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Washington Post
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
A painting of a miracle that's nothing less than a miracle
Great Works, In Focus • #189 A painting of a miracle that's nothing less than a miracle In its raw artistic power, Duccio's 'The Raising of Lazarus' connects to Aretha Franklin's own storytelling masterpiece six centuries later. Expand the image Click to zoom in Column by Sebastian Smee March 27, 2025 4 min Duccio di Buoninsegna was the radical, poetic artist who guided a group of other artists working in Siena, Italy, in the 14th century. As the recent Siena exhibition in New York so beautifully demonstrated, these artists helped redefine Western painting for centuries to come. None of these Sienese artists survived the Black Death. But Duccio had meanwhile breathed new life into painting. He 'opened up a door through which others could pass,' as Hisham Matar wrote in 'A Month in Siena.' 'The Raising of Lazarus,' one of the great treasures at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, was painted — patiently, and with unmatched delicacy and fluidity — in egg tempera and gold in 1310-1311. Originally, it formed part of a giant altarpiece known as the Maestà for the high altar of Siena Cathedral. This small panel was positioned near the base, or predella, the last in a sequence of images showing scenes from the Passion before Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement A born storyteller, Duccio was acutely alert to nuances of emotion. He wanted to depict biblical history as though it were a contemporary event. That may be why, when I see 'The Raising of Lazarus,' I can't help but think of another artist who told this story — not in paint but in song. In 1972, Aretha Franklin performed 'Mary, Don't You Weep' with a gospel choir at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. 'We're going to review the story of two sisters called Mary and Martha,' she sang, her matter-of-factness oddly reminiscent of Duccio's. 'They had a brother named Lazarus.' Franklin sings of how Lazarus, a follower of Jesus, had died while Jesus was away. Drowning in grief, Mary ran to Jesus, saying: ''Master. My sweet Lord.'' In the song, Franklin repeats the word 'my' 10 times, oscillating back and forth between two gasping notes. ''If you had've been here,'' she sings, ''my brother wouldn't have died.'' Sobered up by this terrible accusation, the song briefly reverts to a quieter mode: 'Jesus said: 'Come on and show me. Show me where you buried him. Show me where you laid him down.'' But the high drama returns when Jesus is brought before the tomb of Lazarus. (This is the part of the story Duccio painted.) Ventriloquizing Jesus, Franklin sings 'Lazarus' three times. Before the second, she launches into a high-pitched hum: ''Mm-mm, Lazarus!'' For the third, she hits an astonishing high note, almost a scream — 'LA-ZARUS!' What follows is one of the most powerful musical moments I know. The choir pursues this third 'Lazarus' with two undulating, sirenlike notes that echo Mary's earlier anguish ('My my, my my …') and that instantly conjure the moment's spookiness, the sheer unlikely power of what Jesus has just done. You may consider it a stretch, but what Franklin and her church choir did in 1972 is exactly what Duccio was doing 660 years earlier. Notice the man removing the lid of the upright sarcophagus. (Underpainting suggests Duccio originally painted it horizontal.) Then look at the man in the yellow cloak, covering his nose and mouth. Is it a simple gesture of shock? Or is he protecting himself from the foul smell of Lazarus, who has been dead four days? Unlike the rest of the gathered crowd, Mary and Martha are focused not on Lazarus but on Jesus. This unites them with their brother, who has just opened his uncomprehending eyes. The moment is too fraught and uncanny for anything so saccharine as happiness. Lazarus's body is still tightly wrapped in its shroud. A moment ago — gah! — he was dead. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Like Franklin, Duccio used color, gesture, composition, character and a crowded chorus of concerned onlookers to bring the story, and Lazarus, to life. I use that phrase deliberately, because I suspect its implications go to the heart of why we have art. We are mortal. Vulnerable in our mortality, we love. For the same reason, we are always losing what we love. Helplessly, we accuse the world — as Mary accused Jesus — of being complicit in our mounting losses. Art is there to do, in a sense, what Jesus did to Lazarus, and what Duccio and Franklin did to their art forms: to open up a door, to recoup the losses, with stories, song and images. To bring what we love back to life.
New York Times
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Caravaggio, Baroque's Bad Boy, Gets a Blockbuster Show in Rome
Some 430 years after the Lombard artist Michelangelo Merisi, better known as Caravaggio, swept into Rome to enchant, and land, well-placed patrons with his bold yet intimate artistry, Caravaggio is again grabbing the spotlight, with a blockbuster exhibition at the National Gallery of Ancient Art at Palazzo Barberini. Chronologically organized, the exhibition, titled 'Caravaggio 2025,' tracks the artist's meteoric career from his arrival in Rome, when he could only afford to use himself as a model, to more flush times, when he was feted by wealthy bankers and cardinals, to his final years on the run, after killing a man, and attempting through art to gain a papal pardon. Thomas Clement Salomon, the director of the National Gallery, said that with its four Caravaggios and what he called the most important collection of Caravaggesque paintings in the world, the institution was a natural choice to host a Caravaggio extravaganza. Back to the palazzo after centuries away are three works — 'The Cardsharps,' owned by the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth; 'Concert' (or 'The Musicians'), from the Metropolitan Museum in New York; and 'St. Catherine of Alexandria,' from the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid — that were once part of the collection of Cardinal Antonio Barberini, one long-ago resident of the 17th-century palace. More than 60,000 tickets have already been sold to the exhibition, which opens Friday and will run through July 6, a testament both to the appeal of Caravaggio's fierce originality as well as his reputation as Baroque's sword-bearing bad boy. Of the 24 works on show, nine are from foreign lenders (five from the United States alone). 'There's a lot of America in this show,' Salomon said in an interview. 'American museums were very generous,' giving 'very important loans,' including a 'St. Francis in Ecstasy' from Wadsworth Atheneum of Art in Hartford, Conn., a 'Martha and Mary Magdalene' from the Detroit Institute of Arts and a 'St. John the Baptist' from the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Mo., that allowed the curators to bring together three of Caravaggio's four known depictions of St. John the Baptist. 'It's not everyone who can get to Kansas City,' said Salomon, who is one of the curators of the exhibition. The loans have permitted some interesting juxtapositions. Caravaggio was known for using people he knew as his models, often from low social classes and including courtesans, like Fillide Melandroni of Siena, who was famous in Rome at the time. She has been identified by scholars as the model for the 'St. Catherine of Alexandria' from Madrid, the woman holding the mirror in 'Martha and Mary Magdalene' from Detroit and the protagonist in the Barberini's 'Judith Beheading Holofernes,' which are shown here together. 'For me what's exciting is to see how Caravaggio acts like a director,' said Maria Cristina Terzaghi, also a curator of the exhibition, describing how Caravaggio could use the same model in different costumes and lighting to create dramatically different works. The curators said that getting so many works by Caravaggio under one roof should allow scholars to settle several open questions — some more technical, like the dating of some pieces, but also trickier issues where scholarship is split on attribution. In the case of two works where Caravaggio's authorship is in doubt — a 'Narcissus' and a 'Portrait of Maffeo Barberini as Protonotary Apostolic' — the comparison alongside universally accepted works may determine if they pass muster. The show also includes two paintings that have recently emerged from private collections. One is another portrait of Maffeo Barberini, made public last year, that the National Gallery is negotiating to buy. 'It would be a dream,' Salomon said. The painting's inclusion here, along with a 'Portrait of a Knight of Malta,' underscores the void in Caravaggio studies when it comes to portraiture. Archival sources suggest that Caravaggio painted many portraits, but very few works remain. 'It's part of his output that's been very hard to nail down,' said Francesca Cappelletti, director of the Borghese Gallery in Rome and another curator of the show. The other painting is an 'Ecce Homo' that emerged at auction in Madrid in 2021. The suggested starting bid was set at 1,500 euros, or about $1,800, but the Spanish government pulled the painting after several Italian dealers and art historians tentatively identified the work as a Caravaggio. After it was restored, the painting was bought by an anonymous client who has lent the work to the Prado Museum in Madrid, which in turn sent it to Rome. The attribution appears to have held since the painting has become public, but the show will permit scholars to view it in the context of other works. 'This is a very scientific exhibit; it's very much for scholars,' Cappelletti said. Other questions — over attribution, copies and provenance, to name some — are discussed in the catalog, a compendium of sorts of recent Caravaggio scholarship. ''Caravaggio 2025' wants to take stock of what we know today about the master and of the idea that we have of him today,' Terzaghi said. Scholars concur on about 60 paintings that can be definitively attributed to Caravaggio, said Terzaghi, and a little more than a third of them are included in the show. Several more are visible in Roman museums and churches. 'If we calculate them all, I'd say that two-thirds of his work is now in Rome, so if one wants to study Caravaggio, they must come during this period,' she said. The Borghese Gallery lent three works to the show, but still has three more at home thanks to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, an early fan of Caravaggio. And Rome's Doria Pamphilj Gallery has two works. Altarpieces by Caravaggio are found in four Roman churches, though in the case of one, a copy of a 'Deposition' hangs instead of the original, which now belongs to the Vatican Museums. Three altar paintings for the Contarelli chapel are in the French church of San Luigi, his first, important religious commission which made him the talk of the town. His second religious commission consisted of two lateral paintings in the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo. The first versions, of the 'Crucifixion of Peter' and 'Conversion of Saul' (both 1604-05), were rejected, scholars say, because they were painted while the chapel was being built, and didn't fit the space. He repainted both subjects. Subsequently, the 'Crucifixion' was lost, but the first version of 'Conversion,' which belongs to a private collection in Rome, is included in the show at the Barberini. 'We didn't ask any churches to loan their paintings; it's a Jubilee year,' said Salomon, referring to the Roman Catholic Church Holy Year that takes place every 25 years and is expected to bring millions of faithful to Rome and the Vatican in 2025. Come the end of March, visitors to the show will also be able to get tickets on weekends to see Caravaggio's only known mural, depicting 'Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto,' in the Casino Boncompagni Ludovisi a short stroll away. In addition to this Caravaggio fresco — which he painted for the villa's first owner, Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, in 1597 — the villa has ceiling frescoes by other Baroque masters, including Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, better known as Guercino. Although the show was difficult to pull together, Salomon said, 'Our greatest joy is to be able to offer this exhibit in the difficult times that we live in today.'
