Tag: religion
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01 Work, Interpretations of Olympian deities, THE ART OF WAR, Arturo Michelena’s Penthesilea, with footnotes #50
Penthesilea, daughter of Ares and Otrera, was an Amazon queen who fought and died in the Trojan War. After Hector, the leader of the Trojan army, was killed in the final year of the war, Penthesilea arrived with a small but highly skilled troop of Amazon warriors to help the doomed city against the Greeks.…
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01 Painting by Orientalist Artists, The Art of War, Théodore Chassériau’s Battle of Arab Horsemen Around a Standard, with footnotes #95
The painting is very dramatic and dense, and the soldiers and horses in the center are sketched with loose brushstrokes. The dramatism of the composition is emphasized by the closeness between the participants in the battle and by some gory details, such as the human severed head and his corpse, at the left, in the…
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01 Painting by Orientalist Artists. Hocine Ziani’s The Numidian horseman, with footnotes, #94
Numidian cavalry was a type of light cavalry developed by the Numidians. After they were used by Hannibal during the Second Punic War, they were described by the Roman historian Livy as “by far the best horsemen in Africa.” The Numidian cavalry’s horses, ancestors of the Berber horse, were small compared to other horses of the…
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01 Work, Interpretation of the bible, THE ART OF WAR, Karl Friedrich Lessing’s The Return of the Crusader, with Footnotes #215
Teutonic knight returning from the crusade; based on Karl Immermann’s poem “The Entry of the Crusaders”. The late Arnold Toynbee once referred to the crusades as “Christianized Viking expeditions,” and given the wanton destruction and killing that accompanied these Frankish invasions of Palestine, his description seems appropriate. But the crusades provided Western Christianity with its…
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01 Work, Interpretation of the bible, Rohan Hours’ Lamentation of the Virgin, Nothing has changed in over 2000 years, with Footnotes #212
The grieving Virgin cannot be consoled by the Apostle John, who looks up in consternation at a saddened God. The Grandes Heures de Rohan (The Rohan Hours) is an illuminated manuscript book of hours, painted by the anonymous artist known as the Rohan Master, probably between 1418 and 1425, in the Gothic style. It contains the…
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01 Work, Interpretation of the bible, Annibale Carracci’s Lamentation of Christ, Lamentation of one’s child, Nothing has changed in over 2000 years, with Footnotes #211
This is perhaps the most poignant image in the National Gallery’s collection of the pietà – the lamentation over the dead Christ following his crucifixion. It was a subject to which Annibale Carracci returned frequently, especially during the last decade of his life. Here, the limp and lifeless body of Christ lies in the lap…
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01 Icon, Mariotto di Nardo di Cione’s Stations of the Cross, Nothing has changed in over 2000 years, with footnotes #79
“Again, my son fell, and again my grief was overwhelming at the thought that he might die. I started to move toward him, but the soldiers prevented me.” The Via Dolorosa (Stations of the Cross) is a processional route in the Old City of Jerusalem. It represents the path that Jesus took, forced by the soldiers,…
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01 Work, The art of War, Francesco Hayez’s The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, with Footnotes
After the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the Jews of the Kingdom of Judea went into exile. In 538 BCE during the reign of Cyrus the Great, the Jews returned to Jerusalem and were able to build the Second Temple on the site of the original one…
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02 Works, The art of War, Angus McBride’s Egyptian War Chariot in Action, with Footnotes
Chariots were very expensive, heavy and prone to breakdowns, yet in contrast with early cavalry, chariots offered a more stable platform for archers. Chariots were effective for archery because of the relatively long bows used… Please follow link for full post
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01 Work, The art of War, Pieter Paul Rubens’ The Battle of the Amazons, with Footnotes
For sale for 36 000 € in Jan 2024 The tangle of naked bodies, some mutilated, gives the idea of the extreme violence used in battle and the terrified expressions of the horses are of rare intensity. Their anguished gazes are the most exciting moment of the spectacular composition. The author of this great work…
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01 Work, The Art of War, Léon Cogniet’s Scène du Massacre des Innocents/ Massacre of the Innocents, with footnotes
The Massacre of the Innocents is the biblical narrative of infanticide by Herod the Great, the Roman-appointed King of the Jews. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the vicinity of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the…
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01 Work, Interpretation of the bible, Manuel Panselinos’ St. Mercury and St. Artemy, soldier saints, with Footnotes #214
Also called soldier saints, these are a group of saints who were generally soldiers in life, martyrs to Christ in death, and then latterly revealed as our heavenly protectors… Holy Great Martyr Artemius of Antioch was a prominent military leader during the reigns of the emperor Constantine the Great (May 21), and his son and successor…
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05 works, the art of war, pharaoh Thutmose III in Ghaza, with footnotes
Armies of chariots and 10,000 foot soldiers under the pharaoh Thutmose III thundered through Gaza and defeated a coalition of Canaanite chiefdoms at Megiddo… Please follow link for full post
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01 Work, The Art of War, Georges Rochegrosse’s Andromaque, with footnotes
This is a distinctly surprising work, where the atrocities of war are depicted with raw violence – severed heads, pools of blood, lifeless bodies stretched out on the ground or hanging from the wall – at the same time as candid eroticism, such as Andromache’s swelling bosom: an appealing show of female nudity placed well…
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01 Work, The Art of War, Max Ginsburg’s War Pieta, with footnotes
I thought of a mother losing her son and the Pieta paintings of the Old Masters and of Michelangelo’s sculpture, Pieta, showing the Madonna mourning the death of her son. In my painting I sought to symbolically connect, and contrast, the image of a real mother screaming in anguish over the death of her soldier…
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01 Work, The art of War, Neapolitan master’s ARCHANGEL MICHAEL FIGHTING THE DEVILS OF THE UNDERWORLD, with Footnotes
Extremely complicated composition, with figures moving in opposite directions. In the color and the reproduction of the physical, the strong influence of Peter Paul Rubens (1577 – 1640) can be seen, with whom he had worked together at the festive decoration in Ghent. All these stylistic aspects suggest the attribution. So too, this painting is…
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01 Work, The Art of War, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps’ Ottoman horsemen crossing the ford, with footnotes
Estimated for 250000 – 350000 EUR in Dec 2023 Among the standards and crescent and ponytail banners, a squad of horsemen crosses a river ford. The Seraskier (leader of the troop) is helped by two arnauts (Albanian unit), in the water at waist height, while the Arab and Circassian horsemen (helmet topped with a spearhead)…
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02 Works, The Art of War, Bernardo Strozzi’s Allegorical Figure, Minerva, with footnotes
During the 1630s, Strozzi painted a number of female figures representing various intellectual and artistic pursuits, reflecting the appeal of such allegories among learned patrons in northern Italy. Recent scholarship has convincingly identified the subject of this painting as Minerva. The Roman goddess of war has put aside her armor for more contemplative pursuits; her…
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01 Work, The Art of War, Maximilian Pirner’s The End of All Things, with footnotes
Maximilian Pirner’s “The End of All Things” is a haunting and thought-provoking work of art that expertly combines technical skill with emotional depth. It is a testament to the power of art to explore the human condition and to challenge our perceptions of the world around us. More on this painting Maximilian Pirner (13 February 1853…
Zaidan Gallery 