Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593)

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in painting, seasons, Uncategorized, visual art

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allegories, arcimboldo, italian art, mannerism, seasons, visual art

When writing anything about the Seasons, one inevitably encounters the work of Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-2593) and his allegorical cycles.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo fits the definition of Mannerism quite wonderfully when one understands the term generally used to describe the painters who fall between the High Renaissance and the Baroque, that is, the period between the death of Raphael (1520) to the advent of the Baroque with the Caravaggio cycle on St. Matthew of 1599-1600 (Church of San Luigi dei Francese, Rome). Mannerism is characterized by highly intellectual or literary content and complex compositions in contrast to the classical stability to be found in the works of Raphael, and the more dramatic and populist approach ushered in by Caravaggio.

Arcimboldo is one of the more interesting of the Mannerist painters and his work is a curious blend of Italian sophistication and a rather painterly technique within a realistic or mimetic approach, mimesis being the art of imitation of reality or nature. He spent most of his life in Northern Italy, Vienna and Prague where he was patronized by three Holy Roman Emperors in succession, namely Ferdinand I, Maximilian II and Rudolf II. It was for Ferdinand I that Arcimboldo first conceived his first cycle of the Four Seasons in about 1563-66. The popularity of these works led Arcimboldo to repeat the cycles a number of times, with minor variations. Some of the individual works are lost, but one can nevertheless form a good idea of the allegories involved.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, La Primavera, 1563, oil on canvas, 66 x 50 cm, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid.

La Primavera (Spring) sets out the manner in which Arcimboldo will paint his Seasons. Here all the flowers and foliage of spring are used in the format of a formal royal portrait, complete with ruffled collar and crown. But there is more to it than that. Cycles of the Seasons are often allegorical references to the Four Ages of Man, namely Childhood (Spring), Adolescence (Summer), Adulthood (Autumn) and Old Age (Winter).

An interesting little book on Archimboldo by Liana De Girolami Cheney suggests further allegories and associations.(1) She notes that Arcimboldo usually accompanied a Seasons cycle with another depicting the Four Elements, Air (Spring), Fire (Summer), Earth (Autumn) and Water (Winter), and that the cycles were meant to be seen and considered together. Mannerist paintings have complicated allegories and were intended for literate patrons who were familiar with the myths of antiquity, and various classical and symbolic allusions. For instance, as Cheney writes, “Spring and Air are both warm and damp,” while Summer is hot and dry, as is Fire. Autumn and Earth are cold and dry, while Winter is cold and damp, like Water. We would not necessarily make such associations today.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Air, ca. 1566, oil on canvas, 74.4 x 56.6 cm, Private Collection, Basel.

The depiction of Air, therefore, concentrates on various birds “and their ability to fly without being hindered by atmospheric conditions” while Spring represents “the beginning of knowledge, the rebirth of new flowers, plants and vegetation.” Complementing Spring and Air results in a dialogue between the two works.

Next come Summer and Fire.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Summer, 1563, oil on panel, 67 x 50.8 cm, Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Fire, 1566, oil on panel, 66.5 x 51 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Summer includes a variety of fruits and vegetables associated with the season, while Fire assembles various objects associated with the element. Burning wood, candles, wicks, lamps as well as guns and canons clearly allude also to warfare. The collar is the Order of the Golden Fleece, an exalted Holy Roman Empire honour, itself forged in fire.

Autumn and Earth are next in the cycles.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Autumn, 1573, oil on canvas, 77 x 63 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Earth, ca. 1570, oil on panel, 70.2 x 48.7 cm, Private Collection, Vienna.

Autumn was often associated with the harvest, as well as the hunt, and it is this association which are immediately apparent in these two works. A splendid decorative border surrounds this version of Autumn in the Louvre. Various grapes, squashes and root vegetables are featured, and the torso consists of staves for a wine barrel. As for Earth, all kinds of animals are represented, and the chest consists of a sheep skin, once again a reference to the Golden Fleece.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Winter, 1563, oil on panel, 66.6 x 50.5 cm, Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Water, 1566, oil on panel, 66.5 x 50.5 cm, Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna.

The composition for the season of winter is not made up of various elements, but of an old tree trunk, clearly indicating the allegory for old age. The tree is without leaves but the ivy makes up the hair. Some kind of tree fungus seems to form the mouth. Citrus fruit symbolize winter. As for Water, various fish and shellfish are used for the portrait.

A website devoted to the works of Arcimboldo contains many of these works in various versions. There is even a version of the four seasons depicted as four reclining figures, in private collections, in landscape format. Each painting also includes a seasonal landscape in the background. But Cheney’s book does not even mention these intriguing works, and I could find no information on their provenance either.

I will discuss Arcimboldo’s work again, as there are other works that I would like to present here, as they relate to art and food.

Works reproduced are in the public domain, and online publication is covered by Wikimedia Commons licenses.

(1) Cheney, Liana de Girolami. Arcimboldo. New York: Parkstone Press, 2013

Book of Hours–January and February

11 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in painting, visual art gothic art

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Belles Heures de Jean Duc de Berry, February, illuminated manuscripts, January, Tres Richers Heures de Jean Duc de Berry

January

This is a Late Gothic illuminated manuscript page representing January in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. It was commissioned in about 1410-11, and features work by the De Limbourg brothers, Paul, John and Herman. It is preserved in the Musée Condé in France. It is considered the greatest of illuminated manuscript books. I never tire of its illustrations. There is another manuscript called the Belles Heures du Duc de Berry in the collection of the Cloisters Museum of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also by the Limbourg brothers.

For many years, I have marked the seasons and its rhythms, even more so since retirement, and I happen to live in an area where the seasons are fairly well marked, each having its own well defined characteristics. These of course vary according to where you live. The good duke Jean, Duke of Berry, lived in northern France, and so the tasks and rituals are more applicable to that particular latitude, which happens to be where I also live in Canada, just above the forty-ninth.

As represented here, January is a time of gift giving and feasting, the scene represented above has the Duke seated to the right (with a fur hat) at a banquet table, suggesting the feasting that took place on New Year’s Day, perhaps, when holiday gift giving took place. It was also a day for the renewal of contracts and expressions of loyalty and fealty. Generally, the time for feasting was from Christmas to Epiphany, the Twelve Days of Christmas. French Canadians still refer to this period as Le Temps des Fêtes. The period actually marks the days following the Winter Solstice, and is also a celebration of the return of light.

The detail above shows the transition from Capricorn to Aquarius above the motif of the sun’s chariot. In the Cloisters manuscript, the month of January is represented by a list of its feast days.

In the quatrefoil on top of the page, the Janus image of an old man sitting back to back with a younger man represents the passing of the old year to the new year. The Aquarius zodiac sign appears at the bottom of page.

While most of the calendar pages of the Très Riches Heures feature the labours of particular months, this one seems to commemorate that time in deepest winter when rest from these labours takes place.

February

The page for the month of February from the Très Riches Heures contains lovely scenes of winter in medieval France. One man is seen chopping down a tree for firewood, while another is blowing warmth in his hands as he prepares to go indoors. A third drives a donkey loaded with firewood towards a little village on top of the picture. Indoors, three people are warming themselves by a fireplace. Smoke comes out of the chimney. Outdoors, the sheep are huddled together in a covered enclosure while birds pick at grain. The beehives are covered with snow. Erwin Panofsky described this as the first winter landscape in the history of painting.

The top of the page shows the two zodiac signs of Aquarius and Pisces as the chariot of the sun moves through the heavens.

The Belles Heures manuscript lists the feast days of February, the principal feast being La Chandeleur, discussed in a previous post. The zodiac sign of Pisces is illustrated in the quatrefoil picture at the bottom of the page.

The small picture in the quatrefoil at the top of the page shows a man trying to keep warm by a fireplace. Smoke seems to escape into the room. Something is being grilled close to the fire, perhaps sausages.

Since the manuscript of the Très Riches Heures also contains a terrific illustration of the Presentation of Jesus at the temple, or the Purification of the Virgin (2 February) I feel compelled to present it here, since I did not include it in my previous Candlemas post.

The temple is presented in a high Gothic style. The Virgin approaches with the Christ child (bottom left), followed by Joseph. An attendant on the steps carries the sacrifice of the two doves. Within the temple above awaits Simeon, presented here as a Bishop attended by clergy.

As for music associated with February, I can’t think of anything better than some of Bach’s Cantatas. There are various cantatas for Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima Sundays which inevitably occur in the dead of winter. The magnificent recordings of John Eliot Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists and Monterverdi Choir present Bach cantata music for the entire year, grouping the cantatas by their feast days and Sundays.

At this particular time, apart from the cantatas written for the aforementioned Sundays, the three cantatas he wrote for the Feast Day of the Purification of Mary (BWV 82, 83 and 125, recording Archiv 463585-2) seem particular appropriate, as they celebrate the coming of light. They also suggest, echoing Simeon’s words, that death is not such a bad thing as it leads to Light. Even for non-believers, this music and and meditation on the sung texts, can stand as metaphors for this particular time of the year, when warmth and light return to our lives.

Candlemas (2 February)

08 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in celebrations, food, seasons

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2 February, Candlemas, crêpes, Groundhog Day, pancake day, pancakes

I still like to look at old calendars where life was regulated by seasons and traditional festivals and labours. The seasons were marked by Solstices and Equinoxes, which are easier to remember today. But in earlier times, when such days were marked by feast days or religious holidays, the celebrations and days had more poetic associations, often based on the Christian calendar, which superimposed itself on pagan festivals. For instance, the festivals which marked the beginning of the seasons were known as “quarter days.” These were “Lady Day” (25 March) the feast day of the Annunciation, then Midsummer Day (or St. John’s day) on 24 June, then Michaelmas Day, or the feast day of St. Michael (29 September) and finally Christmas Day on the 25th of December.

The pagan calendar was often represented by the Wheel of the Year, and it identified these special times or days. (I found this particular one online with no source or credit noted.)

The “cross-quarter days” were the days at the mid-point between the quarter days. So one celebrated Candlemas on 2 February, May Day on 1st May, Lammas on the 1st of August and Hallowmas on 1st November. There were other days, such as Martinmas celebrated on the 11th of November, as well as others, too numerous to mention. These festivals punctuated human activities throughout the year. Many of these old festivals have been superseded by secular observances. For instance, the obscure Candlemas is also known as Ground Hog Day, and much of the lore associated with weather predictions on Candlemas are now attributed to the ground hog and whether or not he sees his shadow. Curiously, Candlemas was also the last day to clean out the greenery of Christmas decorations and anything associated with Christmas. They must have been pretty dry by then!

Candlemas, refers to candles, of course. It was also the feast day of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple and the Purification of Mary. A marvelous woodcut (1503-05) by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) illustrates the event.

According to Hebraic tradition, a woman who had given birth to a son would present herself and the child at the temple forty days after the birth for purification. This was accompanied with the sacrifice of a lamb, but for poorer folk, such as Mary and Joseph, a pair or turtledoves stood in for the lamb. In Dürer’s print, the holy man Simeon receives the child, recognizes him as the Messiah, and sings a marvelous canticle, usually referred to as the Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2: 29-32). The traditional Gregorian chant is presented here preceded by the Antiphon, Salva Nos.

So what about the candles? Well, there is more to Candlemas than one could write about in a short blog. It seems that the day’s association with fire goes back to pre-Christian days, and is also associated with the coming of spring, even if the equinox occurs a month and a half later. It might have to do with the recognition of light as the advent of Jesus. But it seems the old pagan festival also featured fire, and the return of warmth to the earth. Candles were blessed at church on Candlemas day. I remember we brought the blessed candles home. They were lit during fierce summer thunderstorms to protect the house. In some cultures, it was also traditional to clean the hearth and light a new fire in it. It seems that rituals associated with St. Bridgid’s day (1st February) became conflated with Candlemas.

“Crepes dsc07085” by David Monniaux – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Now for the pancakes. These are also associated with Candlemas, and may have to do with the golden disc representing the sun, or with the bread left for St. Bridgid on her feast day. At any rate, pancakes or crêpes have long been associated with the day. Folklore held that the woman would hold a coin in her left hand while handling the griddle for the crêpes in the right hand. When she flipped the crêpe successfully with that one hand, good fortune would come to her.

So here is the Basic Recipe for Crêpes that I use. (Source: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/basic-crepes/) A recipe for crêpes using buckwheat flour (equally delicious) can be found here.

Basic Crêpes

Here is a simple but delicious crepe batter which can be made in minutes. It’s made from ingredients that everyone has on hand

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp butter, melted

1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and the eggs. Gradually add in the milk and water, stirring to combine. Add the salt and butter; beat until smooth.

2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each crepe. Tilt the pan with a circular motion so that the batter coats the surface evenly.

3. Cook the crepe for about 2 minutes, until the bottom is light brown. Loosen with a spatula, turn and cook the other side. Serve hot.

Yield: 8 crepes

The crêpes can either be stuffed with fruit, or with a savoury mixture of some kind. The buckwheat crêpes go beautifully with ham or mushrooms, or something like that. In Canada, maple syrup is de rigueur, especially if you are French Canadian.

I remember my grandmother made a kind of crêpe that was cooked in about half an inch of sizzling lard. No doubt she had learned this method from her mother. It is this kind of crêpe that was traditionally cooked in sugar shacks, although another version uses rendered salt pork.

My mother compiled a book of the (extended) Boulet family recipes in about 1983-84, and my aunt Claire provided grandmother’s crêpe recipe. The recipe does not specify the amount of lard used. I remember there was always a container of it on the back of the wooden stoves they used back then. Because the lard was at a high temperature, the crêpe absorbed very little of it. Here is that recipe (translated by me).

Crêpes

8 eggs, lightly beaten
½ tsp salt
4 cups of milk
2 cups of flour

Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle. Put the slightly beaten eggs in that well. Add the liquid and whisk everything together. Use lard for frying.

Put ¼ cup of the batter in a the preheated skillet with the sizzling lard, spreading it evenly and quickly.

Serves 8.

Note: During the course of the day, the leftover crêpes were left to cool. When we got hungry, we still went for the crêpes. We would take a crêpe, and we would spread white or brown sugar on it, and rolled it up. This was a delicious snack for us! When I think of that today, I admire the great patience my mother had to make piles of crêpes for our breakfasts on certain days.

We don’t eat like that anymore, but there was no crêpe quite like it! My mother preferred to make regular pancakes, but grandmother’s crêpes are still fondly remembered.

Viewing “Mr. Turner”

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in painting, Uncategorized, visual art

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I had the privilege of seeing on the 1st of February “Mr. Turner,” the wonderful film directed by Mike Leigh and featuring Timothy Spall in the title role. It is an extraordinary film, and if you know the artist’s work, you will enjoy it as much as I did. I was totally drawn into it and when it ended, after two and a half hours, I thought the time had gone by very quickly. Others might find it a bit dreary, certainly not action-packed, and with no violence nor explosions. Even the burning of the British Houses of Parliament in 1834, which he witnessed and painted, is not featured at all.

I have always loved Turner’s work. I remember as an art student spending hours at the Tate Gallery in the Turner Rooms. The last time I visited the Tate Britain and its Clore Galery where the Turner collection is now displayed, was on Sunday, 19th May, 2002. I was in Great Britain to do some research on the etcher Ernest Stephen Lumdsen (1883-1948) for an exhibition at the Burnaby Art Gallery and its attendant publication (2003).

I had flown into Manchester that weekend, and having noted that Sunday was the last day to see The American Sublime exhibition at the Tate Britain, I took a train to London from Manchester in the early morning and spent the entire day at the Tate before returning that evening, and then going on to Edinburgh the following day. I did spend several hours in The American Sublime exhibition. It is probably the most I have ever spent to see an exhibition, including train fare and exhibition catalogue, but it was worth every penny. To gild the lily, I spent the couple of hours I had left looking at Turner’s work again in the Clore Gallery. At that time I was also a sessional teacher at Okanagan University College (now University of British Columbia Okanagan) teaching art history, including 19th century art history.

Of course, the idea of the Sublime was an important aspect of 19th century art, and this was an opportunity to see what it was all about, in its American incarnation. Many American artists inspired by the Sublime knew and admired Turner’s work.

Turner’s Sublime is summed up in his early painting, Snowstorm: Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812).

J.M.W. Turner, Snowstorm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps, 1812, oil on canvas, 144.7 x 236 cm, Tate Britain.

The work was done during the long period when British artists could not travel to the Continent because of the ongoing war with France (1792-1815). The painting is a veiled allusion to the crossing of the Alps by Napoleon in 1800, and suggests that, like the Carthaginian Empire, his dreams of empire are doomed. The cataclysm depicted here, a stormy vortex, is a powerful expression of the sublime forces of nature, and it is really this depiction of nature that would be the key to Turner’s paintings in the years to come, though many works also alluded to Britain’s own imperial power, especially the power of its Navy.

This painting was not the first nor the last time Turner used the vortex as a dominant compositional device. In 1800, at the age of 24, he submitted his Fifth Plague of Egypt, which inspired the appropriate awe.

J.M.W. Turner, The Fifth Plague of Egypt, 1800, oil on canvas, 120 x 180 cm, Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Turner was not the only painter working in the Sublime manner, but he gained prestige by adapting his primary interests as a landscape painter to some kind of myth, Biblical or poetic, and many of his paintings would include a narrative pretext, but it was always about nature, light and darkness.

The movie focuses on the last three decades of Turner’s life and presumably begins in about 1825 or so when he is seen sketching a sunset in the Netherlands. (His first trip to the Netherlands dates from 1817). He is already famous and his house also contains his own gallery. Typical of Turner’s work at that time was his Dido Building Carthage (1815) and in that painting and many others, he shows the influence of the French painter Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) who was held in such high esteem by British collectors.

Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, 1648, oil on canvas, 149 x 194 cm, National Gallery, London.

Turner considered the Lorrain painting his masterpiece and painted his Dido Building Carthage in 1815, as an homage to it. He would eventually bequeath it to the British nation with the proviso that it be exhibited alongside the Lorrain in the National Gallery. And that is where you can see it to this day.

J.M.W. Turner, Dido Building Carthage, 1815, oil on canvas, 155.5 x 230 cm, National Gallery, London.

Turner was not afraid to be compared to Claude Lorrain, which indicates how highly he thought of his own work. He revisited stories from the Carthaginian Empire, with a Decline of the Carthaginian Empire (1817), also in the National Gallery. How well I remember the occasions I stood in that room contemplating these extraordinary works!

Another work is his Regulus. This painting is a key to Turner’s work I think, although certainly not one of his best known. The story is that of the Roman general Regulus, captured by the Carthaginians, and sent to Rome to negotiate a peace treaty. He instead convinces the Romans to reject the terms, and true to his word, he returns to Carthage to face a certain death. Among his tortures was to have his eyelids cut so he would be blinded by the sun.

J.M.W. Turner, Regulus, 1828, reworked in 1837, oil on canvas, 89.5 x 123.8 cm, Tate Gallery.

The painting shows Regulus leaving Rome for Carthage as he had promised. His eventual blinding is foreshadowed in this painting. I was reminded of this painting recently when I visited an ophthalmologist and had some of those pupil dilating eye drops. They make you see light in all its intensity for a few hours. I could not help thinking of Turner!

Gradually, it is the intensity of light that comes to dominate Turner’s work, not to mention an intensity of colour. The subject becomes a pretext for Turner’s abiding interest in the effects of sunlight. The movie, “Mr. Turner” often shows Turner sketching in the landscape with low sun, fog, clouds and even steam belching from steamboats or steam locomotives.

J.M.W. Turner, The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838, 1839, oil on canvas, 90.7 x 121.6 cm, National Gallery, London

An example is the painting of the Téméraire (above), and the movie, “Mr. Turner,” re-enacts the scene where the artist and some of his friends are witnessing the event from the water. It is one example of an event shown in the movie to great effect. The juxtaposition of a sailing man-o-war being towed to be scrapped by a small steam tug is poignant. It is the passing of an era. Apparently Turner, in fact, did not witness the event, but was very eager to make this contemporary event the subject of a painting. The ship had been dismasted at Trafalgar, but Turner depicts her with all her rigging.

J.M.W. Turner, The Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On), 1840, oil on canvas, 90.8 x 122.6 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The same can be said for his painting of the Slave Ship. In the movie, this painting is owned by the critic John Ruskin’s father, and it is worth reading Ruskin’s description of it in Modern Painters. The characterization of Ruskin in the movie is priceless, and although Ruskin was one of Turner’s great champions, he did not like paintings where Turner included contemporary subject matter, such as steamboats, in his work. The movie also shows Ruskin being very critical of Claude Lorrain, an opinion which Turner certainly did not share.

J.M.W. Turner, Snow Storm – Steam Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth making signals in Shallow Water, and going by the Lead. The Author was in this Storm on the Night the Ariel left Harwich, 1842, oil on canvas, 91.4 x 121.9 cm, Tate Gallery.

Turner’s life-long admiration of Lorrain did not prevent him from depicting contemporary events. In his Snow Storm, he gives heroic treatment to an unnamed steam boat tossed about in a turbulent sea, a scene he observed himself. Once again, the vortex dominates the chilling composition of a steam boat in distress, with lights, clouds and rain drawing in the viewer.

J.M.W. Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed – the Great Western Railway, 1844, oil on canvas, 91 x 121.8 cm, National Gallery, London.

Turner’s use of contemporary subject matter, such as steam locomotives, astonished his viewers. Such subject matter was usually shunned by Turner’s colleagues of the Royal Academy, but Turner who witnessed the transformation of Britain as a result of the Industrial Revolution, was fascinated by the visual effects. This painting too is re-enacted in the film to great effect.

J.M.W. Turner, The Angel Standing in the Sun, 1846, oil on canvas, 78.7 x 78.7 cm, Tate Gallery.

In addition to his fascination with the scenes of modern life, Turner often turned to literature for his inspiration. The Angel Standing in the Sun is inspired by the Apocalypse, and the extraordinary images conjured up by John the Evangelist (Revelation 19:17) must have enthralled Turner, although he was not a religious man. The key to Turner’s beliefs are expressed by his last words, “The sun is God, ha-ha-ha.” Certainly his paintings had expressed these beliefs throughout his life.

Bibliography:

Brown, David B., ed. J.M.W. Turner – Painting Set Free. Los Angeles: The John Paul Getty Museum, 2014.

Venning, Barry. Turner. London: Phaidon Press, 2003.

Works reproduced here are in the public domain.

Vissi d'arte

~ Living retired, and nourished by the arts

Monthly Archives: February 2015

Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593)

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, La Primavera, 1563, oil on canvas, 66 x 50 cm, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Air, ca. 1566, oil on canvas, 74.4 x 56.6 cm, Private Collection, Basel.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Summer, 1563, oil on panel, 67 x 50.8 cm, Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Fire, 1566, oil on panel, 66.5 x 51 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Autumn, 1573, oil on canvas, 77 x 63 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Earth, ca. 1570, oil on panel, 70.2 x 48.7 cm, Private Collection, Vienna.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Winter, 1563, oil on panel, 66.6 x 50.5 cm, Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Water, 1566, oil on panel, 66.5 x 50.5 cm, Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna.

Book of Hours–January and February

Candlemas (2 February)

Viewing “Mr. Turner”

J.M.W. Turner, Snowstorm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps, 1812, oil on canvas, 144.7 x 236 cm, Tate Britain.

J.M.W. Turner, The Fifth Plague of Egypt, 1800, oil on canvas, 120 x 180 cm, Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, 1648, oil on canvas, 149 x 194 cm, National Gallery, London.

J.M.W. Turner, Dido Building Carthage, 1815, oil on canvas, 155.5 x 230 cm, National Gallery, London.

J.M.W. Turner, Regulus, 1828, reworked in 1837, oil on canvas, 89.5 x 123.8 cm, Tate Gallery.

J.M.W. Turner, The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838, 1839, oil on canvas, 90.7 x 121.6 cm, National Gallery, London

J.M.W. Turner, The Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On), 1840, oil on canvas, 90.8 x 122.6 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

J.M.W. Turner, Snow Storm – Steam Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth making signals in Shallow Water, and going by the Lead. The Author was in this Storm on the Night the Ariel left Harwich, 1842, oil on canvas, 91.4 x 121.9 cm, Tate Gallery.

J.M.W. Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed – the Great Western Railway, 1844, oil on canvas, 91 x 121.8 cm, National Gallery, London.

J.M.W. Turner, The Angel Standing in the Sun, 1846, oil on canvas, 78.7 x 78.7 cm, Tate Gallery.