Alberti’s Window

Anyone who reads this blog regularly can attest to my distaste for Renoir – particularly Renoir’s later works. (Case in point: I used the word “hideous” to describe a Renoir painting in this post and in a comment for this post.)

I’m not the only person who dislikes Renoir. In fact, people have critiqued his work for decades. Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt wrote in 1913 that Renoir was painting horrific pictures “of enormously fat red women with very small heads.”¹ Even Renoir once admitted, “I had gone as far as I could with Impressionism, and I realized I could neither paint nor draw.”² I couldn’t agree more.

Although Renoir’s later paintings have gotten a bad reputation, a new traveling exhibition called “Renoir in the 20th Century” strives to place the painter in a more positive light. You can read more about this exhibition (and further critiques of Renoir’s style) in a recent Smithsonian article.

Personally, I have no desire to see this show. My opinion of Renoir is pretty much solidified at this point, and I wouldn’t want to waste my time. However, I must admit that the Smithsonian article has changed my perception of Renoir. I didn’t realize that the artist suffered from extreme rheumatoid arthritis in his later life. Due to this disease, the artist painted while under constant pain. He later suffered from paralysis in his right shoulder, which forced the artist to paint with his left hand (see image above).

So, although I don’t find any aesthetic appeal in Renoir’s later works, I do have much more sympathy for the artist. I guess in a way, I can now relate to Renoir on a very small level. Any discomfort that I feel when seeing his art was also painfully experienced by Renoir when his paintings were created.

UPDATE: I just came across this video which shows footage of Renoir working in his later life. You can really get the sense of his physical limitations and suffering in this clip.

1 Richard Covington, “Renoir Rebels Again” in Smithsonian 40, no. 11 (January 2010): 67.

2 Ibid.

I just read here about recently unveiled plans for a new addition to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. I’m really surprised about this new modern wing, especially since Isabella Stewart Gardner’s will requires that the museum cannot be altered from how she originally designed and curated the collection display. In fact, in order to get approval for this new modern addition, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had to approve a deviation from the will last year.

Lately there have been some connections between bathrooms and the discoveries of great/important art. Yep – I’m not kidding. Remember the couple that discovered a Raphael copy in their apartment? They found the copy after they decided to build a new bathroom in their home. And now, once again, the bathroom comes into play for another discovery:

The History Blog posted today about a Rembrandt etching that was discovered in the back of a bathroom cabinet (see above). Father O’Connell, president of the Catholic University of America (Washington, DC) found this etching in the bathroom of his office – he was looking for paper towels and ended up discovering a much older (and non-utilitarian) piece of paper. No one is sure how the etching ended up in the cabinet.

The etching was appraised and authenticated as a Rembrandt last year. This week, Catholic University of America opened a new exhibition which features this new discovery. The exhibition will be open until the May 24th.

This story sounds so bizarre – who would shove a Rembrandt in a bathroom cabinet? All I can say is, I’m positive that there’s nothing that significant in my bathroom.

If someone asked me to guess American Idol judge Simon Cowell’s taste in art, I probably would have named something sensible, marketable, and creative – maybe some work by an abstract expressionist painter like Morris Louis. But my guess would have been way off.

Today I came across an article that discusses a new theory regarding Caravaggio. Researcher Roberta Lapucci argues that Caravaggio used light sensitive substances (in essence, a very primitive form of photography) in order capture his figures on canvas. You should read this article and Lapucci’s arguments – it’s quite interesting.

But although I think that this is a really novel and fascinating idea, I have my doubts. Part of Lapucci’s argument rests on the fact that Caravaggio used an “abnormal number” of left-handed subjects in his early works, since a light sensitive image would have been projected on a canvas backwards. (According to Lapucci, Caravaggio later depicts right-handed subjects in his paintings, which indicates that the artist used improved darkroom technologies in his later career). My problem with this argument is that I can only find three Caravaggio paintings with (possible) left-handed subjects, even in his early works. Just about all of the sitters appear to be right-handed (for example, see Judith Beheading Holofernes, Boy Peeling Fruit, Lute Player, and The Musicians). Here are the only lefties that I found:

Caravaggio, Bacchus, c. 1597
(A discovery regarding this painting was recently in the news – see my thoughts here)

Caravaggio, Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1598
Does Lapucci consider this subject to be left-handed, since
her left hand is closer to the handle of the sword? Hmm.

Caravaggio, Saint John the Baptist, 1610
This is a late work (in terms of Caravaggio’s career), but the sitter is using his left hand to hold a staff. (Does that mean, though, that he is left-handed? Or that light sensitive technology was used? Hmm.)

And…that’s it. From what I could find, those three are the only Caravaggio paintings that possibly manifest left-handed subjects. Feel free to try and find others – I’d love to see if anyone finds more lefties in Caravaggio’s work. For now, though, I feel like this part of Lapucci’s argument is pretty weak. You can decide for yourself, gentle reader, whether the number three constitutes an “abnormal number” for left-handed subjects.