Sacred and legendary art, volume 1 (of 2): Containing legends of the angels and archangels, the evangelists, the Apostles, the doctors of the church, and St. Mary magdalene, as represented in the fine arts.Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Religion
Sacred and legendary art, volume 1 (of 2): Containing legends of the angels and archangels, the evangelists, the Apostles, the doctors of the church, and St. Mary magdalene, as represented in the fine arts.
Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Christian art and symbolism; Christian saints in art
When Guido and Domenichino painted, in emulation of each other,
the frescoes in the chapel of Sant’ Andrea in the church of San
Gregorio, at Rome, Guido chose for his subject the Adoration of the
Cross. The scene is supposed to be outside the walls of Patras in
Achaia; the cross is at a distance in the background; St. Andrew, as
he approaches, falls down in adoration before the instrument of his
martyrdom, consecrated by the death of his Lord; he is attended by one
soldier on horseback, one on foot, and three executioners; a group of
women and alarmed children in the foreground are admirable for grace
and feeling—they are, in fact, the best part of the picture. On the
opposite wall of the chapel Domenichino painted the Flagellation of
St. Andrew, a subject most difficult to treat effectively, and retain
at the same time the dignity of the suffering apostle, while avoiding
all resemblance to a similar scene in the life of Christ. Here he is
bound down on a sort of table; one man lifts a rod, another seems
to taunt the prostrate saint; a lictor drives back the people. The
group of the mother and frightened children, which Domenichino so
often introduces with little variation, is here very beautiful; the
judge and lictors are seen behind, with a temple and a city in the
distance. When Domenichino painted the same subject in the church of
Sant’ Andrea-della-Valle, he chose another moment, and administered
the torture after a different manner: the apostle is bound by his
hands and feet to four short posts set firmly in the ground; one of
the executioners in tightening a cord breaks it and falls back; three
men prepare to scourge him with _thongs_: in the foreground we have
the usual group of the mother and her frightened children. This is
a composition full of dramatic life and movement, but unpleasing.
Domenichino painted in the same church the crucifixion of the saint,
and his apotheosis surmounts the whole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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