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Tag Archives: baroque

Object of the Month: June 2026

Sarah Taken to Pharoah’s House

Oil on canvas

Guillaume Courtois, called Il Borgognone

French (active in Italy), 1628-1679

There is little definitive documentation on Guillaume Courtois, the French painter of this vibrant High Baroque painting. We do know that he came from a family of painters; thus, his earliest training may have been under his father Jean-Pierre Courtois. Around 1636, however, Guillaume and his teenage brother Jacques left France (which had been devastated by the Thirty Years’ War) for Italy. According to some sources they spent time in Bologna, Florence, and Siena before settling in Rome in 1638.

At this time, artists were “pouring in from all over Europe to settle in the city [of Rome]. They all came to learn. Few came with prestigious contracts or appointments in their pockets. Most of them relied for work on the support of the most firmly established national communities (the French, the Dutch, and the Flemish). It was a disconcertingly, rich human panorama that offered an unprecedented opportunity for meetings, exchanges of opinion, and parallel developments of styles” (Zuffi, p. 64). In this eclectic environment both brothers flourished. Jacques went on to become a popular battle-scene painter, Guillaume a painter of religious and mythological scenes.

During his first few years in Rome, Guillaume devoted himself to studying and copying the works of prominent Roman artists like Giovanni Lanfranco and Andrea Sacchi. There is no record of his ever being trained by a specific master; though several historians suggest that he may have been a pupil of Pietro da Cortona in the 1650s. Others reject that claim. Regardless, in this work we do see the brilliant coloration, exaggerated movement, and theatrical “staging” typical of Cortona’s mythological scenes.

Notice how the saturated colors of the soldiers’ accoutrement (brilliant gold shield, silvery cuirasses, red sword sheath, and cloak) provide a vivid contrast to the soft hues of Sarah’s costuming. She is obviously the focal point of the picture. Her strong diagonal body position, sweeping gestures, and backward glance toward her husband Abraham are all in opposition to the soldiers’ dynamic movement toward the “castle-like” structure on the left. This is indeed an unfolding drama, illustrating what art historians like John Canaday describe as the “swooning emotionalism” of the High Baroque style. Although Courtois’ stylistic technique certainly adds power and beauty to the visual narrative, the Biblical text on which the painting is based is far more nuanced in unfolding the narrative’s historical and spiritual context.

In Genesis 12:9-28, Abraham is not a “background figure” but the catalyst for the narrative’s action. While journeying toward Canaan, the patriarch and his entourage encounter a severe famine. Rather than trust God’s continued provision, Abraham decides to “go down to Egypt.” But before entering this potentially hostile territory, he instructs his wife Sarah to equivocate regarding their relationship, explaining to her his rationale: “You are a beautiful woman, and I fear that when the Egyptians see you, they will learn that you are my wife, kill me, and let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared.” As expected, Pharoah’s officials did indeed take note of Sarah and praise her beauty to Pharaoh who (believing she was Abraham’s sister) took her into his harem and treated Abraham well for her sake. However, God’s judgment on the unsuspecting Pharaoh and his household was swift, and he soon discerned that Abraham had lied. Summoning the patriarch he demanded, “What is this you have done unto me? Why did you not tell me that she was thy wife? I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore, . . . take her, and go thy way.” His actions had not only failed to provide refuge during the famine but won him a powerful enemy further complicating his situation! It was a valuable lesson.

Fig. 1 Adoration of the Magi

In the 1660s Guillaume moved toward a more Classical style of painting. During this stage in his career, he produced numerous preparatory studies for each work, generally drawn in red or black chalk. The preparatory sketch for the Adoration of the Magi illustrates not only the artist’s stylistic shift but also his considerable skill as a draughtsman. This study was completed for an engraving reproduced in a missal book printed in Rome in 1662. Such books (many of which are now lost) often included engravings by leading Italian painters of the time. Peter Vergo notes that Guillaume Courtois “shows himself to be a draughtsman of great distinction. His style of drawing is much enriched in his final years through the use of several colored chalk drawings upon tinted paper. Thereby providing pastel-like effects. His development broke off at its climax. He died at the age of 51.”

 

 

Donnalynn Hess, Director of Education

 

Works Cited:

John Canaday. Metropolitan Seminars in Art: Great Periods in Painting. Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications. 1959.

Ian Chilvers. Concise Dictionary of Art and Artists, 3rd edition. Oxford University Press. 2003.

Hanno-Walter Kruft. “Drawings by Borgognone and Baciccia in the Dusseldorf Kupoferstichkabinett,” The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 119, No. 887 (Feb., 1977).

Stefano, Zuffi (Ed.). Baroque Painting: Twenty Centuries of Masterpieces from the Era Preceding the Dawn of Modern Art. Electa. 1999.

 

Published 2026

An Angel Appearing to Hagar in the Wilderness, Lodovico Gimignani

Roman painter Lodovico Gimignani came from a family of painters. In this moving work, we see the simplicity of design and composition that typified his fresco style.

Object of the Month: March 2026

St. Veronica

Oil on canvas

Claude Vignon

French, 1593-1670

The legend of St. Veronica is a tangled one. Whether she is based on a woman named Berenice, the woman with the issue of blood, or merely a weeping woman of Jerusalem, the important thing is that there is no Biblical foundation to her story. Veronica is said to be a widow who pitied the Savior and offered Him her veil to wipe His sweaty, bloodstained face. He accepted, and when He returned the veil, it bore His likeness.

In the world of art, her iconography includes the face-imprinted cloth, as in M&G’s painting by Claude Vignon. The religious have long sought relics of biblical personages. This veil with its miracle-produced image is considered the vera icon or “true image” to distinguish it from all other images of Christ. Over time the cloth became known as a veronica (also a sudarium) and the woman as “Veronica.”

Luke 23:28 states that Christ tells the mourning women following Him to Calvary, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.” These are not the devoted Galilean women; these are women of Jerusalem who doubtless heard of or even participated in the mob cry, “Let his blood be upon us and our children” outside Pilate’s palace. Christ denies their pity for Himself; His death is a permanent payment for sin, but He will rise again. Instead, He confronts them with the consequences of their nation’s rejection of the Son of God (Luke 23:29-30). Whether He foretells the cruel Roman destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70) or the ultimate judgment of the earth when the Jews recognize fully their sin in rejecting Him (Revelation 6:16) or both destructions, Jesus’ words point up the irony that their sympathy should lie with the living, not the soon-dead, innocent One (the “green tree” in Luke 23:31).

Vignon painted another work with a veronica, this time with angels holding the cloth. It is intriguing to consider the variations of the face of Christ. M&G’s St. Veronica depicts a corpse-like appearance similar to a death mask with a face drained of color, eyes closed, and a marked lack of blood from both the crown of thorns and the soldiers’ abuse. It is clearly not a true image of Christ on His way to Calvary, though His blood loss must have been severe. However, the visage on the cloth that the two angels display is much more like the face the women saw—a man abused, yet fully aware. Why Vignon painted such different versions of the vera icon, aside from being ironic, is a mystery.

Two Angels Presenting the Holy Face, Claude Vignon
Musee des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France

The vibrant colors and use of chiaroscuro suggest the influence of the Caravaggisti that Vignon encountered in Rome during his travels. The different coloring between these two works highlights the variety that is found in Vignon’s style in general and causes the viewer to understand the validity of one critic’s comment that “a wealth of hues plays a large part in the poetry of the work of Claude Vignon.”

He was employed by King Louis XIII as well as Cardinal Richelieu, commissions that speak to his skill and popularity. A man of varied talents (painter, etcher, and art salesman), Vignon drew together the influences of Mannerism, Colorism, Caravaggism, and even of Rembrandt and produced works that mark him as “one of the most important and most distinctive French painters of his generation.”

 

Dr. Karen Rowe Jones, M&G Board Member

 

Published 2026

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

Flight into Egypt: A Night Scene

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

Below the image, click play to listen.

 

Gaspar de Crayer: St. Augustine & St. Ambrose

In these two portraits, Flemish artist Gaspar de Crayer highlights Augustine, one of western civilization’s most noted philosophers, and Ambrose, the bishop who would bring this great scholar to Christ.

God’s Covenant with Noah, Unknown Roman

This work by an unknown 17th-century Italian painter beautifully unfolds the message of unmerited grace offered to mankind by a holy God.

Object of the Month: November 2025

The Triumph of David

Oil on canvas, c. 1630s

Jacopo Vignali

Florentine, 1592-1664

Italian art scholar Howard Hibbard once observed, “Florentine seventeenth-century art has a fascination and beauty worthy of our attention: it is a sensuously colorful and romantic school of painting, sometimes even magical or mystical.” The Museum & Gallery’s Triumph of David by Jacopo Vignali is a case in point. Described as one the most “poetic and sensitive” of the Florentine painters, Vignali began his career at 13 under the tutelage of Matteo Rosselli. In his early twenties he joined several other noteworthy artists in the decoration of the Casa Buonarotti—the most important commission in Florence at that time. By his early thirties, he was not only a member of the Academy but also one of the leading artists in Florence.

Rosselli’s superb tutelage provided Vignali with the technical and artistic skills necessary for his later success. However, as Vignali’s style matured, he became more eclectic, incorporating Counter-Mannerism with the grandeur, drama, and emotional intensity of the emerging Baroque aesthetic. This diversity is clearly apparent in The Triumph of David.

Seventeenth-century paintings on the life of David had been prevalent since the 15th century when the innovative, stunning sculptures of Donatello, Verrocchio, and later Michelangelo elevated this biblical figure into a civic symbol. Interestingly, our M&G painting was originally attributed to Vignali’s teacher Rosselli. Joan Nissman notes: “The answer to this problem of attribution, as Del Bravo suggests, seems to be that it is an early work painted while Vignali was still under the influence of his master. Vignali, in this painting, shares his master’s solid and smooth technique as well as his concern for details of costume.” However, a comparison of Rosselli’s treatment of the subject [fig. 1] with Vignali’s highlights why Carlo del Bravo’s attribution of the work to Vignali (rather than Rosselli) has now won general acceptance.

fig. 1 THE TRIUMPH OF DAVID, Matteo Rosselli

Notice that in Rosselli’s rendering we see the coloration, composition, and scale indicative of the classical Baroque style popularized by the Carracci. In contrast, Vignali’s more dynamic composition, vivid coloration, and careful use of scale reflect his mature style which favored the integration of Counter-Mannerist techniques with the dramatic realism of Baroque naturalism. For example, High Mannerist paintings were often characterized by strained poses, distortion of the human form, crowded compositions, garish coloration, and unusual (sometimes bizarre) elements of scale.

In this scene, however, Vignali manipulates these common characteristics to create a “restrained” but equally dramatic effect. For example, the composition is “crowded” but the poses elegant, the figures without distortion. The coloration is vivid but not garish, carefully integrated to create focus and highlight the triumphant mood of the scene (e.g., David’s bright red stockings draw the eye to Goliath’s head while the bright red sleeves of the woman’s costume create an implied horizontal line that guides the viewer’s eye back to the hero’s face).

Vignali also carefully manipulates scale. The extreme elongation of the sword and the enormous head of Goliath subtly serve to reinforce the power of the biblical narrative. Scripture notes that Goliath was about 9 feet tall, and although we are not told specifically how much his sword weighed, we do know that the head of his spear weighed about 15 pounds! In addition, the soft modeling of the faces, the contemporary dress, and the morbidly gruesome severed head highlight Baroque naturalism’s penchant not just for realism but also for the “bizarre and strident” (David Steel).

Although Vignali’s contributions to the early Baroque period are significant, he remains less well-known than either his teacher Matteo Rosselli or his most famous student Carlo Dolci. Joan Nissman attributes this lack of name recognition to the fact that, unlike Roselli and Dolci, the great seventeenth-century Florentine biographer, Filippo Baldinucci, did not write of Vignali’s life. Regardless, this work has long been praised as one of the finest treatments of The Triumph of David ever produced.

 

Donnalynn Hess, Director of Education

 

Works Cited:
Steel, David, Baroque Paintings from the Bob Jones University Collection. North Carolina Museum of Art.1984.
Hibbard, Howard and Nissman, Joan, Florentine Baroque Art from American Collections. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1969.

 

Published 2025

Object of the Month: August 2025

Lamentation over the Dead Christ

Oil on panel, c. 1610–12

Abraham Janssens

Flemish, c. 1575–1632

 

When the word “baroque” is mentioned, there are two names that people associate with this art history movement—Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens. Both artists dominated Europe with their dramatic scenes, rich colors, chiaroscuro, accomplishments, and larger-than-life personalities. In the shadow of these masters and their artistic masterpieces, other artists have done their best to imitate or infuse their own style with these titans’ techniques. One such artist is fellow countryman to Rubens, Abraham Janssens.

Janssens’s work had impressive range. Throughout his career, his subject matter included biblical, historical, and allegorical scenes as well as occasional portraits. His stylistic changes are perhaps the most interesting. The first paintings of his oeuvre would be labeled Flemish Mannerist. Then after a trip to Italy in the early 1600s, he began to adopt a more Caravaggesque approach. Finally, his work became more Rubenesque after Rubens returned home and began to command the Flemish art scene. Janssens’s shift in his different styles can be seen in one specific subject matter—the Lamentation of Christ.

The Lamentation of Christ is an extra-biblical subject that portrayed groups of people mourning around the dead Christ. As mentioned in the gospels (Matthew 27:59-61, Mark 15:46-47, Luke 23:53-56, and John 19:38-42), this group usually included His mother, Mary, and various others. It is the perfect subject matter to compare Janssens’s stylistic shift since it shows strong emotion, sculptural figures, and a dramatic biblical narrative.

First, is Janssens’s Lamentation of Christ painted between 1600 and 1604. This work shows typical Mannerist characteristics with its bright colors and elongated figures. There is emotion, but it is not the intense drama of the Baroque. Since Janssens was in Rome from 1598-1601, it is interesting to note that he did not immediately adopt Caravaggio’s style. According to 17th-century Dutch painting scholar, Justus Müller Hofstede, most of Caravaggio’s early innovations in Italian painting (ca. 1593-1598) such as half-figure compositions, still-life painting, and secularization of religious themes were already in use in Antwerp. Hofstede concludes that Caravaggio’s early pioneer work wouldn’t have impressed Janssens.

It wasn’t until 1607 that Janssens began incorporating Caravaggio’s technique. This style is wonderfully shown in the Museum & Gallery’s Lamentation Over the Dead Christ, painted between 1610-1612. There is a marked stylistic shift to baroque characteristics compared to the first Lamentation. There is a sculptural, monumental quality to his figures, which would become a trademark of Janssen’s career. The lighting is harsh and dramatic and reminiscent of Caravaggio’s best works. This Lamentation also shows an extreme depth of sorrow. The furrowed, anguished brow on Mary is a contrast to the first Lamentation’s rather passive Mary.

Finally, Janssens began adapting to a Rubenesque approach. His later The Lamentation over the Dead Christ painted in 1621-22 includes similar elements from M&G’s Caravaggesque example. However, it does not have the same harshness or extreme sorrow. You can see Rubens’s influence in the rich coloring and more dramatic movement throughout the composition. Janssens still maintains his trademark stiffness and sculptural feel to his figures. According to historian Irene Schaudies, it is Janssens’s focus on his figures looking like classical statues rather than painting from empirical observation like Caravaggio and Rubens that kept Janssens in their shadow. Nevertheless, by looking at these three paintings, one can appreciate what a master Janssens was with his different stylistic portrayals of one of the most emotive scenes in Scripture.

 

KC Christmas Beach, M&G summer art educator

 

 

Published 2025

Object of the Month: July 2025

Procession to Calvary

Oil on Panel

Otto van Veen

Flemish, c. 1556–d. 1629

 

Otto van Veen was a classically trained humanist artist or pictor doctus, a concept created by the ancient writer Horace in his Ars Poetica signifying the attempt by artists to regain the social standing of the ancients. Otto van Veen succeeded. A renowned court painter to several rulers, he led the Antwerp art scene, diminishing only when his pupil Peter Paul Rubens returned from his travels in 1608. He paid tribute to Horace by creating two series of emblematic art which coupled Horatian proverbs with an illustrative image. A Romanist painter, he continued the traditions of the church through his work, including this one in M&G’s collection.

Using the usual cast of characters—Roman soldiers, weeping women, Simon of Cyrene, and a jeering mob—van Veen pictures the procession to Calvary just outside the city gate. A woman in the foreground holds up a piece of cloth to Christ who has stumbled under the cross and brought the procession to a momentary halt. St. Veronica offers her veil to Christ to wipe his brow. Traditionally, He accepts her kindness and a likeness of His face appears on the veil when it is returned to her. Scholars debate whether the woman is named Veronica or that the replication of Christ’s “true image”—vera icon—contributed to her name. She is part of a trio of women; the others have children with them, which reminds the viewer that Christ welcomed little children to come to Him. Just slightly behind these women are Mary with clasped hands in her usual blue robe and John, already attentive to her wellbeing.

Van Veen visually divides the scene with the positioning of the cross. On one side is the sympathetic crowd; on the other is the iron hand of Rome. The right side of the panel draws the viewer’s eye to the white horse ridden by a Roman soldier and the muscular figure pulling Christ up the hill with a rope. The dress of this man and the man behind the cross who whips Simon and Christ indicates that they are not part of the military structure of Rome. Instead, they seem to be commoners employed by Rome for the occasion. Combining this fact with the intense, backward gaze of the prominent soldier on horseback creates a personal interaction between the viewer and the scene. The sinfulness of every man compels an atonement be made for a restoration of relationship with God. In the foreground, the open area at this stopping point on the way to Golgotha provides room for the viewer to be included in the picture’s events and to consider which “side” of the scene he will be part of: sympathetic or condemnatory.

 

Dr. Karen Rowe Jones, M&G board member

 

Published 2025

Additional Resources:

For additional information on an etching by N. Muxel made after Otto van Veen’s Procession click here.

To see an image of Otto van Veen’s Christ Meeting St. Veronica from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium click here.

 

 

The Triumph of Miriam: Luca Giordano

Luca Giordano, a child prodigy, would become one of the Baroque era’s most noted Neapolitan artist.  M&G has at least three of his works including The Triumph of Miriam.

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