On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery

The Head of Medusa, ca. 1600, Uffzi Gallery, Florence Italy

It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky, 

  Upon the cloudy mountain peak supine;  

Below, far lands are seen tremblingly; 

  Its horror and its beauty are divine. 

Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie 

  Loveliness like a shadow, from which shrine,  

Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath,  

The agonies of anguish and of death. 

Yet it is less the horror than the grace  

  Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone;

Whereon the lineaments of that dead face  

  Are graven, till the characters be grown  

Into itself, and thought no more can trace; 

  'Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown  

Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain,

Which humanize and harmonize the strain. 

And from its head as from one body grow, 

  As [   ] grass out of a watery rock, 

Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow  

  And their long tangles in each other lock,

And with unending involutions shew  

  Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock  

The torture and the death within, and saw  

The solid air with many a ragged jaw. 

And from a stone beside, a poisonous eft

  Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes; 

Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft  

  Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise  

Out of the cave this hideous light had cleft, 

  And he comes hastening like a moth that hies

After a taper; and the midnight sky  

Flares, a light more dread than obscurity. 

'Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror;  

  For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare  

Kindled by that inextricable error, 35 

  Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air  

Become a [ ] and ever-shifting mirror  

  Of all the beauty and the terror there— 

A woman's countenance, with serpent locks, 

Gazing in death on heaven from those wet rocks. 

~   by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelly tragically drowned in 1822 during a storm long before the 20th Century debate that this painting is in fact attributed to an anonymous Florentine painter and not Leonardo Da Vinci. The Head of Medusa was attributed to Leonardo by his biographer, Luigi Lanzi based primarily on his description of the work given by Vasari in The Lives of the Artists, p. 258-261 there are two separate Medusa painting stories. The painting in the Florentine Gallery is about the the Medusa make of oils and described as being "...kept among the fine works of art in the palace of Duke Cosimo...". The first story was about a "Buckler" (essentially a shield). To read about the Medusa stories online check out the Full Text 'Stories of the Italian Artists From Vasari' starting with story 147. Shelly would have had no way of knowing this was not Leonardo's work, however as always Shelley's work is wonderful.

Two additional Medusa images which I love are below:

Medusa, 1598-99, Oil on Canvas on Mounted Wood, Caravaggio, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

Head of Medusa, c. 1617-18, Color on Canvas, Peter Paul Rubens, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria 

Bacchus and an Ode to Wine

Ode To Wine

Bacco (Bacchus), (1596-1597 for commission to the Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand I),  oil on canvas, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy  

Day-colored wine,

night-colored wine,

wine with purple feet

or wine with topaz blood,

wine,

starry child

of earth,

wine, smooth

as a golden sword,

soft

as lascivious velvet,

wine, spiral-seashelled

and full of wonder,

amorous,

marine;

never has one goblet contained you,

one song, one man,

you are choral, gregarious,

at the least, you must be shared.

At times

you feed on mortal

memories;

your wave carries us

from tomb to tomb,

stonecutter of icy sepulchers,

and we weep

transitory tears;

your

glorious

spring dress

is different,

blood rises through the shoots,

wind incites the day,

nothing is left

of your immutable soul.

Wine

stirs the spring, happiness

bursts through the earth like a plant,

walls crumble,

and rocky cliffs,

chasms close,

as song is born.

A jug of wine, and thou beside me

in the wilderness,

sang the ancient poet.

Let the wine pitcher

add to the kiss of love its own.

The Youth of Bacchus, 1884, oil on canvas, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Private Collection

 My darling, suddenly

the line of your hip

becomes the brimming curve

of the wine goblet,

your breast is the grape cluster,

your nipples are the grapes,

the gleam of spirits lights your hair,

and your navel is a chaste seal

stamped on the vessel of your belly,

your love an inexhaustible

cascade of wine,

light that illuminates my senses,

the earthly splendor of life.

But you are more than love,

the fiery kiss,

the heat of fire,

more than the wine of life;

you are

the community of man,

translucency,

chorus of discipline,

abundance of flowers.

I like on the table,

when we're speaking,

the light of a bottle

of intelligent wine.

Drink it,

and remember in every

drop of gold,

in every topaz glass,

in every purple ladle,

that autumn labored

to fill the vessel with wine;

and in the ritual of his office,

let the simple man remember

to think of the soil and of his duty,

to propagate the canticle of the wine.

The Nature of Bacchus, 1628,  oil on canvas, Nicholas Poussin, The National Gallery, London

~ Pablo Neruda

Particular Fondness for the Academies

William Bouguereau has to be one of my favorite of the more 'modern' painters because of his training in the Academic Style and his loyalty to the Academic style.  Bouguereau was a master of incorporating in the literature he studied with the paintings he did and painted a wide array of mythical and religious topics.  Even in an age when artists were rebelling against the Academies like Matisse and Degas, who had no love for Bouguereau's slick finished style, Bouguereau held fast to his love of the literature, arts, and style of the academies.


This painting is called Art and Literature:

L'art et la litterature, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1867, Oil on canvas, 78-3/4 x 42-1/2"
(Art and Literature, c. 1867, Oil on Canvas, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Arnot Art Museum Elmira)

The Birth of Venus shows Bouguereau's exceptional grasp of form and skill in painting the human form, particularly the female human body.  The idealized world of mythology, gods, goddesses, nymphs, and legends is were Bouguereau prevailed in the accurate details, beautiful renderings of flesh, and symbolism.

William Bouguereau, Naissance de Vénus, en 1879, huile sur toile, H. 3. ; L. 2.15, musée d'Orsay, Paris, France
©photo musée d'Orsay / rmn (The Birth of Venus, 1879, Oil on Canvas, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Musee d'Orsay, Paris)

To compare this with a classical masterpiece below is Botticelli's Birth of Venus, 1486 nearly 400 years earlier

Birth of Venus, c. 1486, Tempera on Canvas, Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Botticelli, displays all the symbolism, iconography, and mythology in his painting present in Bouguereau's painting, but Bouguereau brings in an element of a more 'real' female heroine with the realistic flesh and form of Venus.  She is painted in a manner appearing perfect yet she could be real unlike Botticelli's who still appears as if only a dream.

Just think.... Michelangelo and Botticelli

La Primavera, c. between 1477 and 1482, Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi Gallery Museum, Florence, Italy

How joyful is the garland finely tressed

With flowers linked to crown her golden hair,

Each pressing close upon the one before

To kiss her head, vying to be the first!

Happy all day the gown that clasps her breast

And then below floats freely to the air,

And that spun gold, the net delighting where

It touches cheeks and neck and never rests.

But surely happier the ribbon placed

With golden tips in a such a lucky manner

To press and touch the breast where it is laced.

And round her waist the simple girdle seems

To whisper low: here let me cling forever.

Just think what could circle with my arms.

Michelangelo 1507