Description
VON AACHEN HANS (1552 - 1615) The Bath of Diana. oil on canvas. Cm 119x152. The work is accompanied by expertise by Prof. Luciano Anelli, March 29, 2007, which we reproduce below.A very refined painting of northern European and Rudolfine matrix, it depicts a well-known mythological episode described in Ovid's Metamorphoses (from which the painting seems obvious to be derived, in relation to the culture of the time) or from other lesser-known legends of the Greek tradition.In Prague, at the court of Rudolph II of Habsburg, a particular and sophisticated artistic koinè had been created, which expressed a style all its own, quite easily-as it is in this painting-recognizable.The major exponents were Mattaus Gunderlach, Hans von Aachen, Joseph Heintz, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, and Bartolomeus Spranger.Numerous and thorough stylistic comparisons with known and safe works certify that the work examined here belongs to the brush of Hans von Aachen (1552-1615) in the full and mature phase of his activity, when he most intensely adhered to the Rudolfine milieu.See comparisons with the Annunciation in the National Gallery in Prague, with the head of the artist's daughter in the Embassy of Czechoslovakia, the Allegory of the Triumph of the Imperial Cause over Time in the State Gallery in Stuttgart, the Assembly of the Gods in the National Gallery in London, while literal quotations are from the Allegory of Peace in the Hermitage in Leningrad.In the work examined here, von Aachen certainly develops an iconographic theme of considerable complexity, but I have to say that he tries his best-in the view of a refined and lambasted painting-to make a scene supported by an extraordinary technical-stylistic language even more lambasted.The subject is therefore transformed into a pure pretext for creating a veritable triumph of female nudes (the King, who was also accused of witchcraft and strange rituals, took great pleasure in such somewhat lubricious themes, and on the other hand the Pope, Rome and the Counter-Reformation were far away) posing in all the contortions allowed to the human body, displaying a rare anatomical science.What's more, von Aachen insists on the tactility of the epidermis by exploiting vivid plays of light emerging from the shadows and penumbra, amid the glimmering of bronzes and silverware, and cryptic, repeated allusions (the young man in the background fleeing in fright could be Actaeon; the curtain and shiny objects hanging on the left are really pure pictorial pretext).
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VON AACHEN HANS (1552 - 1615) The Bath of Diana. oil on canvas. Cm 119x152. The work is accompanied by expertise by Prof. Luciano Anelli, March 29, 2007, which we reproduce below.A very refined painting of northern European and Rudolfine matrix, it depicts a well-known mythological episode described in Ovid's Metamorphoses (from which the painting seems obvious to be derived, in relation to the culture of the time) or from other lesser-known legends of the Greek tradition.In Prague, at the court of Rudolph II of Habsburg, a particular and sophisticated artistic koinè had been created, which expressed a style all its own, quite easily-as it is in this painting-recognizable.The major exponents were Mattaus Gunderlach, Hans von Aachen, Joseph Heintz, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, and Bartolomeus Spranger.Numerous and thorough stylistic comparisons with known and safe works certify that the work examined here belongs to the brush of Hans von Aachen (1552-1615) in the full and mature phase of his activity, when he most intensely adhered to the Rudolfine milieu.See comparisons with the Annunciation in the National Gallery in Prague, with the head of the artist's daughter in the Embassy of Czechoslovakia, the Allegory of the Triumph of the Imperial Cause over Time in the State Gallery in Stuttgart, the Assembly of the Gods in the National Gallery in London, while literal quotations are from the Allegory of Peace in the Hermitage in Leningrad.In the work examined here, von Aachen certainly develops an iconographic theme of considerable complexity, but I have to say that he tries his best-in the view of a refined and lambasted painting-to make a scene supported by an extraordinary technical-stylistic language even more lambasted.The subject is therefore transformed into a pure pretext for creating a veritable triumph of female nudes (the King, who was also accused of witchcraft and strange rituals, took great pleasure in such somewhat lubricious themes, and on the other hand the Pope, Rome and the Counter-Reformation were far away) posing in all the contortions allowed to the human body, displaying a rare anatomical science.What's more, von Aachen insists on the tactility of the epidermis by exploiting vivid plays of light emerging from the shadows and penumbra, amid the glimmering of bronzes and silverware, and cryptic, repeated allusions (the young man in the background fleeing in fright could be Actaeon; the curtain and shiny objects hanging on the left are really pure pictorial pretext).
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