Violence and Art
Art - as opposed to illustration - is tough to produce, very tough. Every masterpiece requires the artist to expend large reserves of psychic energy while battling the chaos of conflicting ideas. It is a painful process often compared to childbirth. But struggle and childbirth do not fully express a third theme, a common visual metaphor in art, violence. Violence in every conceivable form, from murder to a bloody battle. Leonardo, thinking of the ultimate murder, claimed that the sculptor re-enacts the Crucifixion itself each time he models Christ's wounds. This is, I should add, a clear indication that Leonardo understood Christ's story not as external fact but as a metaphor for what he had experienced in his mind.{ref1} Think about it: Leonardo identified with Christ's killers and the work of art with Christ himself.
Most Recent Articles
All Articles (Alphabetical by Artist, then Title)
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 to note passages between one level of reality and another
Botticelli’s St. Sebastian (c.1473)
How a seemingly extraneous figure can be the crux of the whole artwork
Burgkmair’s Archer in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (1504)
See how Caravaggio's iconic painting makes art's basic paradigm crystal clear
Caravaggio’s David with the Head of Goliath (1610)
Caravaggio executes his painting with a sword just as he executed a man
Caravaggio’s Judith and Holofernes (c.1599)
"Mistakes" in representing reality are cues to the scene's underlying meaning
Caravaggio’s Martyrdom of St. Ursula (1609-10)
One of my first discoveries remains, for me, an object lesson in art. Perhaps for you too.
Carpaccio’s St. George and the Dragon (1502)
See how a divine figure is posed like a sculptor and, as an artist, executes his work
Cellini’s Perseus (1545-54)
Find out how Chagall made obvious what many other artists obscured
Chagall as an Animal (20th century)
Discover how two of Dürer's images are based on his own profile
Dürer’s Death of Orpheus (1494) and Descent into Limbo (1510)
Dürer’s woodcut of The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian provides further evidence that even religious scenes are self-referential.
Dürer’s Martyrdom of St. Sebastian
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)
Learn how to make sense of Degas' most mystifying composition
Degas’ Scene of War in the Middle Ages (c.1863-5)
See what Degas makes of a Delacroix and thus, perhaps, what you should too....
Degas’ Study of Delacroix’s Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople (c.1860)
Another example of St. Irene "painting" St. Sebastian
Delacroix’s St. Sebastian Helped by the Holy Women (1836)
Discover the secret under Goliath's helmet then know what to look for
Donatello’s Davids and Goliaths (1410-1440’s)
Watch El Greco's thought process over a series of paintings
El Greco’s Purification of the Temple (c.1570-1610)
There has always been a violent streak to artistic creation, often expressed through military metaphor and in scenes of violence or its aftermath.
Giorgione’s Self-portrait as David
See how Goya turned a battle in the streets into a battle in his studio.....and his mind
Goya’s 2nd May, 1808 (1814)
Think about self-referential meaning and one scene can quickly turn into another
Guercino’s St. Sebastian Succoured by Two Angels (1617)
The central panel of an altarpiece by Hans Baldung Grien (c. 1480 - 1545) depicts St. Sebastian being shot by two archers while Grien himself stands oddly behind the victim.
Hans Baldung Grien’s St. Sebastian Altarpiece (1507)
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)
How even contemporary art is heavily invested in the methods and meaning of the Old Masters
Kapoor’s Memory (2008)
If a hand is missing, can it still represent the artist's craft?
Kirchner’s Self-Portrait as Soldier (1915)
Leonardo's closely observed landscape turns into something else entirely but only if you expect it
Leonardo’s Storm Over the Alps (c.1499)
Once again, see how the hilt of a sword signs the artist's name
Lotto’s Judith with the Head of Holfernes (1512)
How the observations of others can lead to original insights from you
Lotto’s Portrait of Andrea Odoni (1527) Addendum
Art scholars have sometimes wondered why the execution squad in Manet's Execution of Emperor Maximillian are so unrealistically close to their target. Indeed, on close inspection, their rifles are aimed as though they would miss.
Manet’s Execution of Emperor Maximillian (1867-8)
Durer's 1500 self-portrait as Christ is considered most unusual. He was not alone.
Mantegna’s Ecce Homo (c.1500)
In this 1490 version of Saint Sebastian in the Ca' d'Oro, Venice, Saint Sebastian has one leg in the "picture", so to speak, framed by the marble, with the other stepping forward out of it into our space.
Mantegna’s Saint Sebastian (1490)
Find out what the studio and Golgotha have in common
Mengs’ Christ on the Cross (1761-9), Goya’s and Francis Bacon’s too
A mysterious drawing that has never made sense is now explained simply
Michelangelo’s Archers Shooting at a Herm (c.1530) Part 1
The theme of an executioner with a decapitated head as a visual metaphor for a painter continues to this day.
Norbert Bisky’s Youths with Decapitated Heads (2006-08)
Learn how Picasso used swords as "paintbrushes", "etching needles" and other tools of the trade
Picasso’s Swords and Knives
Yet more evidence that the adolescent Picasso understood the self-referential paradigm of art
Picasso’s The Last Bull (1892)
Several clues, easy to spot, reveal the true underlying meaning of two similar masterpieces
Rembrandt’s Man in Armour (1655) and Minerva (c.1655)
How Rembrandt's method, and that of great artists in general, is present in his earliest extant painting
Rembrandt’s The Stoning of St. Stephen (1625)
Discover a common way how artists demonstrate their identity with their protagonist. You can use the method to interpret other paintings by other artists.
Reni’s David with the Head of Goliath (1605)
The Inner Tradition as practised by a Catholic artist....
Rouault’s Miserere: Eternally Scourged (1922)
See how Rubens turned a variation on a Leonardo composition into a scene of creative struggle in his own mind
Rubens’ Battle of the Standard (c.1600) after Leonardo
In photographs taken with a macro lens, showing an object in extreme close-up, it can be difficult to recognize the subject. It is the same in painting. However, if you know it's a close-up, it's easier.
Schiele’s Bare Tree Behind a Fence (1912)
In a poster for an exhibition of his paintings (above) Egon Schiele drew on the age-old tradition of presenting St. Sebastian as a symbol for the artist himself suffering the pangs of artistic creation.
Schiele’s Self-portrait as Saint Sebastian (1914-15)
In Martin Schongauer’s woodcut of St. George and the Dragon, the monster is an alter ego of the artist. Or, at least he represents an aspect of the artist’s mind.
Schongauer’s St. George and the Dragon (c.1480)
One of Titian's masterpieces, it was destroyed by fire in 1577 but recorded in this engraving. Its secret, though, lives on.
Titian’s Battle of Cadore (1538-9)
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