The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, is an artifact believed to be the most sacred relic of the Israelites, which is described as a wooden chest, covered in pure gold, with an elaborately designed lid called the mercy seat. According to the Book of Exodus, the Ark contained the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. According to the New Testament Book of Hebrews, it also contained Aaron's rod and a pot of manna.
Nicolas Poussin was a French painter who was a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a small group of Italian and French collectors. He returned to Paris for a brief period to serve as First Painter to the King under Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, but soon returned to Rome and resumed his more traditional themes. In his later years he gave growing prominence to the landscape in his paintings. His work is characterized by clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. Until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for such classically-oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne.
Plague or The Plague may refer to:
Gaspard Dughet, also known as Gaspard Poussin, was a French painter born in Rome.
Roch, also called Rock in English, was a Majorcan Catholic confessor whose death is commemorated on 16 August and 9 September in Italy; he was especially invoked against the plague. He has the designation of Rollox in Glasgow, Scotland, said to be a corruption of Roch's Loch, which referred to a small loch once near a chapel dedicated to Roch in 1506.
Michiel Sweerts or Michael Sweerts was a Flemish painter and printmaker of the Baroque period, who is known for his allegorical and genre paintings, portraits and tronies. The artist led an itinerant life and worked in Rome, Brussels, Amsterdam, Persia and India (Goa).
The Philistine captivity of the Ark was an episode described in the biblical history of the Israelites, in which the Ark of the covenant was in the possession of the Philistines, who had captured it after defeating the Israelites in a battle at a location between Eben-ezer, where the Israelites encamped, and Aphek, where the Philistines encamped.
Armand Jean de Vignerot du Plessis, 2nd Duke of Richelieu, was a French naval officer and nobleman. His surname has also been spelled Vignerod Duplessis.
The Four Seasons was the last set of four oil paintings completed by the French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665). The set was painted in Rome between 1660 and 1664 for the Duc de Richelieu, the grand-nephew of Cardinal Richelieu. Each painting is an elegiac landscape with Old Testament figures conveying the different seasons and times of the day. Executed when the artist was in failing health suffering from a tremor in his hands, the Seasons are a philosophical reflection on the order in the natural world. The iconography evokes not only the Christian themes of death and resurrection but also the pagan imagery of classical antiquity: the poetic worlds of Milton's Paradise Lost and Virgil's Georgics. The paintings currently hang in a room on their own in the Louvre in Paris.
By his absolute humility, by his effacement of himself, by his refusal to use any tricks or overstate himself, Poussin has succeeded in identifying himself with nature, conceived as a manifestation of the divine reason. The Seasons are among the supreme examples of pantheistic landscape painting.
Jamais peut-être, dans toute la peinture occidentale, des choses aussi nombreuses et parfois si difficiles n'avaient été dites avec une telle simplicité. Jamais un peintre ne s'était aussi pleinement identifié à l'ordre du monde. Mais cette identification n'est ni « une projection » ni une confidence : là est le sens de cette impersonalité que l'on a pu reprocher à Poussin, et qui fait sa grandeur.
The clothing worn by plague doctors was intended to protect them from airborne diseases during outbreaks of bubonic plague in Europe. It is often seen as a symbol of death and disease. However, the costume was mostly worn by late Renaissance and early modern physicians studying and treating plague patients.
Fabrizio Chiari (c.1615–1695) was an Italian painter and engraver who spent his entire life in Rome.
The Inspiration of the Poet is an oil-on-canvas in the classical style by the artist Nicolas Poussin, painted between 1629 and 1630. It is currently held and exhibited at the Louvre in Paris.
Willem Reuter was a Flemish painter of cityscapes, genre paintings and history paintings who was primarily active in Rome, where he was known as Guglielmo Reuter. He was part of the circle of Dutch and Flemish genre painters in Rome who are referred to as the 'Bamboccianti' and were known for their scenes depicting the lower classes in Rome.
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.
Peter van Halen or Pieter van Haelen (1612–1687) was a Flemish painter. He was known for his italianate landscapes with historical, allegorical and mythological scenes with many figures. His works were stylistically influenced by French Classicism.
1 Samuel 5 is the fifth chapter of the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the first part of the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan, but modern scholars view it as a composition of a number of independent texts of various ages from c. 630–540 BCE. This chapter describes how the Ark of Covenant was taken by the Philistines, a part of the "Ark Narrative" within a section concerning the life of Samuel.
Saint Sebastian Tended by Saint Irene is an incident in the legends of Saint Sebastian and Saint Irene of Rome. It was not prominent in the hagiographical literature until the late Renaissance, and is hardly seen in art before then. As an artistic subject, normally in painting, it suddenly became popular from the 1610s, though found in predella scenes as early as the 15th century, and was most popular until about the 1670s.
Franco Mormando is a historian, university professor, and author, focusing on the art, literature, and religious culture of Italy from the late Medieval period to the Baroque. His principal publications have been on fifteenth-century preacher Bernardino of Siena and Baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, with other notable contributions to the study of the artist Caravaggio and the bubonic plague.
Costanza Bonarelli, also known as Costanza Bonucelli or Costanza Piccolomini Bonucelli, was an Italian noblewoman, merchant and art dealer, descended from a Sienese noble family. She is known for being portrayed by the artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the bust now exhibited at the National Museum of Bargello in Florence, created between 1636 and 1638.
Ashdod or Azotus was an ancient Levantine metropolis situated at Tel Ashdod, an archaeological site co-located with the remains of the former Ottoman-era and now depopulated Palestinian village of Isdud, a few kilometers south of the modern Ashdod in present-day Israel.
