NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Steve Strether wants to show me a Venetian Renaissance painting called, ‘Feast of the Gods’, at the National Gallery.
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.1138.html
“What is it about this painting, Steve?”
“I have been reading, Ovid over the years, and this work is derived from his “Feast”.
“Is that Greek or Roman?”
“Roman, ah, wait a minute. They’ve moved it.”
“What’s that Steve?”
“The Feast of the Gods used to hang in this room. It’s been a while since I looked at it.”
I walk on. Artie Bliemisch is unmistakable, walking ahead of me in her black jeans and dark blue sweatshirt with thick curly dark hair spread above it.
“Here it is, Steve.”
“Oh! Over there, kind of in the hall.”
“Yeah, more people will see it passing by.”
“Passing by is right.”
The bench I sat on to get a long-relaxed look, is gone.”
“Well, most people don’t spend much time looking.”
“Yes, there is a tendency to read the text and just take a few glances.”
Artie looks up from the ‘The Feast’.
Turning to take a look, she greets us with a circular wave, palm out.
“Well, there they are. All these deities lined up like they are posing for a laugh in the family photo.”
Artie looks over at Steve.
“This is suggestive if not lurid!”
“A lot of leering and leching.”
“It is a bacchanal Steve, I am surprised it hasn’t been banned!”
“They are only banning books, at the moment.”
“If these wannabe censors are so worried about what kids are reading, they ought to check out the internet.”
Artie is looking closely at the figure in a helmet and stays close in. Steve and I stand back to look at the whole picture.
“Look at that huge gold frame.”
“Like part of an altarpiece, Fred.”
Artie is still examining the surface.
“Nice job on that helmet.”
“Who’s that?”
“Fred, that’s Mercury, I think.”
“Yeah, see his caduceus.”
Artie doesn’t turn toward us.
“No, Fred, it is covered by his clothes.”
Steve chuckles at Artie.
“Not his penis, his herald’s staff.”
“Oh! that long thing.”
“Yes, so it is, with entwined snakes and wings at the top?”
“Bacchanal, did you say?”
“Boozing and feasting Artie, they are ancient Roman Gods, wood nymphs and a water nymph and such like.”
A young guy with tattoos swarming up his arm into the right sleeve of his tee-shirt looks over.
“It is out of Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Fasti, Book 1.”
“Yes, I’ve been reading it. Do you know anything about that woman on the right?”
“It is Lotis, the naiad, or water nymph.”
“So that’s what a water nymph looks like!”
“I doubt it, Fred.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“No.”
“How can you tell?”
“She looks like a human!”
Artie turns to Steve.
“None of them look very god-like to me.”
The man with an inky epidermis comes over to us.
“No, they are dressed as 16th-century Venetians.”
“Oh! just regular folk.”
“No, probably wealthy elite, Artie.”
“Yeah, Steve, I guess your average Venetian was pretty ragged.”
The richly illustrated arm points out the adjacent text.
“The picture was commissioned by the Duke Alfonse D’Este to decorate the alabaster study in his castle at Ferrara.”
Artie has turned back to the painting.
“This is high-class porn, Steve.”
“Well, it is refined Renaissance porn.”
Our informant looks back at us from the wall text.
“He must have been a horney dude!”
Artie looks over to the teacher.
”Well, during the later Renaissance they painted all those naked women and how many men do we see?”
Steve steps forward.
“What about Michael Angelo’s Adam on the Sistine ceiling?”
“And, not so well known, are; Annibale Carracci who did a Bacchus, and Caravaggio showed it all in his cupid.”
”That’s right! The kid has his legs spread!”
“Adam has his fig leaf in most renderings.”
“Alright, okay, there are some, but not many compared with all those female buttocks, bellies, and breasts!”
“Yes, so is all this porn or not?”
Our new friend steps over to Steve and me.
“We are looking at immortals. Beyond our judgment!”
Artie turns to us again.
”There’s really very little exposed.”
“It is all in their gestures and expressions.”
”Historically, there’s been a lot of prudery, polluting judgment. Has been for some time.”
“Well, those Romans were not prudes, and neither were their gods.”
Steve points toward Lotis.
“Is it porn if the gods do it?”
”If you believe they are gods that’s one thing. If you regard them as human that’s another.”
So the duke enjoyed some titillation while pretending these are just mythological figures.”
“I’ll leave this profound question to you!”
“Are you an Art historian?”
“Yeah, I am a teaching assistant at Prestige U.
“Okay, so tell us some more.”
Famously, you remember, Lotis, over on the far right, fell asleep, wine-drunk. Lusty Priapus, saw an opportunity to take advantage of her.
He points out Priapus and the sleeping Lotis.
“See him bending forward to lift her skirt? He was betrayed when Silenus’s ass let out a raucous bray. Lotis was startled and pushed Priapus away, and they all laughed at him.”
“Okay, where are Selenus and his donkey?”
“Over there on the left.”
Our teacher steps over to point out the ass standing next to Silenus, a woodland deity.
“This mythological porn, or not, was rendered by three mortals.”
Steve steps over next to Artie for a closer look.
“They were as good as anyone around at the time, right?”
“Giovanni Bellini, the best, started it when he was in his eighties.”
“Good age in at that time!”
”It was his last major work.”
”The old guy did well to reach across this big painting.”
“That grove of trees spread all the way across in Bellini’s original.”
“And Titian did some work on it, right?”
”That’s right, Tiziano Vecelli in Italian.”
“So what did he paint?”
“As you can see, he painted over a lot of Bellini’s trees to put in that hill behind the party.”
”Yeah, he added some waterfalls too.”
“Don’t forget Dosso Dossi.”
“Who?”
“Dosso Dossi made the first alteration, before Titian, in response to the Duke.”
Artie moves back near the teacher.
“Sounds like a square dance call!”
“That’s Dosey doe.”
“Dosso was messing with Giovanni’s masterpiece!”
“What the Duke pays for, the Duke gets.”
“What did that guy paint?”
“Dosso is credited with the landscape at left and added the pheasant and bright green foliage to the tree at upper right.”
“Artie, I thought you would know all about this stuff.”
“Why Fred?”
“Because you are an artist yourself.”
“I am interested in paint and perception not so much the literary stuff.”
Our teacher has moved on joined by his long-sleeved companion. With ink dense on his calves.
“Okay, so what do you see?”
“It is an oil painting on canvas for one thing. Looks like there are three seams. See that one above the figure with a Delft bowl above his head?”
“Okay”
“Bellini started out using tempera poplar panels.”
“That’s egg tempera?”
“Yeah, mix the yoke with powdered pigment and lay on.”
“As simple as that?”
“No Fred, that’s just the basic idea.”
Artie points out the foreground.
”Take a look at how these pebbles are rendered, look at the values!”
”Yes they are blended patches of color.”
”That’s right, you have to get retinal!”
“What do you mean?”
”Be conscious of what is on your retina don’t recognize objects.”
”Like a pebble, you mean.”
“Like anything you can name.”
“What about that grove of young saplings there, on the right.”
”You are back to nouns, Fred.”
“The sun seems to be low in the sky behind them.”
“Yeah, nice gradation from yellowish to blue above the green hill.”
”You think it is sunrise or sunset, Fred?”
“It can’t be sunrise. They would all be passed out by then.”
“Well, look at the empty cup that has rolled into the foreground.”
“Yes, it could be a sign of growing intoxication.”
“Intoxicated with lust or alcohol?”
“Both I should say.”
Artie moves closer again to take a close look at the surface.
“You guys are looking at the illustration.”
”Well, that is why the painting has a title.”
“Look here, Steve, there is kind of a dent.”
Artie points to a scratch in the surface, in the foliage above the blond woman’s head.
“Yeah, I think it has been restored since I last looked.”
“There’s too much glare from the lights.”
Artie gets out her phone and snaps a picture of the cup in the foreground.
“Look at that detail! Those highlights are like Canaletto!”
“Who is this guy with his hand in the girl’s lap?”
Steve scans the picture.
“Fred, you mean the one with a bowl of fruit in front of him?”
”He must be a Satyr.”
“He must?”
”Yeah, they were famously lusty.”
Artie points out the head.
“Okay, take a careful look at his head.”
“Our teacher is gone!”
”Just look, Fred. You don’t need him.”
”I am looking. It is turned toward the nymph, or whatever.”
“It doesn’t look right.”
“What do you mean, Artie?”
“It is too big and isn’t attached to the neck properly.”
“It must be! It was painted by a great master of the Renaissance!”
Steve is in on this.
“Fred, forget what you know and just trust your eyes.”
Artie is examining the figure.
“Well, it looks to me like a broken doll with a head too big and its fixed back on crooked!”
“Don’t forget, two different artists have meddled with it since Bellini.”
”Fred, can’t you see it?”
“Ah, maybe.”
Steve is examining the bottom right.
“Check the wooden bucket, down here.”
Artie is looking
“There’s a piece of paperer attached to the side.”
“It is Giovanni Bellin’s signature.”
“Dated 1514, how about that, Steve!”
“He is lucky no one took that bucket away over the passing centuries.”
“Or soaked the paper off, dipping it in a stream for a refill!”
