by
Joan K. Yanni
A newly-installed
painting and a much admired bronze sculpture have been placed together in the
Fountain Court. One is a prime example of Mannerism, the other shows the
spiraling movement of Baroque art. Both are concerned with the
goddess Ceres and the mythological story of why the seasons change.
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| Sacrifice to Ceres |
Ceres is the Roman
goddess of agriculture and fertility. (Demeter is her Greek counterpart.) She
provides buds and blossoms in the Spring, green leaves, colorful flowers and
fruits during the summer, and crops such as corn and wheat for harvesting in
the fall. She causes rain to fall and sun to warm the ground. She gives life
and food to the earth.
The painting Sacrifice
to Ceres (99.17), by an unknown Flemish artist, was painted in the
early 1600s and is a perfect example of Mannerism, the movement that started
around 1520. Unlike the balanced compositions of the Renaissance, Mannerist
works have no focal point and space is ambiguous and distorted. Figures are in
turn muscular and athletic, bending and twisting, then elegant and
delicate. Bizarre posturing is contrasted with graceful gestures.
Colors clash, creating unstable, restless compositions with no foreground,
middleground or background.
In MAG’s painting, the
main focus at first appears to be the kneeling, bearded figure, perhaps a
priest, gazing upward, his delicate hands folded across his chest. Attention
then turns to the action on the right, where a muscular figure is clutching a
knife, preparing an animal for sacrifice. Other figures on the right are
bringing sheep and other animals, presumably for sacrifice. At the lower left
is a young servant girl offering up a tray of fruit and vegetables, while
products of the harvest, including corn, symbol of Ceres, lie on other trays on
the ground. A fire burns on an altar near the center of the picture.
It is hard to find Ceres
among the clutter of figures in the foreground or between the Doric columns
leading back into the picture. Look carefully to find a statue of the goddess
high above the action, looking down at her followers. Her figure is seated on a
pedestal decorated with fruit; in her hand she holds a sheaf of wheat. The
upper left of the picture is quiet, showing mainly sky. The painting is
confusing, as Mannerism is confusing, but it is never dull.
MAG’s small bronze
sculpture The Abduction of Proserpina (68.2) continues the
story of the myth. Ceres’ main love in life was her beautiful daughter
Proserpina (Persephone in Greek) . When they were together, the earth
bloomed; where Proserpina stepped, flowers grew. Pluto (Hades in
Greek), god of the underworld, saw Proserpina’s beauty, fell in love with her
and wanted her for his queen. He knew, however, that Ceres would
never permit him to take her beloved daughter to his underground realm, so he
secretly kidnapped her and took her there. Ceres searched everywhere for her
daughter, but could not find her. As she looked she forgot her duties on the
earth. The ground froze and was covered with snow; no crops grew and mankind
began to starve. Jupiter
realized that something
had to be done. He ordered Pluto to return Proserpina to her mother. Pluto
did as he was ordered, but had one trick up his sleeve. He asked his wife to
eat some pomegranate seeds to sustain her on her way home. She absentmindedly
ate a few and ran to meet her mother. The earth bloomed again and mother and
daughter were happy.
But in the midst of
their joy, Pluto appeared to claim his prize. Because Proserpina had eaten some
pomegranate seeds, the food of the dead, she had to return to Hades for a month
for each seed she had eaten. (Most stories say three. It seems like in
Rochester.) Proserpina returned to her underworld throne weeping, and her
mother again neglected the earth. Thus the seasons came to be: the glorious
color in spring, summer and fall, when Proserpina and Ceres are together, and
white, frozen lands in winter during the months they are apart.
MAG’s The Abduction
of Proserpina shows Pluto carrying off Proserpina. It is a perfect
example of Baroque art, with figures spiraling upward as Pluto clutches the
girl tightly while she struggles to be free. Her arms reach for the sky as she
calls for help. The three-headed dog Cerberus, guardian of the Underworld,
anchors the sculpture.
The original sculpture,
a life-sized piece carved from marble and now in the Galleria Borghese, Rome,
was created by one of Italy’s foremost sculptors and architects, Jean Lorenzo
Bernini.
Bernini was born in
Naples in 1598 to a Mannerist sculptor, Pietro Bernini. He often traveled with
his father as a boy, and his skill was recognized early in his life. By the
time he was eighteen he had gained the patronage of Cardinal Scipione Borghese,
the nephew of Pope Paul V. His first works were inspired by antique Greek sculpture,
but he soon changed the classic, stately forms to incorporate movement and
emotion, a revolutionary innovation at the time. He made marble look like soft
clay or wax. While difficult to see in MAG’s bronze composition, in the marble
sculpture Pluto’s fingers seem to sink into the flesh of Proserpina’s thigh.
The same realism can be seen in one of Bernini’s most striking sculptures, Ecstasy
of Saint Teresa, in the Cornaro Chapel of Santa Maria
della Vittoria, Rome. One can almost feel the saint falling backward as Bernini
presents her swooning in ecstasy as her heart is pierced by divine love. Even
in his portraits Bernini made his subject come alive, with head and
shoulders moving and face showing expressions not seen before in marble busts.
In addition to
sculpture, Bernini was known for his skill in architecture. He carried over his
dynamism into fountains (the fountain in the Plaza Nirvona, for example ) and,
in particular, his monumental baldacchino designed for Saint
Peter’s in Rome. The tabernacle is colossal, as it would have to be to stand
out in the gigantic space of the church. It is over one hundred feet high (the
size of an eight-story building) with huge bronze columns spiraling upward, one
of the first monuments in the Baroque style which swept across Europe during
the 17thcentury. Bernini died in Rome in 1680.
Source: Curatorial files
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