Baroque

The painting “Penelope” by Leandro Bassano currently resides at the Musee des Beaux Artes et d’Archeologie in Rennes, France.

Time-wise, this is a fairly early example of the Baroque style, but it epitomizes many of the characteristics of Baroque painting.  Bassano’s master and teacher, Tintoretto, was a late Renaissance painter who anticipated many of the elements of Baroque painting.  Tintoretto’s painting “Arachne and Athene” was my first choice for this post, but the dating puts it in the Renaissance era and I didn’t want to blur the lines too much.  It is exceptional for its use of a very unusual point of perspective, from underneath the loom at which the women are weaving (http://www.jacopotintoretto.org/Athene-and-Arachne,-c.1475-85.html).

Bassano was the son of a successful painter of religious works and portraiture.  After his father’s death, he took over the family studio in Venice and became quite famous in his own right, eventually earning a Knighthood from the Doge of Venice.

This painting though showing a contemporary woman, by being titled “Penelope,” explicitly enters into the tradition of illustrating classical myths.  Penelope, of course, is the ever-faithful wife of Oddyseus who staves off her hordes of suitors by weaving a shroud for her father in law by day and unweaving it by night, telling them all she’ll choose someone to marry when she’s done weaving.

Portrayals of Penelope are often of a larger scope, including either servants or suitors or both and a much larger view of her surroundings.  The intimacy of this portrayal places it explicitly within the private sphere – the domain of women and the home – rather than the public sphere – the domain of men and Literature and Art and Religion and State and etc.

Weaving is historically and stereotypically “women’s work.”  In medieval hagiographic traditions it is explicitly connected with the Virgin Mary.  In the Middle Ages however, weaving as an occupation was brought out of the private sphere and into the public sphere, with influential guilds regulating prices, practices and licensing.  Occasionally there were female guild-sanctioned weavers, but generally only if she was operating a late father or husband’s shop.  As textiles became an increasingly profitable trade item, it moved increasingly into the man’s domain.  Bassano’s very intimate portrayal of the scene, the fact that the subject is obviously wealthy (as seen by the quality of the fabric, the detailed construction, and the pearls on her sleeve) and would therefore be doing it as a hobby or decorative art rather than as an occupation, combined with the overt classical reference to the figure who embodies wifely virtue and faithfulness allows the subject matter to be acceptable.

Mostly I was struck with the sheer beauty of the painting, much of the appeal deriving from the masterly use of chiascuro technique, the close-in and intimate perspective, and the general sense of peace in the painting.

Also, I’m a weaver and always like to find and talk about weaving images!  The attention to detail and the correctness of the loom in the image are great!

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leandro_Bassano

http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/religion/hagiography/women1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelope