Being a Christian in Masaccio's Time was Better than Now

Today I visited the Brancacci Chapel in Florence at Santa Maria del Carmine.  

Before I visited I brushed up a bit by looking some things up and watching some lectured on YouTube.   What I discovered about the theme that holds the stories and paintings together surprised me.  The frescos all represent Peter copying or emulating the life and philosophy that Jesus taught to his followers.  

The frescos are designed to literally and symbolically put our duties and roles as a good human being, in perspective.

 (BTW, I was brought up Jewish and I'm an agnostic and I still believe in the messages I saw in these Renaissance frescos.)  I guess that makes me a Christian socialist?

Peter was is represented as a model of responsible, kind, civic minded, Christian charity and the frescos all are illustrations of what a good Christian was supposed to do in 15th century Florence.  I'm not making this up.

In Florence in the 1400s it was considered a patriotic duty to take care of the poor, and to use excess wealth to not only build hospitals, but to make the city beautiful by using one's wealth to help the city and the less fortunate in emulation of both Peter and Jesus.

One of the scholars I watched, commented that a person looking at the frescos didn't read them in an order like a comic book, but would see them as sermons in paint.  Often when visiting the chapel, a priest or monk would act as a guide and point out the various interpretations of charity it showed.  He would discuss the meanings and interpretations with the people he was showing around the chapel.

Part of the thing that Lippi, Masolino, and Masaccio did was that the environments, city shapes, and clothing weren't from the 1st century, the city and clothing that the stories were set in were 15th century Florence. This was to make the viewer understand that Peter's acts weren't old fashioned that he was showing you what we need to do right now:

Peter giving money to the poor.  Giving away wealth.

Peter healing the sick and crippled literally with the passage of his shadow across their bodies.

All the while acknowledging that God would provide even if you couldn't as he did in the painting by Massacio called "The Tribute Money."

This stuff didn't stop when you left the chapel.  In the dining room where the clergy dined, Jesus and the apostles are represented at the "Last Supper" facing you from the other side of the table. 

The rich and privileged of Florence in the 1400s knew what Jesus expected of them, why don't the rich and privileged "Christians" today emulate Peter and Jesus?

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Notes from a Visit to the Doria Pamphilj: Tracing the Mystery of the Small Head of Innocent X

During a recent visit to the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome, I spent some time looking closely at Velázquez’s famous Portrait of Pope Innocent X. Like many visitors, I was struck by the psychological intensity of the painting. But what drew my attention even more was the smaller head of the pope displayed nearby. The relationship between the two works raised a number of questions that have stayed with me since the visit.

At first glance, the smaller head bears a strong resemblance to the great portrait. The colors, tonal structure, and overall technique suggest someone deeply familiar with Velázquez’s method. Yet the painting also feels slightly different. The forms appear somewhat chunkier, the drawing a bit less precise, and certain transitions in the face seem more generalized. These differences led me to wonder whether the painting might be the work of someone very close to Velázquez, rather than Velázquez himself.

My first hypothesis was that the work might have been painted by Juan de Pareja, Velázquez’s assistant and later a painter in his own right. Pareja traveled with Velázquez to Italy in 1649 and worked closely with him during the Roman period when the portrait of Innocent X was painted. Because Pareja prepared pigments and assisted in the studio, he would have had intimate knowledge of Velázquez’s materials and techniques. This could explain why the smaller head appears to share similar color structures and underpainting. At the same time, the slight awkwardness in proportion and modeling might reflect the hand of a talented but less experienced painter working under the influence of a master.

While exploring the question further, I unexpectedly encountered reproductions on Wikipedia of two sheets of drawings described as studies of Pope Innocent X. These drawings had been published in 1976 by Mary Cazort Taylor in European Drawings from Canadian Collections and were then said to belong to the collection of the art historian and museum curator Theodore Allen Heinrich. According to Taylor, the sheets were reportedly found in the library of the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj.

The drawings are intriguing. On each sheet the pope’s head appears in several orientations—frontal, profile, and partial views—alongside small sketches of the seated composition. At first glance they resemble preparatory studies, and Taylor cautiously suggested they might be by Velázquez. However, the more I examined them, the more they seemed to raise questions.

Velázquez is not known to have produced many preparatory drawings. His working method appears to have relied heavily on painting directly from life. Moreover, the structure of these sheets feels less like a focused preparatory study and more like an analytical exploration of the pope’s face and pose from several angles.

This led me to consider a different possibility. By the early 1650s, not long after the famous portrait was painted, sculptors such as Alessandro Algardi were producing busts of Innocent X. Once both the painting and sculptural likenesses existed, an artist interested in studying the pope’s appearance could have used both the painting and the sculptures as models. The drawings might therefore represent the work of a later artist attempting to understand the pope’s features and the composition of the portrait, rather than preparatory sketches by Velázquez himself.

If that is the case, it could also help explain why the drawings were reportedly preserved in the palace library but eventually left the Pamphilj collection. Works considered secondary or derivative—studio studies, copies, or exercises—were often dispersed quietly from aristocratic libraries in the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries.

My investigation is still ongoing. The drawings were once in Heinrich’s collection, and I have begun contacting archives that hold his papers to see whether any documentation survives about how he acquired them. If correspondence, photographs, or acquisition notes exist, they may help clarify when the drawings left the Pamphilj library and how they entered the modern art market.

For now, the small head of Innocent X and the curious drawings associated with it remain part of a puzzle—one that connects Velázquez, Pareja, Roman sculptors, and later artists who may have studied one of the most penetrating portraits ever painted.

I didn't know there were two Velasquez portraits of Pope Innocent X

This was pretty exciting for me.  The Gallery Doria Pamphilj is a really great museum in downtown Rome.  

There are two portraits of Pope Innocent X connected to the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, who painted them around 1650 during his trip to Rome. The two works are closely related because the smaller portrait was likely a preparatory study for the larger and more famous painting.

The small portrait shows the pope in a simpler and more direct way. It is painted quickly and focuses mainly on capturing the pope’s face, expression, and character. Velázquez probably used it to study how Innocent X looked while sitting for him. The brushwork is loose, and the painting feels more like an experiment or first attempt.

The larger portrait, which is the famous one in the gallery, is a finished and more formal work. In it, Innocent X sits in a chair wearing rich red robes, surrounded by deep red fabric. Velázquez refined the details and composition, but he kept the strong psychological realism he discovered in the smaller study. The pope’s sharp eyes and serious expression make the portrait feel very lifelike.

Because of this relationship, many scholars believe the small painting helped Velázquez prepare for the final portrait. It allowed him to observe the pope closely and develop the powerful, realistic image that appears in the larger masterpiece.

This is a copy! Caravaggio's "Entombment" in Santa Maria in Vallicella

I walked into Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome today, and the first Chapel on the right had this painting.

I thought, "How did I not know this was here? Why are there no guards?"

Then I saw this on the railing.

It is such a good copy, and one has to stand so far away, the chapel is dark, and it is an exact copy by an 18th century artist named Koch.

Apparently this painting was swiped by Napoleon in 1797 and the church commissioned a copy to replace it.  This is a pretty common practice.

Eventually the French returned the original to the Vatican where it is today.  

The original painting was completed around 1602–1604 for the Vittrice family chapel. Because the original quickly became famous, artists began copying it. One of these reproductions is the version often referred to in scholarship as the “Koch copy.”

I looked up the records to see if there are any anecdotes or contracts or records of the price specifically for the Koch version.  No luck, the contracts were all lost so I'm out of luck.

The copy is in a small chapel next to the right front entrance where the original Caravaggio was.  

Very little is known about the painter referred to as Koch in connection with the copy of Caravaggio’s "Entombment" at Santa Maria in Vallicella. He was most likely a minor painter working in Rome sometime after the original Caravaggio painting had been removed from the church. Artists like him were often hired to make careful copies of famous paintings for churches, collectors, or students of art.

Augustus of Prima Porta

Augustus of Prima Porta, Roman, at the Vatican Museum!  I got to see it in person and take a bunch of photos and videos that I'll put in my course videos and texts.  I literally started crying. This is the first time I got to see this sculpture in person.  I've been learning about it and teaching about it for 35 years.  

Please feel free to use my art history photos that I've taken for any texts or lesson plans you are producing.  (It’s hard to get copyright free stuff.)

If you would like to know about this sculpture, I offer several survey art history courses on Udemy.  They are the same classes I teach at community colleges around the country.  Full videos, study guides, and etexts.

Bernini and the Cornaro Chapel

I've got a complete overview of Bernini, his "Ecstasy" and his work on and in St. Peters, but, I'm visiting Rome for the first time and took a bunch of video footage and photos of stuff that are kind of hard to find on the web so that I can redo my videos later.  (You can take my class on Udemy here.)

I have some observations about seeing it in person.  

The chapel is super dark and I was far away, but, looking through my cell phone, it compensated for the low light conditions and acted as a kind of telescope. 

 I was able to see details and magnify stuff looking at it through my cell phone.  I guess this kind of bothers me because most of the time I'm annoyed by tourists who only seem to look at the work through their phones.

I also didn't know that Bernini made a similar light bursting through the clouds over the main altar like he did in Saint Peters. 

The Cornaro Chapel decorations were made by Bernini after he worked on Saint Peter's.

While the Baldacchino and window over Saint Peter's chair are a bit more monumental and symbolic.  The Cornaro Chapel is fully theatrical.

A detail many people miss

The gold rays in the Cornaro Chapel are not symmetrical.

Bernini deliberately angled them so they align with the concealed window above, making the light appear supernatural rather than architectural.

It’s essentially Baroque stage lighting in stone and metal.

Much of the decoration in the Cornaro Chapel came after Bernini and it almost seems like much of it copies or emulates Bernini's style.  One example is the "Dream of Joseph."

It almost looks like a "knock off" or copy of Bernini's "Ecstasy."

The "Dream of Joseph" group of sculptures and the reliefs in the Cornaro Chapel at Santa Maria della Vittoria is usually attributed to Antonio Raggi, a close assistant of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Raggi learned Bernini’s style by working in his studio. In this relief you can see Bernini’s influence in the swirling clouds, dramatic movement, and emotional scene of the angel appearing to Joseph in a dream. These theatrical effects were typical of Bernini’s approach to religious art.

However, the carving is not as lifelike, maybe less powerful, than Bernini’s own sculpture. Bernini’s figures usually show stronger anatomy and deeper carving. Raggi’s still follows Bernini’s style but feels more decorative and kind of weaker.  Maybe because the poses of the figures mimic Bernini’s. 

(You can take my class on Udemy here.)

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