Vanitas

Art must reflect something that cannot be called trivial or perceived by rational means, as well as what we cannot experience in reality – the borderline between life and non-existence, death among other things. Certainly, ways of depiction vary – there are works of art where the temporariness of life and the inevitability of death have been modelled as a type of a game and there are also those works of art that bear an indirect reminder of death – through allegories or metaphors. Vanitas belongs to the latter. Vanitas is an allegorically presented still life that emerged as an independent genre in about 1550 and became most widespread in the 16th and 17th centuries in Belgium and Flanders. Traditionally the composition of a still life of this type included a human skull, a burnt-out candle, small cut flowers as well as other objects that all seemed to say – everything and anything is transient.
The purpose of the paper is to undertake the comparative analysis of vanitas still lives by artists from the USA, Japan and Germany. The photographs of flowers will be used to read the cultural historical message contained in them as well as the technical means of expression used in photography that are enhanced by a profoundly personal depiction. The perceivable designation created by the photographer and the aesthetic object registered by the collective consciousness will be defined and described taking into consideration, as far as possible, the social context that has led to the creation of the given artefact. Works of art will be summarised according to different principles of depiction and the main trends that are reflected in contemporary art photography and have not been encountered before will be outlined. It will result in a general overview through applying acceptable norms that will make it possible to determine whether the picture is or is not contemporary as well as to establish criteria characterising the concept of the contemporary.

В статье анализируется мотив куклы-автомата на материале двух романов Ф.К. Сологуба – «Тяжелые сны» и «Мелкий бес». Установлена связь этого мотива с традициями романтизма. Проводятся параллели между романами Сологуба и произведениями Гофмана, По, Салтыкова-Щедрина, Андреева. Выявлены общие черты мотива куклы-автомата и танатологиче-
ских мотивов. Мотив куклы-автомата в произведениях Ф.К. Сологуба подчеркивает омертвение большинства персонажей его романов. Они зачастую напоминают марионеток, приводимых в движение таинственной внешней силой, и как будто находятся во власти злого демиурга. Определены признаки, которые указывают на принадлежность персонажей романа к миру мертвых: механические неестественные движения, соответствующие портретные черты. В портрете персонажей особое внимание уделено мотиву глаз. В романах Сологуба продемонстрированы разрушительные свойства искусственного механического мира. Оказывается, он способен распространить свое негативное влияние на сферы, которые, казалось, были для него недоступны – искусство и детство. Установлены связи между мотивом куклы-автомата и родственными мотивами, соотносящимися с темой смерти, – средневековой пляской смерти (Danse macabre) и жанром vanitas.
Образы игрушки, механического музыкального инструмента, паяца, марионетки, куклы-автомата, маскарада являются неотъемлемой частью культуры Серебряного века. Они заняли полноправное место в произведениях, написанных в жанре антиутопии, и не потеряли своей актуальности в литературе постмодернизма.
Ключевые слова: мотив куклы-автомата, механизм, танатологический мотив, dance macabre.

Sujet de leçon de philosophie type oral de l'épreuve du CAPES Externe de Philosophie.

En première approche, le dictionnaire définit simplement le vaniteux comme celui qui fait preuve de vanité, personnage prétentieux et suffisant. Mais deux questions, deux problèmes se posent d'ores et déjà à ce stade... A quoi le vaniteux prétend-il au juste ? Ou de quoi se réclame-t-il tandis qu'il n'est pas légitime à le faire, car la vanité que nous étudions et bel et bien reconnue comme un vice ? D'autre part, quelle pourrait bien être la valeur d'une vanité qui se suffit à elle-même, ce que nous retrouvons dans le terme de suffisance ? Il apparaît fort paradoxal de soutenir que la vaniteux est suffisant alors même que faire preuve de vanité nécessite la présence d'autrui ! De quoi peut bien se vanter le vaniteux ? Les réponses sont multiples ! On peut se vanter de ses biens extérieurs, de ses propres qualités, voire même de certains de ses défauts, à la manière de ceux qui affirment que la franchise ou l'honnêteté en sont un ! Ils sont nombreux ceux-là, en effet, qui font « comme si » leur trop grande franchise les accablait et coupait toute possibilité de communication avec autrui. Cependant, il y a quelque chose de mensonger à ces lieux communs et cela nous autorise à poser sans délai cette question : que cache le vaniteux qui tient de tels propos ? Ne fait-il pas le jeu du voile de fumée en affirmant l'inconvénient être trop franc tandis que sa véritable attente est ailleurs, dans un compliment en l'occurence ? La vanité nous renvoie de la sorte à un première différence entre être et paraître, ou plus finement à leurs étroites relations, du moins plus complexes qu'une pensée d'allure manichéenne ne pourrait le tenir comme évident de prime abord ! Mais, cette question de se vanter de quoi doit faire place à celle-ci : se vanter à qui ? L'action même de se vanter de ce que l'on a fait, dit ou pensé n'a de sens qu'à être l'occasion de « tirer la couverture à soi » (selon l'adage populaire), de demander à autrui de reconnaître notre mérite, réel ou apparent, pour satisfaire quelque désir de « gloire » dont le philosophe, tout aussi vaniteux peut-être (nous aurons à nous poser cette question aussi), dirait qu'il est humain... trop humain. En somme, « tirer la couverture à soi » ne fait aucun problème quand on est seul dans le lit et c'est bien sur la fond de sociabilité que la vanité émerge. Qu'a-t-elle donc à nous dire sur l'homme et sur les termes de son appartenance à la société ? Qu'a-t-elle de plus philosophiquement valorisable que l'orgueil dont nous devrons la différencier ? Car, oui, l'orgueil, l'hubris

Une même procédure : construire des objets, les mettre en scène puis les peindre ou les dessiner avec une exactitude égale à la part laissée à l’aléatoire dans leur création. Rosalie Gamache laisse du plâtre dégouliner et se figer sur des bibelots et autres objets du quotidien ; Olivier Moisan Dufour construit des assemblages improbables en bois de palette. Marie-Claude Lacroix conçoit de petits théâtres où se rencontrent sous haute tension des matériaux de construction. Alexandre Pépin modèle des objets informes en plasticine et les dispose sur un plan imaginaire comme on liste un inventaire. L’opération de départ de Sébastien Gaudette est plus lapidaire : froisser des feuilles de papier.

Tous ces assemblages, fruits du hasard et du jeu, se retrouvent fixés en des images lisses qui les métamorphosent, précisément parce que la matière dont ils sont faits - celle du plâtre figé dans son écoulement, du papier froissé, des planches de bois usées, de la viscosité et du tranchant des matériaux de construction ou de la ductilité de la pâte à modeler et de l’argile - est parfaitement figurée. Si les techniques illusionnistes ont pour fin de rendre invisible la surface du tableau et la matérialité des pigments, qui disparaissent dans la fonction de figurer quelque chose, la démarche singulière de ces artistes a pour résultat que la matière se retrouve de l’autre côté de la toile, comme objet de représentation : la peinture cherche à se faire à l’image de quelque chose qui lui ressemble, quelque chose d’éminemment indéterminé, à savoir la texture, la concrétude des objets.

Figuration minutieuse de l’indistinct, aseptisation de l’informe : tout l’intérêt de ces pratiques est de nous confronter à une ressemblance parfaite, héritière du perfectionnement introduit par des siècles de tradition picturale, mais paradoxalement ressemblante à rien de reconnaissable, une ressemblance qui offre moins la possibilité d’identifier ce qui apparaît qu’elle nous livre à un troublant effet de présence, à un flottement.

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Plongeant dans la pratique de cinq artistes de la relève, Les imagiers de la matière est un essai portant sur le statut de la matérialité dans la production d’illusion picturale. Le texte, puisant à la philosophie, à la psychanalyse et aux théories de l’histoire de l’art, explore les paradoxes liés au phénomène de la ressemblance pour tenter de cerner la corporéité singulière des œuvres de Rosalie Gamache, Sébastien Gaudette, Marie-Claude Lacroix, Olivier Moisan Dufour et Alexandre Pépin. Avant-propos de Maxime Coulombe.

In 1997 I wrote this essay reflecting on two important exhibitions in London: Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection, at the Royal Academy of Arts ( sponsored by Christie’s), and Objects of Desire: The Modern Still Life, at the Hayward Gallery (sponsored by BMW).

Still life emerged as a modern painting genre in the early seventeenth century, and by the turn of this century included sculpture as a medium. It originates and defines its limits architecturally, that is, on the near side of perspective’s picture window, in the intimate presence of domestic space, the place of everyday life. Still life or nature morte is empirically constituted by its subject matter. Typically, the raw foods that sustain life and the implements related to them in the domestic scene are presented horizontally on a table-top, the quotidian stage of the private human drama.
Those things which appear in the still life are denoted already at a remove from nature, conscripted into the service of human life. These are not sublime objects of love or veneration from the tradition of art which serves and constitutes religion. Instead, their mundanity limits the potentiality of human relations toward them, and the still life articulates and explores this delimited mortal sphere as the repetitive theatre of subsistence.
Although its objects may be commonplace, their deliberate choice and organization identify them as objects of desire.

Resumen:
El bodegón es un género artístico en el que se representan elementos generalmente inertes, destacando alimentos, flores y objetos. También conocido como «naturaleza muerta»,
renació a finales del siglo XVI, dentro de las áreas gobernadas por el monarca Felipe II de
España, particularmente en el norte de Italia, España, Países Bajos y Portugal. El presente artículo estudia la evolución de la naturaleza muerta en la historia del arte atendiendo a su estilo e iconografía e iconología.

Abstract:
The still life is an artistic genre in which generally inert elements are represented, highlighting food, flowers and objects. Also known as «still life», It was reborn at the end of the sixteenth century, within the areas governed by King Felipe II of Spain. Spain, particularly in the north of Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal. This article studies the evolution of still life in the history of art according to its style and iconography and iconology.

In the ancient confraternity of San Niccolò del Ceppo, Florence - one of the rare lay companies still in existence thereat - is preserved an unusual vanitas. The macabre theme of death is represented by a skeleton smashing musical instruments. Both partbooks (with legible notation) and scrolls provide a rich set of paratexts, with the overall motto according to Psalm 45 [46] ("He breaks the bow and shatters the spear"), and a clue to the painting's original function ("A group of musicians assembled for the sake of salvation"). Erroneously considered up till now a seventeenth-century anonymous work, the stylistic impact of Jacopo Ligozzi, a master of the vanitas genre, is strong. Among the iconographic models, a drawing recently attributed to Ligozzi can be identified, furthermore Federico Zuccari's Giudizio universale for the dome of Florence Cathedral. Based on archival evidence, the original context of the vanitas painting as 'apparatus'nwithin the collective rituals of a musicians' confraternity can now be determined, furthermore its author (Michele Lepri) as well as the year of tis creation (1721). Compliant with the new dating are also organological details, such a s the characteristic features of the early eighteenth-century oboe.

Pretende-se neste trabalho dar ênfase a categoria estética do macabro e do horror identificando esse conceito como denominador comum em diferentes momentos da História da Arte. Assim serão analisados de modo sucinto alguns casos desde o período renascentista dando ênfase especial ao contemporâneo. As representações da morte na arte, revelam mais do que um caráter inicial moralizante, há um propósito essencialmente estético, de deleite e fascínio pelo macabro assumindo na contemporaneidade contornos irônicos e até cínicos. Essas visões e emoções podem esconder uma negação diante desse fato inevitável e ceifador na existência humana.

The article discusses the role of vermin in the vanitas discourse in the Polish poetry from the late 16th until the 18th centuries. The introduction, using the example of Żale nagrobne by Sebas-tian Fabian Klonowic, shows the change in the manner of discussing death, which came about soon after the death of Jan Kochanowski, making it possible to return to the medieval visions of decomposition , enriched by that poet by a broad range of hideous things, symbols of vanity. The second part of the paper discusses Baroque paintings of worms eating away the corpse based on selected works, and presents major poetic devices which are meant to convey the vanitas message. There are descriptions of metaphysical nature and ones showing the nothingness of existence in a purely earthly dimension. The paper closes with remarks on exhausting the vanitas discourse using the worms imagery, the example of which are poems using the coffin hideousness in an erotic context.

Cos’è la “Vanitas”?
La Vanitas, in pittura, spesso viene rappresentata dalla presenza di una natura morta e da vari elementi simbolici, allusivi al tema della caducità della vita.
Il nome deriva dalla frase biblica vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas ed è un ammonimento all'effimera condizione dell'esistenza umana.

Cuban artist Félix González Torres (1957-1996) devised a physically consumable and fleeting artistic production in order to create a broad and spine-chilling symbolism infused with the transience of life. Although he is one of the most significant artists in the latter part of the 20th century, whose practice is related to Minimalism and Conceptual Art, his artwork and its dramatic intensity are deeply rooted in a Baroque painting genre par excellence: vanitas. Cloaking his artistic production in a moralizing tone, González Torres encourages viewers to take pieces of his artwork with themselves out of the galleries, thereby instilling in himself a detachment from material possessions, since these are ephemeral and do not remain after death.
Through an iconographic analysis comparing some key issues of this 17th century religious genre and González Torres’ installations, it is possible to draw a visual parallel between the characteristic elements of vanitas and this artist´s repertory of objects, which are a metaphor in absentia of the human body and flesh. Thus, these artistic objects (which include bulbs, candies, cheap wall clocks, photographs of an empty bed on billboards and large offset prints on paper) keep an ordinary and everyday appearance in the emptiness of the exhibition galleries or even on the streets. However, when the exhibition visitors are invited to take pieces of some of these installations, the artworks exhaust themselves, creating a heartbreaking metaphor: the relentless advancement of time, the deterioration of flesh, the dramatic loss of life and the pain caused by the absence of things we appreciate and people we love.

"How did painters and their public speak about art in Rembrandt’s age? This book about the writings of the painter-poet Samuel van Hoogstraten, one of Rembrandt’s pupils, examines a wide variety of themes from painting practice and theory from the Dutch Golden Age. It addresses the contested issue of ‘Dutch realism’ and its hidden symbolism, as well as Rembrandt’s concern with representing emotions in order to involve the spectator. Diverse aspects of imitation and illusion come to the fore, such as the theory behind sketchy or ‘rough’ brushwork and the active role played by the viewer’s imagination. Taking as its starting point discussions in Rembrandt’s studio, this unique study provides an overview of Dutch artists’ ideas on painting.

The Visible World was awarded the Jan van Gelder Prize in 2009.

Reviews: Jan Blanc in Simiolus 33/4 (2007-8), Amy Golahny in Sehepunkte 10 (2010), nr. 6., Bram de Klerck in NRC Handelsblad, 13 February 2009.
"

The vanitas theme with skulls, hourglasses and other reminders of man’s mortality is ubiquitous in portraits from the 16th century on, and also in still-life painting from the early 17th century, especially in the Low Countries. In 'Vanitas Still Life with Skulls' of around 1640-62 by the Utrecht painter Aelbert Jansz van der Schoor we see six skulls, bones, an hourglass, wilting roses and a nearly extinguished candle beneath a shelf with books and sealed documents – symbols of learning and authority. Musical instruments, empty glasses, coins or pearls, and perhaps a globe or crucifix are also often included and embody the transience of life, learning, beauty, wealth and earthly pleasure. In shrill contrast to the wealth displayed in Dutch homes, these sombre reminders suited the moralising tendencies of patrons in the Golden Age.
Yet while mortality is represented by the skull, Death himself does not appear in vanitas paintings as he does in the Danse macabre – and in Dutch genre scenes of the period. Much has been written about Peter Paul Rubens’s copies of Hans Holbein’s 'Images of Death', but scant attention has been paid to Dutch re-interpretations of the Danse macabre in the Golden Age. Nonetheless, this popular motif inspired major artists such as Rembrandt, Jan Lievens, Jan Steen, Abraham Bloemaert, Judith Leyster and Adriaen van de Venne. In paintings, but especially in drawings and prints, they show Death arriving unexpectedly to summon the rich miser, the lovers and the merrymakers: archetypal sinners oblivious of their own death or the hereafter. With hourglasses, flowers and coins as added symbols, these scenes have much in common with the vanitas genre.

Como nota André Chastel, as extraordinárias pranchas que acompanham a Fábrica de Vesalius (1543) convidam simultaneamente ao estudo e à meditação sobre o organismo humano, perfeito na transitoriedade de seu triunfo. O esqueleto – a um só tempo esquema de uma estrutura orgânica e emblema moral – assume uma dupla função, poucas vezes tão perfeitamente sintetizada como naquela que é talvez a gravura mais célebre do tratado: um magnífico esqueleto apoia melancolicamente o próprio crâneo em uma das mãos enquanto, ao modo de um Hamlet, parece monologar pousando a outra mão em um crâneo sobre uma tumba onde se lê a inscrição latina: “vivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt” (“o engenho vive, todo o resto é mortal”). Nessas imagens, o aparato visual e retórico clássico parece servir para universalizar considerações de distintos matizes sobre a transitoriedade da vida e a inelutabilidade da morte; contrariamente a formulações niilistas, porém, Vesalius parece propor, em uma veia horaciana (“non omnis moriar”, isso é, “não morro inteiramente”) o engenho como via de superação da morte. Curiosamente, na De humani corporis fabrica librorum epitome, publicada poucas semanas depois da versão inicial, Vesalius reproduz a mesma estampa com uma inscrição diferente na tumba: “solvitur omne decus leto niveosque per artus it Stygius color et formae populatur honores”. Este artigo irá centrar-se na análise destas duas estampas vesalianas no âmbito da tradição de representações da melancolia e da vanitas durante o século XVI; como excurso, proporá uma breve análise comparativa da instalação “memento mori”, do artista contemporâneo brasileiro Walmor Corrêa.

“Venetian Life” (1920) is one of Osip Mandelstam’s most complex and semantically rich poems, and many a study has been devoted to deciphering this text. Even at the most rudimentary level, however, this project is far from complete. The principal genre-determining subtext of the poem has gone unnoticed, as have other intertextual connections. An examination of newly discovered pictorial subtexts demonstrates the decisive part played by ecphrasis in the poem and enables one to adopt the author’s genre positioning of “Venetian Life” as a poetic vanitas, one that is not only formally constructed according to the same principle as various vanitates in painting, but also lays claim to the totality of the genre’s traditional meanings.

Estudio del cristianismo jansenita expuesto por Pascal en sus "pensamientos", que abarca desde la paradójica naturaleza del hombre -grande y miserable al mismo tiempo- y su conocimiento, hasta la crítica al racionalismo cartesiano que en su época comenzaba a erigir sus fuertes cimientos. Pascal terminará por plantear algunas nociones de lo que él considera el conocimiento del corazón -como opuesto a la razón -pero conjugable con ella- desde una perspectiva cristiana que remite a una angustia existencial que, incluso a los ateos o agnósticos, no nos resultará tan ajena...

There are various factors which can affect the preservation of books, documents, and other paper artefacts, and they can be related to either the environment, their use, or even the very material from which these are made. Conservation, either preventive or remedial, aims to precisely stop and when possible reverse the damages generated by these factors, keeping always in mind that, eventually, decay is inevitable and it is in fact part of the circle of life. In that context images of decay and damage on books and documents can also be understood as visual comments on the transience of things and can have an allure similar to that we feel when looking at ruins. They are similar to the pictorial genres of vanitas and memento mori, reminders that all things sooner, or later, die.

In a chapter that hones in on certain Renaissance portraits by Hans
Holbein, Giorgione, and Jan van Scorel, Hans Maes examines how it
is that we can be deeply moved by such portraits, despite (or perhaps
because of) the fact that we don’t know anything about their sitters.
Standard explanations in terms of the revelation of an inner self or the
recreation of a physical presence prove to be insufficient. Instead, Maes
provides a more rounded account of what makes said portraits moving
and memorable, thereby relying on Barthes’ notion of ‘punctum,’ James
Elkins’ account of why people cry in front of paintings, and a phenomenological exploration of the parallel between portraiture and the tradition of the Vanitas painting.

Lotteries, Art Markets, and Visual Culture examines the lotteries as devices for distributing images and art objects, and constructing their value in the former Low Countries. Alongside the fairs and before specialist auction sales were established, they were an atypical but popular and large-scale form of the art trade. As part of a growing entrepreneurial sensibility based on speculation and a sense of risk, they lay behind many innovations. This study looks at their actors, networks and strategies. It considers the objects at stake, their value, and the forms of visual communication intended to boost an appetite for ownership. Ultimately, it contemplates how the lottery culture impacted notions of Fortune and Vanitas in the visual arts. Those interested in the interlinked history of lotteries, art markets, and visual and material culture, particularly art and culture historians and readers of social, economic, and urban history.

La posmoderna actualidad del barroco es un fenómeno que ha sido puesto de relieve por autores como Calabrese o Anceschi. Si el barroco fue el arte de los sentidos, su actualidad da una vuelta de tuerca al uso del gusto y nos plantea ejemplos en los que se trata de saborear la idea misma de barroco, como si la comida fuese un medio como la pintura o la escultura en el que transmitir imágenes. Instalaciones como “Invención” de Greta Alfaro, en la que con merengue se reconstruye el interior barroco de una iglesia con la intención de ser devorado por el visitante, hablan de los sentidos y del papel del espectador en términos enraizados en la cultura barroca. Por otra parte, el vídeo “In ictu oculi”, también de Alfaro, reelabora el tema de la vanitas y el banquete en una obra que remite a Valdés Leal y a los bodegones y naturalezas muertas barrocas. Fuera del ámbito artístico, un postre de burbujas de chocolate del chef Aduriz en Mugaritz, el tercer mejor restaurante del mundo, se inspira en el tema del homo bulla y la tradición visual barroca de niños haciendo pompas de jabón para plantear una metáfora en un plato. Todos ellos tiene, sin embargo, un elemento en común: la comida como vehículo en el que sostener la actualidad del barroco. Con ellos, además, lo efímero y la conciencia de vanitas se articulan en la gastronomía y en las propuestas artísticas de hoy en día, pues se trata de obras e intervenciones en las que el paso del tiempo determina la completa comprensión de los mismos. Los límites que imponían el lienzo barroco quedan, de este modo, traspasados por las posibilidades de las nuevas tecnologías.

El propósito del presente texto es estudiar las imágenes de vanitas del barroco hispano como metaimágenes que proponen una reflexión moralizante sobre la propia práctica de la pintura. Tomando como punto de partida un lienzo anónimo cuzqueño que representa a Cristo niño pintando las postrimerías en el corazón del ser humano, el texto analiza la valoración de la práctica de la pintura como un memento mori que despliega distintas creencias sobre el papel de las imágenes y la memoria que la retórica visual barroca desplegó en su política propagandística y persuasiva.

Philipp Sauerland (1677–ok.1760) to malarz aktywny w I połowie XVIII wieku w Gdańsku i Wrocławiu. Jego dzieła cieszyły się pewnym zainteresowaniem w wiekach XVIII i XIX, czego przykładem jest kilka wzmianek w ówczesnym piśmiennictwie o sztuce. Jeszcze za życia artysty pisał o Sauerlandzie Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn, podając podstawowe informacje na temat jego losów i podejmowanej przezeń tematyki, co ważne, chwaląc jego talent.  W ostatnich latach na rynku antykwarycznym pojawiły się nieznane dotąd obrazy Sauerlanda omówione szczegółowo w niniejszym artykule (Martwa natura z muszlami; Jeż, kapusta i jabłka; Martwa natura z zającem). Po raz pierwszy opublikowany został tu też obraz ze zbiorów norweskich - Głuszec, srebrny bażant i drobne ptactwo. Rosnąca liczba znanych dzieł autorstwa Sauerlanda pozwala na wysuwanie wniosków nie tylko odnośnie jego twórczości, ale także uzupełnia wiedzę na temat malarstwa w dwóch znaczących ośrodkach, jakimi były Gdańsk i Wrocław. Przeważającą część oeuvre Sauerlanda stanowią martwe natury. Był to wówczas gatunek malarstwa na ziemiach związanych z Rzeczpospolitą wyjątkowo rzadko uprawiany, choć w różnych kolekcjach obecny. Nieprzypadkowe wydaje się zatem owo przeniesienie Sauerlanda z Gdańska do Wrocławia. To tam właśnie, podobnie jak w jego rodzinnym mieście, rozwijało się kolekcjonerstwo, które sprzyjało zainteresowaniu młodymi gatunkami malarskimi.

Artykuł mówi o sposobie, w jakim ks. Józef Baka - późnobarokowy polski poeta i misjonarz, jezuita - wykorzystuje estetykę brzydoty (turpizmu) w swoim zbiorze pt. "Uwagi śmierci niechybnej". Utwory z niego pochodzące zostały skrupulatnie przeanalizowane dla ukazania ogromu brzydoty, przemocy, obrzydliwości, brutalności i bylejakości, jakie Baka widzi we wszystkim, co nie ma charakteru sacrum. Wszystko to udowadnia, jak oryginalnym misjonarzem i głosicielem Słowa Bożego był autor.

L’article propose une lecture comparative des natures mortes dites « de vanité » du XVIIe siècle et du recensement photographique des vestiges de l’industrie lourde du XXe siècle, entreprit par Bernd et Hilla Becher. Ces deux manifestations artistiques qui jalonnent, respectivement, le début des temps modernes et le déclin de la modernité industrielle, nous paraîssent comme des avatars d’une même perplexité face à l'échéance de toute chose, de toute construction et, par-là même, de tout sens. Démarches exemplaires d’une tentative d’approche objective de la réalité, elles semblent constituer, toutes les deux, des traces de deux moments historiques convergents de fracture dans l’histoire des mentalités, de crise de sens et de valeurs.


O artigo propõe uma leitura comparativa das naturezas mortas do tipo “Vanitas” do século XVII e do levantamento fotográfico de ruínas da indústria pesada do século XX, empreendido por Bernd e Hilla Becher. As duas manifestações artísticas, que marcam respectivamente o início da primeira modernidade e o declínio da modernidade industrial, parecem ser modalidades diversas de uma mesma perplexidade frente à caducidade de todas as coisas, de toda construção e, consequentemente, de todo sentido. Ambas manifestam exemplarmente uma mesma tentativa de abordagem objetiva da realidade, e nos fornecem vestígios de dois momentos históricos convergentes na história das mentalidades: de fratura, de crise do sentido e dos valores.

En el período barroco nos encontramos con una vasta producción religiosa, en íntima relación con la doctrina de la Contrarreforma. La Iglesia delimita y ordena las imágenes del período, en pos de evitar la deserción de los fieles. En este contexto ubicamos la obra "Acto de Contrición", pintura que alberga el Museo de Arte Español Enrique Larreta.
           
En el siguiente trabajo se analizará la codificación iconográfica de la muerte y la reflexión sobre la misma en esta pintura teniendo en cuenta que forma parte de un contexto cultural en el que se desarrollaron imágenes que abordan la misma temática. Haremos foco en España entre los siglos XVI y XVII.

In book five of the Mémoires d’outre- tombe Chateaubriand recalls Marie-Antoinette, superimposing the memory of her smile with that of her skull exhumed in 1815. Starting with this hallucinatory overlay (smiling woman / grimacing skull) this article discusses the kinship between Chateaubriand’s writing of memory and the various optical techniques popular at the time, including daguerreotypes, dioramas, waxworks, phantasmagorias, ghost photography, stereoscopy, double exposures, etc. Focusing mainly on the memoir’s female portraits, I show that,
while they are obviously indebted to the venerable tradition of the vanitas, they also owe something to modern illusionistic spectacles, and I explore the affinity between the techniques of image mobility and memory phenomena, which were naturally troped in terms of the new optical inventions. (In French)

The Double Portrait of the Burgkmair Spouses by Lucas Furtenagel (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) is here interpreted as a theoretical object, and in particular as an elaborate exemplification of the way of working of Painting itself. Such modus operandi is embodied by the representation of act of "self-awareness” performed by the two subjects of the portrait, represented by means of a double contrast and a compositional harmonisation. By doing so, the painting simultaneously calls into question two different layers of meaning: on one hand, the mimetic register (the portraits themselves) and the symbolic register (the skulls reflected in the mirror) and, on the other, the figurative and verbal aspects (inscriptions) of the painting. By representing what is visible, the pictorial intelligence alludes to the invisible.

Alessandro Rossi, storico dell’arte e PhD in Cultural Studies, è ricercatore presso la Facoltà di Filosofia dell’Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele di Milano, dove insegna Storia dell’arte del Rinascimento e della Modernità all’interno del corso di Laurea Magistrale in Teoria e storia delle arti e dell’immagine. Dal 2017 è collaboratore scientifico esterno dell’Université de Fribourg (Svizzera). Oltre a numerosi articoli sull’arte rinascimentale e barocca è autore di due monografie: Sguardi dalla seconda fila. Composizione e narrazione iconica nella pittura veneta del Cinquecento, Skira, Ginevra-Milano, 2015; Gestualità leonardesca. Tra teologia cristiana e virtus pagana: La Vergine delle rocce e la Lucrezia romana di Marco d’Oggiono, Mimesis, Milano-Udine, 2020.