The Divine Artist
The Renaissance tendency to describe great artists as “divine” is usually considered a rhetorical device to express society’s admiration for the inexplicable talents of a great master.{ref1} Though no doubt true, many artists interpreted the term differently, not through Church doctrine as society did but through the interiorized beliefs of mystics and saints with whom they felt at one (See The Inner Tradition.) The visual evidence for this is overwhelming. Art all over Europe suggests that artists really did think of themselves as divine, not because they had vast egos (which no doubt they had) but because we are all made in the image of God, however well disguised. Just as a saint follows Christ’s path and is an image of Christ that ordinary believers can imitate, so artists undergoing the agony of creation identify with Christ’s suffering too. Their portrait of Christ is thus an image of their own self.
Most Recent Articles
All Articles (Alphabetical by Artist, then Title)
Remember a few general principles and you will find that the art of understanding art is much easier than you might magine
Andrea Del Sarto’s Madonna in Gloria (1530)
Make sure you always know an artist's real name, the one the artist actually used. It's a very useful tool for interpretation.
Andrea Del Sarto’s St John the Baptist (c.1523)
Even anonymous art can be enjoyed through EPPH's methodology
Anonymous Antiphony from Lausanne (c.1485-90)
Why would a German pacifist like Anselm Kiefer use a Nazi salute as one of his signature gestures?
Anselm Kiefer’s Everyone Stands Under His Own Dome of Heaven (1970)
Watch the bloody and cathartic experience of painting a masterpiece
Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith and Her Maidservant Slaying Holofernes
Learn how one scene can turn into another through visual metamorphosis
Bacon’s Two Men Working in a Field (1971)
An artist's identification with God was as common in the 20th century as in the Renaissance
Barlach’s The First Day (1922)
See how Giovanni Bellini used a visual pun to pass on his meaning
Bellini’s Madonna of the Pear (c.1485)
Find out how a giant Renaissance altarpiece is all about painting
Bellini’s Pesaro Altarpiece (c. 1471/4)
See how the second of a pair of paintings by Bosch is also "behind the eye."
Bosch’s St. John on Patmos (1504-5)
This masterpiece, like many before and since, must have been the source of inspiration for Picasso's Cubism. As unlikely as that may sound, it all depends on what you can see in The Birth of Venus that experts never have. You'll be one of the first...
Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (1484-6): Part Two
Learn how to note passages between one level of reality and another
Botticelli’s St. Sebastian (c.1473)
Find out how even Cézanne incorporated a mystical Christian view of life into his art
Cézanne’s Five Bathers (1885-7)
Learn how additions to a painting's narrative often provide access to the composition's underlying meaning
Caravaggio’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt (c.1597)
Cranach saw a resemblance in someone else's work and made it his own, a common practice in poetic art
Cranach’s Form of the Body of ...Jesus (1553)
Discover how two of Dürer's images are based on his own profile
Dürer’s Death of Orpheus (1494) and Descent into Limbo (1510)
See how artists continually think on another level beyond the narrative
Dürer’s Rape of Europa and Other Studies (1494-5)
Learn how artists identified with other animals, even in the Renaissance.
Dürer’s St. Jerome in his Study (1514)
See how Durer shaped the Virgin and Child into the form of his own monogram
Dürer’s Virgin and Child (c.1491)
One of the easiest ways to find unseen features in paintings is to look for the artist's initials. Daumier included them more than most.
Daumier’s Ecce Homo (c.1849-52)
Watch El Greco's thought process over a series of paintings
El Greco’s Purification of the Temple (c.1570-1610)
For artists St Veronica is a very significant saint. She "painted" Christ.
El Greco’s Saint Veronica (c.1580)
Find out how a little knowledge of studio life goes a long way
Filippino Lippi’s Dead Christ (c.1500) and the Artist’s Turban
Self-representation was as common in the early 15th century as the 20th and today
Ghiberti’s St. John the Baptist (1412-16)
With Mercury outfitted as a painter, the viewer can interpret this image confident that the subject is art
Goltzius’ Mercury (1611-13)
Think about who you are if, for instance, you are not yourself
Goltzius’ Portrait of Jan Govertsz van der Aar as St. Luke (1614)
How tradition in art is more often based on forms than subject matter
Goltzius’ Sleeping Danae… (1603)
Think about self-referential meaning and one scene can quickly turn into another
Guercino’s St. Sebastian Succoured by Two Angels (1617)
The universal features of Frida Kahlo's art are what links her to the canon, not the details of her private life
Kahlo’s The Wounded Deer (1946)
Ordinary subjects produce extraordinary content
Lichtenstein’s Untitled or Man with Chest Expander (c.1961)
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