Renaissance Gems: Paintings on Stone
For around 150 years, some Renaissance artists painted on stone as if it were a canvas or panel. It’s a wonderful yet little-shown art form.Over 70 paintings on stone, by 58 artists from worldwide collections, are now on display in the exhibition “Paintings on Stone: Science and the Sacred 1530–1800” at the St. Louis Art Museum. The museum’s curator for European art to 1800, Judith Mann, curated the exhibition, which includes her research into the art and geological information.
Mann’s 15-year quest to find out more about paintings on stone began in 2000, when the museum acquired a stunning “Perseus Rescuing Andromeda” on lapis lazuli. It is included in the exhibition.
Around 1530, Venetian artist Sebastiano del Piombo began the practice when he found a way to prime the stone surface for oil painting. He lived in Rome where artistic competition was fierce. Among his contemporaries were Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci. Mann explains, in the exhibition audio guide, that Sebastiano may have experimented with a variety of painting supports, other than traditional canvas or panel, to differentiate his art from that of other artists.
Stone may be a novel painting surface, but artists painted the same subjects as they would have on traditional canvas and panel: portraits, religious images, and mythological scenes.
The exhibition’s visitors will be able to see how paintings on stone developed. When artists first began painting on stone, they completely covered the surface in paint. But artists toward the end of the 16th century incorporated the stone’s inclusions as part of their compositions. Concentric markings on alabaster became heavenly realms. Blue lapis lazuli became a starry sky. Striations in lined jasper became ocean waves. The only limit was the artist’s imagination.
Artists also used the mystical meanings and physical characteristics of certain stones to strengthen a painting’s meaning. For example, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo rendered his painting “The Nativity” on black obsidian, volcanic glass that the Aztecs in Mexico believed was a conduit to supernatural realms. Another example is the stark gray of slate; it could reaffirm the strong qualities of a soldier that a more delicate stone could not.
Art and geology lovers will revel in this gem of an art.
Little-Known Yet Great: Italian Women Artists 1500–1800
Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi may be the best-known 17th-century female painter. The spotlight has lingered on her, most recently at The National Gallery in London’s solo exhibition. But there’s a whole raft of lesser-known female artists whose work is just as great. They too excelled in their time, and, if we ignore its political bias, an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), “By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500–1800,” tells these artists’ tales.The DIA and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, collaborated on the exhibition, which shows nearly 60 great Renaissance and Baroque artworks loaned from public and private collections in the United States and Europe. Self-portraits, still-lifes, and religious scenes are all featured in a variety of mediums from painting to print.
Among the 17 artists featured are court artist Sofonisba Anguissola (1532–1625), Bolognese portrait painter Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614), Milanese still-life painter Fede Galizia (1578–1630), Bolognese painter and printmaker Elisabetta Sirani (1638–1665), Italian miniaturist Giovanna Garzoni (1600–1670), as well as works by Venetian pastel artist Rosalba Carriera (1673–1757).
Gentileschi’s work is at the center of the exhibition, and the DIA’s own Gentileschi masterpiece “Judith and Her Maidservant With the Head of Holofernes” features prominently.
A Luxury Menagerie: Buccellati’s Animals
The Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama, holds the world’s largest public collection of Buccellati animal sculptures, all of which were donated by the late Huntsville artist Betty Grisham.Italian luxury jewelers Buccellati began in 1919, when Mario Buccellati opened his first jewelry store in Milan. The world-renowned company continues to create fine jewelry using engraving, Renaissance techniques, and new innovations.
Mario’s son, Gianmaria, invented a silverworking technique called “lavorazione a pelo” (hair-like workmanship), which enables artisans to create realistic works by welding silver filaments of different lengths and thicknesses, one atop the other, to their works. The “hair-like” technique works well for creating fur, skin, scales, and feathers.
Betty Grisham’s collection of Buccellati animal pieces are on permanent display in the museum’s exhibition “Buccellati: A Silver Menagerie.” There’s almost an ark full of animals on view, including a lion, deep-sea creatures, and a 4-foot flamingo. The museum even commissioned Buccellati to make a piece, a doe and fawn, in honor of Grisham.
Many of the animals are made in 800 silver, which is 80 percent silver and 20 percent alloy, as welding melts sterling silver. But after 1995, the artisans discovered how to make the animals in pure sterling silver.
- “Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman” runs until May 15 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
- “Holbein: Capturing Character” runs until May 15 at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York.
- The “Murillo: Picturing the Prodigal Son” exhibition runs until June 12 at the Meadows Museum in Dallas.
- At the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, the “Objects of Devotion: Highlights From Rockhurst University’s Van Ackeren Collection of Religious Art” exhibition runs until June 17; and “Paintings From the Spanish Americas: The Thoma Collection” runs until Sept. 4.
- The “Cycles of Life: The Four Seasons Tapestries” exhibition runs until Feb. 19, 2023, at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland.
