old testament scenes_famous paintings (2)

Old Testament Scenes

famous paintings

(2)

ALLORI, CristofanoJudith with the Head of Holofernes1620 Oil on canvas, 139 x 116 cmGalleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

ALLORI, CristofanoJudith with the Head of Holofernes (detail)1620 Oil on canvas, 139 x 116 cmGalleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

BOTTICELLI, SandroThe Return of Judith to Bethuliac. 1472Oil on panel, 31 x 24 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

BOTTICELLI, SandroThe Return of Judith to Bethulia (detail)c. 1472Oil on panel, 31 x 24 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

TINTORETTOCreation of the Animals1551-52Oil on canvas, 151 x 258 cmGallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

TINTORETTOCreation of the Animals (detail)1551-52Oil on canvas, 151 x 258 cmGallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

BATONI, PompeoSusanna and the Elders1751Oil on canvas, 99 x 136 cmPrivate collection

BATONI, PompeoSusanna and the Elders (detail)1751Oil on canvas, 99 x 136 cmPrivate collection

GENTILESCHI, OrazioJoseph and Potiphar's Wife1626-30Oil on canvas, 204,9 x 261,9 cmRoyal Collection, Windsor

GENTILESCHI, OrazioJoseph and Potiphar's Wife (detail)1626-30Oil on canvas, 204,9 x 261,9 cmRoyal Collection, Windsor

SIRANI, Giovanni AndreaEsther before Ahasuerus1630sOil on canvas, 101 x 140 cmSzépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

SIRANI, Giovanni AndreaEsther before Ahasuerus (detail)1630sOil on canvas, 101 x 140 cmSzépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

GUERCINOSaul Attacking David1646Oil on canvas, 147 x 220 cmGalleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome

GUERCINOSaul Attacking David (detail)1646Oil on canvas, 147 x 220 cmGalleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome

MASTER BertramGrabow Altarpiece: Creation of the Animals1379-83Tempera on wood, 80 x 57 cmKunsthalle, Hamburg

MASTER BertramGrabow Altarpiece: Creation of the Animals (detail)1379-83Tempera on wood, 80 x 57 cmKunsthalle, Hamburg

CRANACH, Lucas the ElderThe Paradise1530Limewood, 81 x 114 cmKunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

CRANACH, Lucas the ElderThe Paradise (detail)1530Limewood, 81 x 114 cmKunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Old Testament Scenes_famous paintings (2)

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CRANACH, Lucas the ElderThe Paradise

Background, center: Eve is created out of one of Adam's ribs. On the foreground the two are addressed by God, who often made a stroll through the Garden.

Background, center-right: Eve has Adam take a bite from the forbidden fruit. Suddenly they are ashamed of their nudity, and hide behind a bush. But the archangel finds them and chases them out of the Garden (background left).

ALLORI, CristofanoJudith with the Head of Holofernes

Judith was a beautiful Jewish widow, who entered the tent of the Assyrian general Holofernes, decapitated him with his own sword, and brought his head back to her people.

According to his biographer Baldinucci, Allori painted this work in part as an autobiographical account of his love affair with Maria de Giovanni Mazzafirri, which ended badly. The figure of Judith, Baldinucci claimed, resembles ‘La Mazzafirra’, the servant in the background her mother, and the severed head of Holofernes is a portrait of the artist himself.

The inclusion of the inscription in the lower right hand corner of the painting hints at the self-referential nature of the work. When the poet Giovanni Battista Marino saw a version of this painting in Paris, he specifically read the work as autobiographical, commenting that Holofernes is killed twice, first by the darts of Cupid and second by the sword of Judith. Allori was by no means unique amongst his artistic contemporaries in his desire to make the story relevant to his own experience and the picture belongs to a tradition in which artists included

portraits within apocryphal narratives.

This subject became one of Allori’s best-known compositions, as the existence of numerous versions of the subject by the artist and his workshop attests. This is an especially fine early rendering; the realistic, intensely particularized features of Judith are coarser than in other versions, suggesting that it is a credible portrait of the artist's persecutor.

Even though carefully executed preparatory drawings have been identified for this work, Allori seems to have made numerous small adjustments to the composition while painting. Later versions of the same subject, including that of 1620 in the Pitti Palace, are more firmly executed and lack the vibrancy and painterly qualities of this one.

The work is characteristic of Allori’s use of rich colours and his sophisticated rendering of texture and form. The carefully conceived composition and the dramatically positioned head of Holofernes, which seems about to emerge into the space of the beholder, add to the emotional intensity of the painting and clearly indicate why this influential work became

emblematic of Florentine Baroque painting for centuries thereafter.

BOTTICELLI, SandroThe Return of Judith to Bethulia

The Biblical tale of Judith, who slew Holofernes, the Assyrian king's commander-in-chief, because he represented a deadly threat for the Hebrews in Bethulia, was one of the favourite subjects of the Florentine Renaissance. Judith was considered the prototype of female strength, since she alone had summoned up the courage to murder the tyrant.

In The Return of Judith to Bethulia, Botticelli shows us Judith together with Abra, her maid, the two of them striding out in a well-nigh furious manner. Abra is carrying Holofernes' severed head on her own head, while Judith has an olive branch in her hand as a symbol of peace, which she is bringing to the Hebrews.

Botticelli has succeeded here in capturing both movement and stillness in a unique balance. Judith is pausing a moment in her striding forward to turn towards the observer, self-assured if not without a touch of melancholy, exactly as if she wished to present herself as the victor.

TINTORETTOCreation of the Animals

In a blaze of golden light, which does not entirely escape the darkness still partly enveloping the newly created earth God the Father is portrayed as if suspended in mid-air in the act of creation. The animals rush forward from behind him while the birds shoot across the sky and the fishes dart through the water like arrows from his hand. The dramatic wind-swept scene is furrowed by the profiles of the animals which cross the canvas in running lines, conveying with extraordinary concision and expressiveness the theme of the work.

Like Pietro Aretino's novel on the subject of Genesis, Tintoretto's painting shows the unicorn (right). The alleged curative and decontaminating qualities of the narwhal tusk, an essential item in every Renaissance cabinet of curiosities, were regarded as proof of the existence of this fabulous creature. Exotic creatures like the ostrich walking on the shore

were much admired as gifts from guests to the princely courts of northern Italy, and were portrayed in drawings or engravings. As a true Venetian, however, Tintoretto here devotes particular artistic skill to the fishes, including sturgeon, salmon and red mullet.

BATONI, PompeoSusanna and the Elders

The present Susanna and the Elders is a testament to Batoni's considerable stature: he was the dominant painter in Rome in the middle years of the 18th century. His contemporaries recognized this preeminence, a position which Batoni maintained for a period of nearly fifty years. The canvas was painted by the artist in 1751 for Ernst Guido, Graf von Harrach, one of the most important collectors of the day, and remained in the family's collection for nearly 250 years. The Susanna and the Elders is inarguably one of Batoni's

finest history pictures and one of his very few treatments of an Old Testament subject.

GENTILESCHI, OrazioJoseph and Potiphar's Wife

Joseph was bought by Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s guard, and appointed overseer of his household. One day Potiphar’s wife caught him by his garment and said ‘lie with me’; Joseph fled, leaving the garment in her hands. The painting was one of a group by Gentileschi brought together by Henrietta Maria to decorate the Queen’s House, Greenwich.

This painting depicts a scene from the Book of Genesis (39: 7-20) which tells how Joseph was bought by Potiphar, the Egyptian captain of Pharaoh’s guard, who appointed him overseer of his household. Potiphar’s wife attempted to seduce him on several occasions, although he rejected her advances. One day, ‘she caught him by his garment, saying, ‘Lie

with me’. But he left his garment in her hands, and fled and got out of the house’. Later she denounced Joseph as the seducer, using the garment as evidence.

To explain the light in the scene we must imagine a single, powerful lamp placed just in front of the painting at its right edge: Joseph’s legs cast their shadow backwards; the bed legs cast theirs across to the left. This strong, dramatic and literal-minded lighting recalls Caravaggio as it accentuates the cool flesh of Potiphar’s wife and her beautifully white,

though dishevelled, sheets, and tellingly catches Joseph’s backward glance. The actors in the scene wear contemporary clothes, but this element of realism is transformed by the virtuoso rendering of fabrics in highly saturated colours, so characteristic of Gentileschi’s late style.

The studied finish and theatrical elegance of this painting are characteristic of the taste of Charles I’s court, for which elaborate and artificial masques were created. This refinement was also part of an international court style which had developed from Caravaggio and which can also be seen in the smooth finish and rich colours of Gerrit van Honthorst and Simon Vouet. Gentileschi is sometimes criticised for choosing visual pleasure rather than psychological intensity. This painting has both: the colours clash, particularly the red,

burgundy, orange and gold; the rich hangings suggest conspiracy as well as sensuality. The dominant effect of the painting is claustrophobia: an illusionistic curtain (which seems almost to be covering the surface of the painting) closes off a shallow space; even the implied positions of the viewer and the light source are thrust up against this scene of

dangerous seduction.

SIRANI, Giovanni AndreaEsther before Ahasuerus

Esther goes into the throne room without asking for an audience; which is normally punished by death, even for the king’s wife she is.While she is exiled in Babylon like many Jews, her beauty has allowed her to become the wife of King Ahasuerus who does not know her religion.

Being informed of a plot against her people, she has decided to speak to the king. Either the latter welcomes her as his wife and holds out his sceptre towards her, or she is so troubled that she faints and, unsteady on her legs, she is supported by her maid-servants.

This is a royal scene with its scenery, its costumes and the attitudes of its characters.

GUERCINOSaul Attacking David

Guercino's increasing tendency towards classicism began in the 1630's when the painter fell under the influence of the late work of Guido Reni. The Saul Attacking David is a splendid example of his late style, a period in which Guercino brought his investigations into classicising style to their fullest conclusion.

Despite the dramatic quality of the narrative, the composition of the painting is extremely balanced: everything centres on the monumentality of the two figures, contrasting protagonists of the scene. Almost frozen in their action, they are displayed entirely in the foreground, as if in a relief sculpture.

The chromatic range, light and highly refined, is rather far from the richly impasted mode of the artist's youth, as is the way in which the shadows ably underline the plastic quality of the two personages.

MASTER BertramGrabow Altarpiece: Creation of the Animals

This is one of the panels on the inner side of the left inner wing of the Grabow altarpiece.According to the creation story in Genesis, the fish and the birds were created on the fifth day, and the land animals on the sixth day. Bertram stuck to the story and shows both

wild and tame animals: note the fox that bites the sheep in the neck.

Master Bertram knew exactly how to employ the relatively limited space of the individual altar panels in order to populate the biblical story with a maximum of incident. He was less concerned with a realistic portrayal of the objects than with the manner of their presentation. In the Creation of the Animals, fish rise from the waters and float upwards.

Above them, a swan, a rooster, a peacock, and a goldfinch are arranged in ascending order.

old testament scenes_famous paintings (2)

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