Tag Archives: Joseph Phelan

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: PSYCHIC INTENSITY OF THE COSMIC OPERA

The earliest reference to Giorgione indicates that he was commissioned to paint frescoes in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (“Guildhouse of the German Merchants”) in Venice in 1508 and that he was aided in this undertaking by the young Titian. Vasari, … Continue reading

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SELF EXAMINATION of a LANGUAGE of SIGNS: The Divine Wavelength

The Tempest has been called the first landscape in the history of Western painting. The subject of this painting is unclear, but its artistic mastery is apparent. The Tempest portrays a soldier and a breast-feeding woman on either side of … Continue reading

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CARAVAGGIO: THE DUALITY OF BEAUTY & RUIN

Caravaggio’s faces, images and sensations are those of today, having far more immediacy, cutting edge and brute realism than anything by Damien Hirst or recent Turner Prize winners. Caravaggio was obsessed with the violence of life and painted the violence … Continue reading

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OBSESSION WITH VITALITY & DEATH: "CONNOISSEUR OF VIOLENCE"

Caravaggio’s novelty was a radical naturalism which combined close physical observation with a dramatic, even theatrical, use of Tenebrism, the shift from light to dark with little intermediate value. He burst upon the Rome art scene in 1600 with the … Continue reading

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EROS RUNNING WILD:CARDINAL SINS & LEGAL RUN-INS

“Indeed, Caravaggio may be indicating his taste for homoerotic subjects through his androgynous male figures, figures at once muscular and yet recognizably “feminine” in some of their poses and expressions. Since antiquity, the androgynous had been associated with effeminacy and … Continue reading

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CONTESTS BETWEEN LIGHT AND GLOOM

The word ‘spectacular’ is not amiss because, although Caravaggio aimed at total realism, he wanted drama too. It was the secret of his instant, direct appeal to the Church, to collectors, to fellow artists, to the public, then and since. … Continue reading

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