The art historian's bequest of baroque paintings is generous, but his collection lacks the rebellious punch of the genre's best by Caravaggio and Rubens
The collector Sir Denis Mahon left a hugely generous gift of baroque art to the nation, and the Art Fund, as trustee, has now arranged for it to be permanently allocated to Britain's public galleries. But did Mahon even understand the power of the baroque?
His collection – which has become our collection – abounds in Italian 17th-century paintings by the likes of Guercino and Guido Reni. They are billowing, richly coloured, often deeply religious images of big-limbed saints and angels, nymphs and gods. Many of these paintings were intended to hang in churches, and some of them plead to be sent back there – their ever-so-slightly empty grandeur would make more sense among gilt altars and stucco angels.
The truth is, the baroque age – which can be dated all the way from the 1590s to 1730s – was the era when Italy lost its leadership in art. This happened gradually. When Caravaggio was painting his heart-stopping altarpieces around 1600, no artist anywhere could touch him. Yet in the decades that followed, it was often painters from northern Europe who learned the best lessons from him and from Italy's earlier art heritage, starting with Rubens and the Dutch Utrecht painters.
Rome still produced magnificence beyond rivalry, in both sculpture and architecture. Gianlorenzo Bernini, presiding art god of baroque Rome, had no rivals in sculpture and only one, the troubled Borromini as an architect. Meanwhile Rome attracted painters from all over Europe who outdid the local decorators: Poussin and Claude came to Rome from France; Velazquez visited from Spain.
Rome was the centre of the baroque world. A quick definition of the baroque style is that it wants to sweep up the spectator in a multimedia drama of architecture, sculpture and paint. It is an art of emotional impact and uninhibited theatricality. This suited the Papacy down to the ground or, rather, up to the golden swirling heights. Rome took on the glory that visitors love today – this was when the eternal city got its fountains.
But Italian painting, so strongly emphasised by the Mahon gift, was in no way the pearl of the baroque. The most profound painters of the 17th century are not Guercino and Reni – they are Rubens and Rembrandt, Velazquez and Vermeer, all of whom had complex, even rebellious relationships with the international baroque style.
Mahon's gift is generous and will doubtless delight connoisseurs for ages to come. But paradoxically, it gets in the way of the baroque – it dulls the epoch. Go and see Bernini's Neptune in the V&A, or Caravaggio's Boy Bitten by a Lizard in the National Gallery (neither of which he collected) if you want to see the exciting truth behind Mahon's bloodless vision. Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.
The collector Sir Denis Mahon left a hugely generous gift of baroque art to the nation, and the Art Fund, as trustee, has now arranged for it to be permanently allocated to Britain's public galleries. But did Mahon even understand the power of the baroque?
His collection – which has become our collection – abounds in Italian 17th-century paintings by the likes of Guercino and Guido Reni. They are billowing, richly coloured, often deeply religious images of big-limbed saints and angels, nymphs and gods. Many of these paintings were intended to hang in churches, and some of them plead to be sent back there – their ever-so-slightly empty grandeur would make more sense among gilt altars and stucco angels.
The truth is, the baroque age – which can be dated all the way from the 1590s to 1730s – was the era when Italy lost its leadership in art. This happened gradually. When Caravaggio was painting his heart-stopping altarpieces around 1600, no artist anywhere could touch him. Yet in the decades that followed, it was often painters from northern Europe who learned the best lessons from him and from Italy's earlier art heritage, starting with Rubens and the Dutch Utrecht painters.
Rome still produced magnificence beyond rivalry, in both sculpture and architecture. Gianlorenzo Bernini, presiding art god of baroque Rome, had no rivals in sculpture and only one, the troubled Borromini as an architect. Meanwhile Rome attracted painters from all over Europe who outdid the local decorators: Poussin and Claude came to Rome from France; Velazquez visited from Spain.
Rome was the centre of the baroque world. A quick definition of the baroque style is that it wants to sweep up the spectator in a multimedia drama of architecture, sculpture and paint. It is an art of emotional impact and uninhibited theatricality. This suited the Papacy down to the ground or, rather, up to the golden swirling heights. Rome took on the glory that visitors love today – this was when the eternal city got its fountains.
But Italian painting, so strongly emphasised by the Mahon gift, was in no way the pearl of the baroque. The most profound painters of the 17th century are not Guercino and Reni – they are Rubens and Rembrandt, Velazquez and Vermeer, all of whom had complex, even rebellious relationships with the international baroque style.
Mahon's gift is generous and will doubtless delight connoisseurs for ages to come. But paradoxically, it gets in the way of the baroque – it dulls the epoch. Go and see Bernini's Neptune in the V&A, or Caravaggio's Boy Bitten by a Lizard in the National Gallery (neither of which he collected) if you want to see the exciting truth behind Mahon's bloodless vision. Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.