Pole and His Books at Lambeth

The Reformation Cardinal exhibition at Lambeth Palace Library opened last week. It's an exhibition featuring some of his books (appropriately enough for a Library):

Pole’s was a life steeped in books. He was a scholar and a collector of one of the period’s most intriguing libraries, and it was in books that he fought his battles and made his strongest statements for reform. This exhibition gathers books from Oxford, London, and Rome to tell his story. The Pole who emerges is a complex and agonized individual, someone of sincerity and of evident charm, a connoisseur, a man of strong faith, a European statesman—and a battler for moderation within the limits of the possible.

There's an excellent digital exhibition for those of us who can't get to London before December 15, divided into "eras" of his life as a student, controversialist against Henry VIII, Cardinal scholar in Rome, Viterbo, and Trent, and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Mary I. Each section highlights books, letters, and other documents: the books he studied, the books he wrote, books he inspired to renew the life of the Catholic Church in England, and books evaluating his role in the English Reformation and that renewal. 

The summing up:

Since [his death], he has been at the heart of two contrasting legends of English history. In one he is seen as the cruel agent of ‘Bloody Mary’ and an instigator of the burning alive of approximately three hundred English and Welsh men and women for their non-Catholic religious beliefs. The other legend of Pole as a saint and almost a martyr for the Catholic faith began to form immediately after his death. Biographies of the late cardinal were written and edited by men who had known him, notably Ludovico Beccadelli, and by supporters, not least at New College in Oxford, where a third of the fellows refused to accept Elizabeth’s religious settlement of 1559, resigned their fellowships, and moved abroad.

The role that Pole had played, his legacy for English Catholics in particular and for the European Counter-Reformation more broadly, would remain as meaningful as it was complex.

You have click on each image in the sections, scroll down a narrative panel or click on arrows to follow the explanation about the context and the provenance of each book or document, and then close the tab to return to the exhibition page and open another image. 

Two of the most interesting in the section on Henry VIII and Pole's "disagreements" are a Psalter with St. Thomas a Becket's name all blotted out and Pole's copy of the Bishop of Exeter John de Grandisson's Life of Becket, one of only six copies of the work to survive Henry VIII's attacks on the martyred saint.

Image Credit (Public Domain:) El cardenal Reginald Pole, por Sebastiano del Piombo

Reginald Cardinal Pole Exhibition at Lambeth Palace

The Archbishop of Canterbury's London headquarters, Lambeth Palace, is presenting an exhibition in its Library on the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, Reginald Cardinal Pole, beginning on October 5. The title of the exhibition is "Reformation Cardinal: Reginald Pole in Sixteenth-Century Italy and England":

Born in 1500 into the highest circles of the English aristocracy, becoming both cardinal and England’s last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, Reginald Pole steered a perilous course through the storm of the European Reformation. A brilliant scholarly career in Italy took him to Rome, from where he launched an audacious campaign against Henry VIII’s regime and its anti-papal policies. His intellectual leadership of the Church mirrored his position in a circle of close spiritual friends, which included the artist Michelangelo. Returning to England after the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary, Pole reconciled the English Church to Rome and did much to re-establish Catholicism before his premature death at Lambeth in 1558. This exhibition brings together books from Oxford, London, and Rome to tell the story of this complex, charismatic individual.

I'll be on the lookout for more information about the exhibition next week.

Consulting the British History Online entry for Lambeth Palace, I found some information about the Cardinal Archbishop's time there:

To Cardinal Pole, who succeeded to the archbishopric, is attributed the foundation of the long gallery in Lambeth Palace. He was appointed to the deanery of Exeter by Henry VIII.; but was abroad when the king abolished the Papal authority in England, and, not attending when summoned to return, was proclaimed a traitor and divested of his deanery. In 1536 he was made cardinal; and when Mary ascended the throne he returned to England as legate from Pope Julius III., and had his attainder reversed by special Act of Parliament. "Few churchmen have borne so unblemished a reputation as this eminent prelate, and few have carried themselves with such moderation and meekness. He died November 17, 1558, being the very day on which Queen Mary herself died."

and

Several circumstances respecting Cardinal Pole are noticed as having happened here by Strype, Burnet, and other authors. Queen Mary is said to have completely furnished Lambeth Palace for his reception at her own cost, and to have frequently honoured him with her company. "In 1554, on his arrival from the Continent, having presented himself at court, he went from thence in his barge to his palace at Lambeth; and here he soon afterwards summoned the bishops and inferior clergy, then assembled in convocation, to come to him to be absolved from all their prejudices, schisms, and heresies. The following month all the bishops went to Lambeth to receive the cardinal's blessing and directions."

"On the 21st of July, 1556," says Strype, "the queen removed from St. James's in the Fields into Eltham, passing through the park to Whitehall, and took her barge, crossing over to Lambeth unto my lord cardinal's palace; and there she took her chariot, and so rid through St. George's Fields to Newington, and so over the fields to Eltham, at five o'clock in the afternoon. She was attended on horseback by the cardinal, &c., and by a conflux of people to see her grace, above ten thousand." In the winter of the same year the queen removed from St. James's through the park, and took her barge to Lambeth, where she visited Cardinal Pole. After dinner she resumed her journey to Greenwich, where she kept her Christmas.

In 1558 Cardinal Pole died at Lambeth Palace. His body lay in state forty days, when it was removed to Canterbury Cathedral for interment.

The website for Lambeth Palace includes a picture of the "descendant" of one of the fig trees Cardinal Pole had planted on the grounds:

Fronting the Great Hall on the west side of the courtyard is a magnificent White Marseille fig tree, which came to Lambeth Palace with the last Roman Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal Reginald Pole, in 1556. He served Mary I (Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon) until they both died on the 17th November 1558. The tree was relocated to this position in 1828 when Edward Blore built the residential block, and it bears abundant fruit every autumn.

So the Archbishop of Canterbury can have his figgy pudding every Christmas!?!

It will be interesting to see how the curators use the books from Oxford, London, and Rome "to tell the story of this complex, charismatic individual."

The Tudors and Renaissance England at the Met

I thought the Wall Street Journal review (might be behind a paywall!) was interesting, because it starts off by mentioning what's NOT in the Exhibition:

This is no stroll through the long gallery of Tudor-era celebrity. Sir Thomas More, the speaker of truth to power in Robert Bolt’s “A Man for All Seasons,” is here in Hans Holbein the Younger’s remorseless portrait of 1527, but More’s nemesis Thomas Cromwell, the manipulative meritocrat of Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall,” is absent. Sea dogs such as Sir Francis Drake, the first man to circumnavigate the globe and survive, or lifelong diplomats like William Howard, who served four of the five Tudor monarchs, are nowhere at all. Of the all-rounders who exemplified the ideal of the Renaissance man, Sir Walter Raleigh appears only as the source of a set of porcelain and gilt “China dishes,” and Sir Philip Sidney, the soldier-poet who pioneered a theory of English literature, is missing in action. There are no portraits of Shakespeare, either.

That's because The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England is not aimed a collecting lots of portraits from the Tudor era, but exploring the uses of art to display power and majesty, as reviewer Dominic Green explains:

Curated by the Metropolitan Museum’s Elizabeth Cleland and Adam Eaker, and gathering more than 100 objects from an impressive range of collections, this exhibition instead reframes the Tudors as patrons building a political myth. Its introductory gallery and five thematic zones (such as “Public and Private Faces,” “Languages of Ornament,” “Allegories and Icons”) catch the long arc of image projection.

Even if one can't go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the museum's website for the exhibit might be the next best thing to being there, as it provides 131-page booklet, the audio guide, and detailed visiting guide.

One more comment of Green's I cannot pass without my own reaction:

The imagery of power struggled to mask the political reality of dynastic weakness. His heir, the sickly boy-king Edward VI, died in 1553. Edward’s Catholic half-sister, Mary (reign 1553-1558), burned heretics as well as books, and preferred prayer to patronage.

Mary is the odd woman out in the Tudor lineup. The only Catholic among Henry VIII’s children, she risked England’s independence by marrying Philip II of Spain. Here, however, her familiar portrait by Hans Eworth emerges as a template of continuity, a source for the images of her half-sister, Elizabeth.

The second paragraph rather belies the first, doesn't it? It demonstrates that Mary I both understood her predecessor's use of portraiture to convey majesty, and provided Elizabeth I with a model for a female monarch. Also, his comment ignores the facts that Mary I was engaged, through her Archbishop of Canterbury and the surviving faithfully Catholic bishops, with restoring Catholic churches and teaching in the five years she reigned. While Green does mention that Henry VIII had that Catholic patrimony of art and books burned in the paragraph above, he doesn't mention that her father also burned--or hanged, drawn and quartered or mercifully beheaded--heretics, Catholic or Protestant. 

From Insult to Praise: "Hot, Holy Ladies" at Stonyhurst College

From the Jesuits in England:

Jesuit Collections is proud to present an exciting new exhibition that reveals the hidden histories of Britain’s ‘Hot, Holy Ladies’ – the Catholic women who kept their faith alive during the religious turmoil in England and Scotland. The phrase ‘Hot, Holy Ladies’ was first used as a sarcastic insult in 1602, aimed at an impressive and effective group of strong-minded female supporters of the Jesuit Catholic mission. . . .

Related to some of the failed Gunpowder Plotters, Helena defied expectations about the role of women to become a leading figure among those who had to practise their beliefs in secret. In particular, she created several extraordinarily beautiful vestments, to be worn by priests who carried out their ministry in secret. These vestments will be the subject of six short films, released online on 4th April. . . .

The exhibition will also feature high profile relics such as the Mary Queen of Scots’ Thorn. Artistic commissions associated with royal women from the 15th to the 17th centuries including the sumptuous Henry VII Cope, and Elizabeth of York’s Prayer Book will also be on display, alongside a gold, enamelled and pearl crucifix belonging to Thomas More’s wife, Lady Alice, and a series of silver gilt reliquaries commissioned by Anne Vaux, who was instrumental in rescuing the Jesuit missionary, John Gerard, in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot.

Helena's father was Robert Wintour, and her uncle was Thomas Wintour, and both were executed for their involvement in the Gunpowder Plot when she was five years old. Robert was hanged, drawn, and quartered on January 30, 1606; Thomas on the next day. The documentary, linked in the website above, is narrated by Jan Graffius of the Stonyhurst Collection. You may also enter your email address to receive updates, including the short films describing her works and their symbols.

Image Credit: White "Alleluia" Chasuble. A white vestment containing symbolic flowers, and birds, as well as 'IHS' on the back, made in the latter part of Helena's life. By Harriet Magill - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51098828

Holbein in New York

At the Morgan Library in New York City, a Holbein exhibition just opened (on February 11) and the assemblage of works will be on display through May 15. It had previously visited the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from October 19, 2021, to January 9, 2022:

Holbein: Capturing Character is the first major exhibition dedicated to the artist in the United States. Spanning Holbein’s entire career, it starts with his early years in Basel, where Holbein was active in the book trade and created iconic portraits of the great humanist scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536). Holbein stayed in England in 1526–1528 and moved there permanently in 1532, quickly becoming the most sought-after artist among the nobles, courtiers, and foreign merchants of the Hanseatic League. In addition to showcasing Holbein’s renowned drawn and painted likenesses of these sitters, the exhibition highlights the artist’s activities as a designer of prints, printed books, personal devices (emblems accompanied by mottos), and jewels. This varied presentation reveals the artist’s wide-ranging contributions to the practice of personal definition in the Renaissance. Works by Holbein’s famed contemporaries, such as Jan Gossaert (ca. 1478–1532) and Quentin Metsys (1466–1530), and a display of intricate period jewelry and book bindings offer further insights into new cultural interests in the representation of individual identity, and highlight the visual splendor of the art and culture of the time.

You may explore the exhibition online here.

Of course, one of the featured portraits is on loan from the Frick Collection: Holbein's painting of Saint Thomas More:

This is the canonical portrait of one of the key figures in sixteenth-century England. More is depicted in a three-quarter view, similar to Holbein’s favored pose for Erasmus. The man’s imposing form fills nearly the entire panel. The fairly dark palette of More’s fur-lined velvet robe and the green drapery behind him heighten the focus on the sitter’s face and intent gaze. The astonishing realism of Holbein’s portrayal extends to More’s salt-and-pepper whiskers.

Image credit (Public Domain)

Bonnie Prince Charlie at Home

The National Museum of Scotland opened an exhibition on Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites. A review and overview from The Financial Times:

On July 25 1745, Charles Edward Stuart landed on the Scottish mainland at Borrodale. Despite bearing the title Prince of Wales, it was the first time he had been in Britain, having lived all his life in Rome. His mission was to restore his father, James III, to the throne, and in so doing make Scotland an independent kingdom once more. But one of the first people he met, unimpressed with Charles’s invasion force of 12 (one of whom was a priest), said simply, “Go home”.

Charles was undaunted. “Home?” he said. “I am come home.” Charles knew that his chances of reaching and seizing London were low. But a new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, titled Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites, shows how Charles used his underdog status to his advantage. A central exhibit is the shield, or “targe”, Charles carried on to Borrodale beach. It is flamboyantly decorated with a snarling Medusa’s head; Charles, it tells us, was a modern Perseus, sent to rescue the people of Britain from oppression. Other exhibits, a number of them from private collections, include Charles’s elaborate silver travelling cutlery, swords, portraits, miniatures and the kind of “memorabilia”, such as a wine glass engraved with the prince’s face, beloved of his loyal followers.

The Jacobite cause — as James’s supporters were called — began in 1688, when the Catholic James II was deposed by the Protestant William III. James was a brave soldier (his suit of armour here was the last to be made for a British monarch), but he failed to regain the crown. He left that challenge to his son, James Francis Edward Stuart, or James III.

Please read the rest there.

Handing Down Family Relics: Thomas More's Descendants

In her National Catholic Register article about the exhibition on St. Thomas More at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, DC, Charlotte Hays notes the source of several of the relics on display:

Several objects in the exhibit were given to the Jesuit college in the 18th century by Jesuit Father Thomas More, the last male descendant of St. Thomas More (More had four children, three daughters and a son). These include an enameled gold crucifix that has three pearls hanging from it and likely contained a relic, now lost, of an earlier saint. Because of the size of the crucifix, it likely sat on More’s desk rather than worn around the neck and likely was on his desk in the Tower of London. A homey gift from Father More was the saint’s reversible nightcap, made with golden thread and gilded spangles. Family history attributed the cap to More’s beloved daughter Meg.

The Center for Thomas More Studies has this resource for the family tree (though not in the form of a family tree) for the More family, based upon a book from Gracewing. According to this site:

Fr Thomas More—the last descendant in the direct male line of St.Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England—died on 20 May 1795 in Bath. He had been the Jesuit provincial superior at the time of the suppression of the Society in 1773.

Thomas More was the eldest of the five children of Thomas and Catherine (née Giffard) of Barnborough or Bamburg Hall in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Born on 19 September 1722, he was followed by Christopher, Bridget, Catherine and Mary. Both sons became Jesuits. Bridget married twice—Peter Metcalfe and Robert Dalton and had descendants; she died in 1797. Catherine died unmarried in 1786. Mary became Sister Mary Augustine of the Austin Canonesses at Bruges and died in 1807. Their home, Barnborough Hall, had been in the family since John, the only son of St. Thomas, had acquired it by his marriage to Anne Cresacre and it remained so until the nineteenth century.

In one of  the appendices to a book written after More's beatification by Father Thomas Edward Bridgett, you may read about all the relics of St. Thomas More that Father Thomas More, SJ gave to Stonyhurst College, including their family history and provenance.

I really think I may have to plan a visit to Washington, DC to see this exhibit, visit the National Shrine, etc. 

More about More in Washington

The St. John Paul II National Shrine website has updated information about the Thomas More exhibit set to open on September 16:

Over 60 relics and artifacts bring to life the courageous witness of a great man in a special exhibit, God’s Servant First: The Life and Legacy of Thomas More. This original exhibition features treasures from the Stonyhurst College Collections in England and is available to view only at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine.

Some of the featured items include the following: a hat used by St. Thomas More; a religious garment embroidered by Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of King Henry VIII; a monumental woodblock print by the German artist Albrecht Dürer; a first folio by William Shakespeare; the pectoral cross and saddle chalice that belonged to John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States; and first-class relics of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher.

The exhibit will be open daily from September 16, 2016 until March 31, 2017.

Janet Graffius from Stonyhurst College Collections will speak at the opening of the exhibition and other events are listed too, including a joint presentation by Dr. Gerard Wegemer and Dr. Stephen Smith on “Saint Thomas More, Leaders, and Citizenship” on October 1. Looks fascinating--too bad the exhibition isn't touring from DC!

More in Washington

This is just a teaser from the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, DC:

On September 16, the Shrine will open a temporary exhibit, God's Servant First: The Life and Legacy of Thomas More. Through relics, artifacts, manuscripts, and printed books, the exhibit will explore the culture of More’s life and times, as well as examine his wider historical significance.

I'll post more details when they become available (shouldn't they refer to him as Saint Thomas More?)

Medieval Manuscripts Digitized at the Fitzwilliam

Whenever people ignorantly refer to the Middle Ages, the long period between the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance, as the Dark Ages, the colorful images of medieval prayerbooks, psalters, and Bibles, and of glorious brightly colored stained glass in Gothic cathedrals are two of the best ways to correct them. Of course I know that the Middle Ages had some dark times, but what era hasn't? Seeing the brightness and vividness of the Hours of Philip the Bold and the stained glass of  the Cathedral at Chartres indicates that there's more to learn, at least, about the Middle Ages.

The Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge just opened this exhibit of medieval manuscripts to highlight the color/colour of these works:

This exhibition celebrates the Fitzwilliam’s 2016 bicentenary with a stunning display of 150 illuminated manuscripts from its rich collections. They range from the prayerbooks of European royalty and merchants to local treasures like the Macclesfield Psalter, from an alchemical scroll and a duchess’ wedding gift to the ABC of a five-year old princess.

Manuscripts were at the heart of Viscount Fitzwilliam’s collection with which the Museum was established in 1816. Many of them are displayed here for the first time. They can only be seen at the Museum due to a clause in Fitzwilliam’s bequest which prevents them from leaving the building and reveals the anxieties of the Founder who had assembled his treasures in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

The hundreds of images sheltered in volumes that were cherished in princely and religious libraries for centuries constitute the largest and best preserved repositories of medieval and Renaissance painting. With most panel and wall paintings destroyed by war, greed, puritanical zeal or time, illuminated manuscripts are the richest resources for the study of European painting between the sixth and the sixteenth century - the main focus of this exhibition. Highlights of Byzantine, Armenian, Persian and Sanskrit manuscripts are also included. Travel from eighth-century Northumbria to seventeenth-century Nepal via Oxford, Paris, Bruges, Cologne, Florence, Venice, Constantinople, Jerusalem and Kashmir.

Discover the secrets of original masterpieces and modern forgeries. Find out what cutting-edge technologies reveal about their painting materials, and the images’ meaning and value to their owners.

You may sample the digitized images here, and notice those English books that survived the Reformation, as well as those that survived the French Revolution.

Opus Anglicanum (But Catholic, NOT Anglican!)

The Victoria & Albert Museum in London has announced, and local media are covering, an exhibition of English Medieval Embroidery opening this October:

Explore a selection of the most outstanding examples of English Medieval embroidery. Featuring surviving examples of exquisite craftsmanship, this exhibition will focus on the artistic skill of the makers and the world in which they were created.

See the website for examples of the works to be displayed.

The Guardian and The Independent have covered the announcement of the exhibition. From The Guardian:

A golden lion on red silk once thrown over a king’s horse, a pair of gold and silk slippers peeled from the mummified feet of a bishop when his tomb was opened after 600 years and a lute being played by an angel on horseback are being gathered together at the V&A museum – precious survivors of an art form in which England once led the world.

The V&A’s autumn exhibition Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery, will be the first in more than half a century devoted to this beautiful embroidery work, coveted by kings and popes – and for the first time in decades, the museum has dared to use Latin in an exhibition title. It means “English work”, and curator Glyn Davies said it demonstates how across Europe, people associated the dazzling skill and luxurious materials with English needle-workers.

From The Independent:

London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is to exhibit ‘surviving examples of exquisite craftsmanship’ in English Medieval embroidery, encompassing gold, silver and pearl work fit for, and indeed used by, a king.

Artifacts at Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery will include a gold lion-emblazoned silk thrown over a king’s horse and opulent slippers taken from a bishop when his tomb was opened after 600 years.

The Vatican has also provided some pieces on loan, which were commissioned by Pope Innocent IV after he coveted the regal garments being worn by English bishops.

The context that's missing--perhaps assumed--from both of the stories, which seem to be aimed at making sure readers understand the use of Latin in the exhibition title, is that much of this work was created for the celebration of Holy Mass and other Catholic sacraments. I'm sure, from the V&A description, promising the dual focus on the creativity of the English artisans and the "world in which [the works] were created", that the omission will be corrected. An older page about embroidery in England may be accessed here.

Image credit: Wikipedia commons (public domain): "Embroidered bookbinding for the Felbrigge Psalter in couched gold thread and split stitch, likely worked by Anne de Felbrigge, a nun in the convent of Minoresses at Bruisyard, Suffolk, during the latter half of the fourteenth century."

Vestments and the Gunpowder Plot

From Friday, October 16, 2015, through Monday, April 11, 2016, Auckland Castle will present an exhibition titled "Plots and Spangles":

The Guy Fawkes story comes to life through the resplendent embroidered vestments created by Helena Wintour, daughter of a Gunpowder Plot conspirator.

On the eve of the Gunpowder Plot's planned date 410 years ago, there will be a presentation at the castle:

Jan Graffius, Curator at Stonyhurst, will present an examination of Helena Wintour's embroidered vestments and their Catholic iconography. The talk will look at the religious and cultural resources available to recusant laity in the decades after the failed Plot of 1605, and Helena's close association with Jesuit spirituality. The complex iconography of her beautiful embroideries draws on many sources, from botanical prints to Counter-Reformation confraternities and English metaphysical poetry.

Helena's remarkable life story and that of the creation and survival of a unique set of 17th century embroideries is a compelling, romantic and tragic tale, which culminates in the triumphal re-uniting of her divided life's work at Auckland Castle, in the exhibition 'Plots and Spangles: The Embroidered Vestments of Helena Wintour’ that opens in October 2015.

Sophie Holroyd presented a paper at 2002 conference on Helena Wintour's vestments titled "Rich Embroidered Churchstuff" that was subsequently published in Catholic Culture in Early Modern England from the University of Notre Dame Press. Holroyd had written her PhD dissertation at the University of Warwick on Embroidered rhetoric: the social, religious and political functions of elite women's needlework, c.1560-1630, also in 2002.

According to its website, Auckland Castle:

is one of the UK’s most important historical buildings. Since the days of the Norman Conquest in the 11th Century, Auckland Castle has been a seat of power. For almost 900 years, it has been the palace of the Prince Bishops of Durham and although the site where Auckland Castle now stands has seen numerous changes, few will have been as far reaching and visionary as those which are set to take place in the 21st Century. 

The castle was home of the Prince-Bishops of Durham before the English Reformation and remained a seat of Church hierarchy even after the Reformation, falling into private hands when the Church of England was disestablished during the English Civil War and Commonwealth period. Then it was restored to the Church of England when King Charles II returned to the throne.

In May this year a similar exhibit was held in the library at Douai Abbey. St. John's College, Oxford posted this notice:

This year sees the exhibition at Douai Abbey of another collection of English vestments from the early modern period. The Wintour Vestments date from around 1650 and were embroidered by Lady Helen Wintour, daughter of Robert Wintour, one of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. The set of vestments was split in about 1670 and will be exhibited together for the first time at Douai (near Newbury) from 23 May until September. The opening hours for the exhibition will be 11 a.m. - 12.30 p.m. from Monday to Friday and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at weekends.

The Tudors Arrive in Paris

The Tudors--their portraits, more precisely--are on exhibition at the Musee du Luxembourg in Paris. From Time Out magazine:

Family drama, throne politics, religious quarrels, beheadings and sumptuous clothing ensured that the Tudor dynasty was anything but dull. This exhibition by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery looks beyond stiff-backed royal portraits to explore how the fact and fiction of the dynasty have merged in our collective cultural consciousness – so compelling are tales of Henry VIII, his six unfortunate wives, Bloody Mary and The Virgin Queen that the Tudor dynasty has been a rich source of drama for writers and directors ever since.

There's an impressive collection of Renaissance portraits by Nicholas Hilliard, Joos van Cleve, Hans Holbein and more, set alongside film and book extracts that emphasise the dynasty’s legendary status through the ages. Everyone from Shakespeare to Gioacchino Rossini and Shekhar Kapur seems to have tried their hand at fictionalising the family dramas, and the Tudors captured the French imagination too, in the writings of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas and paintings by Paul Delaroche. This is the first exhibition about the dynasty in France, and it highlights a mutual fascination and power play between French and English royals: from the friendly rivalry between Francois I and Henry VIII to Elizabeth I’s cordial relationship with Catherine de Médicis as the two countries’ foreign policies drew closer and closer together.

The National Portrait Gallery in London has this input into the development of the exhibition:

In 1523 Henry VIII’s troops, lead by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, made a bold - but ultimately unsuccessful - move to take Paris and reclaim the French throne for the English king. Nearly five hundred years later, Henry VIII is finally making it to Paris.

In partnership with the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the Gallery is co-presenting an exhibition on the Tudor dynasty at the Musée du Luxembourg. This exciting collaboration extends the research undertaken for ‘The Real Tudors’ to consider Anglo-French relations and artistic exchange in the sixteenth century. The scale of the exhibition has also offered the opportunity to incorporate a number of important international loans and to look beyond portraiture to the broader material culture of the English renaissance.

When developing this exhibition with Tarnya Cooper and Cécile Maisonneuve, it became evident that presenting the Tudors in Paris meant that the dynasty could also be considered in a very different context to that provided by the National Portrait Gallery – that of ‘La République française’. For the Tudors have a French ‘history’ too, created by the writers, artists and composers of the nineteenth century, such as Victor Hugo, Eugène Devéria and Camille Saint-Saëns. This has allowed us to consider the notion of ‘The Real Tudors’ from an entirely different standpoint – Une dynastie. Une légende.

The timing is also perfect, for 2015 marks the 500th anniversary of the accession of François Ier. Henry’s greatest rival will be celebrated in an exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and in terms of cultural competition their presentation in Paris will perhaps capture something of the magnificence of their meeting in 1520 at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Information about the BNF's exhibition mentioned above may be found here. It's at the huge newer library on the Seine, named for Francois-Mitterand.

Real Men Wear Pink--Err, Rose--Or Salmon(?)!

During our 2006 visit to Paris, I went to the Titien (or Titian) exhibition at the Musee du Luxembourg, the gallery of the French Senat. It was a great event in Paris and I appreciated the quality of the selection. I've enjoyed attending exhibitions at the Grand Palais and the Luxembourg gallery--the organizational plans of the paintings, sculptures and artifacts have been brilliant and I've found myself mostly among Parisians. They are completely attentive viewers of each object, reading the descriptions and observing the details minutely. Perhaps the Marie Antoinette exhibition at the Grand Palais in 2008 was the best of all in its concept and presentation, although I also thrilled at both the thesis and the content of the France 1500 (between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment) exhibition there in 2010. My husband went with me last year to the Josephine exhibition at the Musee du Luxembourg.

One painting that caught my eye was the Portrait de Gian Girolamo Grumelli dit “le Chevalier en rose”, 1561 by Giovan Battista Moroni. It is now included in an exhibition of Moroni's portraits at the Royal Academy in London. Piers Baker-Bates reviews the exhibition for History Today:

Moroni excelled above all as a portrait painter and the psychologically acute works on display at the Royal Academy should cement his reputation, although, arguably, the few religious works shown here are qualitatively on a par with the portraits. The exhibition takes us chronologically through Moroni’s career and illustrates clearly how his artistic trajectory developed. Particular attention has been paid to the background and hang, which superbly set off the paintings displayed. 

He mentions le Chevalier en rose:

For example, take the portrait of Giovanni Gerolamo Grumelli, the so-called Man in Pink (pictured above). Grumelli’s salmon pink, elaborately trimmed, costume dominates the room in which his portrait hangs. At the same time the cryptic motto of the sitter in the bottom right corner of the painting is not written in his native Italian, but in Spanish: Mas el çaguero que el primero (‘Better the latter than the former’). It is the dramatic realism of such portraits that struck the Victorians and that still impresses us today, as does Moroni’s ability to depict fabrics and textures.

What I noticed in 2006 was the pink in his cheeks and over his ear and his gaze at the viewer. The broken torso, fallen from the statue in the ruined niche and vine growing INSIDE--for all his personal grandeur, Gian Girolamo Grumelli has to face some facts--things are crumbling around him.

The Mendicant Orders and Italian Art in Nashville

Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy will be on exhibition at The Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee until January 25, 2015:

Beginning in the early thirteenth century, Italy was transformed by two innovative new religious orders known as the Dominicans, founded by Saint Dominic of Caleruega (1170–1221; canonized 1234), and the Franciscans, founded by Saint Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226; canonized 1228). Whereas earlier religious orders, such as the Benedictines, had cloistered themselves in rural monasteries and lived off income from their property, the Dominicans and Franciscans settled in Italy’s growing cities and lived as mendicants, or beggars, who preached to laymen and women. When Francis and Dominic met in Rome in 1216, they recognized one another as brothers and embraced.

Both orders took a vow of poverty, but soon after the deaths of their founders they were building churches that rivaled cathedrals in size and splendor throughout Italy. With financial assistance from city governments, popes, and the laity, Dominican and Franciscan churches were constructed and filled with altarpieces, crucifixes, fresco cycles, illuminated manuscripts, and liturgical objects. Art became integral to the missions of these orders. Many works are narrative scenes focusing on the Dominican and Franciscan saints whose miracles sanctified contemporary Italian life.

This exhibition is the first to highlight the significant role played by the two major mendicant orders in the great flowering of art in Italy in the period 1200 to 1550. With works drawn from libraries and museums in the United States and the Vatican, it compares and contrasts ways the Dominicans and Franciscans employed art as propaganda and as didactic tools for themselves and their lay followers.

The book accompanying the exhibition is available here.

The Real Tudors Exhibition and Review

I mentioned this exhibition earlier this year. If you can't get to London year or Paris next year, you could order the book that accompanies the exhibition:

Who were the Tudor kings and queens and what did they really look like? Mention Henry VIII and the familiar image of the rotund, bearded fellow of Hans Holbein the Youngers portraits immediately springs to mind reinforced, perhaps, by memories of a monochromatic Charles Laughton wielding a chicken leg in a fanciful biopic. With Elizabeth I its frilly ruffs, white make-up and pink lips in fact, just as she appears in a number of very well-known portraits held in the Collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. But the familiarity of these representations has overshadowed the other images of the Tudor monarchs that were produced throughout their reigns. During the sixteenth century the market for portraits grew and so the monarchs images multiplied as countless versions and copies of their likeness were produced to satisfy demand. Taken together, these images chart both the changing iconography of the ruler and the development of portrait painting in England. In considering the context in which these portraits were made, the motivations of the sitters and the artists who made them, the purposes to which they were put, and the physical transformations and interventions they have undergone in the intervening five centuries, the authors present a compelling and illuminating investigation into the portraiture of the Tudor monarchs.

This review contains the startling inaccuracy that Elizabeth I was "Britain's first female ruler"--startling because all of the biographical work completed in the past few years on Mary I, pointing out her role as the first queen regnant of England:

For all the political hurly burly, social change and religious upheaval of the Tudor period and the intriguing personal histories of its monarchs, it is surely the portraits of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I that have done most to secure the Tudors in popular imagination. I first saw a portrait of Elizabeth while at primary school and was enthralled by the startling contrast of red hair and pale skin, that impossibly tiny waist disappearing into a sharp V, the dress a marvel of engineering as much as couture and as extravagantly embellished as a little girl’s wildest imaginings could demand.

Far from the simpering pink princesses so beloved of little girls now, Elizabeth's image remains compelling because it achieves a feat unusual even in today’s liberated society, combining beauty and glamour with the hard edge of unassailable power. As Britain’s first female ruler, Elizabeth’s gender was a problem to be overcome, and her portraits trace the development of her image from demure princess to Virgin Queen. While her image remains within the traditional parameters of womanhood – elegant, sumptuously dressed and exhibiting a cool sort of beauty – her portraits suppress her sexuality entirely. By transcending gender she was able to assert her absolute authority and her divine right to rule. . . .

The notion of political unrest providing the stimulus for the production of portraits is a recurring one in the display, which is the result of a long-running NPG research project. Bringing together multiple portraits of the Tudor monarchs and combining technical analysis with art historical research, the curators have produced a wealth of evidence about techniques, workshop practices and the composition of individual paintings, evoking a buoyant art market doing a brisk trade in royal portraits. In dangerous and uncertain times, displaying a portrait of the king must have seemed a sensible precaution, and the political turmoil caused by Henry VIII’s break with Rome seems likely to have fuelled the growing appetite for his image.

The website for the exhibition provides lots of background and samples of the works on display.

The Kenneth Clark Exhibit @ Tate Britain

From Brian Cole in The Wall Street Journal:

London

How daring! Tate Britain has devoted a large exhibition to someone who was not an artist—the first time it's done so. Equally surprising, the subject is a figure now mainly known for a television show.

The director and curators of the Tate Britain are to be congratulated for working to restore the importance of Kenneth Clark through an excellent exhibition and catalog, both titled "Kenneth Clark: Looking for Civilisation." Beautifully installed in six rooms with more than 200 objects from Old Master to modern, most drawn from Clark's own collection, the exhibition traces Clark's life and chronicles his important role in British culture as patron, collector, art historian and broadcaster.

The show carefully and judiciously reminds us who he was, why he was so important to 20th-century England, and why he deserves to be remembered. They are brave to do so because to many of their peers in the museum and academic worlds, there can hardly be anyone more out of fashion. . . .

Why would Kenneth Clark be out of fashion? Cole explains:

Among the postmodern culturati, Clark has been ridiculed as an upper-class snob (although his entire career proves just the opposite) and mocked for espousing highly unfashionable ideas about truth, artistic genius, greatness—above all, for the peculiar idea that beauty is an important attribute of art. And in an era of multiculturalism his concept of Western Europe as a great civilization has been belittled.

More about the Tate Britain exhibit here. 

This exhibit has certainly brought Sir Kenneth Clark much media attention, as reviews and profiles were published when it opened in May. Of course, he has never really gone away, because of the popularity of that Civilisation series, as this profile from The Guardian attests:

Even now, says James Stourton [Clark's authorized biographer], thousands of DVDs of the series are still sold every year: "It has never died. It's like being on a magic carpet. It's an amazing grand tour. Today, the presentation gets in the way a bit. He's wearing funny clothes, and has a funny voice. You have to get beyond the Burberry coats and the manner and listen to the words." Clark was by now beginning to fall out of sympathy with the art world; painting, he thought, had not been in such a bad state since the death of Giotto. But, no matter. Amazingly, it was for these films that he would be remembered, his passion for art and all its possibilities somehow having transmitted itself to a rapt nation. The clipped vowels and the awkward body language didn't bother the public (even in 1969 he would have sounded stiff, for this, after all, was the year Monty Python made their TV debut) because, as Stourton puts it, "he owned his material". At the Tate show, visitors will be able to see this ownership for themselves thanks to several carefully positioned screens – and some will doubtless ponder if any presenter now, relying as he or she inevitably will on a team of researchers, will ever be able to match its undoubted authority.

What Stourton describes as distractions now I find essential to the series. It was "A Personal View" so the person, Sir Kenneth Clark had to be himself--he did not have to look like a television personality; he had to have ideas and views to present. I like the static camera and the slow pans from Clark to the background and the great close ups of the artwork, so steady and patient--the camera is giving me a chance to see what Clark sees, to learn how to look at the art, see the beauty, and appreciate the civilization that created it.

The BBC is going to "remake" the series with another art critic who will have his or her own "Personal View"--I doubt the critic would dare have such a "conservative" view of civilization or even to concentrate on western civilization. It will have to be multi-cultural and the pace will have to be fast, with quick cuts and angles. The presenter will have to be photogenic with perfect teeth (Sir Kenneth's are horrible, one can tell). I can't imagine a remake of Kenneth Clark's Civilisation: A Personal View that could replace it in my library of books, DVDs, or memories. As Clark says at the end of the series, I may be hopeful about the new version, but not joyous.

Josephine at the Musee du Luxembourg

 

I apologize for the lack of blogging since last Friday, but somewhere over North America or the Atlantic Ocean, my little netbook malfunctioned--it worked fine Thursday morning, March 13, but wouldn't locate my profile when we arrived in our rented Paris apartment Friday morning, March 14!

 

On Saturday, March 15, we made use of the free Metro (more about that in another post) to attend this exhibition on the life and times of Josephine Bonaparte at the Musee du Luxembourg, described here by parisvoice.com:

 

One of France's most remarkable First Ladies, Josephine, is the subject of an exhibition at Paris' Musée du Luxembourg. On the occasion of the bicentenary of her death at Malmaison in 1814, the exhibition revisits through paintings and many personal items Josephine's life and times.

Josephine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoleon I, which made her the first Empress of France. She was born in Martinique and married at sixteen to Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais. These were tumultuous times for France. During the Revolution's Reign of Terror she was thrown into prison along with her husband who was guillotined. She narrowly escaped death owing to Robespierrre's timely fall.

Bonaparte, then only a twenty-six-year-old general, fell for her charms and married her in 1792, less than five months after their first meeting. She rose up with him as wife of the First Consul after the coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire (1799). She became the first Empress of France, crowned by Napoleon in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris (1804).

She did not bear Napoleon any children; as a result, he divorced her in 1810 to marry Marie Louise of Austria. She withdrew to Malmaison where she pursued her interests in the arts and gardening, most notably cultivating and hybridizing roses. Through her daughter, Hortense, she was the maternal grandmother of Napoléon III.

The exhibition illustrates Josephine's tastes and influence on French decorative arts showing some of her luxurious furnishings, tableware, elegant dresses and jewels. The exhibition includes many portraits including a large painting of her by Prud'hon on loan from the Louvre and another one by Gros from the Musée Masséna in Nice.

We enjoyed the exhibition, which as the article above notes, displayed many artefacts, furniture, fine porcelain, sculpture, etc. One of the most famous paintings about the Empress Josephine was not included in the exhibition because, I presume, its size precluded its display in the Luxembourg's gallery setting:

 

 

(Jacques-Louis David's The Coronation of Napoleon, from Wikipedia commons). The gift shop did feature postcards of this huge painting in the Louvre (32.1 foot by 20.4 ft). I bought the Dossier de L'Art magazine about the exhibition because it had many good photographs of artefacts we found interesting and beautiful.

 

The lady in the coat check asked us if we had enjoyed the exhibition, and we said yes. My husband commented on how sad it was that Napoleon had divorced Josephine because she could not or had not borne him an heir. She commented in reply that "He was not a very nice man." Mark responded, "Well, at least he didn't cut off her head, like Henry VIII!" I have taught him well.

London's National Portrait Gallery: Elizabeth I and Her People

Thanks to Elena Maria Vidal and her Tea at Trianon blog: She brought this new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery to my attention:

The reign of Elizabeth I from 1558-1603 was a time of extraordinary enterprise. New opportunities for creativity and wealth creation in this period saw the beginning of the rise of the so-called ‘middling sort’ or middle classes.

The changes that took place at this time dramatically shaped the future of England and Wales. The Church of England was securely established and over time much of the country embraced the Protestant faith. The known world was expanding through maritime exploration and trade, cities grew in size and population and the economy flourished and purpose built theatres opened to the public.

This exhibition explores the story of the Elizabethans from the Queen, the nobility and gentry to many other talented individuals such as explorers, soldiers, merchants, artists and writers.

The exhibition site includes a series of videos and a game: "Who do you think you were?"

BTW: according to the game, I think I was John Donne! Though well known for introspection, you have a romantic outlook and feel things deeply. A brilliant mind is at work beneath your sometimes sad expression.

Who do YOU think you were?

Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm at The Tate in London

This show will not open at the Tate Britain until October 2, but the BBC and The Guardian have already started to cover it:

Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm will be the first exhibition exploring the history of physical attacks on art in Britain from the 16th century to the present day. Iconoclasmdescribes the deliberate destruction of icons, symbols or monuments for religious, political or aesthetic motives. The exhibition will examine the movements and causes which have led to assaults on art through objects, paintings, sculpture and archival material from 2 October.
 
Highlights include Thomas Johnson’s Interior of Canterbury Cathedral 1657– the only painting documenting Puritan iconoclasm in England – exhibited for the first time alongside stained glass removed from the windows of the cathedral. Edward Burne-Jones’ Sibylla Delphica 1898 and Allen Jones’ Chair 1969, damaged by suffragettes and feminists will be on display, as well as evidence of statues destroyed in Ireland during the 20th century. The show will consider artists such as Gustav Metzger, Yoko Ono and Jake and Dinos Chapman, who have used destruction as a creative force.
 
Religious iconoclasm of the 16th and 17th centuries will be explored with statues of Christ decapitated during the Dissolution, smashed stained glass from Rievaulx Abbey, fragments of the great rood screen at Winchester Cathedral and a book of hours from British Library, defaced by state-sanctioned religious reformers. These will be accompanied by vivid accounts of the destructive actions of Puritan iconoclasts.

As The Guardian story notes,

"It obviously is a difficult subject," said the director of Tate Britain, Penelope Curtis. "The decision was to treat it seriously rather than shy away from it, to try and explore it properly so that people understood its history more fully."

Curtis, whose idea it was, said it was something Tate Britain ought to do because the museum's collection "covers nearly 500 years but not quite". In fact, the show starts in the 1540s, with Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries, which led to the state-sanctioned destruction of so much art. The events were particular to Britain and changed our visual history forever, said Curtis.

Getting examples of 500-year-old destroyed art is clearly difficult, and one of the star exhibits will be a statue of Jesus that remained hidden for centuries.

Statue of the Dead Christ (1500-1520), which belongs in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Mercers [which is "the Premier Livery Company of the City of London"] in London's Square Mile, was discovered buried beneath the chapel floor in 1954 during the post war clearup. As a result of Protestant attacks it is missing a crown of thorns, arms and lower legs but is otherwise in remarkable condition, the theory being that someone concealed it to protect it from further damage.

It is a powerful statue, with Jesus graphically portrayed with rigor mortis-stiffened limbs, mouth open and carved blood oozing from wounds – it was that power that the Protestant reformers found so dangerous. The Mercers' loan is the first to any exhibition since it was discovered.

This site, focused on the life and times of Margery Kempe, quotes a long description of an iconclastic attack on a parish church in Norfolk:

In the chancel, as it is called, we took up twenty brazen superstitious inscriptions, Ora pro nobis &c.; broke twelve apostles, carved in wood, an cherubims and a lamb with a cross, and took up four superstitious inscriptions in brass, in the north chancel, Jesu filii Dei miserere mei, &c. broke in pieces the rails, and broke down twenty-two popish pictures of angels and saints. We did deface the font and a cross on the font; and took up the brass inscription there, with Cujus animae propitietus Deus, and "pray for the soul," &c. in English. We took up thirteen superstitious brasses. Ordered Moses with his rod and Aaron with his mitre, to be taken down. Ordered eighteen angels off the roof, and cherubims to be taken down and nineteen pictures in the window. The organ I brake and we brake seven popish pictures in the chancel window, - one of Christ, another of St. Andrew, another of St. James, &c. We ordered the steps [before the altar] to be leveled by the parson of the town; and brake the popish inscription, My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. I gave orders to break the carved work, which I have seen done. There were six superstitious pictures, one crucifix, and the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus in her arms, and Christ lying in a manger, and the three kings coming to Christ with presents, and three bishops with their mitres and crosier staffs, and eighteen Jesuses written in capital letters, which we gave orders to do out. A picture of St. George, and many others which I remember not, with divers pictures in the windows, which we could not reach, neither would they help us to raise ladders; so we left a warrant with the constable to do it in fourteen days. We brake down a pot of holy water, St. Andrew with his cross, and St. Catherine with her wheel; and we took down the cover of the font, and the four evangelists, and a triangle for the Trinity, a superstitious picture of St. Peter and his keys, an eagle, and a lion with wings. In Bacon's aisle was a friar with a shaven crown, praying to God in these words, Miserere mei Deus, - which we brake down. We brake a holy water font in the chancel. We rent to pieces a hood and surplices. In the chancel was Peter pictured in the windows, with his heels upwards, and John the Baptist, and twenty more superstitious pictures, which we brake: and IHS the Jesuit's badge in the chancel window. In Bacon's aisle, twelve superstition of angels and crosses and a holy water font, and brasses with superstitious inscriptions. And in the cross alley we took up brazen figures and inscriptions, Ora pro nobis. We brake down a cross on the steeple, and three stone crosses in the chancel, and a stone cross in the porch. Quoted by M. Aston, England's Iconoclasts. Vol. 1 Laws Against Images, Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1988: 78-9. (Journal of William Dowsing, p. 244)

More about Puritan iconoclasm here. Illustration from Wikipedia: Woodcut image from the 1563 edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, depicting iconoclasm. In the top part of the image "papists" are packing away their "paltry," while the church is purged of idols. Bottom parts depict clerics receiving the Bible from Queen Elizabeth I, and a communion table.