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January 9, 2011

Art review: Look, discuss, lose yourself in 'Masterpieces' at Bowdoin

By DANIEL KANY

The Bowdoin Museum of Art is hosting 10 Old Master works from the Wadsworth Atheneum. All are great. Many are very large. And each is worthy of a long encounter.

Three follow the Flemish tradition, while the others are connected to Italy -- the two centers of European painting for centuries.

For example, Jusepe de Ribera, whose work is featured in the show, was Spanish, but even when he became one of Europe's most celebrated painters, he remained based in Italy.

Ribera's "Philosopher" shows why he was so successful. It features a gray-haired, bearded man in a black cloak seated at a low table. His simple sleeves are tattered, as is the well-studied book in his powerful hands. He is older, but handsome and strong. His thick locks flow uncloistered, hinting of a similarly unfettered mind. His eyes gaze backward, intense but limpid. The surface is luscious, and the composition is deliciously satisfying.

I can't think of a picture anywhere that is painted any better.

It's that good.

"Masterpieces" is one of those shows in which the label copy is extremely important and helpful. The few quick comments about "A Philosopher," for example, give us all we need to know to enjoy the painting.

While most Baroque paintings conveyed the stuff of classical history, mythology or the Bible, some subjects, such as Valerio Castello's "Legend of Saint Genevieve," need to be recounted to today's audience.

Castello is hardly a household name now, but he was a star in 17th-century Genoa. His "Genevieve" is testament to his prodigious talent, and it's a great example of how gracefully paintings can unfurl their stories, content and mysteries.

The story is based on a medieval legend: Genevieve was falsely accused of marital infidelity and condemned, but the executioner allowed her and her infant son to escape to the woods, where they were nourished for six years by a deer until her husband was led to them by a stag while out hunting.

Superficially, High Baroque paintings often look like unnecessarily complicated, swirling melodramas. But it's wrong to assume this is just so much affect. The visual complexity connotes emotional complexity, and while the estranged couple's reunion is joyous, their emotions could be nothing but wildly complicated.

Castello's picture is no mere illustration. The presence of the putti (cherubs) hints that something divine is at work. Genevieve's son -- who should be 6 -- is shown as a baby. This does several things. It presents Genevieve as Mary (always shown in blue drapery) with the baby Jesus. It declares the boy's innocence and his mother's isolation. It visually connects the heavenly presence directly to the family.

And with his tugging at her chest, we are reminded of how the deer nourished them -- echoing Genevieve's open Bible, which has nourished her faith.

What can only be hinted at is how brilliantly Castello moves the viewer's eyes through the painting to make connections and hint at narratives. It's a painting from a time when composition meant so much more than the simple, formal structure of a picture.

Composition for the Old Masters was directly related to the development of the story. It had to do with design, but it also addressed spatial and temporal elements of the narrative as well. It's easy enough to see this in Castello's masterpiece, but we should remember that his audience expected it.

It might seem odd that Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo's Christ is shown with a chiseled nose and forehead in flat profile when the most stunning aspect of his "Christ Healing the Blind" (1752) is the many incredible faces rendered in the round. But this was an unassailable convention. We see the same straightened face on Lelio Orsi's Christ in his 1575 "Noli me Tangere."

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