Renaissance Faces

Passed by the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing and saw that this exhibition was still on for a little while yet. Slightlyfoxed gave it a good review a couple of months back and I really enjoyed it too. The paintings I liked the best were some I knew well:

Christina, Duchess of Milan, (a Princess of Denmark and the niece of the Emperor Charles V, thus the great niece of Henry's first wife, Catherine of Aragon) painted by Holbein for Henry VIII, which clever woman said at the time "If I had two heads, one should be at the King of England's disposal." That she was painted full length was, apparently, most unusual. That was a privilege reserved for male sovereigns. The guide tells you that but doesn't hazard any guesses as to why the custom was forsaken by Holbein here. If Henry wanted a full figure portrait, the better to appraise the physical attributes of a potential spouse, Christina's mourning clothes (she had just been widow by the death of her husband, the Sforza Duke of Milan) would surely have spoilt his fun.

There's another Holbein, Lady With a Squirrel (and a Starling):

which is charming, and Holbein's famously cryptic The Ambassadors:


There are a few portraits by Titian and by Antonis Mor and sculptures by Leone Leoni of ugly, charmless King Philip II of Spain (a first cousin of Christina of Milan), which manage to convey the sourness and the pomposity of the man and show the birth of propaganda in the way they are contrived to glorify him.


There's so much there and Slightlyfoxed has described some of the other good stuff. I'll just mention one more, Moroni's The Tailor:

He's a cutie. And not a noble or a monarch, so unusual that he was the subject of such a portrait. How comes a mere tailor to be wearing a ring with a big red gem set in it on the little finger of his right hand?

There's lots to see and only a few more days to go. Very stimulating stuff, well assembled and displayed. Prompted lots more questions than it answered but that's OK. I'm not an art historian, so I liked being gently introduced to the history of the portrait as I moved from room to room. There's a chronology that's clear but the arrangements are thematic, guided by the purpose of the portrait as a form at different periods.

Mushhushshu

Finally tottered along to the BM to see this exhibition: Babylon - Myth and Reality. Bit more Myth than Reality but that's OK, nothing much but lumps of clay with cuneiform scribbles all over them and some sandy ditches remain of the glory that was Babylon. Doesn't have much original artefact on display but it has lots of imagery based on legend and approximate history, with some reconstruction based on archaeological finds.


The legendary stuff is fun but it's not originals by and large: copies of Brueghel's Tower of Babel (see top), Rembrandt's Belshazzars's Feast (see right) and other depictions of that old testament hullabaloo that were new to me, Blake's Nebuchadnezzar (see below).


There were several absolutely marvellous original panels from the processional way that led from the Ishtar Gate down to a channel off the Euphrates. I was particularly interested in Mushhushshu (see below), the Babylonian dragon, many images of which adorn the Ishtar gate. Its name means "furious snake" and it has the head and tongue of a horned snake, a lion's legs and feet at the front, the claws of an eagle at the back, and a serpentine tail. And it had scales. I want one of those! There are those who think that it's the Behemoth of the Book of Job.


I learned lots of other stuff. The biblical legend of Nebuchadnezzar being banished to the wilderness for 7 years where he became bestial, conflates two kings. The exhibition suggests that this may be a reference to a later king, Nabonidus, who abandoned Babylon for the oasis of Teima and abandoned the worship of the great god Marduk for the henotheistic worship of the moon god Sin. I also had never twigged that Nabucco is the Italian for Nebuchadnezzar. But, then, I've never seen the opera. Explains why it features The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves then, of course. I am a simpleton...


And other stuff: the Hanging Gardens, the Whore of Babylon, the prophet Daniel (although not this camp one!), the Writing on the Wall, further artistic interpretations of the Tower of Babel (above), the damage done by the war and by the US Army building a base of operations right in the middle of one of what is now, belatedly, a World Heritage Site. Go and see for yourself. It runs till March. Only £8. A Credit Crunch bargain!