Pompeii No.51: Diana's Secret Love

Mark D. Ruffner © 2015

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As I mentioned in Pompeii No. 47, Cardinal Farnese's gallery ceiling depicts the loves of the gods of Olympus. Above, I've circled the ceiling segment that I've chosen to add to my own mural. It's one of Annibale Carracci's best works, and a testament thereof is that most books on Carracci and the Farnese Gallery highlight this portion of the ceiling.

Annibale Carracci: The Farnese Gallery, Rome  |  Dempsey, Braziller

Here I've circled details that overlap from other parts of the mural, and these are areas I'll therefore be omitting from my own copy.

The painting depicts Diana (also known as Artemis in Greek mythology) who was the Roman goddess of the moon and of the hunt. Much to the disappointment of the other gods, she vowed never to marry. But on one of her trips across the sky, she spotted a sleeping shepherd named Endymion and fell in love. As you can see, she is was so very careful in her attention — much to the amusement of the cherubs — that not even Endymion's dog stirred. Diana visited Endymion thereafter many times, always when he was asleep, and remembering her vow, she asked Jupiter (or Zeus) to make Endymion eternally young and eternally asleep. There are a number of alternate versions of this story.

I leave it to you to determine possible messages on love and life, which might include the moral to never say never. In any case I like Carracci's depiction and have copied it, below.

Mark D. Ruffner © 2015

Below is a comparison of Carracci's original and my own copy.

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Probably the biggest difference between the two is that I changed the clouds, making them level and almost an Art Deco stylization. It helps me to see the comparison the same way you are now doing because I notice that I need to go back and add more shadow to Diana's arm, and that the dog needs a little more contrasting white in his face and tail.

Gli Amori Degli Dei

Of course Annibale was working on a much greater scale, maybe 20 times the size of my little copy.

I want to call you attention now to the interesting way he shadowed his figures. Where other artists would sometimes crosshatch, Carracci shadowed with a method that looked like fine banknote engraving. His first apprenticeship was with a goldsmith, so perhaps he developed this technique then. One would not see this looking up from floor level, and I find it quite astonishing. I would have loved to have looked over Carracci's shoulder as he worked.

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Here's the Carracci wall as it looks today. If the Diana painting looks a little unreal in this photograph, it's because I isolated it in PhotoShop and lightened its exposure so that you wouldn't be seeing any of it in shadow.

But we can't just leave it there, floating in an auburn void! In my next posting, I'll be putting a frame around the painting, and the frame will come from a most appropriate source. I hope you'll join me then!
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Pompeii No.50: The Right Ignudi

Gli Amori Degli Dei

In Pompeii No. 49, I created an ignudi loosely based on ones by Annibale Carracci. Now it's time to create a companion piece to sit on the right side of the mural.

Gli Amori Degli Dei

I've chosen to use this fellow as my basis; like the first figure, he's from the ceiling of the famous Farnese Gallery. My friend Sandy said, "You're not going to use that hair, are you!?" Oh, is it that bad? Well, perhaps he does have a bit of a bed-head.

As in my last ignudi, I will be adding new legs for a new posture.

Originally, I had thought of painting the draperies a different color from the last ignudi's, but because the two figures are somewhat unbalanced, I decided to have blue draperies on both sides of the mural.

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Sometimes I have trouble capturing the right colors in a room that does not have a lot of natural light, but the colors in this shot are very true to the  painting.

I've stylized the hair, and Sandy should be happy that it's not quite so windblown. I had fun painting the eye's reflection to match Carracci's image.

Notice that I have a different light source than the Carracci original. Mine conforms to my own mural.

The outlining was not typical of Carracci, but it was typical of Michelangelo. It's logical that I reference Michelangelo for this work, because Carracci himself did.

This image is a bit on the orange side, but I'm including the hand (at approximately 150% its actual size) to show that it's rather loosely painted.

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In this image of the living room wall, you can see how I've endeavoured to balance the figures by balancing the draperies, particularly as they extend out to the center of the wall to exactly the same length. The drapery on the right is also gathered at the end to balance the crossed feet on the left.

There will eventually be a neoclassic design element between the two ignudi, but the next stage of the mural will be to faithfully render a wonderful Carracci detail in the upper panel. That's coming up in the next posting.
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24 Fantasy Eggs!

This posting requires a little explanation. For the last dozen or so years of my mother's life, I created a Christmas advent. Each advent was centered around a theme, and the most popular by far was a year of imagined eggs, each with an imagined history. They're all collages. And though these were originally a Christmas advent for her, they are now my Easter gift to you, my blogging friends. Let me know if you have a favorite.

Happy Easter!

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Pompeii No.49: "Assembing" the Left Ignudi

Charles Dempsey, George Braziller

As I mentioned in the last posting, the two ignudi of my Carracci wall will both be loosely based on figures by Carracci. Just how loosely, you'll see momentarily!

Charles Dempsey, George Braziller

I begin by finding a figure that has possibilities, and then flipping it 180°. My choice is informed in part by the realization that there is a wall directly behind where my left ignudi will go, and therefore the figure needs to either sit erectly, or lean forward, as this one does. But now I have a couple of problems:

• Because this figure is at the left edge of the living room mural, it will be staring up at nothing, so I'll need to reposition the head.
• Because the original Carracci fresco is so elevated, the ignudi feet appear to be cut off, so I'll need to add feet, or better yet, reposition new legs.
• For all the beauty of Carracci's painting, the limbs of this figure are quite exaggerated. Can a body really be this muscular and still have such a big stomach? I'll need to put this fellow on a strict diet. No more pasta!

Here's a real Frankenstein for you! For reference, I've pasted a new Carracci head on the painted figure, then added a photograph of legs and the left arm. A special thanks to my friend Dave for being a good sport and modeling for the sake of art.

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Here's my version of the ignudi. The colors are true for the most part, though the purple of the base and the green below it are neither as dark nor as saturated.

Here you can see that the wall is rather textured in areas, and so I have simplified my job by smoothing out the surface in critical, more detailed areas.

Another ignudi is yet to come, and he'll be facing the one I've just revealed. I hope you'll join me for that reveal, too!

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Pompeii No.48: The Ignudi

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Ignudi  (plural noun) From the Italian adjective nudo, meaning "naked."

When Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512, he incorporated pairs of male nudes as pure decoration.

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Their purpose was to support the shields, ribbons and huge garlands that framed the major, central frescoes.

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Not everyone around the pope was thrilled with the figures because they (the male nudes) had no religious context and . . .

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. . . as you can see in my diagram, the 20 figures take up a considerable part of the design.

Michelangelo called his 20 figures "The Ignudi," and though he did not invent the word, he did — through this title — coin an art term. Countless artists like Annibale Carracci (whom I profiled in my last posting) also incorporated ignudi into their design schemes.

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This is an ignudi by Carracci, one of many that he included in the ceiling of the Farnese Gallery.

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These ignudi, by an earlier artist, are in another part of the Palazzo Farnese, in a room that served as the family boardroom. Here the ignudi are similar to the figures one sometimes sees on either side of a crest, below.

Heraldry: Sources, Symbols and Meaning  |  Ottfried Neubecker

This is the 1701 coat of arms of the King of Prussia. When seen in heraldry, figures such as these wildmen are called "supporters."

But I digress. The first stage of my Carracci wall will be an ignudi, very loosely based on one of Carracci's own. I'll unveil that in the next posting.
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