IMO, the highlight of the show was not the religious and mythological works, although they were truly stunning, but rather the entire gallery devoted to commissioned portraits. I have a deep fascination with portraiture; there is something which strikes me as almost mystical about these snapshots, as it were, of individual humans, captured and held like preserved specimens of themselves...while the living, flesh-and-blood humans aged and withered until finally- to paraphrase Charlotte Bronte- both subject and artist had "for generations...been coffin dust." When I look into the liquid, sympathetic eyes of a Romanized Egyptian lady, rendered in almost impossibly fresh-looking encaustic on the outer wrappings of her ancient and lovingly preserved mummy...I feel something very akin to touching the hem of some Divine garment. When I looked today into the faces of two Venetian children, so vividly, vigorously alive, I really did (and still do) feel some aching, massive sense of eternity that is hard to contain; I have tears in my eyes now, just recalling the yawning sense of time that seemed to arch between myself and all those vital, dark-eyed ladies, gentlemen and promise-filled youths of The Veneto. Some had such fiery, intelligent stares- it was very easy to imagine them willing themselves- with some supreme pygmalion-esque effort- into the future, that they could forever continue to challenge their fellow humans with bold, even haughty gazes:
"I dare you to relegate me to obscurity"
I was struck with a profound, vanitas-like pang as I stared (for I don't even know how long...) into the mischievous face of the young heir to a Venetian silk-trading fortune. The museum card stated that his father, having casually "removed his glove" was holding the child in a "tender" fatherly embrace. I perceived- or seemed to- a different scene altogether. The child's attitude reminded me of nothing so much as my own family snapshots, in which my young nephew irrepressibly squirms under the grasp of whichever adult is attempting to keep him in the mis en scene. The Venetian child looks- to me- to be eternally caught in an intensely human (and humanizing!) moment of rebellion against his father's, and perhaps the artist's, attempts to constrain him within such an overformal canvas. The father's hand plays almost absently with the boy's delicate gold necklace; exactly the sort of possessive familiarity that The Child chafes under. In the adjacent frame, the boy's sister crumples handfuls of her mother's sumptuous silk skirts, holding the fabric up in a timeless gesture of infantine defense whilst peering around her mother's hip in timid curiosity. The woman gazes over at her husband with barely-concealed archness, "Is this over yet? The children are restless..." She clutches in one hand a martin pelt, said to be a talisman for safe pregnancy and childbirth. I am still, hours later, overwhelmed with curiosity; was she pregnant when she sat for this portrait? If so, what happened to her, and the child? How many children had she borne- and lost- before finally these two beat the odds and survived long enough for their parents to begin investing in them cautious aspirations for adulthood? I feel burnt by the unfairness of it all, that 400 years gape between me and this fellow young mother, that I need not ever feel the stark terror she must have known, that her children will not live to see another spring, that she will never rise from childbed, that her husband's ship will be lost...I want to resurrect her and her children, but there is nothing, nothing I can do.
Past and present seem, in my consciousness, superimposed seamlessly upon and around each other with a psychedelic clarity. In my mind's eye I see the hubble deep field images; it seems foolish and petty that I could be powerless to reach through a short span of centuries and lay hold of any of the vital, incandescent fellow beings that stare out with such ageless calm from their respective frames.
The last comparable exhibition I saw was the El Greco show at the Met, years ago now. I went with a friend who died several years later. Perhaps this is the root of my somewhat melancholy postulating on the subject/s above. I think with surprising frequency of my friend, and how impossible it seems that anyone so vital could be absolutely, irrevocably physically gone. Like those Venetian children, he will never age in the eyes of the world. I honestly don't know if it would feel better, or worse to see portraits of those same children in their old age. Because what I really want is for them to be alive now!
The show was truly fabulous; if you get a chance to see it tomorrow, you should definitely go. Sorry to be so pensive. Just happens, sometimes.
In Summation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEzxchU4RUY
Really nice insight into the family portrait. I love looking for those symbols (martin pelt) and interactions... and the ability of the artist to capture that tension in subtlety of expression, pose and manner, is always mind boggling.
ReplyDeletefunny thing, natty- I actually had the image of an etching I saw when I was touring the Art Institute with YOU burning in my mind's eye the entire time I was writing this post. Perhaps you recall; it was deceptively simple, a black & white etching of a 17th (or possibly 18th) century couple. They were crafted so that they appeared to be actually leaning casually out of the etched border, as if it was an open window. The burning intelligence and obvious humor in their expressions has stayed with me. Like, REALLY stayed- I think of them surprisingly often.
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