Why these four Italian paintings?

In the United States November 30th, 2015 a Manhattan man of Hebrew and African descent filed a lawsuit "to get white (Aryan) Jesus art taken down" from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, newspapers report. The paintings subject to the lawsuit are four Italian masterpieces: 1. “The Holy Family with Angels” by Sebastiano Ricci, 2.“The Resurrection” by Perugino, 3. “The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes” by Jacopo Tintoretto and 4. “The Crucifixion” by Francesco Granacci. These paintings are collectively related as“Racist Artworks”. The consequence of such a view was the man suffering from 'personal stress'. The reason is that Jesus is not faithful to his original race features, "black hair like wool and skin of bronze color". On the contrary, Jesus is painted as a blond-haired man.

The question is: why these Italian Renaissance paintings? After all, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is full of Italian religious paintings, which depict Christ as a white man. Actually, Christ is painted as a white man in Flemish, Spanish, German and French art. Apparently, there's nothing different about them from the other religious paintings in the museum. What do these particular paintings have in common?

Important notice: numbers refer to the original list of the Italian works of art that were mentioned in the man's complaint.

2.“The Resurrection” by Perugino (Italian, Città della Pieve, active by 1469–died 1523 Fontignano), 1502, tempera on wood, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

3. “The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes” by Jacopo Tintoretto  (Jacopo Robusti) (Italian, Venice 1519–1594 Venice), oil on canvas, circa 1545-1550, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

4. “The Crucifixion” by Francesco Granacci (Francesco di Andrea di Marco) (Italian, Villamagna 1469–1543 Florence), tempera and gold on wood, circa 1510, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

It looks like the common feature in the above Italian Renaissance paintings confirms Christ as a blond-haired white man. In addition to the three Italian Renaissance paintings by Perugino, Tintoretto, and Granacci, the fourth painting is a Baroque painting of a lovely Baby Jesus by Sebastiano Ricci. Here Baby Jesus has curly blond hair. That's what we see when we think of angels in Italy: a chubby baby with blond hair. 

1. “The Holy Family with Angels” by Sebastiano Ricci (Italian, Belluno 1659–1734 Venice), circa 1700, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Regarding the rest of the paintings, for sure it was in use in the Italian Renaissance to depict people with blond hair as it was a conventional feature for nobility. Indeed in real life noblewomen dyed their hair blond, which was a status symbol for the aristocracy. The only woman thought out with brown hair in paintings is the Virgin Mary. She is rarely blond-haired.

Another important piece of information is that these paintings are located in sections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that are dedicated to Italian Art. The painting by Sebastiano Ricci is on view in Gallery 619 called 'Venetian View Painting' and part of the general collection of 'European Paintings' to which the rest of the paintings belong, respectively: Perugino (Gallery 603:
Filippo Lippi to Botticelli), Tintoretto (Gallery 607: Venetian Sixteenth-century Painting), and Granacci (Gallery 609: Central Italian Painting of the High Renaissance).

For more information about the above paintings, visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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What's the matter with color?

 Carlo Crivelli, Virgin Mary with Child, circa 1480, 

 Pinacoteca Civica Francesco Podesti, Ancona

I am very interested in knowing how the issue about the alleged whitewashed paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be ending up. I am curious to know how long the trial at the Manhattan Supreme Court will take to get settled. My interest comes from the fact that the four works of art judged as stressful for the American man's sensibility are Italian Renaissance paintings by famous Italian artists. Before any comment could come to my mind, the first thing I did was look for the plaintiff on Facebook and send him a message with a special invitation. A few days later I sent an email to the Met sharing with them the reason why I had gotten in touch with the plaintiff. 

Anyway, this issue brought back to my mind a thought I developed by seeing Italian Renaissance paintings. My thought was reinforced by the Metropolitan Museum spokeswoman Elyse Topalian's statement. She said: “When they were painted, it was typical for artists to depict subjects with the same identity as the local audience. This phenomenon occurs in many other cultures, as well.” 

What I think is that important families in the Renaissance period had their features painted as Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and other saints at least for a couple of reasons: 1. They wanted to be remembered as eternal. It's the game of eternity that keeps all of us out of the picture if we take paintings by the word. Indeed we can refer to Italian Renaissance art with the same terms of communication as most of the time paintings are speaking through rhetorical figures: artists depict a subject expressing something else through metaphors, allegories, and other figures of speech. One of the latest rhetorical figures I have discovered in Italian Renaissance paintings is the so-called 'prolepsis': fruits that tell us about Baby Jesus' destiny as the cucumber represents the resurrection of Jesus. 2. By having themselves painted as religious characters, aristocrats in the Renaissance were keeping them safe from being judged or attacked. They could have these paintings shown in churches and public buildings without arousing jealousy and therefore enemies. The reason for doing this is also that in order not to be attacked we have to go from the general to the individual rather than vice-versa.

I would be interested in finding essays about this subject.  Something scientific about this matter would be highly supportive of this thesis. 

On a more practical level and going back to the American gentleman's legal case against the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I think that one has to take into consideration that the four Italian Renaissance paintings subject to attack belong to our past. They are part of a different period of time than the current one. Therefore the issue is totally anachronistic. Secondly, there is no way we can contrast this attack as there are no works of art belonging to the gentleman's cultural heritage with similar features and about which we could say the same thing. Third but not less important, a work of art's copyright expires if older than 100 years. Therefore the four works of art that the plaintiff wants the Metropolitan Museum of Art to be taken down from their walls have become fully part of our common cultural heritage and deserve to be accepted, if only by way of seniority. 

                                                                    

(to be continued)

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Two Special Italian Renaissance Parents

Raphael's home is nowadays a museum. 

'Urbino: I'd love to see...' is the name of the Facebook event I created a couple of weeks ago to share with the Friends of Cama my upcoming trip to Urbino. I was about to visit Urbino last December for the first time in my life. So I asked my Facebook friends what they wanted to know about Urbino or what they had to recommend that they had liked in Urbino.

My Facebook friends responded with lots of enthusiasm as always. I took notes of my friends' questions and suggestions. I did a small research on the web about a few things regarding some works of art I wanted to see. Then I contacted the local information office about museum tickets. It is no longer possible to enter all museums with one ticket. Admissions to places of interest would have been all separate tickets.

So on Sunday, December 20th I headed to Urbino full of energy to walk around town and visit places. What I noticed is that the town is very well preserved. Downtown Urbino is a Unesco site since 1998. Downtown Urbino is embraced by the Ducal Palace and is also known indeed as 'the town shaped like a palace'. The feeling is like being in the Medieval and Renaissance era.

The plaque dedicated to Raphael on his home in Urbino 

On many downtown residences, plaques are remembering famous people who were born in Urbino, among which the most important of all is Italian Renaissance artist Raphael (1483-1520). Raphael's home was on my list of places to visit in order to answer a specific question coming from a Japanese friend of mine. I wanted to come back from Urbino fulfilling my friend's curiosity.

Upon my arrival, I felt immediately loved. The first place I entered was the church of St. Catherine of Alexandria. Nuns were entering from the opposite doors for their daily hymns and they invited me to sing with them. They handed me their prayers book and I felt honored to participate. What a beautiful welcoming to Urbino. At the end of the prayers, I left the church of St. Catherine of Alexandria and continued on my left. I arrived at the Ducal Palace entrance to the Galleria Nazionale Delle Marche. I passed by several universities, among which the university for foreign languages, as Urbino, is also well known as a university town. However, I left the visit to the Galleria Nazionale Delle Marche as my last visit on the way back to the car.

Raphael, St. Catherine of Alexandria, 1500-1503 Galleria Nazionale Delle Marche,
Ducal Place, Urbino 

This is the summary of the places I visited in order of appearance: 1. Church of St. Catherine of Alexandria 2. Oratorio di San Giovanni 3. Oratorio di San Giuseppe 4. Church of St. Francis 5. Raphael's monument 6. National Art Gallery at the Ducal Palace 7. Cathedral ---> it took me about 6 hours total including a stop at a local restaurant making exquisite 'Crescia', the stuffed local thin and crunchy bread whose tradition goes back to the 15th century.

But...the most important place where I could get some pieces of information for my friend from Japan is missing from my list. It's Raphael's home. Indeed Raphel's home is closed to visitors on Sunday afternoon. It's open 10:00am-1pm only on Sundays. What a disappointment when I found this out. I would never think of such an important place closed on Sunday. However, not everything was lost. At the end of the street where Raphael's home is located up on the hill, I could admire the beautiful monument that was dedicated to Raphael and celebrate the artist's 400th birth anniversary. The Latin writing on three of the monument's sides says Virtuti Post Fata (tr. to excellence after death). Each word is written separately on each side. 

URBINO- Raphael's monument in the gardens overlooking Via Raffaello,
where Raphael's home is located. 

But this is not exactly what made it up for the missed visit to Raphael's home. I wish to share with you the unique discovery that opened up my heart and enriched my visit to Urbino. The last place I visited before meaning to go to Raphael's home is the church of St. Francis. I entered the church just because of the name and inside I found out that Raphael's parents were buried there. So I started searching for the tomb's stone tile. No way I could find it. There were all sorts of noble personalities buried in the church in a couple of rows from the altar to the main entrance door. Kind of hard to read the stone tiles sometimes as benches have been placed over them. However, if I could not read the persons' names I could see a noble family crest. Therefore it was not Raphael's parents. 

I didn't give up and in the end, when checking the horizontal area along with the three entrance doors, almost abandoning my hopes as a large nativity was covering most of the floor, I found out that I had stepped into the tomb when entering the church. Indeed Raphael's parents' tomb is located right at the left entrance of St. Francis church. Raphael's parents were there! 

It was such a moving moment. What an honor for them. What a beautiful homage to Raphael. So I will have to drive to Urbino again to complete my research but I will make sure to pay a visit to Raphael's parents in the church of st. Francis first. That's actually where my next visit to Urbino will start to make sure I won't miss my visit to Raphael's home.  

Joannis Sanctis and Magliae Ciarlae were Raphael's parents. They are buried in the church of St. Francis located near their family home on Via Raffaello, originally Urbino's arts &crafts neighborhood.

Find out more about this post's story on the Facebook event's link ---> stay tuned for my next trip to Urbino with a special tour companion!  

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Cama® is a cultural brand inspired by the Italian Renaissance. Like and share our page to join our online events & receive blog posts. NEW! Free Italian arts & crafts consulting by sending a message on the Friends of Cama page.