| Massacre of the Innocents | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Guido Reni |
| Year | 1611 [1] |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 268 cm× 170 cm(106 in× 67 in) |
| Location | Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, Bologna |
Massacre of the Innocents is a painting by the Italian Baroque painter Guido Reni, created in 1611 for the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna, but now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in that same city. [1]
The painting is based on the biblical episode of the Massacre of the Innocents, described in the Gospel of Matthew. The work shows a series of episodes at the same time but is classically composed with each element carefully mirrored by an answering one. [1]
Two killer soldiers, one portrayed from behind while rushing on a screaming woman, and one kneeling towards the mothers with their children, hold knives in the right hand. The mothers are reacting in different ways: one is screaming and attempting to escape the soldiers who has grabbed her hair, another is fleeing towards the right while embracing her child, while another, in the lower left corner, is holding her child on her shoulders; another mother tries to stop a soldier with her left hand, and a kneeling woman is praying towards the sky above the children which have already been slaughtered.
In The World as Will and Representation , Schopenhauer wrote that Reni made a blunder in this painting by depicting figures crying out. [2] Because painting is a mute art, Schopenhauer believed the silent portrayal of shrieking to be ludicrous, [3] and judged that "...this great artist made the mistake of painting six shrieking, wide-open, gaping mouths." [2]
Media related to Massacre of the Innocents by Guido Reni at Wikimedia Commons
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation, which characterizes the phenomenal world as the manifestation of a blind and irrational noumenal will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism.
Pope Innocent X, born Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 September 1644 to his death, in January 1655.
The Massacreof the Innocents is a biblical story recounted in the Nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew (2:16–18) in which Herod the Great, king of Judea, orders the execution of all male children who are two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem. "Most New Testament scholars do not regard the stories of the magi, the massacre of the innocents, and the flight to Egypt as historical,136 so in this sense they are myth. But they are also mythical in the sense of conveying sacred truths." Some Christians venerate the Holy Innocents as the first Christian martyrs, but modern scholarship finds no evidence that it happened outside the passages in Matthew.
Guido Reni was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, although his works showed a classical manner, similar to Simon Vouet, Nicolas Poussin, and Philippe de Champaigne. He painted primarily religious works, but also mythological and allegorical subjects. Active in Rome, Naples, and his native Bologna, he became the dominant figure in the Bolognese School that emerged under the influence of the Carracci.
In art, a sacra conversazione, meaning "holy conversation", is a genre developed in Italian Renaissance painting, with a depiction of the Virgin and Child amidst a group of saints in a relatively informal grouping, as opposed to the more rigid and hierarchical compositions of earlier periods. Donor portraits may also be included, generally kneeling, often their patron saint is presenting them to the Virgin, and angels are frequently in attendance.
Simone Cantarini or Simone da Pesaro, called il Pesarese was an Italian painter and etcher. He is known mainly for his history paintings and portraits executed in an original style, which united aspects of Bolognese classicism with a bold naturalism.
Events from the year 1640 in art.
Elisabetta Sirani was an Italian Baroque painter and printmaker who died in unexplained circumstances at the age of 27. She was one of the first women artists in early modern Bologna, who established an academy for other women artists.
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Massimo Stanzione was an Italian Baroque painter, mainly active in Naples, where he and his rival Jusepe de Ribera dominated the painting scene for several decades. He was primarily a painter of altarpieces, working in both oils and fresco. His main subject matter was biblical scenes. He also painted portraits and mythological subjects. He had many pupils and followers as his rich color and idealized naturalism had a large influence on other local artists, such as Francesco Solimena. In 1621 Pope Gregory XV gave him the title of Knight of the Golden Spur and Pope Urban VIII made him a knight of St. John around 1624 and a knight of the Order of Christ in 1627. From then on, he liked to sign his works as "EQUES MAXIMUS".
The Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century.
Italian Baroque art is a term that is used here to refer to Italian painting and sculpture in the Baroque manner executed over a period that extended from the late sixteenth to the mid eighteenth centuries. Italian Baroque architecture is not covered.
The National Art Gallery of Bologna is a museum in Bologna, Italy. It is located in the former Saint Ignatius Jesuit novitiate of the city's University district, and inside the same building that houses the Academy of Fine Arts. The museum offers a wide collection of Emilian paintings from the 13th to the 18th century and other fundamental works by artists who were in some way related to the city.
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The Pala della Peste or Pallione del Voto is an oil on silk Baroque-style altarpiece by Guido Reni depicts the Madonna and Child in Glory with the Patron Saints of Bologna: Petronius, Francis, Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Proculus of Bologna, and Florian.
The Portrait of Beatrice Cenci is a painting once attributed to the Italian Baroque painter Guido Reni but now to Ginevra Cantofoli. It is housed in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica of Palazzo Barberini, Rome. The painting dealt with a controversial topic of Beatrice Cenci, a woman who was executed by Papal authorities, specifically Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini.
Several oil-on-oak-panel versions of The Massacre of the Innocents were painted by 16th-century Netherlandish painters Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his son Pieter Brueghel the Younger. The work translates the Biblical account of the Massacre of the Innocents into a winter scene in the Netherlands in the prelude to the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, also known as the Eighty Years' War.
Stefano Erardi (1630–1716) was a Maltese painter whose works may be found in many churches around the Maltese Islands. His style has been described as either late Mannerist or Baroque.
The Death of Dido is a 1631 oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Baroque painter Guercino, commissioned by Cardinal Bernardino Spada for Maria de' Medici. It now hangs in the Galleria Spada in Rome.