hesperides

Hesperides

  • Giulia Bordignon, Monica Centanni
    The nymph unveiled (1485-1520)
    The iconographic theme of the sleeping nymph unveiled by a satyr that appears in Florence during the 1480's has, in all probablility, an allegorical and philosophical valence in keeping with the coincidentia oppositorum between virtus (the nymph), and voluptas (the satyr), embraced by Neoplatonism. The theme soon migrates from Florence to Venice, Mantova and Ferrara. In the courts in Northern Italy, the theme assumes a moralising bias: the satyrs become representations of primary and animal instincts, of vitium and no longer voluptas with a positive meaning. Finally, the theme becomes an iconographic topos in which the myth is little more than a pretext, gradually becoming the commonplace genre of 'bacchanals', and providing the repertory of ludic and erotic games en plein air between the nymphs and satyrs.
essays

Essays

  • Lorenzo Bonoldi
    Mercury and the Nymph: the theme and models
    The combination of various elements from works originating from the School of Mantegna (the engraving Virtus deserta, the monochrome The Nymph Amymone), extrapolated from their original context and used as formal models, are combined in a new composition by Lorenzo Leonbruno, a pupil of Mantegna. The result is a new allegorical mythological scene - Mercury leaning to awaken a sleeping nymph.
  • Lorenzo Bonoldi
    Sofonisba or Artemisia? Observations on a monochrome by Mantegna
    The subject of a monochrome by Andrea Mantegna at the National Gallery in London has been identified as Sophonisba, a virtuous Carthaginian princess who killed herself with poison to preserve her honour. Some critics, however, maintain that the woman in the painting could also be Artemisia, queen of Caria, as by artistic convention the two women were depicted in similar ways - caught in the act of drinking poison from a chalice.
    In other works by Mantegna depicting heroines - Dido, Judith, Tuccia - the female protagonists are always identified by several iconographic attributes - every detail is significant and never casual, thereby helping to understand the work. Not even the tree behind Sophonisba/Artemisia in the painted panel in the National Gallery, therefore, can be considered merely an insignificant part of the background, but as part of the heroine's story. Whereas no plant features in the story of Sophonisba, Artemisia's name is connected with a botanical species. Pliny the Elder includes the princess in the list of women who gave their names to a plant. The tree behind the heroine could therefore be a detail that can remove all doubt surrounding the identity of the subject, suggesting that she is "Artemisia".
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P&M

  • Giulia Bordignon, Katia Mazzucco, Federica Pellati
    The classics in motion
    A Dadaist and Warburghian approach to analysing two icons "made in Italy"
    Two symbolic images (the Gioconda and Giuseppe Verdi - belonging respectively to the Renaissance and italian opera) are animated by windblown hair: the advertising device recalls the dynamism of the car, the product being advertised, and offers a contemporary expressive force for these iconic images. The irreverent handling, under the influence of Dadaism, of images considered untouchable by dint of their significant place in the history of art, (The Gioconda with a moustache by Duchamp), has unexpected sanction in Renaissance writings. For both Leon Battista Alberti and Leonardo himself windblown hair is a rhetorical device - the portrayal of life is made more intense by movement, without the need for automobiles.
  • Federica Pellati
    Anorexic model or eviscerated saint?
    “Fashion claims another victim” is the motto of a new campaign to sensitise the public to the problem of anorexia. Photographed 'mannequins' clearly hint at the tradition of the so-called "simulacri da vestire", the devotional sculptures of saints now frequently found in antique shops outside any ritual context and literally stripped of their sacred attributes (fabrics and valuable jewels).
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