2015 Western Art ca. 1600–1900

Stated contentiously, the proximate cause of the Reformation was architectural, insofar as it was the rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome that gave rise to the sale of indulgences on an industrial scale, which in turn sparked reforming protest. A prime example of the Roman Catholic Church ‘coming off the back foot’ to return to the religious and cultural offensive, is the early history of the Jesuit Order. The theology and politics of this ‘Catholic Reformation’ addressed the matter of indulgences and related abuses, and art and architecture were key instruments in communicating and effecting transformation in the life of the Church and spreading it around the globe.
In architectural terms, the Classicism and balance of St Peter’s gave way at Sant’Ignazio to fluidity and deliberate dramatic visual instability. The narrative and stylistic content of Sant’Ignazio’s great nave fresco by Anrdea Pozzo, points towards a number of bases for the artistic, political and theological shift. Both Andrea Pozzo and the architect of Sant’Ignazio, Orazio Grassi, were Jesuits and, as indicated by the dedication, so was the church itself. An exploration of the artistic narrative and stylistic features of the Church of Sant’Ignazio and its decorative programme will reveal the explosive energy being released in the theological, political and cultural ideals of Counter-Reformation Rome. These things often reveal more than originally intended when subjected to a close and contextual reading. The problem is, to align the rhetoric and the reality, the heroic drama of the artistic monument and the reality of its political and theological circumstances.

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The development of engravings from the Renaissance to the Mannerism and the early Baroque era is a pressing question, which remains significantly underresearched by art historians. In the report this subject is studied in multiple aspects: technique, art achievements and the use of engraving as a way to reproduce and duplicate other art objects.
By examining the works of Dürer and Goltzius, we can clearly see the changes that happened during two centuries and also features that Mannerism retained without changing since Renaissance. In the report a number of works by both masters are analyzed, characteristic features are identified, their technique and visual imagery are analyzed. Albrecht Dürer was a prominent artist of his time, practically the father of Renaissance engravings, who introduced new methods of composition and expression of space and depth. Hendrick Goltzius is the master of Mannerism, a prominent draftsman and engraver. He used both the methods developed by his predecessors, as well as his contemporaries, and both were adapted to fit his vision. Both masters attached importance to the technique and experimented with different ones, but their most important works are copper engravings, i.e. chalcography, often considered the most difficult technique of all.
Despite being seemingly narrow, the topic is not only important for the history of graphics and paintings, but for the history of art, because engraving in the 16th to 17th century Europe is the most significant tool to duplicate and spread visual information, which therefore had influence on all other forms of art.

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The decorative designs of the Italian Renaissance reached Britain in the second half of the 16th century, particularly through published prints of Continental artists. English watchmakers and chasers frequently turned to mainland art and used it as a source. Especially important moment of the English watchmaking evolution was the fact, that in London original and distinctive horo­logical tradition had already existed for a very long time, since the very beginning of the 16th century. In addition to the phenomenon of the origin of the British horology, the very important matter is the fact that an early English watch signed, for example, by a Dutch immigrant, may well have German and French constitutional overtones.
Hence, the problem of the formation and development of the new ornamental system is linked to a subject of the evolution of the English decorative tradition and its interaction with artistic currents of the Continental Europe during the period.
Besides, being one of the greatest horological and casemaking centers, Britain will influence profoundly the development of world watchmaking in the following years and will take a crucial place in the history of horology. The unique artistic approach of British makers and decorators will not master the Renaissance tradition, but will adopt it and change within the limits of their own artistic system influencing deeply the decorative designs of horological centers outside England.
Watch, being an object of a special value, becomes an obligatory attribute of power and luxury. At the same time watch is an essential part of costume, which means that watch as an accessory formed an appearance of the man of those days and determined main fashion tendencies of the 16th–17th centuries.
The main purposes of the paper are to reveal the influence of the artistic tradition of the Italian Renaissance on independently formed ornamental designs of English watchmakers, to mark main characteristics and attributes of the center in the context of European art and to determine the influence of the English art school on the evolutionary processes in the field of horology. Moreover, the paper is to exa­mine a special culturalogical emphasis of watch during the period in question.

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Arriving in Malta in 1660, Mattia Preti progressively become the official painter of the Knights of St. John, and changed radically their very way of understanding and using the images. From this point of view, the scenes of martyrdom represent a privileged field of investigation: for the members of the Order, in fact, this particular images are not only the result of specific devotions, but the representation of something that can be really experienced by the knights and that often summarize their aspirations and hopes.
New documents and — for the first time — the reading of these paintings in the context in which they were produced and in relation with the history of their patrons will clarify the extraordinary and often unique iconographies used by Mattia Preti and, moreover, provide new grounds for establishing their chronology.
The paper will then address the following topics:
• The works made by Preti for the Langue of Italy, his first reference point on the island, offering a comparative reading of two paintings dedicated to St. Catherine, one made for the Church of the Langue and one for their Chapel in St. John Cathedral. The analysis will unveil the devotional project promoted by the Langue in relation to the relic of the saint, and define a new, more reliable, chronology for the paintings.
• The two lunettes in the Chapel of the Langue of Aragon dedicated to the martyrdom of St. Stephen. Starting from some new documents and from the results of the recent restoration, a new reading of the paintings can now include them in the original commission by Grand Master Martin de Redin (1657–1660) related to his — failed — project of crusade.
• The unknown role played by the two Grand Masters Raphael (1660–1663) and Nicolas Cotoner (1663–1680) in guiding the choice of subjects for the paintings in the Chapel of St. James, a prelude to the great celebration of their role in the history of the Order painted by Preti in the vault of the cathedral and, above all, in the Allegory of the Order on the counterfacade.

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Battle Scene (oil on canvas, 43 × 58 cm) became an addition to the collection of Chelyabinsk State Museum of Fine Arts arriving from the State History Museum in 1960 as a painting of an unknown western school artist of the 18th century. Earlier the painting was kept in the collection of countess Chernysheva-Bezobrazova in Yaropolets estate. Later I. V. Linnik (verbally) attributed the painting to the Flemish school of the 17th century. These were the only known details about the painting until recently.
In the course of the research, we managed to find an image of a painting by Jan van Huchtenburgh (1647–1733) entitled The Battle at Ramillies between the French and the Allied Powers, 23 May 1706 dated 1706–1710 from the collection of Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), whose theme, composition, details of depicting the horses and horsemen combined with other works by this artist make for straightforward attribution of the Chelyabinsk piece to this painter’s authorship.
Jan van Huchtenburg, Dutch painter of battle scenes, engraver and art trader, was born in 1647 in Ha­arlem, died in 1733 in Amsterdam. He was an apprentice of Thomas Wijck. He had a brother artist Jacob van Huchtenburg. He was in the service of Prince Eugene of Savoy. He painted ten big battles between 1697 and 1717 depicting victories of Eugene of Savoy. He was influenced by Van der Meulen and Philips Wouwerman.
The works of brothers Huchtenburg are rare in Russian collections. The Hermitage Museum keeps a painting of Jan van Huchtenburgh with a question mark beside the name, since the painting was priorly attributed to Pieter Wouwerman.
Presumably the painting in Chelyabinsk belongs to a series of battle scenes The War of the Spanish Succession of 1701–1714 along with The Battle of Ramillies.
Rather skillfully executed although poorly preserved this painting always provoked curiosity of researchers. Various technical studies — macro photography, microscopic inspection, infrared photo­graphy — ultimately resulted in discovery of the artist’s signature.
Dutch experts Bernard Vermet (RKD) and Pieter Roelofs (Rijksmuseum) agreed with our conclusions as to attribution of this piece of art to Jan van Huchtenburgh or his circle. Quentin Buvelot, expert in battle painting from Mauritshuis, believes that the discovered signature belongs to Jan van Huchtenburgh.

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Claudio Coello (1642–1693) was the last local Spanish artist appointed the Court Painter (Pintor de Camara) in the 17th century. On the one hand, portraits by this artist represented the quintessence of the national Spanish court portrait. On the other hand, his artworks gave impulse to the development of the common European Baroque style of portraiture in Spain with its tendency towards glorious, pompous and decorative image.
In his first portraits of Charles II Claudio Coello followed the image template set by his predecessor Juan Carreno de Miranda. However, even these works display an inclination towards decorative aspects.
As an excellent colorist Coello was meticulous and attentive in rendering the fabrics of different cloth, though at times it aggravated the portrait’s integrity and strength of the impact.
Another step towards European Baroque painting appears to be the tendency to depict the sitter with refinement and certain ennoblement masking the uncomely drawbacks of the model.
Portraits by Claudio Coello make an appeal with the decorative vibe and colours rather than substantial contents and depth of character.
The last years of Coello’s life at the Court in Madrid saw the arrival of a successful Italian ar­tist — Luca Giordano (1634–1705), the first foreigner in several decades to be appointed the court painter.
The appearance of Charles II in Giordano’s portraits became more and more refined and sophisticated. Gradually the Spanish portrait merged with the Italian and French traditions.
The style of the artist, profusion of allegories and idealization result in the Baroque portrait void of local features.
The artworks of the Italian painter started the new stage of the Spanish portrait, when the European painters took the upper hand at the Court. Meanwhile, the local tradition dissolved in unified European style of decorative court portraiture with France in the lead.

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The name of Luis Melendez is rarely found in the literature on the art in our country. For a long time this name wasn’t mentioned in the books published in the 20th century, even in special publications, dedicated to Spanish art, and in the studies, dedicated to still life. The name of Melendez began to appear only at the end of 20th century (the 1990s) and at the beginning of 21st century, for example, in fundamental work by T. P. Kaptereva (“Spain. History of Art”, 2003).
Russian spectator and art-lover in our country was able to see still lives by Luis Melendez only at the beginning of the 21st century at the exhibition “Prado in Hermitage”, which was opened from the 25th of February to the 29th of May 2011. There two pictures were exhibited: “Still life with part of salmon, lemon and three vessels” (1772) and “Still life with a box of chocolates, slice of bread and other things” (1770). At this temporal exposition sometimes I could see the reaction of visitors at these pictures by a painter not known to them. It was surprise, a wish to gaze at the paintings for a long time and to learn something about this master. Unfortunately, biographic information about this painter and his life is very scarce, it is incomplete and fragmentary. But, fortunately, the works by Luis Melendez survived in big quantity. Now it is possible to say that there are about forty of his still lives in the world. There is the information that beside still lives he painted portraits. Hovever, there is hardly any information about them. A self-portrait by the painter (1746) has survived. In foreign literature there is information about some works by the painter and about some exhibitions where his works were showed. The biggest part of works by Melendez is in the collection of Prado. The famous investigator of Spanish art and one of curators of Prado Juan de Luna, describing the period of Spanish art of 18th century, said that in this period of Carlos III’s reign the Spanish school began the renovation and reached new heights: Luis Melendez painted beautiful still lives, many of them for prince of Asturia, the future king Carlos IV. So, J. de Luna writes about big significance of L. Melendez for Spa­nish painting.

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The рареr is devoted to the origin of the landscape garden in England. It gives a short account of the history of the previous kind of garden — the formal or regular one. It shows the process of the birth of new ideas in the human environment formation which leads to the creation of the new type of garden, which followed the natural forms. Several treatises of the 18th century are analyzed such as the work of John James, who translated from French “The Theory and Practice of Gardening…” by Alexander Leblond in 1712, the book of Stefan Switzer “Iconographia Rustica… Containing Directions for the General Planning of a Country House…”, 1718, Robert Castell “The Villas of the Ancients Illustrated…”, 1728; Batty Langley “New Principles of Gardening…”, 1728, as well as the activity of John James and others as practical gardeners. The work is based on primary sources and describes the period in art history, which is important for understanding the emergence of new informal features which influenced the creation of modern environment.
The influence of the philosophy of Lord Shaftsbury on the artistic theory of architecture and gardening is described: the attitude of Lord Shaftsbury towards the natural beauty as the expression of the will of God and architecture as the human invention which influenced the evolution of built environment and especially the creation of the landscape garden. In the paper different aspects of the origin of the new type of garden are analyzed. Among them: the poetry and artistic actions of Alexander Pope in his own garden, the practical measures of the famous gardener Charles Bridgman. Special attention is paid to the impact of the painter William Kent, who made several early landscape gardens, and the poet William Shenston, the author of “Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening...”, 1764, who made sentimentalism one of the foundations of the landscape garden as a new type of human environment. Then the author speaks of the highest development of the landscape garden in the works of the most famous English master “Capability” Brown and further ideas of the development of the human environment of the architects of the British classicism belonging to the generation of sir William Chambers and Charles Cameron, who introduced the dialog of Classic, Gothic and Oriental into the making of “enlightened” environment.

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The Spanish Art was badly known in Europe of the 17th–18th centuries. Spanish painting was understood only as the variant of Italian painting. It is interesting to analyze, if the national character of Spanish art was comprehended by theorists and historians.
In 1633 V. Carducho published his “Dialogs about Painting” in Madrid. The peaks of perfect beauty for him are Michelangelo and Rafael. V. Carducho didn’t try to find national artistic specific features of Spanish painting.
In 1649 in Sevilla the treatise by F. Pacheco “The Art of Painting” was published. F. Pacheco highly appreciated many Spanish masters, and most of all — his pupil D. Velazquez, but the criterion of artistic achievements for him also was Italian art.
About 1675 the treatise by Spanish painter and theorist of Art J. Martinez “The practical Reasonings about Noble Art of Painting…” was published. J. Martinez divided not Spa­nish and Italian Art, but old and modern. He was not interested in Spanish artistic special features, but by qualitative level of national Spanish painting. He showed that this level was as high as the level of Italian painting. Developed national self-awareness of J. Martinez enabled him to write the history of national art, to be proud of its achievements, but didn’t give him the possibility to understand its originality. It was it in the text, but the author couldn’t and didn’t want to see it!
At the beginning of the 18th century the thesis of A. Palomino “The Museum of Painting and the School of Optic” was published. The history of Spanish art is represented in detail. But the attempt to show the national features of Spanish art was not made by A. Palomino. He was interested in qualitative level of Spanish art. He thought that this level was higher than European standard of his time — Italian painting.
In biographies of certain masters he constantly stressed their mastership in the imitation of nature. Instinctively he was inclined to regard naturalism as a national specific feature of Spanish art, which he, in spite of his classical credo, fully appreciated.
In 1800 “The Historical Dictionary” by C. Bermudez, with its detailed description of life and art of Spanish masters (but according to old Italian criteria), was published. So for Spanish authors by the end of 18th century the Italian art remained the standard of artistic perfection.

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Ukrainian Baroque dominated in the art and culture of Ukraine in the early modern period, including architecture, literature, painting, theater and education. The Western system of education in its baroque form was also adapted in Ukraine.
Ukrainian baroque inherited many features adopted in the West, although they had their own originality. Particularly one can notice the influence of the Italian school. This is clearly seen at the fronts of the building silhouettes, elements of decoration of houses, form of angel in painting. Many Ukrainian architects studied in Italy, engravers — in Lithuania and Germany. They used many methods adopted by the Western masters. However, samples of Ukrainian baroque are independent works, based on national traditions. As a distinguished art historian I. Grabar wrote, “Ukraine created its baroque, taking from the West all the elements of its shape, but reworked them in its own way; as a result something new appeared, different from what we see in the West, something very unique”.

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