Patrick Bade
The Louvre, Part 5: Italian Baroque, Spanish and British Painting

Patrick Bade | The Louvre, Part 5: Italian Baroque, Spanish and British Painting

- Well, as you can see from the background, I’m back in my Paris flat after a week in Lucca for the Puccini Festival, and tonight I’m going to do the last in the series on the painting collections of the Louvre. And it’s a bit of a mopping up operation. I’m going to go back to where I left off in the first of the series, where I was talking about Italian art, and I got as far as the end of the Renaissance. So I’m taking up again, I’m going back to the Grande Galerie, that runs along the side of the River Seine. Halfway down it. And we’re taking up with the beginning of the Baroque, and the first great figure of the Italian Baroque, Caravaggio. Full name, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Now, a few weeks ago, when Wendy was in Paris, she said to me that she would like me to, over the summer, in August, to talk about people who have changed things, who’ve made a big difference. And so my next two talks are actually going to be about singers who completely changed the world of opera in the 20th century. I’m going to be talking about Enrico Caruso and Maria Callas. but in fact, my first artist tonight fits the bill perfectly, ‘cause he’s somebody who, one of those rare figures where everything changes. There’s, of course, Masaccio in the early Renaissance. There’s Leonardo in the High Renaissance. In more modern times, there is Picasso. Artists who completely… You know, when you look at the work of each period, whether the artist has seen those artists or not. And Caravaggio, he brings a huge pendulum swing, a reaction against the rather effete over elegant. Precious work of late Mannerism. He brings in a very earthy note into Italian art.

And as I said, he completely changes things, in actually a remarkably short space of time, just over a decade. 'Cause he’s… By the standards of Renaissance and Baroque artists, he’s a late developer. You know, he wasn’t one of those artists who was like Raphael, really fully formed by the time he was 20. And he also died prematurely. So it’s really the first decade of the 17th century where he brings about these enormous changes. And this picture is from his early maturity. So it’s just before 1600. Gypsy fortune teller. It was immensely popular at the time. He created two versions of it. And there are many copies of it, and many imitations, and many, many paintings that are directly influenced by it. And so, it’s a genre scene, that’s a scene of everyday life, but on quite a large scale, these are life-size figures. And he introduces this half-length format. And the figures are painted directly from life. There are no surviving drawings by Caravaggio. And as far as we know, he never made any. So this is a big break, say, with the Florentine tradition, which is entirely based on drawing. And all the Florentine artists made very elaborate preliminary drawings before they ever put paint on canvas or panel. So we have a relatively shallow space, with a wall immediately behind the two figures. And we have this strong raking light. That’s probably the feature that most comes to mind when you think about Caravaggio, his use of chiaroscuro. Which, in Italian, just means light and shade. So you have these very strong contrast of light and shade.

One early contemporary said that he painted by lamplight, but modern historians have disputed that. And it’s quite interesting that there are very, very rarely artificial light sources in his paintings. It becomes common in some of his imitators, particularly his Dutch imitators. So, this influence which spread throughout Europe, it was one of the most potent influence on 17th century painting. Actually, more important beyond the borders of Italy. In Spain, in France, in Flanders, and above all, in Holland. And this is, bottom right, is a painting by a French artist, Georges de La Tour, who I talked about some weeks back. And we know very little about him. And the artist drawings, we’re not sure whether he ever went to Italy, whether he ever saw an actual painting by Caravaggio. I mean the similarities are obvious, aren’t they? The half-length, the the raking light, the shallow space and so on. But he didn’t need to see a actual painting by Caravaggio. He probably picked up all these features from Dutch artists, from Utrecht, like ter Brugghen, and Gerard van Honthorst, who went to Rome, and imitated the work of Caravaggio. This is the most important surviving portrait by Caravaggio. And it’s of a high up knight of Malta. This man, he’s called Alof de Wignacourt. And so after… I’m sure many of you know the life story of Caravaggio. It’s very dramatic.

And there’ve been a number of films. It’s a life that could been made for Hollywood, really. In 1606, he committed murder, and he had to… In a dispute over a tennis match, apparently. And, in fact, most of what we know about Caravaggio’s life comes from police records. So, we know that he was a very bad boy, one way and another. So he had to flee from Rome, and he went to Malta, and he was inducted into the Knights of Malta, and he worked for them. And this is when he painted this portrait. But he was not the sort of person who could really settle down anywhere. And he was soon in trouble, and had to flee from Malta. But, so this is the great masterpiece by Caravaggio, which is in the Louvre. “The Death of the Virgin.” He completed it shortly before he fled from Rome. So, it’s painted between 1604 and 1606. It’s a huge picture. These are life sized figures. And it was commissioned for a church in Rome. Subject, the death of the virgin. It’s quite a relatively common one. But when it was delivered, the priests in the church were deeply shocked. They were actually horrified by it. The realism was really went too far. This is too real for comfort, what was at the beginning of the 17th century. You know, got the chamber pot in the foreground, the bloated body of the dead virgin. And it was even rumored that he’d used a prostitute to model for the virgin.

So, the picture was rejected, and it was bought instead by the Duke of Mantua, in the north of Italy. The Dukes of Mantua had been great art collectors since the 15th century. And the Mantua collection was probably the most important art collection in Italy next to that of the Pope. And it bought by the Duke on the recommendation of Rubens, who was in his employment at the time. And the letter still exists, in which Rubens praises this picture, and tells the Duke to buy it. Now, just a few years later… Well, 20 years later, actually. The whole collection was bought by Charles I of England. And this painting really, if it were not for Oliver Cromwell, this painting would be in London. It would be in the Royal Collection. But of course, it was sold off with the entire Royal Collection, after the execution of Charles I in 1649. Here’s the detail. A powerful, eloquent picture. The sense of grief of the man rubbing his eyes in grief. But you can see, you know, how some people would’ve felt, I mean, the way the Virgin’s feet stick out. And again, that chamber pot. These things are indecent, lacking in dignity. And the face of the Virgin not beautified in any way. So, this painting is not in the Louvre, this is the painting that replaced the Caravaggio.

And it’s by an artist called Carlo Saraceni, who was one of many imitators of Caravaggio. But he was prepared to compromise and paint an image that was much more acceptable to the church authorities. And I show you this for comparison as well. Of course, Caravaggio’s influence, direct or indirect through the Utrecht artists, was vital for all the greatest figures of Dutch art in the 17th century. Frans Hals, Vermeer and Rembrandt. And this is a detail of Rembrandt’s version of the “Death of the Virgin”, which in some ways, is even more realistic, with this detail that I think would’ve shocked Italian priests, of one of the apostles actually taking the pulse of the Virgin, to make sure that she’s really dead. So, Caravaggio had an immediate, powerful influence in Rome at its height, between 1610, when he died, and about 1620. And there were many artists, both Italian and Northern European artists in Rome, painting in a Caravaggist style. Most of them quite minor, But I think this is the best of his immediate imitators or followers. And this is Orazio Gentileschi, and the subject is the rest on the flight to Egypt. And he’s an artist who can sometimes take on that kind of clumsiness, that awkwardness, that is such a striking feature of Caravaggio’s works. And it’s something that gives him that sense of truth. He has, in the last generation, has been I think very unjustly eclipsed by his daughter, Artemisia Gentileschi. She has become such a sort of iconic figure for feminist art historians. She’s a wonderful artist too. I think there’s no doubt that she’s the best female artist of the 17th century.

But the reason that she has become so famous has more to do with her life story, and the fact that she was apparently raped by one of her father’s assistants, and there was a trial. And in the trial, torture was used. And she was tortured with thumbscrews to make sure that she was telling the truth in her accusations. So, her story has become so famous. And somewhere recently, I read, a casual comment by somebody, I think absolute nonsense, that she was a much better artist than he was. No, that’s just not true. Many of her works for years were re-attributed to him, because he was more famous, and his works were more valuable. And now all those works have been called back and given to her. And as I said, she can be, she isn’t always. She can be a wonderful artist. but I don’t think that that story should be used to diminish the achievement of Orazio Gentileschi. And I can’t resist showing you, I think there are two or three versions of this subject, the rest on the flight to Egypt. And perhaps my favorite version is not the Louvre version, it’s one in Birmingham. And I love it 'cause of this absolutely surreal appearance of the donkey in the background, which is of course, missing from the Louvre version. Now, another artist who shows the powerful influence of Caravaggio, while at the same time moving on from it, and reacting to it, is il Guercino.

Guercino means “man with a squint”. He apparently squinted. His real name was Giovanni Francesco Barbieri. And he’s born in 1591. So, he was a teenager when Caravaggio died. But unlike Caravaggio, he was really very, very precocious. And he was in Rome between 1621 and 1623. So, that’s just three years that he was in Rome. And it’s in this period that he painted… He must have been working very, very hard. 'Cause there are a lot of pictures dating from this period. And they’re usually considered to be his best work, his most inspired work. So, what is Caravaggist here? Well, the fact that you’ve got, again, you’ve got this very, very strong chiaroscuro. These very black shadows. You’ve got this raking light coming from the side. And also the fact that you’re brought very, very close to the subject. The figures fill the whole canvas. And there are some pretty raunchy, earthy details. The subject is Jesus Christ raising Lazarus from the dead. And he’s been dead for some time. And we’ve got this rather Caravaggist detail really, of the man kneeling, the bottom right hand corner of the picture, who is covering his nose, because of the stench of the decaying body of Lazarus.

Here’s the detail. But what’s different? Well, Caravaggio is not really a painterly artist. He paints very, very thinly. And we know from contemporary accounts, as I said, he painted directly from life. So, he got people to pose in his studio. It must have been really quite uncomfortable, because you’d have to hold the pose, and he paints directly. And although Caravaggio’s paintings, in a way, they’re full of movement, there’s always a sense that the movement is frozen. Because, as I said, the contours are very exact, the the paint is very, very thin. With Guercino, he’s a much more painterly artist. The application of paint is much more fluid. And so, and that gives a greater sense of animation and movement. Now, as I said, his masterpieces are painted in a short time at the beginning of his career. He lived for more than another 40 years. He went back to Bologna. Became one of the leading figures of the Bolognese School. And the Louvre also has an example of his late work, that states from 1651. It’s the Virgin with Four Saints. And it’s beautiful, I suppose. It doesn’t really get the juices going, does it? It’s beautiful, it’s idealized, it’s cool. It’s lost some of the passion and the energy and the drama of the early Caravaggist works of the 1620s. Now there’s a very interesting, one of the most interesting stories of art patronage of the 17th century, concerns a Sicilian art collector called Don Antonio Ruffo, who is a man who knew what he liked.

And in around about 1660, he, through agents, contacted Rembrandt. He commissioned a very famous painting by Rembrandt, “Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer”. Which is now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. And all the correspondence exists, and it’s very fascinating. You’ve got his Italian agent saying, “Rembrandt, Schrembrandt! Why do you want Rembrandt? Nobody wants Rembrandt anymore. He’s completely passe. He’s quite good as a printmaker, but nobody likes his paintings.” But Don Antonio Ruffo knew what he liked, and he said, “No, I’m going to have a Rembrandt.” He commissioned this picture. And interestingly, he commissioned a pendant that was very common in the 17th century. You would commission two paintings to hang beside one another. Not from Rembrandt, but from Guercino. And the really interesting thing is that in correspondence, he sends a message to Guercino, “I don’t want the picture to be painted the way you paint now. I want the picture to be painted the way you painted in the 1620s.” 40 years earlier. So, clearly Don Antonio Ruffo was a man who liked painterly technique. Of course, Rembrandt’s technique was extremely painterly and broad by 1660. Now, the most frigid and perfect of all the Bolognese artists was Guido Reni. Guido Reni. We have this big painting, one of his most important paintings in the Louvre, of “The Rape of Deianira”. A centaur. Or attempted rape, 'cause he doesn’t succeed.

As the centaur, Nessus, tries to carry her off. And she is rescued by her husband, Hercules, who you can see in the background. So this is, he’s an artist again, right at the very beginning of his career, in the first decade of the 17th century, he’s also influenced by Caravaggio. But like other Italian art, the influence of Caravaggio was relatively brief in Italy. And it was pretty well over by the 1620s. And Italian artists tended to move in a different direction, towards a more cooler and more classical style, and Guido Reni would be an extreme example of that. Now, big jump forward into the next century, into the 18th century. And by and large… Italian art has exhausted itself. And the great exception to that is in Venice. 'Cause Venice is always a little bit apart from the rest of Italy. Venice has a second golden age of painting in the 18th century. The first golden age starts in the 1460s, with Giovanni Bellini, and it climaxes with Giorgione, Titian, and it ends with Veronese and Tintoretto. And then there’s a long gap. It’s very, very strange. It’s mystifying how creativity, patterns of creativity.. Why is it that in a certain period, in a certain place, there are many great painters or many great writers, and then it just stops.

I mean, it’s almost like God up there has a tap, and he or she is turning it on and off. And so God turned the, the tap of the Venetian talent off, in around about 1580, and for a hundred years there are no great Venetian painters. There are some good painters in Venice, but they come from somewhere else. And then quite suddenly, she changes her mind, and she turns the tap on again, and we have, for over a period of about a hundred years, from the end of the 17th to late in the 18th century, have a great outpouring. The Tiepolo family, Canaletto, Guardi, and many other wonderful Venetian artists. An artist who’s perhaps not quite so famous as Tiepolo and Canaletto, but in my view, he is the finest of them all, is Piazzetta. And… Giovanni Battista Piazzetta was born in 1682, dies in 1754. And I suppose, you could say, that he was in some ways, a backward looking artist, who looks back to the great period of the Italian Baroque. This is very, very Baroque indeed, isn’t it? Very theatrical, very dramatic, very operatic, lots of gesturing, lots of flapping drapery. And he still uses a palette of colors that in some ways, is more typical of the 17th century, with the dark shadows and quite intense colors. You know, 'cause once you get into the first half of the 18th century, and the Rococo, there is a taste for paler, sweeter colors, which you see a little bit here, but less than with many other artists. I think he’s a terrific… Again, to my mind, an underrated artist. Wonderful drawings, by the way.

He also did terrific drawings. And so the Louvre is without doubt the greatest collection of old master paintings in the world. But it’s got gaps. With the National Gallery, and I would say, is a more representative collection of all the different European schools. There are very few major gaps in the London National Gallery collection. Whereas there is some, as we shall see today, there are surprising gaps in the Louvre collection. Nothing by Giambattista, Tiepolo. The other really great Venetian painter of the 18th century. But we do have this very delightful painting by the most talented of his sons. It’s interesting, in the 18th century, I think before Romanticism, you can say, that art and music was a profession rather than something… You know, with Post-Romantic, we’d like to think that, you know, somebody is… An individual inspired genius. But, you know, think of the Bach family, or think of Mozart father and son. Or, you know, many dynasties in Germany. The Azam family, who were… Over more than one generation. The art or music is the family business. And this was certainly the case with Tiepolo family.

And of the sons of Giambattista, the most interesting and most talented was certainly Giandomenico, who painted this. Now, he often worked as his father’s assistant, and there are paintings that are completely in the manner of his… The late Baroque manner of his father. Whereas this is, I think, rather more individual, when he paints these genre subjects, and theatrical subject… And so on. This, he’s really doing his thing, with this. And it’s, of course, very delightful, and conjures up very much the spirit of the 18th century. A relatively small collection of Venetian art of the 18th century. No Canaletto. There are Canalettos in Paris, and I will come to them when talking about other museums. Cognacq-Jay and Jacquemart-André, and so on. No Guardi. This is by Panini, who’s based in Rome. And he, like Canaletto and Guardi, he was really largely working for Grand Tourists. The Grand Tour, capital G, capital T, in the 18th century, were wealthy Northern European aristocrats, mostly Brits, but not solely. They were, you know, from France and Germany, and Scandinavia as well. And part of your education would be to spend a year or two traveling south.

And the ultimate goal was Rome. I mean, you’d stop in Venice, where… Venice is where you went to behave badly, and have a good time. And then you landed up in Rome, and you were studying all the great masterpieces of ancient art and Renaissance art. And a new commissioned painting, like this, to take back with you, to remind you of everything you’d seen. So you’d have views of all the main sights of Rome. And we have an imaginary space with sculptures. You can spot Michelangelo’s “Moses”, and then his “David”. And various other bits and pieces. And some me lordy, some English lords, strutting their stuff in the middle of the picture. This one would’ve been commissioned by a French aristocrat, because it shows a festivity that was put on in 1747, to celebrate the marriage of the French dauphin to a German princess. And it took place, as you can see, in a splendid Baroque theater. This is also by Panini. And another painting which recalls the Grand Tour is this one by Pompeo Batoni. So, the wealthy English aristocrats, as I said, you bought your veduta, your view paintings, by Canaletto or Guardi in Venice, and by Panini in Rome, as souvenirs of your Grand Tour. But also, to prove that you’d been there, to hang in your house, you commissioned a life-sized, full-length portrait by Pompeo Batoni. And this is an English member of Parliament called Charles John Crowell, showing off that he’s been to Rome.

Dr. Johnson always said that, “A man always felt inferior if he hadn’t been on the Grand Tour.” So, you really wanted to show people that you had, and it’s a real social document, this piece. 'Cause we’ve got an imaginary view in the background, big, hideous piece of Italian Baroque furniture, that console table that he’s leaning on. And on top of it, we’ve got casts of two very famous Roman statues of Hercules and Ariadne. The pose. It’s very… Body language. It’s interesting how body language changes in the history of portraiture. And so this particular pose, which was very, very popular in English portraiture in the mid 18th century, where the whole body creates a whole series of curves, with this rather precarious pose with the crossed legs, which is meant to denote insouciance, ease, elegance. So, that is very typical body language of the mid 18th century. And note also his fashionable clothing. It’s a period where the male body is very feminized. The shoulders tend to be rounded and diminished, the hips rather… You know, childbearing hips, really. And a look that looks even slightly pregnant. And the other thing which he certainly would’ve demanded from Pompeo Batoni is the adoring dog. That’s very typical of 18th century English portraiture, the relationship between the master and the dog.

Now, we move on to Spanish painting. And there are certainly some very interesting masterpieces in the Spanish. We continue along the Grande Galerie, and in a room at the end of it, we have the Louvre Spanish collection. Which is… Actually, I think surprisingly thin. And well, the reason the Italian collection is so strong, and the Spanish collection is relatively minor, all comes down, really, to the revolutionary Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon looted pretty well everything that could be moved from Italy. Contents of churches and museums. And brought them back to the Louvre, for a while, until 1815, the Louvre had this, well, absolutely incredible collection of Italian art. But after Waterloo, the French were forced to give back some, but not all of the paintings that Napoleon had stolen. So, many of the great masterpieces, Italian masterpiece in the Louvre, are loot from the Napoleonic Wars. They tried the same thing in Spain, of course, looting Spanish royal collections, and churches, and so on. But in Spain, they were heavily defeated by Wellington, and they never got to keep or take back all the stuff that they’d stolen. And quite a lot of it landed up in English hands.

And that’s one reason why we have such wonderful collections of Spanish art in the National Gallery, and other museums in Britain. Nevertheless, having said all of that, there are some wonderful Spanish paintings. This is El Greco. Real name, Doménikos Theotokópoulos. Born in 1541 in Crete, before it was taken over by the Ottomans. And in 1567, he moved from Crete to Venice, where he, according to Vasari, he trained with the aged Titian. But I think that’s unlikely. His work is much, much closer to Tintoretto. I think he clearly had contact with Tintoretto. Then 1570, he moves to Rome, spends a couple of years there, picks up some of the features of the Mannerist style. And then 1577, he goes off to Spain, hoping to get patronage from Philip II. Philip II didn’t like his work, and so he didn’t stay in Madrid, or the Escorial, he went to the ancient capital of Spain, to Toledo, and spent the rest of his life there working in relatively provincial obscurity. Now, he’s an artist who was, like so many artists, completely forgotten after his death, and was then rediscovered at the end of the 19th century, and the early 20th century, where he was seen as a kind of proto Modernist, a proto Expressionist. Because of his distortions of natural appearances for expressive effect. He was clearly intensely religious. As I think, actually, Caravaggio was too. I mean, despite the fact that Caravaggio was a bad boy, committed murder and consorted with thieves and prostitutes. Of course, in the Catholic church, what you need to do then, as long as you’re sorry, it’s all okay, you’re forgiven.

And I’m sure he went to confession. But the religious fervor really comes across very intensely in El Greco’s paintings. The other striking El Greco, and it’s an appropriate one to be in the Louvre, is his painting of King Louis IX. Saint Louis. He’s the only French monarch who was canonized and made into a saint, despite, or because of his aggression and persecution of Jews and Arabs. He was a fervent… And Muslims, rather. He was a fervent, fervent crusader. Notorious for his burning of Jewish religious texts. You can see that on the right hand side. So, that got him a lot of credit with the Catholic church. Of course, El Greco had no idea really what he looked like. It’s quite an individualized face. My guess is he probably did use a model, a local model. But he had no idea what the actual King Louis IX looked like. This is a painting by an artist who may not be familiar to you. It’s not such a big name. But I find it a very moving painting. I really love this. This is by an artist called Juan Bautista Maíno, born in 1581. So, he’s half a generation older than Velázquez. And the subject here is the repentance of Saint Peter. Got this huge emphasis in Catholicism, of course, on repenting your sins. And if you know the story in the New Testament, Jesus prophesied to Peter on the night of his arrest, that before the cock crowed for dawn, that Peter would renounce him.

And of course, that’s what happened. So, we see the cock in this picture. We also see the key, because according to Catholic church, Christ entrusts Peter with the key, and the keys are his symbol, and his justification for the papacy. He’s the first Pope, in effect. So, this painting, I find it very… Again, it’s that kind of clumsiness in a way, that makes it so touching. And it’s very clear that he’s been looking at Caravaggio. He went to Rome in the first decade of 17th century. And I think, in particular, I think he probably saw this picture by Caravaggio, of Saint Matthew, a picture that sadly no longer exists because it was destroyed in a bombing raid in the Second World War. But this very, very awkward pose with the crossed legs, I think that has to have come. And also, of course, other features. Caravaggio and all his followers love a bald head. Because, you know, a smooth, bald head reflects the light, and it creates a startling effect, 3D effect. So this is Zurbarán, who is Francisco de Zurbarán, born in 1598. So, he’s an exact contemporary of Velázquez. They’re both born in Seville. They both came from the south. But their careers took very different trajectories. Velázquez, to my mind, with Rembrandt, Velázquez and Rembrandt are the two greatest painters in the history of Western art. But curiously, Velázquez was not a great religious painter. So, he painted religious pictures, but to me, they lack spirituality, they lack conviction, religious conviction.

So he goes to Madrid, and he becomes court painter to King Philip IV. And while having to fulfill some religious commissions, he is largely a secular painter. Incidentally, that is for me, the biggest gap in the Louvre collection. It’s astonishing to me that the Louvre has never managed to acquire a painting by Velázquez. We have a dozen or so in London, in the National Gallery, and more in Apsley House and so on, and English country house collections. And I say it’s astonishing because, Velázquez had such a key influence on French art in the second half of the 19th, and even into the 20th century. It was a real key influence on Monet and Degas, and other great French artists of the 19th century. So that is a hole that really needs to be plugged for the Louvre. I’m sure that’s their number one on their wishlist, is to have a Velázquez. But they do have two wonderful paintings by Zurbarán. He stayed behind in Seville, and he’s always known as the painter of monks, 'cause he was working for religious orders. And there are these two large paintings, celebrating the life of medieval monk and theologian, Saint Bonaventure. This shows him at the Council of Lyon. And this shows him… This is the death of Saint Bonaventure. So, he’s usually a rather ascetic, rather severe artist, without the sensuous and painterly qualities of Velázquez.

Although, he can be a startling colorist, as you see here with the cardinal’s hat, and the wonderful golden color of this fabric, on the funeral bearer of Saint Bonaventure. As well as these two pictures, there is this picture of Saint Apollonia. And she would’ve been painted as one of a series of female martyrs. There are lots of these surviving in museums around the world. And these were commissioned, either for Spanish churches, or sometimes he had a active studio, that produced or reproduced his paintings for commissions in South America. And so these are in rather stark contrast to his paintings, or his rather severe paintings of monks. The female martyrs who were always very elegantly dressed. And there would’ve been a series of these paintings lining the walls of the nave of the church. And the effect would’ve been a bit like, say, a catwalk, of very elegant saints walking along the nave of the church. So, there she’s holding her martyr’s palm. As I said, she’s very elegantly dressed. And she’s holding her attribute. The attribute is usually something to do with the way the saint was martyred. So, you know, Saint Catherine, it will be a wheel that she’s carrying. Saint Lucy, she’ll be carrying a tray with two eyeballs. And Saint Agatha, it’s her breasts that are her symbol, like little Limoges on a tray. But so, Saint Apollonia was martyred by having her, or at least part of her martyrdom, was having her teeth ripped out. So here, you can see with a pair of pliers, with a tooth.

And appropriately, I don’t know if we’ve got any dentists, or ex dentists listening to this talk, she is your patron saint. She’s the patron saint of dentists. And talking of teeth, and people who are dentally disadvantaged, this is actually, certainly, one of my favorite paintings in the Louvre. I find this an incredibly touching picture. The Spanish born artist, Jusepe de Ribera, but he’s usually, in the Louvre, he’s in the Spanish school, in the Spanish Room. But actually, he spent most of his career in Italy. As a young man, he went to Rome, when Caravaggio was still very fashionable, and picked up a strong influence of Caravaggio. And he took that with him to Naples, where he spent the rest of his life. And this shows a beggar child, clubfooted child, and he’s holding a note, which is begging for arms. And, oh… I love it. It’s not remotely sentimental or pitying, he looks a rather happy child, actually. And painted with kind of earthy realism. And so for us, the great Spanish old masters, without doubt, are Velázquez and Goya. They stand out for us. But that was not always the case. Velázquez was only really rediscovered in the 1860s. And the same with Goya, really. Or Goya even later, that he became to be considered such a great artist. Up until that time, throughout the 18th century, and in the first half of the 19th century, the great Spanish artist for connoisseurs was Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. So he’s a generation later than Velázquez. He’s born in 1617, dies in 1682.

Hugely, hugely influential on 18th century art. Partly, I think, because the sweetness of his art, particularly his paintings of Madonnas, and his painting of children, really corresponded with 18th century tastes. So, his reputation has declined. It’s been rather eclipsed in the 20th century. And I must say, I do find his Madonnas quite sickly and hard to take. But this, I think this is a wonderful painting. I love this. Big painting, religious painting. Would’ve been a commission for a monastery. And the title is the “Angel’s Kitchen”. It’s painted in 1646, and it’s a miracle, that we’re in the kitchen of a monastery, and the cook is off on something. He’s floating in ecstasy. While he’s floating in ecstasy, you’ve got the witnesses on the right hand side, the aristocratic gentleman and the monk, looking with astonishment, benign astonishment, as the chief cook of the monastery is floating in ecstasy, and he’s got a team of angels doing his work for him. So it’s kind of angelic home delivery. It’s the angels who are doing all the cooking and preparing the food. There’s the detail. And this, of course, apart from the rather sickly sweet Madonnas all in pink, the other paintings by Murillo that became very, very famous, and copied, imitated endless endlessly in the 18th century, were his paintings of beggar children. And this is one of the most famous of them. Goya represented modestly.

There are great Goyas in France. The finest Goyas in France are in the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Lille, which is a museum I’d definitely like to talk to you about at some point in the near future. This is very charming early portrait of an aristocratic child. I think the best Goya in the collection is this still life, which has something of that momento mori, the reminder of death. That pathos that we find in two other very famous paintings in the Louvre, the Rembrandt flayed ox that you see on the right hand side, and the Chardin skate. Not that Goya could’ve known either of those two paintings. He did know Rembrandt, he was very familiar with Rembrandt through his etchings, if not with his paintings. And I’m going to finish off with a very brief look at the English collection. Well, this is… Surprisingly, it’s small, but it’s surprisingly good, and surprisingly representative. And the collection that’s mainly put together over the last generation. I think in the past, it would’ve never occurred to the French to buy English paintings. Or, you know, England, like the Germans say, that England is “Das Land ohne Musik”. The country without music. I think the French would’ve probably thought that England was a country without any significant visual arts. But you can see that all the English paintings in the collection are carefully chosen to represent what the French did like about the English, or in some cases, may be to confirm certain prejudices that they had about the English. This is a little painting of the early maturity of Gainsborough, and it’s probably painted to celebrate his marriage. It seems to be a marriage self-portrait with his wife.

And you can see why French people would like it. It’s so Rococo. It’s actually very, very French. This frothy, sweet colors, the frothy brush work, the curling lines throughout it. Now Gainsborough, I don’t think he ever left England. He certainly never went to France. But he picked up French influences early in his career, when he studied for a while, St. Martin’s Lane Academy. Which where there were French Huguenot artists like Gérome and Roubiliac. So that, I think accounts for the Frenchness of this picture. And this Gainsborough is an artist with three very distinct phases in his career. This is his Suffolk phase, where he paints quite small scale pictures, and other doll-like figures. Then 1759, he goes to Bath, and he’s there until 1774. And in my opinion, he painted his greatest pictures in this period. They’re rather more ambitious, they’re larger in scale, they’re much more sophisticated. I think there are two factors here. One was, he was working for a much more sophisticated clientele in Bath, than the one he was working for in Suffolk. So, that brought out a greater ambition and sophistication in his work. And the other thing was his discovery of van Dyck, particularly the fine collection of van Dyck portraits in Wilton House, not far from Bath. And that had a tremendous, inspiring effect for him. So, this is Lady Alston, and this is painted in 1762.

And you can see… I mean, Gainsborough is always a wonderful artist in all three periods. But it seems to me that in the Bath period, that the balance between observation of reality, and painterly skill was at its best. After he came to London in 1774, it seems to me that sometimes he let his brush run away with him. And the pictures become a little bit formulaic, and a little bit slick, you could say. This is his great rival. This is actually, I think on loan to the Louvre, but I hope it goes into their permanent collection. And it’s only just gone on show really quite recently. And it’s Sir Joshua Reynolds, of course, the great rival of Gainsborough. And it’s a late painting, 1788. It actually shows a little boy, not a little girl. It’s master hair. And, of course, the 18th century, often said to be the century that discovers childhood. Enormous number of cute paintings, sometimes too cute paintings of children that come from the 18th century. I do find this one touching. And it’s also very freely painted. Has a wonderful spontaneity of touch. I think a little less keen on this one, but it’s interesting historically. This is Sir Thomas Lawrence, and it’s the children of Sir John Angerstein. So, surprising that they’ve landed up in the Louvre, they should really be in the National Gallery, since it was his collection. That was the core collection of the National Gallery when it was opened in 1824.

I’m going to move on quickly, just to this now. This is a recent acquisition, and I can see exactly why the French would love this. This is Henry Raeburn, who’s the exact contemporary of Lawrence, but he was based in Edinburgh, while Lawrence was, of course, based in London. And it has all those painterly qualities that are so characteristic of much of French painting. I think he’s a terrific artist, Raeburn. And this has, to me, I don’t know if Raeburn could’ve known Velázquez. Maybe. No, I think it’s probably very unlikely actually. But this has almost some quality of Velasquez, this objectivity, this cool observation of reality, and fabulous painterly qualities. And this, again, this is an interesting acquisition for the Louvre. This is the Welsh artist, Thomas Jones. And I think the reason that they would’ve found him interesting, was that in the late 18th century, he’s one of the very, very first artists to practice plein-air painting. That is, he would make little oil sketches directly from nature, out of doors, and this is one of them. And so he anticipates the French artists, Henri de Valenciennes and Corot, who would do that in the following generation. And so this is another little painting that fits in perfectly with the Louvre collection. Turner. This is, again, a recent acquisition, and I think there was a deal done to allow this to be exported to France. And the French allowed a portrait by Jacques-Louis David to be exported to England, 'cause that had been a major gap in the National Gallery until that painting was acquired. I’m all in favor of this, actually. I don’t see why paintings should have to stay in the countries where they were created. And this is a good one.

This what Turner would’ve called a “color beginning”. He painted hundreds of these. They’re just very freely painted, oil sketches really. His canvas almost is just stained with color. And famously he would, because he was a full Royal Academy, he had the right to send a certain number of pictures that didn’t have to go before a jury. Obviously, something like this would not pass a jury. So, that would hang and people would say, “Oh, dear. What’s Turner up to? What’s that?” And then in the varnishing days, it was three days before the exhibition opened. The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. He would stand in front of it, and he would fill in all the detail, and turn it into something much more recognizable. But these days, I think we actually tend to prefer the color beginnings to the final pictures. And Turner, of course, an artist who had a big influence on Monet, and Pissarro, Debussy. So it’s very appropriate that a painting like this should be in the Louvre. Constable. You could say, I think there have been three artists, British artists, who in their lifetimes, really had a major reputation and influence in France. The first was Constable, then in around 1890, Burne-Jones, and more recently, Francis Bacon. These are the three British artists who’ve been taken very, very seriously by the French. And Constable’s “Hay Wain” was shown at the Paris Salon of 1824, and it won a gold medal.

There’s a letter that Constable wrote to his wife at the time saying, it was strange the first people to really give him recognition were not the English, but the French. And this painting dates from 1817. Painted on a rainy day during his honeymoon. It’s Weymouth Bay. And so again, a very, very appropriate painting to be in the Louvre collection. And the final two paintings I’m going to show you, I think would’ve confirmed French prejudices or suspicions about English oddness and eccentricity. This is “Pandemonium” by John Martin. Even in England, he was often known as “Mad Martin”, who did these kind of megalomaniac scenes of disaster. Very, very popular. Like disaster movies, really, in the early 19th century. And the final picture I’m going to show you is Richard Dadd, “The Sleep of Titania”. This is again, a very recent acquisition. Richard Dadd, as you probably know, his story. Went off to the Holy Land, as so many artists did. 'Cause there is a syndrome, isn’t there? It’s known as the “Jerusalem Syndrome”, of people who go crazy once they visit the Holy Land. And after his return, he showed signs of distress and weirdness. And then he decided that God had told him to kill the Pope, and he actually attacked his own father, thinking he was the Pope, and then fled, was in a railway carriage in France, and attacked somebody else, that God had told him to attack. And he spent the rest of his life in Bethlem and Broadmoor, as he was clearly completely insane. And this painting actually predates all of that, but it’s still a very, very weird painting, that certainly will confirm French ideas of English oddness. So, what have you got to say to me today?

Q&A and Comments:

“To what year does he…” It goes up to 1848, that’s the year that the d'Orsay takes over.

“How was that year chosen?” I don’t really know. I mean, you could say it’s an arbitrary date, but I think it makes sense, really. That, you know, that 1848 is a kind of, you know, starting point for the modern age.

Q: When I say Caravaggio painted from life, not drawings, does that mean that all the models were in the same room?

A: No, it doesn’t mean. They wouldn’t have to be. But there is a story of “Raising of Lazarus” that’s in Sicily, where he apparently made models hold a dead body, which must have been very, very unpleasant for everybody.

Ron, what have you got? Hi there, Ron. “Guercino, unlike Caravaggio, made lots of drawings”. Yes, there are wonderful drawings by Guercino. It’s interesting that Guercino made… But, you know, Guercino’s drawings are painter’s drawings, aren’t they? They’re not like Angro or Florentine drawings. They’re much more fluent. But interesting that an artist who’s so much more painterly also made drawings. The subject of the Piazzetta is the ascension of the Virgin. Mendelssohn family. I’m not sure what that is about. I forgot what I was saying at that point.

Q: “How much did these grandeur paintings cost?”

A: I couldn’t tell you. But I’m sure they cost a lot. I don’t think they came cheap. Canaletto certainly made a very good living from it. Actually, you could probably find out. It must be known. Because, you know, the Royal Collection has 49 paintings and 200 drawings by Canaletto, and they were all bought from Consul Smith. So I presume that it must be on record what the Royal Family paid for them.

“I’ve read that often the paintings were pre-made, and the face of the purchaser was added when…” I think, yes. I doubt whether the top artists did that though. I think, you know, probably the hack artists did that. The name of the Saint Peter artist is Juan Bautista del Maíno. It should be on my list that you’ll have been sent. Thank you, Lorna. Thank you for kind comments.

Q: “Do these paintings ever get cleaned?”

A: Yes, but the Louvre has a much, much more conservative cleaning policy than the National Gallery. I mean, whether they’ll ever have the nerve to clean the “Madonna of the Rocks” or the “Mona Lisa”. They did clean, I think I mentioned that, the “Madonna with Saint Anne”. And it was very, very controversial. But they’re much less interventionist than the National Gallery, as far as cleaning is concerned.

“Reynolds painting, the young boy remind me of Renoir.” Yes, no, you’re not nuts at all. I think that’s a very apt comparison.

Q: Ron. “Have the Italians ever tried to have their art looted?”

A: I don’t think they would want it, really. Quite honestly, they’ve got too much to look after. I think, you know, if half the contents of the Louvre went back, it would create a lot of problems.

“Does Turner hint…” That’s a very complic… Barbara, that needs a lecture. Turner and Impressionism. I mean, certainly we know Pissarro and Monet were very impressed by “Rain, Steam and Speed”, when they came to London, and they saw it in the National Gallery. But actually, if you really want to know about this, read Pissarro’s letters, 'cause he does discuss the issue. And he got cross with people who said that the Impressionists had just borrowed everything from Turner. And he’s quite right. You know, Turner is… He’s not about the same kind of thing. As Pissarro said, he’s a romantic, not an objective artist. Thank you, Thelma.

“Caravaggio’s period was also a period of change in music.” Yes, I know. It’s fantastic, isn’t it? Well, particularly Gesualdo, is the one who normally gets… Well, because Monteverdi with the creation of opera. But Caravaggio and Gesualdo who are exact contemporaries, they really kind of fit together.

“You talking about creative families.” Oh yes, the Mendelssohns. Thank you, Ita. Yes, with, of course, Fanny, fantastically gifted, and other Mendelssohns gifted in other ways. Thank you, Sally. And thank you everybody. Big change next weekend for two lectures. I’m going to talk about opera, but then I’ll be returning to the museums and the exhibitions after that. Thank you again for listening, and I’ll be speaking to you in a week’s time.