This girl dedicates herself to imitate our most extraordinary art.” At a young age, Galizia was already an established portrait painter handling many commissioned works. Perhaps it was her father’s influence as a miniaturist that led to Galizia’s attention to detail in her portraits. Her treatment of jewels and clothing made her a very desirable portrait painter. She was often commissioned to paint religious and secular themes as well.

Several of her paintings based on the story of Judith and Holofernes, a popular theme in art of the period, survive in private collections. Perhaps her earliest was “Judith with the Head of Holofernes” painted in 1596 which is now in Sarasota Florida at the Ringling Museum of Art. She also created miniatures and altarpieces for convents. The style of her portraits derived from the naturalistic traditions of the Renaissance in Italy with a sharply realistic approach. Galizia’s artistic skills of drawing and painting are evident in her Portrait of Paolo Morigia, a Jesuit scholar and one of her earliest patrons and supporters. Morigia, also a writer and historian, was very pleased with Galizia’s work, and was portrayed in her 1596 Portrait of Paolo Morigia to be writing a poem about the picture Galizia was painting.

She received several public commissions for altarpieces in Milanese churches; one of these was the “Noli me tangere” (1616; Milan, S Stefano), made for the altar of Santa Maria Maddalena Church. When not painting portraits, Galizia was primarily interested in painting still lifes, a genre in which she was a pioneer and for which she is best remembered. Although very few contemporary sources mention Galizia’s still life paintings, they are the majority of her surviving works. Sixty-three works have been catalogued as hers, of which 44 are still lifes. One of her signed still lifes made in 1602 is said to be the first dated still life by an Italian artist, and proves her involvement in this new style of painting. Galizia never married. On June 21, 1630, she made her will and is thought to have died of the plague in Milan shortly afterward.

Fede Galizia’s paintings were not given the recognition they deserved until well into the 20th century, when special attention was given to her work in studies made in 1963 and 1989. Galizia shows a style related to the Lombard mannerism of the late 16th century, centred in Mantua, but known internationally, especially in France. Galizia’s still lifes are among the earliest examples of painting in a new genre in which women (partly because they were excluded from other kinds of painting), would excel. Galizia’s still lifes differ from her father's works in their greater detail and more vibrant colours. Most of these works featured fruit centerpieces in simple, frontal arrangements. They were often composed of a basket or bowl filled with a single type of fruit, such as peaches or pears, with a few fruit, sometimes sliced, scattered at the base of the bowl. The painting above, “Cherries in a Silver Compote” is typical of this genre she excelled in.

Many of her still lifes had fresh flowers or other fruits set on the counter to provide a noticeable contrast and scale as seen in her work titled “Still-life with Peaches and a Porcelain and a Bowl”. Galizia’s work displayed influences from such works as Caravaggio’s “Basket of Fruit”. Associating with the more restrained style of the Counter Reformation period, she did not explore the more lavish compositions and forms taken up by many of her contemporaries working in this genre; she preferred instead to use a stricter, more simplistic style like that seen in Francisco de Zurbarán’s slightly later still life paintings.

Galizia’s paintings were deft with detail, perfectly balanced, and her attention to shadow, light, and texture was unrivalled at the time. She was particularly good at creating inviting space in her paintings. Her compositions are not crowded. They look as if one could reach out and touch the fruit, grasp it, and pull it from the painting without disturbing the rest of the work. Her graceful, flowing arrangements were natural and poetic, unlike their predecessors. Galizia’s aesthetic treatment of still lifes would not be seen again until the middle of the century.

The modern direction taken in still life painting was shaped entirely by her works. Many of the still life paintings we see today draw their influence from her original ideas. Currently, it is unknown just how many paintings Galizia was responsible for. Many works that could have possibly been hers have been attributed to her male counterpart Panfilo Nuvolone, who drew significant inspiration from Galizia. She may have inspired the Bergamese Francesco Codino and the Baroque still life painter Giovanna Garzoni.

MEMENTO MORI

“Look to the end of life.” Chilon - One of the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece

Sickness is but a reminder of the transience of our existence and of the ultimate fate of all living things – death.  How far from our mind is our own mortality when we are young and healthy and feeling full of vigour, ready to overcome all obstacles in our path? On the other hand, how our mind dwells on morbid thought when our body becomes assailed by illness and our vital reserve is diminished… Disease has always been with us, and it is doubtful whether we shall ever be able to completely eradicate it from our life.

Advances in medicine, public health and knowledge in the 19th century have done a lot to decrease the incidence of many diseases that were scourges of the past, but as soon as we eliminate one such enemy, a new one takes its place. In the West, infectious diseases were the major cause of death until the early twentieth century, but as we conquered those, we became victims to cancers and degenerative disease such as atherosclerosis and heart attacks. The advent of AIDS, SARS and new deadly forms of influenza have created panic on a world-wide scale as they claim their victims. New viruses lurk in Africa and will, no doubt, cause many epidemics in the near future, as the recent Ebola epidemic has shown.

There is nothing more distressing than to see a loved one being tortured by an illness. Especially a chronic disease without a cure that one is powerless to do anything against. How to deal with that suffering is a conundrum that has no answer. The pain that our loved one feels hurts us also, but our incapacity to help them causes even more anguish. We try to deal with this torment of every-day existence, if for nothing else, to give strength to the ill person whom we love. However, at the same time we have another reality to deal with – we are confronted with the mortality of our loved one. Someone whom we have always considered as strong, healthy, young, invincible is suddenly reduced by disease to shell, a shadow of their former self.

It is inevitable that once we have wrestled with the morbidity and mortality of our loved one, we should start to question our own health, wonder about our susceptibility to disease and ponder our own death. This may be easier to do on the personal level, once we have dealt with these matters in the face of our loved one.

The saddest thing that one may have to cope with in terms of mortality is the death of one’s child. Children are meant to bury their parents, not vice-versa. No parent is prepared for a child’s death and it is important to remember that how long one’s child lived does not determine the size of one’s loss. Parents are intimately involved in the daily lives of young children, and death changes every aspect of family life, often leaving an enormous emptiness.

The death of an older child or adolescent is difficult because children at this age are beginning to reach their potential and become independent individuals. When an adult child dies, one not only loses a child, but often a close friend, a link to grandchildren, and an irreplaceable source of emotional and practical support. If one loses an only child, one may also feel that one’s identity as a parent is lost, and perhaps the possibility of grandchildren.

In addition to grieving the loss of a child, bereft parents may find that they grieve the loss of the hopes and dreams they had for their child, as well as the potential that will never be realised and the experiences they will never share. The pain of these losses will always be part of these unfortunate parents. Yet, as is the case with even the greatest tragedies, the greatest pain, with time, most parents find a way forward and begin to experience happiness and meaning in life once again.

Death is part of life and the sooner one confronts one’s own mortality, the better our life will become. Without death there is no life, and while there is life we must live it to the full so as to make the most of it before we die. The sooner we accept our eventual demise, the more meaningful and fulfilling out life will become.

The painting above is: “Memento Mori - To This Favour”, oil on canvas, by William Michael Harnett, 1879, Cleveland Museum of Art.

THE ART OF STILL LIFE

“Man will begin to recover the moment he takes art as seriously as physics, chemistry or money.” - Ernst Levy

A still life is a work of art that typically shows inanimate subject matter, either natural (flowers, plants, rocks, food, shells, etc) or manufactured (books, vases, drinking glasses, jewellery, coins, pipes, etc). The origins of this type of art is to be found in Ancient Greece with many extant examples, but also numerous descriptions of (now lost) art works in literature. In the Middle Ages, a rich trove of still life painting can be found in illuminated manuscripts, while with the advent of the popularity of the panel painting, Flemish, Dutch and German exemplars were soon imitated across Europe.

Still life paintings give the artist freedom of expression, as well as allowing much leeway in selection of subject matter, colours, composition and technique than do most other genres of painting (e.g. portraits). Still life paintings before 1700 often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted. For example, a common example of still life with an obvious meaning is the “Vanitas” type, where the mortality of human beings is highlighted by the depiction of ephemeral beauty (e.g. a flower), an example of death (e.g. a skull) and a reference to the passage of time (e.g. an hourglass).

Other types of thematic still life paintings especially popular in the baroque period were flowerpieces, usually of very ornate vases filled with a profusion of flowers of every kind; the four seasons, with reference to objects typical of each one; the four continents, the four elements and so on. Other types of still life painting chose as their theme various occupations (butcher, fishmonger, cook, man of letters, etc) and the objects depicted were appropriate to the métier illustrated.

Another common example of allegorical still life was the depiction of the five senses: Sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. This allowed the artist free rein to pick subjects that illustrated the five senses, but there was also a formulaic association of certain objects with the senses. Musical instruments were always a good choice for the sense of hearing, flowers for the sense of smell, items of food for taste, rich cloth like velvet for touch and a mirror for the sense of sight. The contemplation of such paintings could be the source of much reflection and philosophising, especially if one considered the deterioration of the acuity of the senses with advancing age. Similarly, the artist could introduce much contrast in the objects depicted, giving a didactic indication of “good versus evil” where the senses are concerned.

Illustrated here is a typical such still life depicting the five senses. It is by Frenchman Jacques Linard, who had many such thematic works in his oeuvre. Still life paintings have always been popular as they are highly decorative and appeal to a wide variety of tastes. Artists could make a decent living from still life paintings if the public found their work appealing.

Jacques Linard (1597-1645) was baptised on the 6th of September, 1597. The first record of being an artist was in the 1620’s. He was in Paris by 1626, and his first securely attributed still-life work is dated the following year. He was married in 1626 to the daughter of a Parisian Master Painter. He lived in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district, where a number of French still-life painters such as Louise Moillon and Lubin Baugin worked alongside Flemish artists specialising in this genre.

In 1631 he was created Peintre et Valet de Chambre du Roi, a post that guaranteed him a degree of financial independence. Linard’s works of 1627-44 were mainly of fruit and flowers; with Louise Moillon, however, he was among the first French artists to combine successfully the female form with still-life elements. A painting such as Basket of Flowers (Paris, Louvre) owes something to Flemish prototypes in the anachronistic grouping of flowers that span several months. Patiently recording the flowers as they bloomed, and working on the picture from a series of drawings and sketches, Linard demonstrated his commitment to working from nature. However, this work also has a distinctively French elegance and economy of composition.

In the painting above, “The Five Senses”, Linard follows the well-established successful formula of this type of still life painting, with numerous references not only to the senses, but also with acknowledgement of the moralisation common in other types of still life like the “Vanitas”. There is a sumptuous blue velvet purse illustrating touch, but next to it are cards and silver coins. The moral there is: “Beware! Lovely to hold, but easy to lose if you succumb to the evil of gambling…” A landscape painting within this painting and a mirror refer to sight, as does the vase of multi-coloured blooms. The flowers of course refer to the sense of smell, as does the fruit, which pays homage to both smell and taste. The open music manuscript book is a reference to the sense of hearing. The contents of the two boxes are perhaps to add fuel to our sense of curiosity, but maybe not!